The Amazing Race, season 24: Legs 5 to 8
May. 1st, 2014 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsLeg 5:
1. Next stop is a temple in Colombo, and all but two of the teams get the same direct flight to Colombo from the same travel agent, the exceptions being the last two teams, Big Brother and Margie/Luke. M/L's cabbie apparently can't find the travel agency they're looking for so they head straight to the airport, while BB find a connecting flight through Singapore, that they're discouraged from taking because the connection is something like 30 minutes (!) M/L try to get a standby for the main flight, which doesn't pan out, and while they briefly consider the Singapore connection, they end up deciding against it :-\
2. BB race clear across the Singapore airport to catch their connecting flight, and end up actually getting to the temple first... which puts them on equal footing with the rest because the temple doesn't open until 5:45am :-\ With all that airport drama out of the way, time for actual task: After receiving a blessing at the temple, everyone heads to Galle by train... the same train route, in fact, that was taken back in 2004, before the tsunami (!) The racers make comments about the pretty landscape, while M/L finally fly out of Malaysia :-\
3. Galle, and we get a boatload of shots of extreme tuktuk racing action (!!!) as they head to a coconut stand for the Detour clue pickup: Fishing on stilts, or dancing while spinning a drum. Globetrotters do the latter task, and naturally compare it to spinning a basketball :-D while Jessica/John end up switching from fishing to dancing :-\
4. Next stop, a local textiles factory (previously featured in the Asian edition) for a shirt-sewing Roadblock, and for Big Brother, a silkscreening Speed Bump (in which they accidentally silkscreen the Sri Lankan flag upside down on one of their shirts :-D) The 'Trotters call the task "Mission Impossible... but I'm Tom Cruise" :-D Other comic relief comes from one of the Afghanimals jokingly trying to bribe one of the ongoing workers to sew together his shirt for him :-D and the 'Trotters showing off their basketball handling skills to the workers (yep, once again they've decided to bring a basketball along for the trip :-)) At this point, we're shown that M/L are just now arriving in Galle :-\
5. Once they're done with the shirts, the shirts get a local rowing club's logo iron-transfered on to them, which also serves as the clue for the pit stop. Dave/Connor get themselves $5,000, and since this leg was when they withdrew last time around, they reassure the host Phil that "This time, we're staying :-)" Although some of the racers were concerned that they might show up at the factory, M/L are never shown doing any of the Galle tasks, instead just being shown getting their obvious-from-the-get-go elimination in the night. They do brag about being one of three teams invited for a third go-round in their exit interview though...
Leg 6:
1. Staying in Sri Lanka, and after a clue pickup in the morning at a museum, next stop is a train ride to Alawwa (with more comments about the scenery) for a crazy gas filling Roadblock at a gas station :-O "Crazy" is not an exaggeration, because there are tons of tuktuks waiting to be filled, and only two or three nozzles for it (!) Everyone has to pick a color and match it to the tag on the tuktuk's windshield... and apparently Big Brother's Rachel thinks that the green she picked is supposed to match the tuktuks themselves (and there are plenty of green tuktuks in line [!]) It takes her running across John(/Jessica) taking away a green tuktuk with a red tag for her to figure it out, and this puts her in last :-\
2. Everyone manages to get the same train to the next stop, even Big Brother, who apparently return to the Alawwa station about the time the train is coming in, and then use the train ride to regroup themselves, before heading to an elephant sanctuary for a Detour, between tying a chain to a log for elephants to pick up, and making paper from elephant dung. The former task is limited to 4 teams at a time, leaving the remaining 3 teams (Trotters, Caroline/Jennifer, Big Brother) to do the paper task. Which is a pretty interesting one at that: boil fibers obtained from elephant dung (according to the racers, it doesn't smell :-) ) mixed with regular paper to obtain pulp, press pulp on screen, get it checked. (We even get a shot of an art panel explaining the process :-D) The biggest problem (or so the editing would have you believe) is how to get the air bubbles out of the resulting sheets to get it to pass the QC. The 'Trotters notice the ongoing demonstration of how to properly press out the air bubbles and end up being the first to get their sheets to pass inspection :-)
3. After a clue pick up from an old guy playing a flute at a resting home, pit stop is at a beach in front of Sri Lanka's first hotel, and the show spends a good chunk showing everyone getting there. The Afghanimals joke about the race for 1st being cowboys vs. Indians :-D + :-\ while the 'Trotters' and Jessica/John's cabbies turn out to be brothers (!!) It's a foot race through a nearby train station that proves to decide the leg, as the Afghanimals run clear across the tracks (!!) while the cowboys run over the bridge that goes over the tracks, so Afghanimals take the leg, and a trip to Berlin :-) We get another foot race for 3rd/4th between Jessica/John and Dave/Connor, and given Dave's prior history of rupturing his Achilles last time he had a footrace on the beach, he pretty much lets J/J take 3rd. Caroline/Jennifer are last and Phil calls the beach a nice place to end the race... except that it's not the end for them either, because NEL.
