The Amazing Race 23: Episode 3
The Amazing Race 23: Episode 3
By Daron Aldridge
October 14, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Before we find out which, here's my Power Ranking heading into this leg:
1. Jason & Amy: Dating New Englanders
2. Chester & Ephraim: Friends and former Houston Texans teammates
3. Travis & Nicole: Married ER doctors
4. Tim & Marie: Exes from New Jersey
5. Brandon & Adam: Friends and beard enthusiasts or Team Beardo
6. Ally & Ashley: Members of the LA Kings Ice Crew
7. Tim & Danny: Childhood friends from Oklahoma or Team Okies
8. Leo & Jamal: Cousins/Afghanimals
9. Nicky & Kim: Baseball wives
The last leg ended in a fairly dramatic fashion with the Afghanimals at each other's throats and the baseball wives (or the bunnies as they call themselves) in tears from the stress of the Race. Among other issues, that's partly why I put hem this low on the totem pole.
It's 6:27 p.m. in Santiago, Chile, and first place team Chester & Ephraim is ripping into the next clue. With an ultimate destination of Lisbon, Portugal, the guys head to a travel agent to secure tickets.
Just how far behind did the cab-paying snafu for Leo & Jamal put them? Twelve minutes. That’s a great reminder that editing on this show is everything, especially when they are wringing drama from a situation that isn’t as close as it appears during the broadcast. Anyway, the cousins seem to have rebounded (or regressed) to their old ways of hyperactivity and being very, very loud. The guys branch out on their own a bit by heading directly to the airport to secure tickets rather than the more popular travel agent route.
About 20 minutes later, Brandon & Adam are heading to the same travel agent as the NFL-ers. Said agency gets even more hairy (if that’s possible with Team Beardo on the premises) when Mr. & Mrs. Drs. Travis & Nicole show next. Each of the three teams is trying to suss out the earliest arrival time from their agent but one of them encounters a big, ol’ whoopsie.
Our friendly neighborhood bearded fellows ask the Drs. what arrival time they got, to which Travis tells them 7 a.m. through Sao Paulo. Chester & Ephraim overhear this and are perplexed because they were told by their agent; they had the last seats on that plane. Apparently, the agent actually booked them on the same flight for the FOLLOWING day and when she went back to switch it, as expected, the right flight is full. That sound you hear is the deflating chances of the former NFL-ers of surviving this leg or it could also be the horrible Houston fans that were cheering the injury of their own struggling quarterback Matt Schaub. Either way…this is shaping up to be a bad Sunday to be associated with the Texans.
Agent Double Uh-Oh now begins to work on another itinerary to get them in close to the original 7 a.m. time. Meanwhile, at the airport, the Afghanimals have opted for a flight connecting through London and arriving in Lisbon at 11 a.m. Oblivious to when the other teams are flying, the cousins are happy to only share the believed-to-be-awesome flight with Team Ice Girls Ally & Ashley. Even after just the first couple of teams, the show is already subjecting the team and the viewers to some of the most complicated travel days the Race has had in a long time. I will attempt to navigate this muddled flight mess.
Let’s take a brief break from wading through those waters to check in with daters Jason & Amy. They accurately point out the fact that they have struggled with the things that are out of their control, like taxis and flights. Sounds like a perfect segue into their cab ride to the airport. And what happens? Their driver smashes into the car in front of them. Before Jason can get the guy to pop the trunk so he can flag down another cab, so they aren’t delayed, the car they hit just lets them go. Huh? They didn’t exchange information or anything. Clearly, this is a foreign country.
At the travel agency, both Beards and footballers are booked for a flight via Sao Paulo arriving at noon. So, unbeknownst to them, it’s not that horrible of a flight. Unfortunately, they are stuck with the knowledge that Travis & Nicole will arrive five hours sooner.
The last four teams to leave the mat are Team Okies Tim & Danny, Ice girls Ally & Ashley, the exes Tim & Diablo Marie and bringing up the rear baseball wives Nicky & Kim. Marie once again reminds us that they will happily entice and extract useful information from other teams with a promise of the prospect of receiving the Express Pass. As soon as they get to the airport, that’s exactly what she does…scouting out her prey.
