The Amazing Race 24: All-Stars
The Amazing Race 24: All-Stars
By Daron Aldridge
February 25, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
(Disclaimer: I was none too pleased with the majority of the announced teams, so my snark may be on full-tilt-boogie for the next few months.)
Based upon the way the teams performed in their previous attempts with an added dash of my feelings toward them, here is how I predict the season will turn out.
Flight Time & Big Easy: Globetrotters (fourth place in Season 15 & 2nd place in Season 18). Fun-loving basketball players.
David & Connor: Father/Son Cancer Survivors. (eighth place Season 22) – Team Murphy’s Law because whatever can go wrong seems to for them. So, I am banking it the universe finally going in their favor.
Leo & Jamal: Afghanimals (fourth place on season 23). Loud and conniving cousins without their Race wives distracting them.
Brendon & Rachel: Big Brother cast members (third place on Season 20) – Team Fetch. Nickname explanation: “Brendon & Rachel” are to “CBS” as “fetch” is to “Gretchen in the movie Mean Girls." Both are continuing to try and make them happen.
Jet & Cord: Cowboys (second place in Season 16 & sixth in Season 18). Coiners of the phrase “Oh my gravy” and perpetual jeans and boots wearers.
John & Jessica: Newly engaged couple (ninth place in Season 22) – Team Bonehead. Will they learn from their Express Pass folly of last time? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Natalie & Nadiya: Twins from Sri Lanka (fourth place in Season 21) – Shrill Lanka. Second only to Big Brother on my annoyance scale.
Jennifer & Caroline: Blonde country singers (fourth place in Season 22). They won’t have the hockey brothers carrying them along this time.
Joey & Meghan: Team Youtube (fifth place in Season 22). Shiny, happy people but still not really Race-ready, I suspect.
Bopper & Mark: Team Kentucky (fifth place in Season 20). Good ol’ boys epitomizing "fish out of water."
Margie & Luke: Mom/Deaf Son (third place in Season 14 & eighth place in Season 18). Most seniority of teams but biggest drop in performance in two previous outings.
So that’s my impression of this lineup. Maybe some of them will prove me wrong and be older and wiser or maybe just older and more cantankerous.
We kick off with an abbreviated montage of the returning teams. It is shorter than we have come to expect but maybe they are deciding to not waste our time reacquainting us with teams still fresh in our minds.
The teams join our world traveling host Phil at a stadium with the UCLA Marching Band. Speaking of universities, how long will Big Brother’s (aka Team Fetch’s) Brendon be a "doctoral candidate"? That has been his listed occupation on these shows for about 18 years. Stop whoring yourself to reality TV and finish your degree, man.
Phil welcomes them all and then [INSERT RECORD SCRATCH]…he announces that one of the racers had be to seen by the show’s physician last night. They don’t show it but I suspect that everyone immediately turned toward Daddy David because that is who immediately popped into my mind. But it wasn’t the elder member of Team Murphy’s Law. It was actually Kentucky’s own Bopper.
They explain they he had contracted pancreatitis and the doctor would not clear him to travel. If Mark wanted to continue, then Phil offered to give them a surrogate Bluegrass team member. The only other notable Kentuckians were dad/daughter Gary & Mallory, who have competed twice before. But which would fill the void? It’s Mallory. Just like that, Team Kentucky’s chances got a bit better. Mallory and her dad had a decent showing on their first season but then improved and ended up in third on the Unfinished Business edition. That’s the silver lining for Mark given that his best friend is sick and he is going on this Race without him.
Mallory enters the stadium and people are clapping and, of course, Rachel Reilly starts crying. We are less than ten minutes into the season and Rachel is already being Rachel. Maybe Kleenex needs to be the official sponsor of this season.
Bopper says his goodbye and gives Mallory a bandana signed by his daughter to wear on the Race. Even the hardest of hearts has to be touched by the whole scene. But let's get to racing.
Phil tells the teams that the double dose of Express Passes is on the table again for the first place team this leg. Of course they then cut to John just so we don’t forget his boneheaded "Oy vey" moment.
The first leg will be taking the teams to Guangzhou, China, and there are two flights available with an hour difference in arrival times. But it’s a challenge right out of the gate that will determine which four teams get the first flight and not just who gets to the airport first. I am a fan of challenges to determine their lot and not just whether they know how to get to an airport, especially when the departure city will likely give some teams an unfair advantage.
The task? The two marching band drum majors have a Chinese symbol for their destination city of Guangzhou on their hats. The teams have to locate the same symbol on the band member’s hats, who are all marching in formation on the field and then bring the band member to Phil for their clue.