Leg 7:
1. After a one week break, we resume with everyone heading to the Eternal City, and Rachel doesn't know where it is (pejoratively making a guess of Ethiopia [!])... and on top of that, she faceplants while running to the travel agent :-D Turns out to be Rome, and everyone gets the same flight, before heading to a bridge, where a clue pickup sends teams to the Detour in the shadows of the Coliseum :-) Afghanimals are quick to point out that their alma mater USC has a Coliseum as well :-D and in other news, the 'Trotters brag about this being their 30th leg of the race between their three seasons :-) Another highlight on the way to the Detour is the Afghanimals getting a "I don't speak English" from a local... even though they only said the (completely Italian) street name to him :-)
2. The Detour is between racing (remote control) chariots and doing a choreographed gladiator fight. Chariot racing is already difficult with rocks on the path, but it's a downright demolition derby when there's like 4-5 teams doing it, prompting the cowboys to compare it to the tuktuk drivers in Sri Lanka :-D :-D Gladiator fighting is right up the Afghanimals' alley, at least where the theatricals are concerned :-) Before the country singers get to do the Detour, though, they have to carry an old typewriter to this local monument... which is known as the typewriter :-)
3. Next stop is the Piazza of John Keats' unhappy Roman holiday. Some cabbies figure this out to be the Spanish Steps :-) but others think they meant Via John Keats, which turns out to be on the outskirts of Rome, where they are greeted by nondescript apartments :-\ While asking around for the right area, Jessica(/John) is all, "We're having an unhappy Roman holiday :-\"
4. Roadblock: Sum up the Spanish Steps... with the date given on the obelisk. Which requires them to know Roman numerals. Which apparently most of the teams don't know much of :-\ (I will give the cowboys credit for at least knowing X V and I :-)) Brendon's explanation repeatedly talks of converting between Roman numerals and their "alphanumeric" form :-\ Hilariously, we have a confessional where Dave is talking about how he hasn't learned Roman numerals since 10th grade, and Connor is all "which was 80 years ago" :-D :-D
5. In a cute twist, the task is being checked by a couple on a scooter who look like Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn :-) Slightly less hilarious than Dave/Connor's confessional is the 'Trotters's complete lack of understanding of the task: Not only do they only count the Steps (and not even that, since they just ask around), they apparently don't notice the part about the obelisk date, or even write down their answer in Roman numerals :-D + 8-O Jessica/John and the 'Trotters end up getting their answers from the Afghanimals, setting up the incredible finale for the leg...