While everyone is showing up at the airport, Ephraim gets a phone call from the travel agent who flubbed their earlier reservation. Fueled by guilt, the agent had been looking for better flights and came up with an option but a risky one. The new route would be through two connections (Buenos Aires and then Madrid) but if it goes as scheduled, they would land at 7 a.m. The guys roll the dice and take the risk on the two connecting flights. Gonna be really good or really bad for Chester & Ephraim. Or it could be a nefarious plan by the agent, a secret Texans fan who also revels in misery for its own players.
The Ice Girls show up and immediately reconnect with Leo & Jamal, who inform them of their flight plans through London. As they are setting the girls up with the ticket info, Leo suggests that they share the plan with OK-Tim & Danny, so they will have a third team to compete against in case there are any delays.
Danny is rightfully skeptical of the cousins’ eagerness to share their flight plans but tentatively agrees to it. As they are booking, vulture Marie swoops in to scout out information and of course, reminds the boys they have an Express Pass to give away. Once again, a team doesn’t take her bait. They simply tell her that they are just making sure they didn’t overlook an earlier flight option.
While the onlooking Afghanimals think the OK boys are going to crack under pressure from Marie, the reality is that Danny has figured out Leo’s plan to have them along the way as an extra team to up their chances in a head-to-head race for last. The boys wisely bail on the London connection and get a flight through Madrid that lands at 10 a.m. Plus, the guys have picked Leo & Jamal as their U-Turn target if given the chance.
Baseball wives, on the other hand, have secured seats on the same Sao Paulo connecting flight landing at noon as the exes and Jason & Amy.
As Chester & Ephraim embark on their risky three-flight journey to Lisbon, Adam gets a call from the NFL-ers’ travel agent and she tells him of the same 10 a.m. flight through Madrid that OK is on. The boys are elated and dash to their gate.
The next flight to leave Chile is heading to Sao Paulo with the doctors, the baseball wives, the exes and Jason & Amy. Even though they are the only ones with definite tickets on the earliest flight, Travis is anxious that another team will find a way on it. Finally, the Race husbands and wives are in the air for an 11 a.m. arrival time.
While all this is happening for the other teams, the next bad break occurs for Chester & Ephraim. Their first connection in Buenos Aires is delayed by four hours. So they are now scrambling for alternatives and eventually end up trying to reconnect with the other teams in Sao Paulo. Or so they thought. Seated on the plane waiting, another delay is announced. These fellows cannot catch a break this leg…at all. They may have the worst travel luck in the history of this show.
Speaking of scrambling, the exes, MLB wives and Jason & Amy are doing just that to get to the ticket counter in Sao Paulo to get first on the standby list for Travis & Nicole’s first flight.
Unfortunately, the counter doesn’t open until an hour before. So they camp out with Jason & Amy and then Tim & Marie. Meanwhile, Nicky & Kim are MIA and just playing rather brilliantly. They visit the airline’s executive lounge and see about getting put on the standby list at the lounge. And it works. So while I wrote them off heading into this episode as not being emotionally prepared for the stress of the Race, they pull off a very smart move.
Of course, Amy is not too pleased that they horn their way to the front of the line to confirm their standby status when the gate opens. While Marie declares the wives are dead to her, she does acknowledge that they pulled a move that she would do herself and didn’t expect from them. They gained from respect from a person that they probably don’t want to be respected by in the real world.
In addition, Amy’s frustration is also not much of an issue since she and Jason are also on the same flight with the doctors and the baseball wives arriving first at 7 a.m. This leaves bitter exes Tim & Marie hanging out solo in Sao Paulo for their last flight.
Dejected and resigned to the idea that they are in last place, the exes board the plane but Chester & Ephraim are sprinting through the Sao Paulo airport to catch that same flight, which is that last one of the day. And has the guys’ bad flight luck finally run out and something happens for them in a good way? Of course not…they miss the plane.
