The Amazing Race: Beer, Belch, Beatles

So, the word of the day is “respectful”, according to Carol & Brandy as they travel from Patagonia, Argentina to Frankfurt, then Hamburg, Germany.  There’s only one flight out, eleven hours following the pit stop, so everyone is on the same flight.  During the opening interviews, we learn that Dan doesn’t like to travel, but is doing this for Jordan. Which got me thinkin’. . . .what else has Dan done that he didn’t want to for his brother?  Give up the last piece of pizza at the dinner table?  Be his wing man?  Watch American Idol?  Dress up as Sonny to Jordan’s Cher for Halloween? (Too far?)

Oddly, the teams took different routes to Frankfurt, but we don’t see any footage of the teams buying the tickets at the airport.  The cowboys and the detectives are on the first flight into Hamburg.  As such, they team up for the Intersection, which requires one member of each team to pair up with a member of another team and bungee jump off a crane.  Jet & Michael take the jump, Jet wearing – and keeping – his hat.  Gravity, apparently, not so much a force against a well-perched cowboy hat.

Allie & Joe take the plunge together, as do Brandy & Dan and Caite & Jordan.  Allie screams, and Brandy is terrified. Dan, however, is a real “gentleman” (whatever that means is not exactly clear, but Brandy says that he helped keep her calm).  Caite & Jordan accidentally get on the wrong train heading to the bungee jump, confirming the beliefs of everyone who has ever used the phrase “the blonde leading the blonde.”

The Detour is Soccer or Sauerkraut.  In Soccer, teams have to take five penalty shots, each one hitting a different target set at a goal line.  In Sauerkraut, the teams have to eat a plate piled high with sauerkraut while a German band plays behind them.  When their song ends, the team must have finished, or they have to start over again with a new plate.  The problem is, though, no one indicates how long the band is supposed to play.  So, the band could stop playing after 2 minutes, or 8 minutes — the teams (and we at home) have no idea.

Louie & Michael take sauerkraut and wolf it down as though it were spaghetti.  Jeff & Jordan also pick sauerkraut, as do Carol & Brandy.  Steve & Allie, Joe & Heidi, and Caite & Brent pick soccer.  Steve & Allie hit the targets before Joe & Heidi are able to hit even one, causing Joe & Heidi to switch Detours, especially since Joe’s knee is apparently giving him a lot of trouble.  Jet & Cord, who’ve never played soccer before, test a shot, and then handle the task with relative ease, as do Dan & Jordan.

Jeff & Jordan, however, are big wusses and can’t finish their sauerkraut.  Wow.  I mean, it’s sauerkraut.  Guess Big Brother never occurred during Oktoberfest?

Next task requires the teams to go to a pub and share a boot of beer.  And when I say boot, I’m talking about a very, very large glass shaped like a boot.  And when I say very, very large, I’m talking 64 ounces at least.  Like, Big-Gulp sized.

Louie & Michael hit this task first, and Louie pretty much just chugs it down because Michael doesn’t like beer.  Perhaps if it were doughnuts?  (Sorry — they just make entirely too much of representing law enforcement).   Steve chugs it as well – Allie tells us that he’s been craving a beer all race — but he does let his daughter drink about half an inch of remaining backwash once he’s filled up.  Jet has never had a beer in his entire life, and he & Cord nurse that beer like they were, well, Caite and female Jordan.  Incidentally, Caite and Jordan let their partners do the chugging, cause they’re girls.  Speaking of girls, Brandy & Carol manage to drink their boot without insulting anyone else, which was nice, for them.

There’s a lot of belching in the back of cabs.

The next clue is at Beatles Platz, which then leads them to Indra Club, the pit stop.  Michael & Louie take first (Whaaa?) and Steve & Allie are second (if they keep placing like this, the producers will have to give them more screen time, right?).  Next: Joe & Heidi, Jet & Cord, Carol & Brandy, Dan & Jordan, Brent (who has thrown up the beer by the time they hit the pit stop) & Caite, and finally Jeff & Jordan.  But fear not, fans of reality TV whores, for it’s a non-elimination leg

Season 16, Episode 4: We Are No Longer in the Bible Belt (originally aired March 7, 2010)

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Sundays at 8pm ET/PT on CBS

Photographs courtesy of CBS.