Amazing Race 15: Episode 2
By Daron Aldridge
October 9, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The producers delivered with fast-paced promises in the super-sized two-hour season premiere, so let's see if they keep the momentum going. Previously, we were treated to a surprise elimination while still on American soil and then after trotting across Japan to a Vietnamese pit stop/boat, sometimes dating but always fighting couple Garrett and Jessica are eliminated. We weren't attached to them after only two hours, so we move on.
This season is apparently so fast-paced that even the pit stop is moving. During the 12-hour break, the floating pit stop kept making its way down the river. By the time the first team (father and son Gary and Matt) leave at 5:45 a.m., the teams are nowhere near where they boarded. The first clue tells the teams to go to Ho Chi Minh and snatch the new clue from a water puppet dragon. Now the teams just need to figure out where they are.
Gary starts off saying that it is hard for him to let Matt be an adult and make decisions in this race but he is proud of the way Matt has performed so far. To break the serious, introspective tone, we hear Sam point out that even though he and Dan are both gay and obviously brothers, they are different in every other way. Sam proclaims that he is the easy-going one and Dan is extremely impatient. I would wager that potential drama is exactly why they got cast and is what they are foreshadowing here.
Shortly after Gary and Matt and the brothers leave, it's Flight Time and Big Easy's confessional time and Big Easy shares that just days before the race started his dad died. Easy's dad offered this bit of advice, "Win the damn race," and Easy is using his dad's memory and those words as his motivation.
It's time for our buddy Lance and his fiancee to depart next. Lance proudly describes the other teams as gazelles and they are the lions that will devour them in this race. "It's survival of the fittest," Lance says confidently. Whether deserving or not, Lance truly believes it for himself so it must be reality.
As Keri and Lance leave the pit stop, Keri says that she thinks they are already in Ho Chi Minh City, so they wander the streets of this unknown city looking for the dragon puppets. The first of what will surely be many fights happens with Keri starting to show her passive-aggressive colors when dealing with Lance. Before they realize that meandering is not exactly the best race strategy, Lance frustratingly describes the situation as "It's like being dropped on planet Mars." Thank you, Lance, for giving the showrunners their title.
So, the Globetrotters and Lance and Keri each have a point in my episode title game. It's time to get back to the race.
As the teams leave the pit stop and head on their two hour cab ride to Ho Chi Minh City, an emotional Marcy describes her father's experience of being shot down in Vietnam but persevering through it so he could be rescued. She is clearly moved to be here and she says that she wants to take it all in. Each season, I actually enjoy seeing these competitors slow down long enough to appreciate these places, because to paraphrase Marcy, you never know if you will be back here. I would hope that I'd do the same if I ever got to be on this show.
Only an hour and 15 minutes separate the first and last teams' pit stop departure times, so a major boneheaded move by anyone could doom them.
As the Amazing Race caravan of cabs arrives in Ho Chi Ming City, Flight and Easy are the first to get the clue from the dragon, followed quickly by Matt and Gary and then Zev and Justin. The unconventional clue (the producers love keeping these people on their toes) is a bullet that must be unscrewed to find a single stamp featuring the Ho Chi Minh City post office.
Matt and Gary reactively decide to run to the post office when a local tells them it is only a kilometer away. Whoops, that isn't right and sorry, my fellow Americans, you can't blame the metric system with this error rather the guy with no sense of distance. They head back to the cab to hopefully catch up with the others.
It's Detour time: Child's Play or Word Play. For Child's Play, the teams have to navigate a public park pulling a large concrete animal and collecting five balloons from around the park. For Word Play, they go to a hotel overlooking a traffic circle, have to find six Vietnamese characters on vehicles or drivers in traffic, then unscramble the letters for a common Vietnamese word and they can get a local to help. If it's me, I am going with Child's Play because it's clearly the more straightforward option. Word Play seems too convoluted even in this oversimplified explanation.
Flight and Easy are the first at the Detour, choose Child's Play and make steady progress. Fresh out of the "friend zone," newly dating couple Meghan and Cheyne retrieve the bullet clue from the dragon and head to the post office.
Congestion at the dragon clue is up next with brothers Sam and Dan, Lance and Keri, our elder statespeople Marcy and Ron, and poker girls Tiffany and Maria. One by one they get their bullet clue and are off to the post office...well, not everyone.
At this point, everyone leaves the dragon, figuring out that the stamp is in the bullet, except Lance and Keri. The Street Lawyer frantically and repetitively yells outside "Where's the clue? Where's the clue?" Keri isn't much assistance either as they berate one another about finding the clue. I defended Keri before but she has turned out to be as grating as he is abrasive. Thanks for the drama; we can take a commercial break now.
