The Amazing Race 14, Episode 1 Part 2
Don't Let a Cheese Hit Me
By David Mumpower
February 17, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
A promise has been made by the producers of The Amazing Race for Season 14. They swear not to spend an inordinate amount of team on airport sequences since everyone rightfully despises them for being so boring. Almost no one winds up spending all the money they will need for the next leg on overpriced tennis shoes. Without moments of stupidity such as that, airport scenes are every bit as entertaining as hanging out at the actual airport, and they don't even offer the excitement of being interrogated as a potential terrorist threat by the good people at Homeland Security. It's bad television, pure and simple.
Keeping this in mind, the twin trips to Zurich and Milan largely pass without incident. A few contenders are shown debating the choices, but the entire segment is largely a wash. Kisha and Jen demonstrate a bit of forward thinking as they announce to the camera that their research uncovers the trip from Milan to Locarno, Switzerland as being a shorter one than Zurich. Other than this bit of strategy, almost all of the dialogue shown is of the "getting to know you" variety wherein the viewer becomes more familiarized with the motley crew of contenders. This leads to the following nugget of biographical confusion.
"I think the other teams might think my dad is Cloris Leachman but he's really MacGyver." - Mike White, making an utterly inscrutable comment about either network television or parenthood or both.
I spent a lot more time trying to figure out what that could possibly mean than I would like to admit. In the end, I had to wash my hands of it as it is as unknowable as who built the pyramids, what happened to the Roanoke Colony, and how Paul Walker continues to get acting gigs. I was happy to discover that Cloris Leachman is still alive and hearty at the tender age of 82. The actor who played MacGyver is also alive but judging by that horrible Pepsi commercial during the Super Bowl, his career is not. Sorry, Patty and Selma, it's true.
In Europe, home of all those people who despise any and all Americans, Preston and Jennifer discuss the fact that she has never in her life been in a train station. She manages to continue that streak as they become the only team to miss the first train out of Zurich. Considering the fact that the train station is physically located inside the airport, this is a rather amazing feat of hopeless wandering. They handle it like pros, though. Preston only threatens to beat Jennifer within an inch of her life rather than actually physically striking her. Valentine's Day was specifically invented for them. Of this I am sure.
"You say stuff that just irritates me because you don't think. Maybe you need to control your mouth." -- Preston, the 2009 answer to Romeo Montague of Verona.
While the show has promised not to focus as much on the inside of airports, they have also announced an intention to demonstrate some scenic wonders of the world. The train ride from Zurich to Locarno accentuates this philosophy. Shots of mountain top cottages and thousand feet tall waterfalls have me dialing up my travel agent before I remember that the economy has collapsed and staycations are the trips of choice for Americans in 2009. But if someone can direct me to a Swiss Alps webcam or two, I'm all over that. Brad is with me on this, as the scenery and the experience reduce him to tears while his wife openly mocks him for the emotional outburst. Maybe she needs to control her mouth.
Christie and Jodi catch the biggest break of the first half of this episode. The outgoing women strike up a conversation with a woman currently residing in the area. As fate would have it, she has the exact same destination as the contestants do and promises to take the women where they need to go. Of course, this advantage would be for naught if the other travelers witnessed them departing with a local. Aware of this, the flight attendants sneak off while the others are busy studying their maps of the area. After a time, the others alert one another that a team is missing but the damage is done by then. Christie and Jodi are the first team to arrive at Church of San Antonio (all glory to Tim Duncan). Of course, the reward for this is slight. Teams will camp overnight and the first four will be allowed to proceed at 7:15 a.m., the next three will depart at 7:30 a.m. and the final four exit at 7:45 a.m. So, Christie and Jodi have bought themselves only a half hour over the last teams to arrive at this particular bunching.
The groupings are as follows: Tammy and Victor finish second, Margie and Luke are third, and Mark and Michael wind up fourth. These four teams will get to leave at 7:15 a.m. The trio of 7:30 departures are (in order of initial arrival) Brad and Victoria, Jaime and Cara, and Mel and Mike. The quartet of teams who will leave at 7:45 are Kisha and Jen (so much for that prep work, ladies), Amanda and Kris, Steve and Linda and (much later) Preston and Jennifer. These last two couples bicker the entire way to the sign-up sheet. I could do a research paper debating which duo is more combustible, but Steve and Linda are in the lead at the moment since Steve is making Linda cry. One of the oldest competitors this season, her physical weakness already stands out as problematic.
