The Amazing Race: City Bickers

So, our cowboys must have slipped the Race‘s producers lifetime tickets to the Calgary Stampede — or at least a City Slickers DVD — to get the sweet set up they got this leg.  I mean really, a Roadblock requiring the contestant to rope a set of bullhorns?  That seems like a cowboy giveaway.  Next leg, why don’t they arrange a Roadblock requiring Brent & Caite to vogue? (Which, let’s be honest, would thrill Jordan-of-the-yellow-headband.)

Cord’s opening interview tells us that Jet’s strength is between his ears and to not “let the cowboy hat fool you.”  You know, I never thought Cord was dumb, not even when he thought that all of South America has the same currency.  Kinda goofy, but not dumb.  Still, I have to laugh when Brandy calls him “enigmatic” when she and Carol peppered the cowboys with questions to find out how in the world guys like Cord and Jet could have possibly gotten on that earlier bus during the last leg.  While they didn’t outright accuse the cowboys of being idiot savants, they come pretty darn close.  Oh, Carol & Brandy, how I want to like you (and your impossibly chic, Jackie Warner-style haircuts).  Oh, how hard you are making it.  These two are already wasting precious energy bickering with each other and playing the you’re-to-blame game.  (So much for moral victory!)

This leg required the team to take a six hour ride to Argentina, then drive themselves to El Boliche Viejo, whose claim to fame is that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ate there.  I was hoping the Race would craft a shoot-out of some kind, but instead we just get the teams playing five car stud “against” the Travelocity gnome.  This was a complete non-event, although I appreciate any excuse I have to look at this picture.  Really, despite a semi-difficult roping challenge, the difference between those who make it out of South America and those who don’t really comes down to those who were smart enough to pick the correct Detour.

The Detour this week was Horse Sense vs. Horse Power.  In Horse Sense, teams visit a “gunslinger” to get coordinates and, using a stationary compass for reference, count out steps to pull a bag of stolen “money” from the dirt. Then they have to give the money to the “lead bandit.”  Yes, I realize I’m using excessive quotation marks here, but really, that’s the only way I know how to communicate how much that option resembled the scenery from my last visit to Adventureland.  In Horse Power, the teams must use a practice pony to move about a field and score a goal.  Essentially, it’s polo without the horses.  It’s immediately obvious to me that Horse Power is the better choice (the word “coordinates” should have tipped them off) but, still, Brandy & Carol, Jeff & Jordan, Joe & Heidi, and Louis & Michael all initially do Horse Sense, with Brandy & Carol, Joe & Heidi, and Michael & Louie switching to Horse Power midway.  Jeff & Jordan do decently, but, in an FTR, keep trying to give the money to the “gunslinger” instead of the “bandit.”  Cord & Jet, Steve & Allie, Dan & Jordan, and Brent & Caite smartly pick Horse Power right away.

Ultimately, Jet & Cord come in first.  Steve & Allie (who?) come in second.  Next, Carol & Brandy, Joe & Heidi, Jeff & Jordan, Dan & Jordan, Brent & Caite (who both suffered from food poisoning the entire leg), and Michael & Louie fill out the next slots, consecutively. Which leaves Monique & Shawne to get eliminated.  Oh, mompreneurs, we hardly knew yee.  Seriously, I really have no idea who you guys are.

Season 16, Episode 3: Run Like Scalded Dogs! (originally aired February 28, 2010)

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Sundays at 8pm ET/PT on CBS

Photographs courtesy of CBS.