6. Pitstop is at a local square, where Brenchel gets a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, while Dave/Connor allow the country singers to take 2nd (!) for helping them with the Roadblock :-) In a season with many close footraces, it's only appropriate that we get the first real footrace to avoid elimination since S7's Brian/Greg (!) as both the 'Trotters and Jessica/John race towards the Pitstop (Previously.TV interprets Phil's "Turn around" as being a command to the crew, while I thought of it as telling the Afghanimals to check out the exciting footrace ;-)) 'Trotters win (or rather, don't lose), and Jessica/John don't get an "oy vey" on their way out this time :-)
Leg 8:
1. Local self-drive leg this time (brought to you by Ford Focus :-)), as everyone heads to a rural town on a mountain, and everyone's told that there will be a double U-Turn. So anyways, we start off with a Detour between donkey racing and donkey building. Brenchels go racing and pick their donkeys solely on which one has most recently pooped :-D Yes, we do get an ass joke in there :-D and yes, the expected animal-related hilarity ensues :-D
2. Double U-Turn time, and Brenchels decide to go with Dave/Connor. The cowboys have to use their Express Pass this leg, and so use it on the donkey building. Dave/Connor are disgusted at the thought of the Brenchels U-Turning a 60 year old man, and with the cowboys literally right behind them they decide... to U-Turn the Afghanimals? :-\ And D/C tell them the next time they see them... Courtesy? Bad racing? You decide :-\
3. On to donkey building. Put together a wooden donkey, and it turns out all the teams that try it are stymied at the carpenter judge not passing their work. Turns out they're supposed to hang a crate over their back to carry logs, but only Dave/Connor figure this out on their own (and then only after reading the clue carefully), before telling the country singers and the Afghanimals (the latter while they're doing the other Detour [!]) Without this knowledge, the 'Trotters (already last because they got lost on their way to town :-\) just stand there cluelessly and make jokes at their unfinished wooden donkey and/or the carpenter :-\
4. Roadblock: Who's got therightwrite stuff? The task is to copy a page of a manuscript the old fashioned way, well, just doing the caligraphy and the goldleaf attaching part :-) Needless to say, this task is very tedious... so not much to see here, except for Brenchels' comments about Dave/Connor not being allowed to get made at them in a place of worship (whatever...) and Connor threatening to take a penalty, before being helped by the Afghanimals :-) While driving to the Roadblock, the 'Trotters talk about not giving up... and we see some old footage of the Beekmans dragging their wheeled luggage to a pitstop while they're talking about great comebacks :-)
5. After a ride up a funicular and a run to the Pitstop at a church, Brenchel takes its 2nd win in a row and $7500 each. The Afghanimals arrive in 3rd and in what I'm sure is broken Italian :-) (the local greeter says its OK though :-\) while the Trotters are eliminated, with them bragging about completing 31 (!) legs over their three seasons in their exit interview :-)
1. Next stop is a temple in Colombo, and all but two of the teams get the same direct flight to Colombo from the same travel agent, the exceptions being the last two teams, Big Brother and Margie/Luke. M/L's cabbie apparently can't find the travel agency they're looking for so they head straight to the airport, while BB find a connecting flight through Singapore, that they're discouraged from taking because the connection is something like 30 minutes (!) M/L try to get a standby for the main flight, which doesn't pan out, and while they briefly consider the Singapore connection, they end up deciding against it :-\
2. BB race clear across the Singapore airport to catch their connecting flight, and end up actually getting to the temple first... which puts them on equal footing with the rest because the temple doesn't open until 5:45am :-\ With all that airport drama out of the way, time for actual task: After receiving a blessing at the temple, everyone heads to Galle by train... the same train route, in fact, that was taken back in 2004, before the tsunami (!) The racers make comments about the pretty landscape, while M/L finally fly out of Malaysia :-\
3. Galle, and we get a boatload of shots of extreme tuktuk racing action (!!!) as they head to a coconut stand for the Detour clue pickup: Fishing on stilts, or dancing while spinning a drum. Globetrotters do the latter task, and naturally compare it to spinning a basketball :-D while Jessica/John end up switching from fishing to dancing :-\
4. Next stop, a local textiles factory (previously featured in the Asian edition) for a shirt-sewing Roadblock, and for Big Brother, a silkscreening Speed Bump (in which they accidentally silkscreen the Sri Lankan flag upside down on one of their shirts :-D) The 'Trotters call the task "Mission Impossible... but I'm Tom Cruise" :-D Other comic relief comes from one of the Afghanimals jokingly trying to bribe one of the ongoing workers to sew together his shirt for him :-D and the 'Trotters showing off their basketball handling skills to the workers (yep, once again they've decided to bring a basketball along for the trip :-)) At this point, we're shown that M/L are just now arriving in Galle :-\
5. Once they're done with the shirts, the shirts get a local rowing club's logo iron-transfered on to them, which also serves as the clue for the pit stop. Dave/Connor get themselves $5,000, and since this leg was when they withdrew last time around, they reassure the host Phil that "This time, we're staying :-)" Although some of the racers were concerned that they might show up at the factory, M/L are never shown doing any of the Galle tasks, instead just being shown getting their obvious-from-the-get-go elimination in the night. They do brag about being one of three teams invited for a third go-round in their exit interview though...