In quick succession, the first flight is filled and no one really stumbles with a wrong guess. It’s just a matter of who gets to Phil first. The first flight has Leo & Jamal (Afghanimals), Jet & Cord (cowboys), Natalie & Nadiya (Shrill Lanka) and David & Connor (Murphy’s Law). The rest are starting out a bit behind.
The car rides to LAX are largely uneventful, except that Mark & Mallory use this time to try to get a feel for each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This may be interesting because Mallory cringes at the idea of eating gross food and Mark shakes his head at the chance of him putting on a dress. I think I see Roadblock stumbles in their future.
As the teams arrive at the airport, they are directed to park their _____ ______ electric car in the designated area and plug it in to charge. It should be noted that we are already getting a glimpse of the discord that we are in store for with the twins. They start out the Race snipping at one another and this is with the fact they are on the first flight. Even the good fortune of such placement can’t squelch their innate ability to annoy each other. Maybe they are also tired of being referred to as twinnies.
Once you remove the chaos of scrambling for flights from the equation, you get a fairly congenial airport scene with the teams mingling to a small degree. As you would assume, the main conversation point is Bopper’s medical issue. Brendon & Rachel and the twins are trying to give Mark some support and Rachel’s early waterworks are immediately pointed out. Then one of the twins admits (jokingly…we think) that there is no way she would support her sister going without her.
The flights are off the ground and heading to China. Once they arrive, the teams will take either a taxi or the train to a street that is home to virtually nothing but bridal shops. They must then locate one of only three shops that will have their clue. The catch is that each shop only has a limited number of clues.
On the ground, of the four frontrunner teams, Jet & Cord opt for the train. They point out that their strategy will remain the same as both other times…race their Race and not worry about the other teams. They refer to themselves at the Lone Rangers, which is funny in and of itself but even funnier if you saw Airheads, which also included a memorable cameo by the recently departed great Harold Ramis.
The splitting off has paid off for the boys as they arrive first to the bridal block but that’s not saying much as there appears to be a store for every person in China. Shortly thereafter, the cousins and the twins arrive and decide to "work" together. If by "work" they mean the girls will yell at the guys as much as they yell at each other. Leo just being wild and crazy Leo doesn’t really help the mood for the girls, who are aren’t even at the first real challenge of the Race and can’t seem to handle things.
David & Connor are also scouring the scene and defying the odds the universe has stacked against them as they remain injury-free for a full day. I think they need a crawling text whenever they are onscreen that reads “__ days injury-free since the start of the Race.” (Just to clarify, I really like these guys and I hope that fate is kind to them this season.”
The first ones to find the clue are…Jet & Cord. The clue is a miniature orb/"bubble" and directs them to find the tower with similar "bubbles" on top of it. Phil explains that it is the Canton Tower, which is the tallest in China and the teams have to ride in the slow-moving Ferris wheel like contraption that circles the top of the tower. Their next clue will be in the bubble car but only in some of them.
The cowboys are back on the train and heading to the tower thanks to the directions from a local. Atop the tower well before any of the others have gotten their bridal shop clue, Jet & Cord jump in the first open car (#15) and when the door slides into its locked/closed position the clue is visible. Sadly, the guys clue reads “Try Again.” Meaning they now have to take the 25-minute trip around the top of the building before they can jump into another bubble.
What transpires back on the ground during those 25 minutes? The store that the cowboys found their clue in was down a little alley way and the clueless tandem of the cousins and twins literally stopped a few yards from it before turning around.
The second flight has arrived and all the remaining teams have converged on the bridal street, which as you can imagine is not very received by the teams on the first flight not named Jet & Cord. The twins decide to ditch the Afghanimals and team up with singers Jennifer & Caroline. Not sure this is an upgrade or wise decision for either team.
Teams Fetch and Murphy’s Law now have their clues and are heading to the tower, where they arrive during the cowboys’ second go-round. The boys had hopped into number 16 and gotten their clue to travel to the stadium they can see below. It appears that the clue is only in the even numbered cars. Jet & Cord now needn’t do anything but wait and enjoy the lack of observation skills as each team stands there dumbstruck for five minutes looking everywhere but at the door for the clue. They get to leave well before any of the other teams.
Of that second bunch, only Brendon & Rachel have the clue in their first bubble and David & Connor and Margie & Luke are stuck taking another slow spin.
