The Amazing Race 23: Episode 4
The Amazing Race 23: Episode 4
By Daron Aldridge
October 21, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Before we get to the first clue-reading portion of the leg, here's a snapshot of my rankings for this week:
1. The aforementioned Drs. Travis & Nicole
2. Their alliance partners and dating New Englanders Jason & Amy
3. Bearded friends Brandon & Adam
4. Baseball wives Nicky & Kim
5. Team Okies Tim & Danny
6. Exes Tim & Marie
7. LA Kings Ice girls Ally & Ashley
8. Afghanimals/cousins Leo & Jamal
I've been thinking about the fact that the producers didn't give Chester & Ephraim an impromptu non-elimination last week because of woeful travel delays. Really, two explanations come to mind: either they were so far behind in time that the other teams basically started the next leg before Team NFL got to Portugal or the next leg itself didn't include a flight so there really wasn't a chance to level the playing field.
The timestamp onscreen for the doctors probably means my first guess is right. The married couple is leaving at just after 11 p.m. and based upon the delay last week for Chester & Ephraim, their flight didn't even leave London for Portugal until almost 10 p.m. There was simply no way for them to catch up after completing all tasks and fulfilling the required Pitstop break.
I will move on now forever more from the Houston Texans and focus on teams still in the hunt.
Just a few minutes after the doctors leave for a travel agent, Jason & Amy are off the mat. They explain that they are happy to be aligned with Travis & Nicole because the couple is a great example of marriage and the daters explain they are pleased with their "little Race family."
At the travel agency, Travis & Nicole get the disheartening but should be unsurprising news that there is only one flight the next morning all the teams will be on. Why "unsurprising"? Because it's the Amazing Race and airplanes usually keep one team from breaking away AND because they are heading to Norway and the Arctic Circle. I wouldn't imagine that there are a ton of flights from Portugal to the top of the world.
Here's a brief analysis of how different the last two legs were travel-wise: The last leg spent nearly a half an hour or half the episode in airports; This leg spends not even half minute in the airport. Not wasting any time with delays and missing flights this time around.
When they land they must then all take a ferry to their next destination. So we get a quick look at the ferry ride with a few too many of the teams impersonating Titanic’s Jack Dawson. How many is too many for this tired movie impression? Anything more than one is too many for my tastes.
As they enjoy the three hour boat ride (which hopefully will not end like Titanic or even Gilligan's Island), the teams explain that since they are on the top of the Earth, the sun is completely out and it's 11 p.m. Poor Ice girl Ally just can't spit out the phrase "the sun doesn't set." Maybe I should retract my previous assessment of them not being "dumb blondes".
The second clue of this leg is the Detour: Hang your Heads or Hammer of the Cods. For Heads, each team has to use a spiked pole and line/rope to string together 6 sets of ten fish heads, then transport them in a wheelbarrow up a road to a place for them to be dried on a marked pole. For Hammer, the team has to locate a 30 foot tall structure with hundreds and hundreds of pairs of cod. They have to pull down 15 pairs of cod from the top rows and then walk them to a warehouse. In the warehouse, they must then use a hammer to pound out one kilogram of cod jerky, which I didn't even know was a foodstuff until now.
All the teams have opted for Hang your Heads, except two...team Okies and the baseball wives. Both tasks seem very physical but Hammer seems even more, so I am stunned the wives go with it.
This time of night (?) makes it difficult to get a cab but there are surprisingly a decent amount of people on streets. The first team to get a cab is the one team I wish had fallen off the ferry...Tim & Marie. With this fortunate taxi luck, they’re the first ones to the Detour.
Meanwhile, the other teams seem content with just listening to each other complain about the lack of cabs. For me, I am baffled that several of the teams balked at just walking to the Detour because it is 2 km up the road (or just a bit over a mile). Alas, here we are with team after team just choosing to wait for the previous teams’ cabs to return. Jason & Amy snag the exes' cab and then point him to return for Travis & Nicole.
While all that doing nothing but waiting is occurring, Brandon & Adam just hoof it to the Detour like a couple of hosses. As OK-Tim & Danny are also walking toward the Detour, they snag a cab of their own. Also, finally walking it out are the Ice girls and Afghanimals with the baseball wives securely in last at this point.
At Head, Marie is being her usual pleasant self and yelling at Tim to hurry since the other teams are showing up. Of course, when Team Beardo shows up in second, Marie "jokingly" prods Tim to hurry because Brandon & Adam are used to “doing disgusting things all the time.” Maybe someone could sneak a copy of How to Win Friends & Influence People into this woman’s backpack. Probably not good idea because she would likely just use it to hit Tim.
