The Amazing Race Review: The Talkative Taxi Driver

For the entire run of The Amazing Race, a bad taxi experience has been a reason for a team to be eliminated from the race. At no time would I have ever thought that the opposite would happen, but at the conclusion of this week’s episode that is exactly what happened. Because of a trio of well-connected and gossipy cab drivers in Panama City, two teams made it to the Final Leg of the Race while the favorites to win it all were eliminated.  This surely has never happened on The Amazing Race before, and the penultimate episode had a lot fans of the show shocked and angry. Me? I was highly entertained by the crazy race to the Pit Stop.

I know I have said it a couple times already but this time I really mean it, it was the best episode of the season.

It was down to only four teams now as they embarked on an early morning task in Brussels, Belgium.  The night before they got to sleep in the Atomium, which looked both fun and uncomfortable. The American equivalent would be if Phil said “Welcome to the Statue of Liberty. Tonight you will sleep in her armpit.” After awaking in the national monument, the teams dressed up as Belgian comic book characters and wandered around the city asking people, who seemed to be going home after a night of heavy drinking, who exactly they were supposed to be and from what comic.

They were dressed up like characters from the comic Tintin (which is also a soon to be released 3D movie from Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin. Synergy!)  but most of the locals didn’t seem to recognize who the contestants were supposed to be. Which is strange, since Tintin is Belgium’s most famous comic character. Again, the American equivalent would be if they dressed up like Chip and Dale and instead of people saying Disney, they instead thought they were a couple of Pokémon.

Teams eventually discovered they were dressed as the detectives Thomson & Thompson aka Johnson & Jonson aka Dupont & Dupond from the Tintin comics. Andy & Tommy, being uncharacteristically hasty, figured out the comic was Tintin, but they incorrectly thought they were dressed as Charlie Chaplin. They even talked about how it didn’t make sense, yet that’s what they convinced themselves for the longest time.  They eventually figure it out well after the other teams and found a real life Tintin in front of a Tintin mural who gave them the next clue that said they were now going to Panama City, Panama. All of the teams ended up on the same flight to Central America, of course.

Side note: A fun game you can play is count how many times the word “Tintin” appears in this post. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Once they arrived it’s a quick sprint to snag some taxis that took them deep into Panama’s jungle to some boats on a river.  Guides on the boats then navigated the waters in the pitch black night. About this time I wondered exactly how the boats were not crashing into things, as it’s pretty obvious that you can’t see shit, just then Jeremy & Sandy, who were in first place, ran up on a sandbar. Andy & Tommy pass them by and arrived first to a remote village.

All of them arrived safely and spent the night in hammocks and mosquito nets. When morning rolled around they received temporary tattoos on their forearms from the local tribesmen that also doubled as clues to their next destination.

Side note: At first I thought they were going to be getting real tribal tattoos and I was disappointed to find out they were only temporary. A real tattoo might seem crazy, but I would get one from a native Panamanian in some remote village for a million dollars. It’s actually one of the best reasons I can think of to get a tattoo. Remember the season where they made a team shave their heads?

Back to the review.

So their “tattoo” told them to go back into the city and find twin skyscrapers where they had to do a vertigo inducing high-wire walk, twice. Sandy was ”terrified” of heights, but she was able to walk across the wire and back like a boss.  There is a million dollars at stake. Now is the time to conquer those fears.

The high wire task was one of the more intense challenges on the show, but everybody did it pretty easily. Andy & Tommy were in first at this point followed by Jeremy & Sandy, Ernie & Cindy.  Amani & Marcus were in last place.

This is where the show got a little unusual.

The next clue was a detour, saying to either go to a fish market or a shoe store. At the fish market teams would have to deliver fresh fish to the different vendors in the market. At the shoe store they had to cobble a pair of leather sandals. All of the teams picked the sandal making task, except for Marcus and Amani who decided to deliver fish. Marcus & Amani always, always, pick the least popular task at a detour but it usually works out for them. Unfortunately their taxi took them to the shoes store because he heard from the other teams’ cabbies where they were going. This occurrence was really strange and does not happen ever on the show.  Amani & Marcus saw everybody else already working at the shoe store and instead of just staying there and making sandals, they told the taxi to take them to the fish market.  Unknown to me at the time, this taxi mistake, made because they were communicating with each other, foreshadowed things to come.

Andy & Tommy finished cobbling the shoes first and got their next clue, which directed them to a troupe of dancing women in traditional dresses. The women had clues on their jewelry and dresses that sent the teams to the Pit Stop.  Not quite finding the clues, the Snowboarders, again uncharacteristically hasty, saw the word “Balboa” on the girls’ jewelry (which is also the name of the currency) and told their cabdriver to drive to “balboa.”  The taxi then took them to some dock, where it is very apparent that there is no Pit Stop. After driving around for some time they went back to the square.

Amani & Marcus were the second team to complete the Detour.  It was a good thing they opted to go to the fish market.  They got to the dancing girls but were stumped about what the clue could be. By this time the other teams had caught up. Ernie & Cindy and Marcus and Amani went with balboa as well and got in their taxis.

Jeremy & Sandy sketched a picture of a building they saw on the dancing women’s jewelry, which was one of the actual clues, and their taxi driver recognized the place. Their cabbie then called Ernie & Cindy’s and Marcus & Amani’s taxis and told them where to go. In other words, Jeremy & Sandy were on their way to the Pit Stop when their taxi helped the other two teams who are on their way to completely different and wrong locations. So their taxis turned around and followed Jeremy& Sandy.

A theme throughout this race has been: pay attention to the details. This task it is set up so the less alert teams will drive away with the wrong clue, like three of them did, and would be forced to come back and think about it some more. But because of a little luck and a gossipy cabbie, two teams were able to get to the Pit Stop before the Snowboarders without figuring out what exactly the clue was. Tommy was the only contestant to spot the words on the dancer’s skirt that tells them the correct place to go, but they were rewarded by being eliminated from the race. Jeremy & Sandy checked in first, closely followed by Ernie & Cindy and Marcus & Amani. These are your final three.

All of the teams and everybody at home (myself included) all thought the Snowboarders would be in the finale. They won six legs of the race this season and were good at everything they did. The one time they run into bad luck is in the second to last episode, which has to hurt. They left the show in good spirits though, and I thought they ran a brilliant race. No need to feel sorry for them, America, Andy & Tommy leave the show with five vacations and two custom Mustangs.

At the Pit Stop all of the other teams were beyond excited and hugged each other and jumped and danced. Marcus gave some b.s. speech about how they were all Davids to the Snowboarders’ Goliath. But he was just excited to be in the final three, so I’m going to let it pass.

The final episode is next people. Who do you want to win?

Quotes of the episode:

Cindy: (on the high wire) “Holy balls.”

Marcus: “We just banged that detour.”

Marcus: (after wiping sweat from a dancers face) “I dabbed you down. So tell me what the clue is, I know you speak English.”

For another take on tonight’s episode, check out “The Jungle and the Sea” by Keshaunta Moton.

Season 19, Episode 11 “We Are Charlie Chaplin” (original airdate December 04, 2011)

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

Images courtesy of Robert Voets and CBS Broadcasting.