Leg 6:
1. Staying in Sri Lanka, and after a clue pickup in the morning at a museum, next stop is a train ride to Alawwa (with more comments about the scenery) for a crazy gas filling Roadblock at a gas station :-O "Crazy" is not an exaggeration, because there are tons of tuktuks waiting to be filled, and only two or three nozzles for it (!) Everyone has to pick a color and match it to the tag on the tuktuk's windshield... and apparently Big Brother's Rachel thinks that the green she picked is supposed to match the tuktuks themselves (and there are plenty of green tuktuks in line [!]) It takes her running across John(/Jessica) taking away a green tuktuk with a red tag for her to figure it out, and this puts her in last :-\
2. Everyone manages to get the same train to the next stop, even Big Brother, who apparently return to the Alawwa station about the time the train is coming in, and then use the train ride to regroup themselves, before heading to an elephant sanctuary for a Detour, between tying a chain to a log for elephants to pick up, and making paper from elephant dung. The former task is limited to 4 teams at a time, leaving the remaining 3 teams (Trotters, Caroline/Jennifer, Big Brother) to do the paper task. Which is a pretty interesting one at that: boil fibers obtained from elephant dung (according to the racers, it doesn't smell :-) ) mixed with regular paper to obtain pulp, press pulp on screen, get it checked. (We even get a shot of an art panel explaining the process :-D) The biggest problem (or so the editing would have you believe) is how to get the air bubbles out of the resulting sheets to get it to pass the QC. The 'Trotters notice the ongoing demonstration of how to properly press out the air bubbles and end up being the first to get their sheets to pass inspection :-)
3. After a clue pick up from an old guy playing a flute at a resting home, pit stop is at a beach in front of Sri Lanka's first hotel, and the show spends a good chunk showing everyone getting there. The Afghanimals joke about the race for 1st being cowboys vs. Indians :-D + :-\ while the 'Trotters' and Jessica/John's cabbies turn out to be brothers (!!) It's a foot race through a nearby train station that proves to decide the leg, as the Afghanimals run clear across the tracks (!!) while the cowboys run over the bridge that goes over the tracks, so Afghanimals take the leg, and a trip to Berlin :-) We get another foot race for 3rd/4th between Jessica/John and Dave/Connor, and given Dave's prior history of rupturing his Achilles last time he had a footrace on the beach, he pretty much lets J/J take 3rd. Caroline/Jennifer are last and Phil calls the beach a nice place to end the race... except that it's not the end for them either, because NEL.