Our Lone Rangers are on the scene at the stadium for the first Roadblock of season 24. The team member has to put on a flame adorned unitard and take an elevator 300 feet into the air. They will then be harnessed into a wire rig and must perform five flips before being lowered back down. Cord reluctantly accepts the task and heads up. The flips cause him no problems to complete but the fellow is literally shaking in his boots at the height.
Before he can get down, Brendon has arrived and taken the Roadblock for Team Fetch, bounding all the way to the elevator.
Jet & Cord are now heading on foot to Phil and are in the express lane to Express Pass-land. They are checked in as number one and Phil gives them their reward. Jet explains that if anyone asks him for the extra pass, he is just going to say that the decision has been left up to Cord.
On the building, two parent/child teams are finally in a car with the correct clue and others are quickly joining them, except the perpetually lost twins and singers. In the bubbles and on the heels (of Achilles' heel as the case may be) of David & Connor and Margie & Luke, Leo & Jamal have a car with the clue.
Brendon & Rachel have accomplished two things this leg. 1) They are checked in as team number two; and 2) They have shockingly not annoyed me this leg…other than Rachel’s screaming “That’s my husband” during the Roadblock.
With the glee of a child dreaming of Christmas morning, Connor does the Roadblock and probably would’ve kept flipping if they let him. For guys with not the best of luck, it seems kind of careless to suspend them 300 feet in the air, just asking for disaster. The father and son are checked in as team number three.
With the sheer terror of a child dreaming of a Christmas morning with Freddy Krueger, Margie nearly wets her unitard as she performs the Roadblock. Heights are not good for this mom and I don’t think that she really meant it when she proclaimed “It was great,” as she clutched the railing after finishing. The team I pegged to go home first is actually team number four.
As the cousins are leaving the slow ride, some of the other teams are taking it easy as they wait for their bubble to come to a full and complete stop to exit. The teams with a clue in their car are Team Bonehead John & Jessica, New Kentucky and the Globetrotters, who have been rather subdued or at least it’s been edited that way. That may be because the twins have been supplying enough fireworks and such for all the other ten teams combined. Team Youtube is not so lucky. They are faced with another ride but at least are paying attention to numbers on the cars that teams successfully getting the clue.
Speaking of the twins and singers have finally found the bridal shop clue and are en route to the tower.
Trying to match Connor’s enthusiasm and successfully doing it is Leo. With the Roadblock behind them, the cousins are at Phil in fifth place.
While they wait, Mallory is given too much time to think and immediately begins second guessing that the very obvious stadium below may not be the one mentioned in the clue. Mark admits that it is frustrating but knows that it’s just a matter of them having to learn to trust one another.
The trailing teams of Natalie & Nadiya and Jennifer & Caroline are now at the tower and jump on board. One of the sisters (honestly, I couldn’t keep track with all the yelling) wonders out loud if they have to get into a certain bubble and the other counters that they all probably have one. Guess who doesn’t pick an even car? That’s right…Team Shrill Lanka. And the doubting sister immediately places the blame on the other. Mind you that this is all taking place in a glass bubble that the other teams can see the explosive argument as it occurs. They are watching the bubble burst (sorry) on the twins’ chances of making it to the next leg. First flight and an hour lead to last place is not the best way to start the Amazing Race but it is a surefire end to your Race life.
One by one the other teams get off the ride leaving YouTube and the twins behind to go for another spin. The producers don’t waste time and only show Mallory and Flight Time attempt the Roadblock. New Kentucky gets to Phil in sixth place side-by-side with the Globetrotters next in seventh. John & Jessica hit the mat in eighth and the singers rebound a bit to claim ninth.
It’s a battle in the bubbles for last. YouTubers have wisely gone into the car of another team because they knew it had a clue but the sisters are still debating whether it is all the even cars or should they wait for one they know has a clue, even going as far as Nadiya almost stepping into an even car but pulling her foot away when Natalie questioned it. That is the mistake that will seal their fate because the even car will take five minutes or so to be boarded.
More arguing pollutes my TV, even after they have the clue because they see the writing on the wall, and Joey & Meghan have a lead as they run to the Roadblock, which Joey completes. No drama here. They are checked in as team number ten as the twins hit the Roadblock.
And just like that the season starts off fast and even has a happy ending for those of us who are non-fans of Natalie & Nadiya. The girls recap their own disgraceful performance as just not working as a team like they know they can. Well, the proof is in the pudding and that pudding tastes bitter and hateful. You can say you work well all you want but their actions are to the contrary.
Until next time when we see New Kentucky’s diminutive Mallory make a huge mistake by leaving her bag on a street corner. Have a great week.