The Amazing Race Review: Africa-It’s Very Spacious

This week we find out how it’s possible for a team to go from first place to last in The Amazing Race without having any trouble with the tasks or making any mistakes. Marcus and Amani were able to do it, and it would have been a travesty for them to get kicked off like this, but luckily for them it was a non-elimination round. Here’s how it happened:

They were the first team to start off this leg of the race, but all the teams end up on the only plane flying out of Bangkok, Thailand to Malawi in Africa. Marcus and Amani get seated in the back, so they are the last team to deplane. Then they are one of two teams that get stuck in a huge, slow moving traffic jam that their taxi driver blames on “an engagement.” They’re the last team to arrive to the roadblocks and detours, but they don’t have any problems completing them (nobody did, they were really easy), so they are never able to make up any time. A taxi they use to get to the Pit Stop then brakes down and they are the last team to check in. If it wasn’t a non-elimination leg, they would have been eliminated pretty much because they were the last team to get off the plane.

That’s not what the Amazing Race is all about. It’s about racing other teams and quick wits and challenging tasks. Not frustrations with planes, trains or automobiles. Here’s how this episode went down.

When the teams reach the capital of Malawi, Lilongwe, they race to a tobacco warehouse. Once there, one team member must get into an orange jumpsuit and use a dolly to move ten 200-pound bags of tobacco in a maze of crates. The teams were cheered on by the warehouse workers as they sang and danced in teal jumpsuits. It made working in a tobacco warehouse seem really fun, which, based on the masks the workers wore around their necks, I’m sure it isn’t. The task is easily done by Jeremy, Justin, Ernie, Laurence and Tommy.

By this time Marcus and Amani and team Ma and Pa are still stuck in traffic. Making small talk with the driver Cathi says “We love your country already; it is very spacious,” in the sort of tone you may use addressing a child. FYI, that quote is also the title for this episode. Once Ma and Pa get to the warehouse, Bill shows us again what great shape he’s in for being over 60. He’s the poster boy for living on a farm, I’m even considering doing it. His baling skills outperform the much more athletic Marcus.

We learn some more interesting details about the remaining teams this episode. Amani & Marcus’ youngest is a special needs child and is a main motivation for them in the race. Jennifer teaches special-needs kids and Justin is a physician. Jeremy is the father of a 6-year-old son who he misses very much and Sandy’s a nurse. Little things like this makes the contestants a little more relatable and should be revealed in earlier episodes.

The clue they get after completing the warehouse task tells them to drive to a monument and at the monument is another clue (why did they have to go to the monument?) that tells them to either “sew up” or “grow up.” For “sew up” they have to find a tailor shop in a busy marketplace and hem a man’s suit to his specifications. For “grow up” they have to make a toy truck out of cartons and bottle caps at a local school. Jeremy & Sandy, Justin & Jennifer, Andy & Tommy and Laurence & Zac decided to go to the school. Right around this time we find out that Dad Laurence is not just a narcissistic jerk. He’s also sexist. I wasn’t surprised to find this out.

Laurence tells his son Zac that the sewing task is “where the women whip past us,” assuming that all women know how to sew. At the school, while putting together the toy truck, he tells Sandy and Jennifer how surprised he is they aren’t doing the sewing challenge, even mentioning to Jeremy that one should question marrying a woman that can’t sew. He jabs himself with some scissors while spewing these sexist comments, which seems appropriate, but I really just want him out of the race. Zac, on the other hand, seems like a nice kid with a good head on his shoulders, so I’m guessing he gets it from his mom.

The sewing task, which Ernie and Cindy, Bill and Cathi, and Marcus and Amani all do, takes a little bit longer to do than making the toy trucks. They are old manual sewing machines that tend to break down a lot. Marcus really wants to do this task, mentioning that his mother and grandmother were expert sewers. I guess he thought there was a sewing gene that gets passed down from generation to generation. He was able to hem a pair of pants well enough to finish the task and get the clue though.

After completing the tasks the teams go to a furniture shop and pick out two bed frames, load them on a truck and transport them to a small village to check in at the Pit Stop. The roads don’t go all the way into the village, so the teams have to carry the beds the rest of the way along a wooded trail to check in. The beds are heavy and awkward to carry and Sandy manages to cut her shoulder. Cindy collapses under the weight of the bed frame as it falls on top and traps her. Jokingly she yells “I’m in jail,” as she waits for Ernie to rescue her. The perpetually clumsy Cathi manages to carry it to the end of the trail just fine.

Justin and Jennifer are able to find Phil surrounded with several smiling locals first, with snowboarders Andy & Tommy right behind them. Regretfully Phil tells the Siblings that they failed to pay their truck driver and they have to go back before checking in. They were able to go back and pay the driver and get back quick enough to snag second place, but a British Virgin Islands vacation ended up going to the Snowboarders. Andy and Tommy manage for the second time this season to win first place by default. Bill & Cathi were the only other team that stiffed their driver and had to go back and pay.

Jeremy & Sandy checked in for third, then came Laurence & Zac and Ernie & Cindy. Amani & Marcus, after their taxi broke down and they had to hitch another ride, bring in the rear right behind Ma and Pa. But Phil has some good news for them as he tell them that they are not eliminated and get to move on in the race, albeit with a Speed Bump they will have to perform, of course.

This week The Amazing Race managed to showcase a country I knew nothing about and make me want to go there. But the relative ease of the tasks and the number of equalizing moments in the race so far (like only one plane, or waiting for something to open up) is wearing thin. The earlier episodes had more of a balanced challenge to them. Now in the middle of the season it has gotten into a frustrating rut. My pet peeve of unavoidable traveling annoyances aside, it really would have been a low point if Marcus and Amani left this episode just because they had bad seats on the plane the Roadblocks and Detours were sub-par.

What do you think? And seriously, what is up with Laurence? He’s making Americans look bad, and he’s not even American!

For another take on this episode, check out Like One Big Racing Family by Keshaunta Moton.

Season 19, Episode 6 “We Love Your Country Already – It’s Very Spacious” (original airdate October 30, 2011)

The Amazing Race airs Sunday nights at 8/7c on CBS.

Images courtesy of Robert Voets and CBS Broadcasting.