The Amazing Race 23: Episode 5
By Daron Aldridge
October 28, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Before we get to how that shakes out, here’s a reminder of my last power rankings at the proper start of this leg:
1. Drs. Travis & Nicole
2. 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
Rightfully picking up right where we left off, the doctors await an answer from the hesitant exes, who quickly debate the choice. Surprisingly, Ex-Tim wins the argument to give the pass to them because they are really that lost. In Marie’s mind, she doesn’t think it’s that horrible of a decision because she thinks they only have one leg left to give it away anyway. So, for all her bluster and posturing that she’s “in charge of the Express Pass,” it was Tim that made the final decision.
So, the team that cheated themselves out the Express Pass on the first leg has strategically ended up with it after all. This gameplay is just one of the reasons why I still think that Travis & Nicole are one of…if not THE…team to beat. With the pass promised to them, Travis gives them the name of the location.
While this bartering takes place, Bostonians Jason & Amy have met up with Phil and get sent on their way. The next destination is Poland, which they must reach via a long boat ride and then a flight. And I do mean a LOOOOONNNGGG boat ride, as in 34-hours. Yup…nearly a day-and-a-half on a boat out of Norway.
As Brandon & Adam are the first ones to arrive at the dock, they get the news that it doesn’t leave until 8:30 p.m. and it’s in the early morning hours currently. Welcome to the bunching. One-by-one (and in inconsequential order), the teams are redirected by Phil to keep racing. Clearly, the ones most excited by this development are baseball wives Nicky & Kim, who are bounding with joy that it ain’t over for them yet.
The only highlight shown from this wholly uneventful boat ride is the settling-up of "Express Pass for information" by the doctors and exes. Together they agree to keep it a secret, which benefits them both because Marie thinks the other teams may still help them if they believe it’s still in play and the doctors don’t want anyone to know they have this advantage in their pocket.
Seemingly, the producers learned on the fly that the prolonged and anticlimactic flight perils of Chester & Ephraim do not make for good television because we are once again spared much travel footage.
The teams land in Gdansk, Poland, and load up in cabs. With a destination of Solidarity Square, which is described as the place that started the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe (thanks for the history lesson), you’d think it’d be easy to find. You’d be wrong. Not only do three teams get lost but they get lost in a spectacular fashion that has them traipsing around some docks together. That’s right, exes Tim & Marie, the Afganimals and the Ice girls all end up in the same wrong spot. So their cabbies independently brought them there. Because of that I can’t blame the drivers wholly. Clearly, either the teams failed to communicate it correctly or the clue was written just ambiguously enough to throw off cabbies.
While they flounder, for the first time this season Okies Tim & Danny are in first place at the correct spot. What’s in store for them…just being directed to another location/landmark. It always bothers me when they throw in the unnecessary cluebox that serves as nothing more than a stopping point. It’s like the producers are contractually obligated to visit/highlight more than four places in each country visited. The clue at least warns that a U-Turn is ahead.
The boys are heading to the Golden Gate and reach that one first also - that's twice in a row now. The doctors, New Englanders and baseball wives aren’t trailing the Okies by much, so their lead shouldn’t be that reassuring. At the Golden Gate, it’s Detour time, which means that the U-Turn will immediately follow this task, so the pressure to stay ahead of others is high.
This week’s Detour offers two forms of public humiliation. The choices are Pose or Polka. For Pose, they have to head to a square, dress in a black unitard with a beard and trident, and mimic the pose of a statue of Neptune in the square. They will have completed the task when they earn 75 zloty in tips. For Polka, they head to a hall, learn a complicated polka routine, and perform it to the satisfaction of their instructor. Plus, one team member will be the man and the other the woman. To ensure maximum humiliation, the teams must stay in their tasks' respective costumes for the remainder of the leg.
OK-Tim & Danny head to Polka and Danny instantly bemoans the fact that he will have to don the dress for the routine. Such are the perils of being half a foot shorter than your team mate and probably about 50 lighter. While they head to Polka, Brandon & Adam have slipped from first at the top of the episode to fifth. At Solidarity Square, their driver has called another cabbie for directions to the Golden Gate but, as bad luck would have it, the guy calls Jason & Amy’s cab driver. Because he knows where his bread is buttered, the Bostonians’ driver happily denies giving him directions. Brandon actually laughs it off in the good nature that we have come to expect from them.