Nothing beats a good cup of coffee in the morning...except for bungee jumping from the second highest bungee equipment in the world. This is the thought process for today's first event. The contestants must race to Verzasca Dam, strap on a bungee and hope/pray that there is no manufacturing error with hardware. I am notorious for not being afraid of anything yet even I went a bit pale when I saw the distance from which the racers are expected to dive headfirst. I'm expecting multiple freakouts here.
While Christie and Jodi were very lucky yesterday, they quickly realize that reversals of fortune come hard and fast on The Amazing Race. Simply by going one way instead of another, they miss the area where taxis are available, causing them to fall behind all three of the other 7:15 departures. In fact, they waste so much time awaiting the arrival of a taxi that one of the 7:30 teams passes them as well. Of course, it could just be a subtle form of stalling, delaying the inevitable bungee jump a bit longer. I wouldn't blame them for it.
Mark and Michael were last to arrive at the encampment out of the 7:15 grouping, but they are the first to arrive at the bungee jump of doom. This is important because only one person may go at a time, creating swings of about ten minutes per jump. The difference between first and last place this morning was only a half hour at the start. Just the difference between the first and fourth teams to do the bungee jump will be more than that. The last team to perform this task is going to be in a lot of trouble if there is not a later bunching in store for all 11 teams. Of course, there is another factor here that comes back to bite the stuntmen. The first person to have their equipment on gets to go first independent of order of arrival. Victor's speed in strapping on the safety harnesses that are there to save his life may not be the savviest move in terms of survival instinct, but it does make him the first (insane) bungee jumper.
Surprisingly, the experience looks like a blast. In point of fact, several of the contestants who make the leap of faith are jubilant as gravity pulls them down and they remain on an adrenaline-based high for quite a while afterward. The order of departure from the first groupings is Tammy and Victor followed by Mark and Michael, Margie and Luke (who signs "That was so cool. I loved it!"), and Mel and Mike. While they make their jumps and exit the area, two notable events occur. The first is that the flight attendant who will perform the task, Jodi, gets a little bit more terrified with each passing jump. The second is that Steve is apparently not content just to make his wife cry. He inexplicably starts talking smack to another team as they run to the bungee equipment. His ominous quote is, "You wanna think about it first. You know those things, they'll bounce back and and break your neck, don't you?" Even Preston would be horrified by that comment.
A dramatic commercial break is intended to make the viewer wonder if Jodi will chicken out, but her composure is remarkable relative to her innate fear of the jump. Her completion of the jump puts them smack dab in the middle in sixth place. The order of finish afterward is Kris and Amanda at 8:41 a.m., Jaime and Cara at 8:49 a.m., Preston and that bitch he hates at 8:58 a.m., Jennifer and Lakisha at 9:07 a.m., and finally Steve and the poor sucker who has been married to him for 17 years at 9:14 a.m. The half hour gap between seventh and last place is rather significant. Depending on what is in store for the contestants at the next challenge, the bottom three teams seem to be the likely contenders to be first ones out this season. Unless Linda picks it up, I expect Steve and her to go home first.
Up in the front of the race, Mel and Mike interrupt Victor's strange attempt at spy games. Knowing when a train is leaving and where it is going, he inexplicably tells the other two teams who are with his sister and him that he doesn't know if they are in the right spot. Moments later on the train, Mel indicates he has a very good read on Victor by saying, "Watch those guys. We're watching you. It's not that we don't trust you. It's just that we don't trust you." Good call, dude.
The next segment is an exercise in Three Stooges physics. Interlaken, Switzerland is the home of gigantic blocks of stackable cheese. Apparently. These 50 pound mini-Velveeta factories are produced at the top of a hill then carried down a jagged slope by people using what I may only describe as inverse rickshaws. As Reagen Sulewski points out, the set-up begs the question of why they didn't just make the cheese at the bottom of the hill, but that's interjecting logic into a situation utterly lacking it otherwise. What the contestants need to make happen is this. They must carry four blocks of cheese down from the top of the hill to the bottom. Should their cheap wooden carriage devices break, they may not be replaced. If said cheese escapes, they must chase it as gravity carries it far, far away. Knowing nothing else about the challenge, you should instantly realize that all of the devices are going to break and the cheese is going to roll for a while. In fact, I find myself wondering what sort of damage a block of 50-pound cheese could do if it were traveling 15 miles per hour downhill and suddenly smacked someone in the side of the head. And I am clearly not the only one who had that thought cross their mind as poor Mel plaintively begs his son, "Don't let a cheese hit me," thereby giving the episode its name.