Welcome back, and Lance and Keri have taken five seconds to actually think and not just react. Lo and behold, they figure out they need to unscrew the bullet.
Dating Mika and Canaan have finally arrived at the dragon and takes the cutesy wording to "charm the dragon" too literally. Both Mika and Canaan break off some embarrassingly awkward dance moves. Oh naivete, thy name is Mika and Canaan.
We are then treated to the nice segue of Mika and Canaan's ridiculous dancing to Flight and Easy in the midst of the Detour walking past a random person in the park shaking their moneymaker. The guys playfully throw out a "Work it. Work It," as they pass by.
So far, Flight and Easy are the only ones at the Detour but the other teams are scrambling to get there.
Finally, Canaan just stretches over the water and grabs the clue from the mouth of a dragon puppet that zips by, just about the time that Ms. and Mr. America Ericka and Brian arrive. Brian grabs the clue easily and their team is in last, but right behind Mika and Canaan.
Meghan and Cheyne choose Child's Play as Flight and Easy finish up. The Globetrotters are still in the lead, albeit a slim one as there is still another task on tap.
At the post office, it's déjà vu as Lance and Keri once again mess up because of rushing around. They completely overlook the clue box outside and run around yelling "Where's the cluebox?" So they mixed up their repertoire a bit by adding "box" to the end of their shtick. They find it and while it isn't a devastating setback, it makes it painfully obvious that these two don't work well together at all.
Everyone has opted for Child's Play (I am feeling good about my armchair race instincts so far), or rather everyone but Marcy and Ron, who decide to try Word Play. Their first attempt at finding the six letters in traffic is unsuccessful. This could be a long afternoon for Team eHarmony.
Now partaking in Child's Play: the brothers, the poker girls, Matt and Gary, and Zev and Justin. Everyone wisely selects a relatively small animal but Zev and Justin foolishly grab a giraffe that they immediately have a problem with keeping balanced on the cart. Score one for gravity as the giraffe topples over and one of its ears breaks off. The boys scoop up the pieces (which is required in order to get their clue) and keep going.
Fulfilling their part of the previously dubbed (by me at least) Oblivious Alliance, Sam and Dan promise to help the girls with the physically demanding part of Detour but the girls let them off the hook when the wheel on their cart breaks. The girls go get their own new cart, so the brothers aren't slowed down. This is just the kind of maturity that I didn't want from the train wreck Tiffany and Maria have the potential to be.
Ericka and Brian show up at Child's Play and being the proud interracial couple they are, they select a zebra as their animal, dub themselves Team Zebra and to cap it off, they recreate Spike Lee's Jungle Fever poster with them interlocking fingers. While it might seem a bit showy and calculated, they are doing their darnedest to live up to their pledge to change perceptions about interracial couples.
Lance and Keri and Mika and Canaan are the last to show up at Child's Play as Meghan and Cheyne are the second team to finish the detour. As they kiss victoriously, Cheyne says that Meghan "tastes delicious and sweaty." With that, any viewer who was only half-heartedly watching just perked up and asked "What kind of task did they just finish?" There are too many places to take that comment and none of them live outside the gutter.
On their second attempt at the letters, Ron and Marcy get it but now they must unscramble them. Ron slowly starts looking around at all the words near them to "take in everything I see" to figure out the word. Did he forget this is a race?
Ericka and Brian, Tiffany and Maria, and Zev and Justin finish up the Detour but Zev is starting to show cracks in the calm he had with the ducks. His desperation about getting behind in the race causes him to snap at Justin and the balloon/clue lady. Calm down, buddy, or Justin is going to trade you to...
...Team Lance and Keri, who get strike three for carelessness. Keri is wandering around the park looking for the lady to give the balloons to while Lance unloads the animal. And again with the yelling, Keri spouts off "WHERE'S THE BALLOON LADY?" She is in such a rush that she ignores the lady standing right next to Lance. In Keri's defense, it was tricky because it's not like the lady was holding a bunch of balloons. Oh wait, she was.
While Lance and Keri are full-tilt boogie to their detriment, Ron and Marcy are crawling through the Word Play challenge. It's called a happy medium, people. Find it.
Speaking of team tortoise, Ron and Marcy are still just looking at the signs and words outside the traffic circle and hotel to see if they can figure it out. They have yet to take the clue's suggestion to ask locals for help deciphering it.
