The Amazing Race Review: One Long Car Commercial

As far as branding in television goes, reality shows are pretty transparent with their product placement. Unlike sitcoms that try to slip it in under the radar, with characters casually eating Kellogg cereal, driving a Toyota or drinking Pepsi, reality shows are upfront and blunt with their in-show advertisements. The Amazing Race is no different with their trips from Travelocity, Pit Stops in scenic resorts, or challenges that feature a brand name product. They have also featured the cars the racers sometimes have to use. This kind of advertising is fine by me and it’s actually how I like my branding done. The Amazing Race is one of the best shows for product placement because of how seamless and natural it fits in the show. It’s not shoehorned in like a movie screening of Jack and Jill on Survivor.

But there is a limit to branding in shows, and this week The Amazing Race reached that limit and sped past it at 100 mph.

They only thing I can really remember from this week’s episode is the Ford Mustang was all over it. Teams went to a Ford test-track and were very excited about driving a Mustang and commenting how awesome and powerful it was. In the end a team was awarded two custom designed Mustangs. It was like an hour long infomercial for Ford, and watching it you couldn’t tell that it was an actual episode of The Amazing Race or even that it was in a foreign country.

This episode comes after last weeks, which was one of the best of the season. There are five teams still standing. Amani and Marcus are in first place and are the first to find out from Phil that this leg of the race isn’t over. They get a clue telling them to go to the Ford Proving Grounds and promptly get lost. Ernie and Cindy are the first to arrive, where they find out one of them gets to drive a Ford Mustang through a slalom course and do a couple of doughnuts at a 100 mph. Blatant commercial or not, it looked like a fun task and I was jealous watching them race around the track while I sat on my couch going 0 mph and eating Pop-Secret popcorn (Hey Pop-Secret, give me a call for some product placement.)

Ernie had a hard time completing the slalom, trying over 15 times. Because of that, Jeremy and Sandy were able to catch up. Jeremy had an easier time completing the course and closed the gap with Ernie and Cindy.  Andy and Tommy arrive, and Tommy was the one picked to drive the Mustang even though Andy  admits that  “he’s got jealousy in his heart” because he’s really into cars. “I had to ask for forgiveness through Christ, and Christ just lifted it from me,” he says. If Andy said Jesus lifted the jealousy from him I believe him, but it didn’t seem to be all lifted because for the rest of the episode he got really defensive whenever Tommy brought it up.

Marcus was the next to drive the track and Bill and Cathi were last to arrive. Again, this portion of the episode was just one long commercial for Ford and I was beginning to feel like I was watching a paid advertisement for Sham-Wow.

After the Mustang commercial the teams find out they must either “waffle,” build a waffle stand and then make 18 different Belgian waffles, or “raft,” and build a raft out of logs and paddle it around a canal to search for two halves of a clue. Ernie and Cindy were the first to get there and decided to build a waffle stand. They struggled because of Cindy’s height and Jeremy and Sandy were able to catch up even more because they were able to build the stand faster. But Jeremy and Sandy don’t have an eye for detail and fail to display the waffles correctly, wasting time on correcting it over and over and over again. Ernie and Cindy are able to get it done quickly and get the next clue.

Bill and Cathi see Jeremy and Sandy struggling at the stand and opt for the raft instead, along with Tommy & Andy and Marcus and Amani. Andy and Tommy are ridiculously good at these kind of building tasks and finish it in no time. Marcus and Amani are more deliberate putting the raft together (i.e. slower) and once in the water Marcus weighs down the back end of the raft so much that that Amani can’t reach the water with her oar.

It’s about this time that The Amazing Race editors do a number on Cindy. They put together a nice little montage of Cindy second guessing everything Ernie does. It highlighted her neurosis and his patience. Later on in the episode, when they’re lost, he finally snaps at her. Without the earlier montage Ernie would have come off like a hot-headed meanie, instead of a guy who has had enough of the backseat driving and passive-aggressive questions.

Ernie and Cindy head off to the next challenge, where the teams release a fleet of carrier pigeons and drive to where the pigeons are trained to land and receive the next clue. After each team finds the spot to release the pigeons, they all end up getting lost trying to locate the address where they fly to. Except for Ma and Pa, who can’t even find where the pigeons are released to begin with.

Andy and Tommy are the first to find their pigeon. After receiving the tiniest Amazing Race clue off a pigeon’s leg,  they get a picture of their next destination, the Atomium. The Atomium happens to be back in Brussels, where they started from (oh yeah, they’re in Belgium, I forgot with all of the Ford Mustang talk). Jeremy is the only contestant who recognizes it, all of the other teams had to ask the locals.

The Atomium (I just like writing Atomium and it is pretty cool) is the Pit Stop.  Andy and Tommy check in first and learn that they’ll each get a Ford Mustang. I’m pretty sure that helped lift Andy’s jealously better than Jesus did. Jeremy and Sandy come in second, with Ernie and Cindy in third and Amani and Marcus, who got lost the longest, check in fourth.

The sixty-somethings Bill and Cathi are last to arrive and are eliminated from the race. They ran a great race and are examples of how age means very little if you are able to stay healthy and active. I want to be like team Ma and Pa when I grow up. Like they said “Age won’t stop you.”

Quote of the episode: “Brought to you by Ford.”

Season 19, Episode 10 “Release the Brake!” (original airdate November 27, 2011)

For more on this episode, check out Release the Brakes by Keshaunta Moton.

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

Images courtesy of Robert Voets and CBS Broadcasting.