In quick succession, Jason & Amy, Travis & Nicole and Nicky & Kim get to their own Detour decision time at the Golden Gate. The daters and marrieds go for Polka, while the wives head to Pose.
With Team Beardo en route to the Detour, the trio of lost teams have finally recovered somewhat and are going in the right direction.
It’s Polka time. Danny’s objections to wearing a dress get louder and louder. Don’t worry, Danny, you in a dress is not nearly as embarrassing as how inept Tim is as dancing. Or, as Danny explains, Tim’s so bad that he doesn’t have two left feet but three left feet. Not sure how that would work but we will let Danny have the last word on that one. They fail a couple of times when Jason & Amy show up and nail it on their first attempt.
Jason tells us that Amy’s a great dancer and basically just held him tight and moved him around the floor the correct way. They are now heading to the impeding U-Turn in the enviable position of first place. Not faring nearly as well are the doctors. This time it’s the female who is the dancing failure as Nicole stumbles and misses steps. This justifiably garners a thumb down from the judge. Her problems give hope to Danny, who is ready to bail on the task if they get passed by two teams that quickly. Reinvigorated, the Okies hit the dance floor again and this time…they still fail, which makes Danny remind Tim that he’s the "man" in the dance and has to lead.
While they hash out their issues, Nicky & Kim get suited up at Pose and seemingly without much effort, they earn enough tips. Before they are finished, though, the beards arrive and can’t get the same type of monetary attention as the girls. I think that Adam’s assessment in that regard is that they lack "boobs". It’s not jumping to conclusions that two women in skintight unitards will earn tips faster than a couple of lanky dudes. As the girls leave for the U-Turn and next clue, Brandon & Adam decide to switch tasks. I am disappointed because they didn’t appear to give it much chance. I think the looming threat of a U-Turn fueled their hasty decision.
Meanwhile, the Golden Gate is infested with the Ice girls, Afghanimals and the exes. Tim & Marie are the only ones to opt for Pose and off they all go. I know you are as shocked as I am that Leo & Jamal and Ally & Ashley chose the same Detour task. It’s not like it hasn’t already unfolded this way 312 times before on this Race.
Since you’re now thinking about the Polka, let’s check in there. Nicole has finally provided an adequate performance, so she and Travis are onto the next clue in third place. Fueled by a desire to get Danny onto the streets of Gdansk in a dress (I assume), OK-Tim puts in an equally serviceable dance for them to move on.
As they all leave, before even dressing up for the Pose Detour, the exes have thrown down the Express Pass. As reluctant as Marie has been to use the Pass, there must have been a conversation about using it that we didn’t see. Again, the pressure of the U-Turn was at work in the decision. They suspect that unless they get to the U-Turn soon, they will be a definite target. At least if they get there after playing the Express Pass, they will still only have to do one of the tasks. So in the matter of one leg, they went from two Express Passes to zero.
Jason & Amy come up on the U-Turn comfortably in first place and choose to not U-Turn anyone. Unlike previous seasons, this U-Turn sign is somewhat less conspicuous-looking, with a "foreman" standing beside it and holding their clue. The couple is now heading to the longest building in Poland…almost a half a mile.
Nearby, Nicky & Kim have run right by the U-Turn, which looks very nondescript from the back, and ask the wrong local for help. They are sent to the other side of the dock. The ladies end up in what looks like a construction site. Remember they are still wearing unitards and carrying giant tridents.
While the ladies retrace their steps, Ex-Tim & Marie are at the U-Turn with the doctors and Okies close behind. Once again, it appears that we missed out on some strategizing by the exes but that’s okay since it means we don’t have to listen to Marie. Piecing together their conversation, they discussed U-Turning Travis & Nicole to make them use their newly acquired Express Pass and get it out of the way. But since they don’t know whether they are in front of or behind them, they chose not to U-Turn.