Why is Mel so worried about unseen kamikaze cheese attacks? Like most contestants during this challenge, the older man experiences difficulty in standing while traversing the mountain side. In fact, he has to drop back on the seat of his pants and butt-crawl all the way down the hill. Any challenge that is crafted in such a way that this is understandable strategy is innately flawed yet here we are. It is the cruelest concept since last year's hurled-paint exercise that saw a contestant fall victim to rainbow bombardment from menacing strangers. Similarly, this challenge is carefully watched by cheering locals whose main pleasure comes from the breaking of the rickshaws, the tripping of the contestants and the chasing of the cheese. Admittedly, I got a pretty big kick out of the cheese-chasing as well, but the rest of it is bunk. This is an ill-defined competition that universally humiliates its participants.
Among the earlier challengers, Margie and Luke are the first duo to complete the challenge. Victor and Tammy and Mark and Michael almost simultaneously finish up behind them in a battle for second place with Mel and Mike currently in fourth. Everyone else is bunched on the course, fighting the wayward cheese.
Surprisingly, only one contestant has a good idea during the proceedings and it is Steve. As his wife hopelessly fails in her endeavors to climb the mountain, he realizes that a Hail Mary play is needed to save them from elimination. He comes up with a plan to roll 150 pounds worth of cheese down the hill using the wood device as a sled while asking his wife to carry only one as she follows the Mel strategy of butt-crawling down the slope. In this manner, he becomes the only contestant to make gravity work for rather than against a team. The end result is that they move up from last place after the bungee jump to sixth place after the final challenge of the leg. Outside of the frontrunner grouping, only Amanda and Kris finish ahead of them in this portion, an impressive accomplishment giving what a disaster this challenge looked to be for them.
Swapping with them in the sixth/last place slots are the flight attendants, who have once again had a reversal of fortune and gotten lost. The reason for this is that they have gotten on the wrong train. At the station, Brad and Victoria watch Christie and Jodi choose the option of getting on a train departing sooner. As the ladies depart to catch their ride, Brad whispers to the attendant that he wants tickets for the other train. Victoria questions this, wondering why they aren't taking the one leaving first. He calmly points out that simply looking at the arrival details plainly indicates that the one leaving last will arrive first. Because they took the wrong train, Christie and Jodi arrive last and they also tell the camera that they blame Brad and Victoria for lying right to their faces. This is not a 100% accurate interpretation of the events, but the married couple certainly could have lent a hand if so inclined. If the flight attendants are eliminated, it will be with Brad and Victoria's daggers hanging out of their backs.
Circling back to the front of the pack for a second, a wonderful moment occurs when Margie and Luke check in at the mat. Phil looks at them and then scores a lot of points with the home audience by signing, "Margie and Luke, you are team number one." That's grrrrrreat television right there. Moments behind them, Tammy and Victor and Mark and Michael finish in second and third place, respectively. Phil asks why being on the show was so important to Luke. His response, "A lot of people think deaf people can't do things, but deaf people can do it. They can do exactly what hearing people can do but not talk. I just want to show people that deaf people can do it." How touching is this moment? Victor breaks down and cries at the response. This appears to be homerun casting for CBS.
Among the remaining cheese chasers, Brad and Victoria are next to corral their cheese followed by Jaime and Cara and Kisha and Jen. These teams all move up a spot in the final rankings thanks to Steve and Linda getting lost on the way to the mat. Even when they do something right, they immediately take a step back toward failure.
The great news for the flight attendants is that when they arrive at Cheese Assault Mountain, there are still a handful of teams participating in the challenge. Even so, last place appears likely to come down to them or Preston and Jennifer, who experience a brief moment of solidarity while running down that cheese hill. At the parking lot outside where Phil is currently standing, Preston and Jennifer arrive first but Christie and Jodi arrive just behind them. This is the rare non-manipulated close ending of an Amazing Race leg. Sensing their opportunity, the flight attendants throw down their bags and begin to sprint to the finish line. Preston and Jennifer follow suit soon afterward, but Jennifer is simply too beaten down physically by the race itself and emotionally by her boyfriend. He winds up giving his girlfriend a piggyback ride to the finish line where they lose by about 15 seconds.
After elimination, Preston and Jennifer behave predictably. They profess their love for one another and say that they had decided this race would make or break their relationship. In their estimation, a last place finish is exactly the sign they needed that they are going to spend the rest of their lives together. Monogamists everywhere feel their relationships lessened by this declaration.