The fish head stringing portion of the challenge itself doesn't seem to be causing a migraine for anyone. They are all just tackling the most disgusting task so far this season, which is amplified by the sound of each fish head being skewered. The exes load up the wheelbarrow first and start the long trek to the drying station...all uphill it seems, too.
Productivity on the Head task seems to have doubled as soon as they no longer have to listen to Marie. Brandon & Adam are the next ones to head to the drying area with Jason & Amy not far behind followed by Travis & Nicole. That leaves Ally & Ashley and Leo & Jamal with some alone time at Hang your Head.
Over at Hammer, the boys are a bit displeased with the fact that they must carry all 15 pair or cods to the warehouse before making cod jerky. Danny does his best to collect them fast but no speed would be fast enough since OK-Tim is now essentially a cod coat rack. As they make steady but slow progress, Nicky & Kim finally arrive at Hammer and immediately regret their decision but stick with it.
A caravan of fish head cargo is making its way up the Norwegian countryside at this point with the exes still in the lead. As to be expected of such careless team, Marie fails to locate a pole that is marked with the Race colors to be used for drying. So ex-Tim is just slinging fish heads in the wrong spot.
Bringing up the rear of the caravan are the ice girls, who are actually gaining on Leo & Jamal, thanks to the boys’ wheelbarrow having a flat tire. As if schlepping 60 fish heads uphill wasn’t bad enough, throw in busted equipment and the Afghanimals let the temper tantrums fly.
Brandon & Adam have now joined the exes at the drying station and placed their fish in the correct spot. Our friendly fish head inspector gives a thumbs down to the exes…as expected…and a thumbs up to Team Beardo…as expected. Bring on the apocalyptic shrills from Marie about what “Tim” did wrong. She jumps at the chance to make Tim inspect and retie their bundles because it must have been his fault. While he does this unnecessary work, Marie uses her "go-to" move of asking Brandon for help and remind them of the Express Pass she has. Brandon (God love him) tells her, “I don’t know what we did different and I’m not going to look for you, you crazy harpy!” Ok, that last part was a bit of paraphrasing.
As they leave, the fellas openly mock Marie’s constant use of the Pass as a bargaining chip. I must add "failed" use of the Pass because no one has taken their offer seriously. Why? The guys explain that every other team has said that the exes have offered the Pass to them in exchange for help at some point, so they know there is no validity to the offer. Back to the next task at hand, Brandon and Adam are heading on foot to a high speed boat ride around the Arctic Circle, which will then drop them at their next clue.
While the exes scramble to find their error, Jason & Amy then pass them up with their next clue in hand and also provide no assistance to a pleading/yelling Marie. But the dating duo do explain to an approaching Travis & Nicole to be sure to put their fish on a marked pole. This makes me like the Boston couple even more because Amy intentionally withheld that info from Marie even though she knew that was their mistake. She’s a keeper, Jason.
We haven’t seen how the Hammer of the Cods is going in a bit. All draped in dead dried cod, OK-Tim ambles up the hill to the warehouse with Danny carrying their bags and a couple fish of his own. The amount of effort this task requires has me questioning the baseball wives' ability to complete it. But that’s getting ahead of myself because the ladies are still trying to trying to retrieve their fish with Kim climbing and Nicky carrying most of it.
While the doctors follow the advice of their Boston partners, Marie just follows them period. As Travis is hanging the fish, the lightbulb shines atop Marie's head that they were in the wrong spot. This unleashes yet another yelling fit in the direction of Tim to help her take them down and move them. Both these teams are now on their way to the boat ride.
As they leave, Marie takes the opportunity to mock the fact that the Ice girls and Afghanimals are together at the back of the pack. It's funny coming from a team that fell from first to fourth because of her own slip-up.
The cod jerky making is finally moving along with the Okies and there is no danger of them being passed on this task by the baseball wives. Poor Nicky is struggling in a fierce way with carrying the cod but keeps on going. I am impressed with how well they can handle the physical task but the mental ones usually result in tears, it seems.
Ally & Ashley and Leo & Jamal finish up their Detour without issue. That makes the exes the only ones that flubbed the task.
With Nicky & Kim finally delivering their cod and starting the hammer portion of the task, OK-Tim & Danny finish and honestly tell the ladies that it is very hard and they wish they had done the other option.
Cruising up to the next clue, Team Beardo is in first and gets to the Roadblock, which asks "Who's a real swinger?" Wait...what kind of challenge will this be during the family hour of television?