With the sting of their horrible Polka performance fresh in their minds, the Okies decide to U-Turn Leo & Jamal, which ensures that one team will be behind them and fulfills their earlier pledge to use one on them after the Afghanimals tried to con the Okies into joining them on the flight to Portugal. Travis & Nicole see the U-Turn played and are happy to opt out of it. The baseball wives follow suit and don’t U-Turn anyone either.
At Polka, Brandon & Adam are as incapable of dancing as they thought they were of posing. But Ally & Ashley do a nice job at the Polka and get to move one, leaving Leo & Jamal behind with the beards. The only saving grace for Team Beardo at this point would be for them to beat Leo & Jamal to the U-Turn. Alas, they don’t know that truth and the cousins beat the beards out of the Polka.
At the next clue, it’s a Roadblock asking who has a sweet tooth. The person has to navigate this half-mile long, multi-level residential building to visit ten different apartments. Eat a jelly-filled pastry until they find one filled with red jelly. Amy is up for the Bostonians and Marie goes for the exes. They decide to work together on this one. Yet, their idea of working together doesn’t seem very effective. Instead of splitting the list into two to divide and conquer, they visit the same apartment side-by-side. Maybe it’s a lack of trust overall. Well, when you add Travis to the Roadblock, Amy happily shows him the ones they visited and he takes some of the unexplored ones. See…Amy trusts Travis. The fact that Marie also doesn’t leave Amy’s side shows the angry ex also doesn’t trust them in return.
I have to point out that despite the exes' attempt to keep their Express Pass use a secret, Jason quickly deduces that they used it because they were not in a Detour costume like the others.
The baseball wives are on the scene with the Okies not far behind. Danny and Kim bite into this Roadblock for their teams (sorry, but that pun was too tasty to pass up…sorry again for being punny within my apology for the last pun).
While Travis is covering the same ground as Kim, he employs the devious plan of using the stairs but hitting the elevator button on each floor to make the elevator-using Kim stop unnecessarily. Brilliant and childish and hilarious. Kim bails on the elevator after realizing what Travis has done. As they progress, the divide and conquer method works with Travis getting the clue and he relays it to Marie and Amy. All three teams are now heading to Sopot Pier and the Pitstop.
Coming up on the U-Turn, Leo & Jamal get the heartbreaking news that they are U-Turned and make the only play they have left…U-Turning Brandon & Adam. I fear that seals the beards’ fates. Meanwhile, the onlooking Ice girls bound off to the Roadblock.
As the Afghanimals suit up for Pose, Phil is in sight for the first three teams: Tim & Marie, Jason & Amy and Travis & Nicole. As they all stand on the mat together, Phil checks them in that exact order. So at least the exes got a first place finish and a Hawaii vacation on the leg where they used their Express Pass.
With not an ounce of surprise, Brandon & Adam accept their U-Turn fate with positivity but already fear that the Pose task will be harder even now after dancing. Back to Phil, on the mat at the same time we have Nicky & Kim checked in as number four with OK-Tim & Danny as number five.
The Afghanimals are working the crowd hard for tips at Pose and even persuade an American family to give them enough money to hit 75. This American dad didn’t buy that they were from his alma mater of BYU but his kids got him to pay up. They are done and off to get their Roadblock clue. As they feared, Team Beardo struggles through the task but they complete it and are securely in last place. A non-elimination is the only thing to save them now, which isn’t very likely since we just got a pseudo-Pitstop out of the way.
Apparently, the Ice girls had the worst cabbie in the world or Leo & Jamal are masters of street performers because they are both working the Roadblock together. Leo and Ashley complete it and are once again traveling hand-in-hand-in-hand-in-hand. I wonder if they know they will eventually have to part ways on this Race and do something separately.
Even though they are together on the mat, Phil gives Leo & Jamal place number six and the girls number seven.
With no drama left to wring from the episode, Adam takes the Roadblock and finishes it without anything notable occurring. Phil tells them he’s sorry to say they are the last team to arrive…and that they are eliminated from the Race.
The guys keep their spirits up and just like that we lose the most comical/entertaining team on this season.
Next up: The Amazing Race meets The Singing Bee as a task involves the Vienna Boys Choir. Have a great week, everyone.