The Amazing Race: This One’s for Dad.

The third leg of the race is an emotional one for several of our contestants, with mixed results.  We learn that Nathaniel lost his father just two days before the race began.   Seems to me that anybody would be pretty emotional right now, and Nathaniel’s determination to channel that energy into a better race performance is pretty sympathetic.  He and Herbert finish first this leg, beating Meghan and Cheyne in a footrace to the end.  Cheyne remarks that there will probably be more footraces against these two, which I hope not for their sake because. . . they’re Globetrotters, Cheyne.  They have really, really long legs.

A contestant’s father figured prominently in another one of this week’s storylines.  Marcy’s father was  shot down, and later rescued, in 1968 in Vietnam.  Marcy’s pretty emotional in Ho Chi Minh City, and remarks that the people are really lovely which she contrasts with the knowledge of the Americans who died there during the war.  Look, my dad’s a Vietnam veteran also, so I’m feeling her on this one.

Unfortunately, Marcy’s emotional state doesn’t do diddley for her team’s performance, and she and Ron are eliminated this leg.  The wrong detour choice, and Marcy’s insatiable banter probably didn’t help.  I hope Ron and Marcy make it, because I’m all about old(er) love, but Ron looked pretty pissed there at the end, and I’m thinking he’s gonna need a break from Marcy’s cruise director personality.

In other news of Dads, we learn that Matt wants his Gary to treat him more like an adult.  I’d start by losing the pink hair. We also learn that the race is harder than Lance thought it would be, because it’s about the survival of the fittest.  But fear not for Lance’s elimination, because Lance is a lion, you see, and the other teams are gazelles, according to our big-biceped, overly confident, trial attorney.   I don’t know exactly how Lance imagines a lion would do on the Amazing Race, but if he thinks that lions are unobservant trash-talkers who berate their wives, have no sense of direction, and barely escape elimination, then he may have a point.

Seriously, how awesome was it watching Lance and Keri get their second clue, a postage stamp picturing their next destination, but not realize that the clue was in their hands because it was in a bullet container? How about when someone took it out of the container for Lance, handed it back to him, and Lance still didn’t realize that he was holding the clue?  Where’s the clue, where’s the clue, said Lance, running around frantically in circles around the place where all of the gazelles had long since left.  It’s in your hand, Lance!   It’s in your hand!

Kind of made you wonder how many minutes of court time are wasted while Lance looks in his suitcase for the brief that is sitting on the table in front of him, doesn’t it?

Still, Lance’s hands proved quite useful in the Road Block this week, which required a team member to take apart 3 VCRs using tools.  Lance just ripped through the task with his bare hands, proving that biceps are not just for flexing — they can do stuff, too.

You know who doesn’t do stuff?  Maria.  Our poker player proved how useless she is, first by pulling her roller bag around the detour while her partner Tiffany pushed a big, heavy looking animal sculpture around, and then by closing the cab door on her partner at the Road Block.  Tiffany, however, is earning the dubious honor this season of Most Put Upon Teammate, as she appears to not notice or take offense at Maria’s increasingly off-putting behavior.  Also, Tiffany gets likeability points for how much she enjoyed herself at the Detour,taking easily to using tools on a task that, not involving needless lying or taking other people’s money, was outside of her comfort zone.  However, Tiffany doesn’t seem to exactly have much of a Racer’s instinct.  When Dan pauses to help them load a large animal sculpture onto their cart for the week’s Detour, Tiffany urges him to go on.  Um, what?  I assumed she must have been bluffing, but she didn’t seem disappointed when Dan took her advice.

If only Dan had helped Zev and Justin, who needed it after foolishly choosing a large, clumsy giraffe to lug around when everyone else had chosen other animals, either because they were small or because the animal was symbolic of interracial harmony.   (Will someone tell Brian and Ericka that this reference went out with the early 1980s?)  Shortly after loading it onto their cart, the giraffe crashed, breaking several inches of material off its neck.  Luckily, Zev and Justin didn’t lose their cool, and picked up the pieces and continued on, eventually beating Keri and Lance in a foot race to the mat and landing an 8th place finish.

Ultimately, a decent episode, although the whole dead dad/shot down in Vietnam dad angle cast a shadow over the leg that made it harder to blatantly laugh at the Racers’ fumbles.  Let’s keep it lighter next time, please producers?

For another take on this episode, check out (Somewhat More) Amazing Race by Cameron Cubbison.

Season 15, Episode 2: It’s Like Being Dropped on Planet Mars (originally aired October 4, 2009)

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