The Amazing Race 13, Episode 2
Do You Like American Candy?
By Reagen Sulewski
October 9, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The remaining ten teams are set to take off for another day of racing, but first we have some pointless relationship drama to get through first, as Terence and Sarah still have unresolved issues from the first leg. Terence was upset that Sarah spent time talking to other teams, whereas Sarah had the unreasonable expectation of being able to interact like a normal human being. Run, Sarah, run, before you end up chained up in his basement!
Nick and Starr get to take off first, at 4:07 a.m. and are directed to fly to Fortaleza, Brazil, where they'll then have to travel to a small nearby village and find a plaza near the beach. Ken & Tina, aka Team Eyeroll, are second away, six minutes back and seem to actually be basing the future of their relationship based on their race performance. I bet Ken is verrrry conflicted.
Leaving as the third team, Terence & Sarah put on their co-dependent pants early this morning. After Terence is hit in the head with the hatchback of the their taxi, he starts making out that he's been gravely injured or something. Asking Sarah to mop up the copious amounts of blood that must surely be gushing from his head wound, he's angry when she can't see where it is. That's because it's basically a tiny dot right at his hairline that has already clotted. Dear Terence: man up, please.
Hey, did you know Kelly & Christy had bad marriages? I sure didn't. I don't know why they don't talk about this more. Apparently, this is one of the big advantages they have over the other teams, but I'm a bit puzzled as to how quitting something (however valid your reason may be) gives you experience for a race.
Time for this week's airport drama – there's one flight out in the morning and it's basically full, with the next flight not until the afternoon. Seeing the long lineup at the counter, the airline decides to bring in a larger plane to take all of them. Tina immediately takes credit for this decision, at which I cannot roll my eyes enough. She then tries to brag this up to the other teams, who thankfully are having none of this.
We don't hear much from the trailing teams, except for Anthony and Stephanie, who talk about how the race will give them the money they need to get married. They must want to copy Celine Dion's wedding. I'd hope that Anthony would start with buying a T-shirt that fits first.
Marisa gives us the episode title for the night, after handing a piece of candy to the airline agent. Because giving colored sugar to a woman who lives in a country that has so much sugar they burn it for fuel is such a treat.
More drama comes from the lineup to get on the plane, since the seats aren't assigned. Ken and Tina operate under the principle that since they somehow got the bigger plane (again, yeah right), they have choice of seat by default. The other teams are going under the thought of whoever's in line gets on first. Unless there's something on the tickets about this, I side with the latter group.
This puts Terrance and Tina in pretty direct conflict, and no possible winner for us, the viewing public. Tina's not saying the other teams owe them anything, but she can't think of a different way to finish that sentence. Honestly, you only hurt your own team's chances by helping the other teams to get there.
Ken pulls some major alpha dog BS, calling Terrance "honey" and kissing him on the cheek, while Tina talks to him like a six-year-old. Can this plane crash?
Karma arrives instantly, as the teams overrun the domestic arrival (you didn't leave the country, dumbasses), and Terrance and Sarah end up in the lead, and Ken and Tina end up waaaaay back.
Anthony and Stephanie end up last though, after Anthony decides he's going to push start the stalled cab they picked. Dude, this is not the time for macho mechanic tricks to try and impress your girlfriend. Get another cab and go!
At the beach, each team gets into a dune buggy that will take them to the next clue, which turns out to be the Detour. They have to choose between bringing a boat in from the water with a log rolling system and solving the Da Vinci Code. Sort of. They'll have to hunt through a computer database to find a shipping container, and then locate it in a shipping yard. Most teams, sensibly, choose the boat option, except for Mark and Bill, who seem like the cypherin' type. Needing a hardhat, they place it over their Tilley hats, making them look even dorkier than would have been thought possible. Wait... Yoda impression? We have a new benchmark.
Terrance and Sarah finish their task first and now are told to go by taxi to a nearby park. They almost immediately lose their lead by going on walkabout, not even bothering to look for race arrows. Nick and Starr take advantage of this, jumping ahead. Kelly and Christy could grab second but make one of the dumber mistakes I've ever seen a team make. Reading the other Detour clue, they decide there's an unmarked container they have to bring with them. Not seeing one around, they freak out and start digging in the beach. The fact that no other team is doing this seems to at no point enter their mind. I can only wonder what the boat team that gave them their clue is thinking.