Chester & Ephraim are unofficially out of contention for anything but last place this leg and this episode can now be subtitled “Foregone conclusion.” They are trying to edit it to paint a different picture but we know. Their next flight through London just seems cruel. Also, I feel compelled to point out that we are 23 minutes into this episode and the teams haven’t done a single challenge. Jockeying for flights is not the most entertaining way to have a leg unfold or be recapped.
The first flight arrives on schedule and the teams quickly grab cabs to the first destination, which must be reached by a trolley car. Leaving the girls in their dust, Travis & Nicole and Jason & Amy board the trolley. Together they reach the spot where a singer and band are there to greet them and give them a painting. The catch is that there are no instructions or hints, just the canvas painting. Phil lets us know they must find out that have to go to the Portugal’s National Coach Museum. As a pedestrian directs them to the right location, Nicky & Kim arrive not too far behind.
The rush is on for them to stay at the front of the pack, so they quickly locate the clue box in the museum. It’s Detour time: Miles or Tiles. For Miles, they have to use a giant compass and a huge marble-looking map in a plaza area to add up the total miles that Magellan covered from 10 different stops on his journey around the world. The answer is 16,500 and they have to get within 500 miles. For Tiles, the team has to recreate a tile puzzle of a person that stands about 4.5 to 5 feet tall.
The leaders decide to work together and head to Miles. At the map, Jason and Travis do the measuring between marked points on the map, while both the ladies do the math. This is an alliance that I can wholly support.
While Nicky & Kim decide to tackle to Tiles task, the other two teams have conquered Miles on the first guess and gotten their next clue pointing them to Clube Portugues de Tiro a Chumbo. Meanwhile, Team Beardo and the Okies have landed and are finally starting the challenge portion of this really long leg.
Nicky & Kim are making solid progress on Tiles and the leaders are now at the next clue box, which is the Roadblock asking, “Who has a hand for slings and arrows?” They have to use a giant ballista (crossbow) while wearing medieval chainmail and a helmet to shoot an arrow at a shield. Their next clue is written on the back of the shield. Travis and Jason step up for their teams.
Jason was one shot and done. He and Amy are now heading to the Pitstop at Castelo dos Mouros. Finishing up the Detour, Nicky & Kim get the thumbs up from the artist at the Tiles task and they’re now Roadblock-bound.
With their painting in hand and not sure what to do with it, OK-Tim & Danny suggest working with Brandon & Adam to figure it out. Team Beardo is cool with that, as they seem to be pretty cool with anything, except helping Marie that is.
Overcoming heat and a bit of frustration, Travis adjusts his aim and tries a few more times before he hits the mark as well. Nicole estimates they trail the dating couple by about seven minutes. And that is about all the time they need because once again, Jason & Amy have the unfortunate luck of getting a bad cabbie but their frustration and disagreement on which Castelo dos Mouros sign is the right one shows that they are at least human in how they treat one another. Their argument isn’t rooted in ridiculing one another and name-calling like Tim & Marie resort to.
That’s all it took for Travis & Nicole to claim that first place spot they just missed out on at the end of the first leg. For their efforts, they are also awarded a tropical vacation. As number two, Jason & Amy explain they got twisted around and Jason admits it was his mistake. To her credit, Amy isn’t shown rubbing it in that she was right. Again, there’s the difference between this team and Marie’s approach to social skills.
On the ground in Lisbon, we finally have the Ice Girls and Afghanimals, who unsurprisingly continue to follow one another around from cluebox to cluebox. At the coach museum, the temporary teamwork of Team Beardo and the Okies is over as Brandon & Adam go for Tiles and oil workers OK-Tim & Danny head to Miles.
With the arrival of Ex-Tim & Marie, the city of Lisbon just got a little bit less hospitable. We haven’t checked in with the sad tale of the leg in a while, so cut to Chester & Ephraim sauntering through London Heathrow to a departures monitor. What do they see? A delay notice for their flight to Lisbon. Not only is it delayed but it’s delayed until 9 p.m.!! Yeah, a non-elimination is the only thing to save them at this point.