Oh, the person has to swing from a bungee cord off a bridge and then release themselves into the water below. They must then swim to a buoy for their clue and join their teammate on a boat. Don't forget...they are in the Arctic Circle.
Brandon dons the requisite wetsuit and takes the plunge with fervor. Like a fish or "seal shark" as Adam calls him, Brandon completes the Roadblock, has the clue and they are still securely in first place, heading out to the next clue. This is one very fast and furious leg.
Behind them are Jason & Amy, to which Jason steps up for them on this Roadblock. They might want to get Amy into some of these Roadblocks before long because at some point she is going to have to do some. He swings with no problem or fear but the release cord gets twisted around the bungee and he’s kinda just dangling there for what seems like minutes. This type of snag isn’t good since all the teams but Nicky & Kim are en route to the Roadblock.
One by one, the teams offer up a team mate to the icy waters of Norway: Nicole for the doctors, Ex-Tim, Ally, Jamal and OK-Tim. In this order but not really that close to one another time-wise, they all finish the task without a problem.
The trailing team of Nicky & Kim has hammered a sufficient amount of jerky and is off to the speed boats. Given the rapid clip that this leg is going, I don’t see how they can catch up and avoid elimination. Oh yeah…because I think it will be a non-elimination leg.
Team Beardo is now at the next task, which features super-liminal product placement. The teams have to select a certain 2013 pickup truck (the make and model of which are repeated over and over but I don’t give them the courtesy here). They must hitch a sled with a giant rock on it to their truck, chain the rock to the sled like an example shows and then drive forward far enough to reveal their clue. The clue is a parchment with ‘Viking Longhouse’ written on it and a bag of Viking coins.
The super outdoorsman nature of Team Beardo helps them rip through this rock-hauling task with ease and they quickly snatch up the clue and coins. They are off to see Phil. The boys’ rugged experience is equaled by Jason, who works for a snow plow company in Boston. So he is quite familiar with how to use chains and heavy equipment. Amy just beams with pride as he makes short work of the task. Clue and coins in hand, they are off.
Nicky has successfully completed the Roadblock for the baseball wives but they are still very much behind all the other teams, who are converging upon the rock sled task. Travis & Nicole don’t encounter any issue with their sled and get their clue and coins but the "rush rush rush" mentality of the exes has once again caused them grief. In her now usual haste, Marie scoops up the coins but doesn’t see/grab the parchment. They officially have no idea where they are going. The pressure of the other teams arriving was too much for her. In the car, they literally are just driving and wondering out loud if the destination is written on the coins.
A rift may be forming in the faux-Race marriage of Ally & Ashley and Leo & Jamal as they arrive close to one another at the task and the girls immediately see a problem for them. The truck is a manual transmission and they can’t drive a stick shift. When will teams learn that if you are going on the Amazing Race, you MUST learn to drive a manual transmission before the Race even begins or you will be in deep trouble at least once on the race?
The boys either don’t notice or care to help the girls figure it out because they are already chaining up their sled. In to save the day are the nice guys from Oklahoma. Once again, the guys offer assistance to the Ice girls and Danny actually helps them get their truck pointed in the right direction. OK-Tim is married with a baby but I think that the possibly single Danny is angling for the affections of the LA girls.
Team Beardo spies out their window what must be the Viking Longhouse and sprint through the doors. Planting their feet on the mat and looking like they belong right with these Viking impersonators, the guys are the first team to arrive and each get $5,000. However, that sneaky Phil whips out another clue and tells them they are still racing because this leg isn’t over yet. So, while I was wrong about it being a non-elimination, there still wasn’t a team eliminated. (My son’s reaction to the first "leg isn’t over yet" fake-out of the season… “WHAT?!?” Exactly, my boy, exactly.)
Before we get to the inevitable “to be continued…” splashed across the screen, we get to the Express Pass bartering teased last week. Travis & Nicole are searching for the Viking Longhouse, still in third behind Jason & Amy, when they pull up beside a clearly lost and confused Tim & Marie. With Marie trying to get them to tell them where they think the Pitstop is, Travis deduces that she hasn’t a clue at all. With authority, Nicole throws down the offer, “We will tell you where to go, but we WANT the Express Pass first.”
Marie hems and haws about it to which prompts the doctors to say, “All right…we’re leaving.” And then we see “to be continued…”
The previews don’t show much about how this plays out but if Marie was smart they would simply follow the doctors to the location. But then you run the risk that they will try to lose you and then you will really be screwed. Also, there is a wonderful Double U-Turn ahead.
Until next week, when we hopefully get a team eliminated at the end of this long leg, have a good one.