Flight and Easy show up at the Roadblock. Apparently, the Vietnamese people recycle everything and the teams must break down two VCRs into separate piles of parts. Flight jumps into the challenge and gets the now expected (at least from this team) encouraging words of "Hustle, hustle," and "You can do this," from Easy. Cheyne is representing his team, as is Matt.
Matt excitedly says that he's disassembled VCRs before just out of curiosity growing up. First, with the ducks and his experience with that and now this one, there might be producer influence at work here. If the next roadblock is to get a tattoo or recite all the lyrics on Metallica's And Justice for All, I am definitely crying foul that the producers are handing the race over to Matt and Gary.
Ron and Marcy are still trying on their own to figure out the word but the problem is they are trying to spell English words. I have a feeling that we are already looking at the last team to arrive and there is still 20 minutes left in the show.
Flight is the first done at the Roadblock and he and Easy try to find someone that knows where the pit stop, Unification Palace, is but they keep getting rejected.
By now, Brian and Sam are there working on the Roadblock for their teams. Matt's deconstruction expertise isn't coming in too handy after all as dear old dad Gary taunts his son with a "You're letting a surfer boy beat ya?" as Cheyne finishes. Matt wraps it and they are in third.
Flight and Easy are still directionless but see Meghan and Cheyne jump in a cab, so they follow in their own cab. While in pursuit, Easy declares, "We can beat them in a foot race...put money on that." I hope those words don't come back to haunt you, Easy.
Making a glorious fall from the middle of the pack earlier in the day to dead last, Ron finally asks a person and gets the answer instantly. Here's the main lesson: READ YOUR CLUE PEOPLE. Thank you, class dismissed.
As Tiffany starts the Roadblock with ignorance of and timidity toward the tools, Sam and Brian finish and bolt for the pit stop.
The aforementioned foot race is indeed on and Flight and Easy take first place. The guys couldn't out run Cheyne but Meghan wasn't fast enough. Way to go, Globetrotters, you're faster than a girl. Phil acknowledges that they are been running tight after three legs and Cheyne remarks that he has a feeling there will be a few more sprints to the finish with these guys. I think Cheyne is right and we are looking at two of the frontrunners this season.
At the Roadblock, Justin is struggling with the disassembly and Canaan and Mika arrive with Canaan opting to take on the VCRs. Gary and Matt land on the pit stop as team number three. Nearing the Roadblock, Lance and Keri's cabbie points them in the wrong direction and they begin wandering the streets and of course, fighting all the way, which is punctuated by a heartfelt "I am done with you" from Lance. They decide amongst all the bickering to get another cab. Keri insists, "I'll take my apology now." To which Lance replies, "If that's the case, then I'm sorry." I think that Elton John wrote "Can you feel the love tonight?" about these two lovebirds.
Ericka and Brian eagerly plant their feet on the mat as team number four. This is quite an impressive showing this leg, since they started out in last place.
Here's the status: Ron and Marcy and Lance and Keri are the only ones that have yet to reach the Roadblock, which Tiffany has finally finished. Sam and Dan hit the pit stop as team number five, which is a bit of slip from second place.
Lance and Keri finally get to the Roadblock and Canaan and Justin are still working on it. So what does a guy of Lance's physique do? That's right he hulks out on the VCRs and literally used his fists and brute strength to disassemble them because as he points out, "That is the man thing to do." Yeah, the Neanderthal man thing to do. He is clearly channeling Keyrock, SNL's Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. They are both lawyers and brutes. Coincidence? I think not. (SIDE NOTE: I miss Phil Hartman.)
Canaan finishes and he and Mika head out, followed by Justin and Zev and then Keyrock...I mean Lance and Keri. As they depart, Ron begins the Roadblock. It is not looking good for them.
Phil welcomes Tiffany and Maria as number six and Mika and Canaan as number seven. We see Ron finish up the Roadblock and it's time for the editing masters of the Amazing Race to give us some tension with all three remaining teams battling heavy traffic and slow cabs.
In reality, Lance and Keri and Zev and Justin are actually neck and neck but similar to the Globetrotter finish, it is a footrace and the team with two guys wins. Here is where Phil makes the most of his hosting duties. He references Lance's previous interview comment that he is the lion and happily points out that the gazelles and zebras are outrunning him. If only Lance would figure out you need more than overconfidence or talking a big game.
As you can deduce, Ron and Marcy are last and eliminated. Marcy contently notes that her dad taught her that "You can't hit a homerun unless you step up to the plate," and is happy with how they ran the race because she knows she stepped up to the plate.
Join The Amazing Race next week when one team loses their passports. I will get to praying now that it is Lance and Keri because that would result in an epic meltdown the likes of which TV has never seen.