Leg 7:
1. After a one week break, we resume with everyone heading to the Eternal City, and Rachel doesn't know where it is (pejoratively making a guess of Ethiopia [!])... and on top of that, she faceplants while running to the travel agent :-D Turns out to be Rome, and everyone gets the same flight, before heading to a bridge, where a clue pickup sends teams to the Detour in the shadows of the Coliseum :-) Afghanimals are quick to point out that their alma mater USC has a Coliseum as well :-D and in other news, the 'Trotters brag about this being their 30th leg of the race between their three seasons :-) Another highlight on the way to the Detour is the Afghanimals getting a "I don't speak English" from a local... even though they only said the (completely Italian) street name to him :-)
2. The Detour is between racing (remote control) chariots and doing a choreographed gladiator fight. Chariot racing is already difficult with rocks on the path, but it's a downright demolition derby when there's like 4-5 teams doing it, prompting the cowboys to compare it to the tuktuk drivers in Sri Lanka :-D :-D Gladiator fighting is right up the Afghanimals' alley, at least where the theatricals are concerned :-) Before the country singers get to do the Detour, though, they have to carry an old typewriter to this local monument... which is known as the typewriter :-)
3. Next stop is the Piazza of John Keats' unhappy Roman holiday. Some cabbies figure this out to be the Spanish Steps :-) but others think they meant Via John Keats, which turns out to be on the outskirts of Rome, where they are greeted by nondescript apartments :-\ While asking around for the right area, Jessica(/John) is all, "We're having an unhappy Roman holiday :-\"
4. Roadblock: Sum up the Spanish Steps... with the date given on the obelisk. Which requires them to know Roman numerals. Which apparently most of the teams don't know much of :-\ (I will give the cowboys credit for at least knowing X V and I :-)) Brendon's explanation repeatedly talks of converting between Roman numerals and their "alphanumeric" form :-\ Hilariously, we have a confessional where Dave is talking about how he hasn't learned Roman numerals since 10th grade, and Connor is all "which was 80 years ago" :-D :-D
5. In a cute twist, the task is being checked by a couple on a scooter who look like Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn :-) Slightly less hilarious than Dave/Connor's confessional is the 'Trotters's complete lack of understanding of the task: Not only do they only count the Steps (and not even that, since they just ask around), they apparently don't notice the part about the obelisk date, or even write down their answer in Roman numerals :-D + 8-O Jessica/John and the 'Trotters end up getting their answers from the Afghanimals, setting up the incredible finale for the leg...
6. Pitstop is at a local square, where Brenchel gets a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, while Dave/Connor allow the country singers to take 2nd (!) for helping them with the Roadblock :-) In a season with many close footraces, it's only appropriate that we get the first real footrace to avoid elimination since S7's Brian/Greg (!) as both the 'Trotters and Jessica/John race towards the Pitstop (Previously.TV interprets Phil's "Turn around" as being a command to the crew, while I thought of it as telling the Afghanimals to check out the exciting footrace ;-)) 'Trotters win (or rather, don't lose), and Jessica/John don't get an "oy vey" on their way out this time :-)
Leg 8:
1. Local self-drive leg this time (brought to you by Ford Focus :-)), as everyone heads to a rural town on a mountain, and everyone's told that there will be a double U-Turn. So anyways, we start off with a Detour between donkey racing and donkey building. Brenchels go racing and pick their donkeys solely on which one has most recently pooped :-D Yes, we do get an ass joke in there :-D and yes, the expected animal-related hilarity ensues :-D
2. Double U-Turn time, and Brenchels decide to go with Dave/Connor. The cowboys have to use their Express Pass this leg, and so use it on the donkey building. Dave/Connor are disgusted at the thought of the Brenchels U-Turning a 60 year old man, and with the cowboys literally right behind them they decide... to U-Turn the Afghanimals? :-\ And D/C tell them the next time they see them... Courtesy? Bad racing? You decide :-\
3. On to donkey building. Put together a wooden donkey, and it turns out all the teams that try it are stymied at the carpenter judge not passing their work. Turns out they're supposed to hang a crate over their back to carry logs, but only Dave/Connor figure this out on their own (and then only after reading the clue carefully), before telling the country singers and the Afghanimals (the latter while they're doing the other Detour [!]) Without this knowledge, the 'Trotters (already last because they got lost on their way to town :-\) just stand there cluelessly and make jokes at their unfinished wooden donkey and/or the carpenter :-\
4. Roadblock: Who's got the
5. After a ride up a funicular and a run to the Pitstop at a church, Brenchel takes its 2nd win in a row and $7500 each. The Afghanimals arrive in 3rd and in what I'm sure is broken Italian :-) (the local greeter says its OK though :-\) while the Trotters are eliminated, with them bragging about completing 31 (!) legs over their three seasons in their exit interview :-)