Shockingly, Kim, who is a raw emotional nerve on tasks, volunteers for the Roadblock and deftly handles the ballista with only two attempts needed. They are off to see Phil.
Toggling between Okies’ Miles and Beardo’s Tiles, we get to see Adam expertly handle the tile puzzle but it’s still more time-consuming of a task. Then OK-Tim misses the mileage guess by 10,000 miles because he forgot to place a zero at the end. A dramatic eyeroll from “Magellan” is given but so is the clue. They are heading to the Roadblock with just a bit of a lead on Brandon & Adam.
At Phil, Nicky & Kim are checked in as number three and I am officially wrong for underestimating them on the strategic side of game play. I just didn’t anticipate that the airport would splinter teams off this much and it worked in these girls’ favor in a major way.
Danny is attempting the Roadblock for his team while Leo & Jamal and Ally & Ashley are struggling with the Miles tasks. First, the cousins guarantee they will get it on the first guess. They don’t. Then when Ashley questions their measuring that had him sailing across continents, they concede that’s a good point. We get another eyeroll from our on-scene Magellan when Jamal suggests that he sailed through the Panama Canal and that nautical miles aren’t the same as regular miles. Several very poor guesses later and they both switch to Tiles.
Danny is now done and Team Okies is off to the Pitstop with Team Beardo in their rearview mirror, thanks to Adam being a one-and-done with the Roadblock arrow. OK-Tim & Danny beat them to Phil as number four with the Brandon & Adam as number five.
The Ice girls show up at Tiles before Leo & Jamal and get to work. Once the Afghanimals arrive, Jamal admits that Ashley was right about choosing this task over the other one. Peeved, Ashley scolds her Race husband to “Next time, listen to the blonde girl.”
As the girls are nearing completion of their tile puzzle, nobody’s favorite team shows up at Tiles – Exes Tim & Marie. The girls get their clue and move along to the Roadblock. Jamal then tries to plant the seed of doubt in the mind of Marie that they have been there for two hours and the girls were there even longer. While Marie stays focused on just doing the task and not using the Express Pass, Tim is thinking they should.
Alas, after Leo & Jamal get their next clue, Marie wins out and basically pushes Tim out of the way since he wasn’t helping anyway. Marie explains in their interview that she is glad that she took the lead on this task and that Tim will have other tasks more suited for him. This earns a confused expression from him and then she admits that she was just saying that for the camera because she doesn’t think there is anything he can do better but wanted him to not seem like a horrible partner. Wow…this woman is devoid of self-awareness and how she presents herself. Amazing and disturbing.
At the Roadblock, Ally and Jamal are the ones up for their team and they both get it done relatively fast but the guys are just ahead of them. But doing the Roadblock actually faster is Ex-Tim. He only needs one shot to get the shield and they are now all heading to Phil, unaware that Chester & Ephraim are the true last place team.
The alliance hits the mat together with Leo & Jamal as number six and Ally & Ashley as number seven. Thankfully Phil pulls a “You’re the last team to arrive….except for one” on Tim & Marie, just to scare them. Of course, she claims she wasn’t scared.
In a very rare move, Phil greets Chester & Ephraim at the Lisbon airport. As Chester immediately states, “Uh oh…that’s not good.” Phil breaks the news to them and seems genuinely disappointed for them to not be able to compete on this leg. The guys suggest they’ll now just try to get another flight home. Phil brilliantly says, “Good luck with that.”
I am sad to see them go and this may be the most disappointing very early elimination to me since Zev & Justin on their first time around.
Next week could prove to be a great one with Tim & Marie having to give someone the Express Pass and Nicole not playing their game. The preview shows Nicole offer them vital directions to a location but they have to hand over the Express Pass first. Marie says to tell them first. Nicole’s response to Travis, who is driving? “Okay…we’re leaving.” I like them even more now.
Until next week, have a good one.