They're not the only dumb ones, though, with Terrance and Sarah employing the strategy of stopping every car and seeing if it's a cab. That's how Brazil works, apparently! Terrance amazingly suggests they stop for ice cream. I may owe Tina an apology, as he might actually be six. Teams stream by them, driving them nuts as to why they won't stop – I wonder why? – but they only belatedly think to go back to the starting point of the Detour. Tina, meanwhile wonders why they didn't stop to help, while Ken sighs and thinks about which other racer or racers he wants to sleep with. He's probably not ruling out the dudes either. I mean, it would hurt her more, right?
Kelly and Christy finally realize their error once they reach the cab, and resolve to "Read. The. Clue", which seems kind of basic, but there you go.
Mark and Bill reach the park and find the Roadblock first (and are told to have their cabs wait), which tells them to locate their next destination from a clue on the wall in front of them, which stretches out for a hundred feet or so. They're told to embrace the laid back lifestyle to solve their challenge, which really isn't all that helpful, as it turns out. Bill gets the call for his team, trying to search for any hints he might find on the wall, including symbols and a repeating number. There's a big list of destinations on the end and a repeating number 11. He tries the 11th with the waiting clue-giver, which isn't the right one. Going back, he realizes that brute force might get him there faster, which doesn't make this much of a test. In fact, we're not shown any other way to do this, which means this might be the way they intended it. Tina unfortunately sees him doing this, and starts writing down all the place names as well.
After rattling off the list, he gets to the right one, and is given the final clue of the day. The Pit Stop is at children's park across the city, meaning we've got a cab race ahead of us.
Remember two paragraphs ago when Kelly and Christy had supposedly learned their lesson? Yeah, not so much. They've let their taxi go, and as we've seen from Terrance and Sarah's grand adventure, they're not so easy to come by. Screwing up a clue twice in one day should be an instant elimination. Seriously, Phil should just step out and pull them off the leg and send them on the first plane back.
After the cab race to the finish, we've got a footrace, between Ken and Tina and Mark and Bill – guess if the videogame nerds win! Ken and Tina are given a set of offroad vehicles for winning the leg, and it's probably a good thing they're given a prize that's separable. That leaves Mark and Bill in second place.
At this point, the Roadblock turns into the Funniest. Challenge. Ever. Perhaps they were on to something with this "oversimplified" business as it is both revealing of teams and throws some off their games.
Some hit on the brute force idea, while others team up, or pretend to. Nick goes around making "alliances" with other teams to share info, but once he realizes they can't just give him the info, pushes them aside. Yeah, that won't come back to haunt you.
Kelly and Christy are third "away" from the Roadblock, but are now stuck without a cab. They're passed by Aja and Ty, Terrance and Sara and Toni and Dallas (who have been basically invisible this leg).
The hope is that they can find one before all of the soopergeniuses left at the wall (Nick, Anthony, Andrew and Marisa) can puzzle out the Roadblock. Anthony is frustrated by all the words, Andrew is barely making the connection between this wall and the race, Nick has run out of smart people to mooch off and Marisa... well, Marisa offers the helpful comment that she thinks "it's something on this wall", which immediately vaults to the top of the list of the dumbest things anyone's said on the race.
At the mat, Terrance and Sarah squeeze in for third, just ahead of Aja and Ty and Toni and Dallas, making a case for both being as irritating as possible and being quietly competent.
Seconds after Nick promises to share info with Andrew, he figures out the Roadblock and skedaddles away as fast as he can. I think every team will actively try and screw these guys over now. Meanwhile Kelly and Christy figure out their cab was waiting for them the whole time. There seems to be no middle to their intelligence.
We're down to our last three teams, and our poor suffering clue giver must now listen to all these destinations read off to him, poorly, in broken Portuguese. It starts to wear on him a bit and he even finishes off a few for the racer, just to end his misery a little faster. Notably, Marisa doesn't even get close to the actual destination pronunciation, but he gives it to her anyway. This prompts her to boast, "South Carolina girls are not stupid!" I'm afraid I'm going to require more evidence.
Nick and Starr and Kelly and Christy become teams six and seven, leaving one of three teams to be deservedly eliminated. Andrew and Dan and Marisa and Brooke at least know to hustle, and find their way to the mat in eighth and ninth, though it's not looking good for these groups. Anthony and Stephanie are bid adieu, and I kind of wonder if this isn't just cover for Anthony not wanting to get married. But hey, he says, at least he has his looks. Ummm....
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