The Amazing Race 24: All-Stars - Episode 2
The Amazing Race 24: All-Stars - Episode 2
By Daron Aldridge
March 4, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Heading into leg two, here’s how I ranked the teams:
Globetrotters Flight Time & Big Easy
Team Murphy’s Law David & Connor (Father/Son)
The Lone Rangers Jet & Cord
Big Brother’s Team Fetch Brendon & Rachel
Aghanimals/cousins Leo & Jamal
Engaged Team Oy Vey John & Jessica
Mom/son Margie & Luke
New Kentucky Mark & Mallory
Country singers Jennifer & Caroline
YouTubers Joey & Meghan
Checking in on the starting mat in Guangzhou, China, we have the cowboys leaving in first with their pockets a bit fatter from the two newly acquired Express Passes. Jet explains that they are happy to have their own Pass but don’t like the idea of giving another team an advantage. They rip into the first clue and it looks like the teams are hanging around Guangzhou for this leg. You know what that means…a very fast-paced leg with no lulls because of transportation waiting.
The clue points the boys to Chen Clan Academy, which prompts them to ask a local for directions. Hello, language barrier. In attempts to find out whether they should walk, take a cab or the subway, Jet & Cord misunderstand the man telling them it was "50 minutes" on foot. They think he said 15 minutes and start hoofing it. Oops. Given that one-by-one the teams leave the mat all within an hour, this could spell disaster for the guys.
To add insult to injury, the Lone Rangers are alone in their mistake as the others either take a cab or the subway with the subway being the most direct route.
Of the departure interviews, the most notable comments come from Leo & Jamal. The cousins leave right before New Kentucky and admit that they are happy to help them out because of Bopper. They explain as fans of the show and both the Kentucky teams, specifically, that they have no problem teaming up with them. It’s an interesting new dynamic for the Afghanimals who were very self-absorbed when not distracted by the Ice Girls on their last season. It actually makes me like them a bit.
The first ones to arrive at the academy are Brendon & Rachel, who are surprised that they haven’t seen the cowboys yet. But they are soon joined by David & Connor. At the academy, the teams have to watch a martial arts demonstration, which concludes with the "master" stamping the name/location of their next task on each team member’s forehead. Since only one team at a time can get their clue/stamp, Team Murphy’s Law has to just wait.
It’s quite comical to think that all these crazy Americans will be running about Guangzhou with black ink smeared on their faces for the next several hours.
While Brendon & Rachel scramble unsuccessfully to find a cabbie that knows where they are heading, David & Connor are on their way to the next destination with Margie & Luke on their heels.
After taking the unnecessary walking tour of the city, Jet & Cord are finally in a cab and heading to the Academy. Surprisingly, they are not consumed by anger about the mistake. The guys just accept it and keep their heads up, knowing they now have significant ground to make up.
You know where frustration is starting to mount? On the faces of Brendon & Rachel because Leo & Jamal and New Kentucky are now at the Chen Clan Academy. The newlywed reality stars have finally hailed a cab and are en route to the next clue but the slight lead they had on teams as the first ones to that spot is now gone with a whole lotta team-clumping going on. Bam…bam…bam…Globetrotters, YouTubers and Team Oy Vey have all gotten their clues.
That’s everyone except the stragglers - the singers and cowboys.
Murphy’s Law gets to the next clue first and it’s this leg’s Roadblock, which asks who’s the mechanic. Surveying the scene which is like a toy store/Chuck E. Cheese hybrid, daddy David takes the task, which is they have to assemble a motorized riding toy before getting their next clue.
David confidently cites having five kids, several grandkids and years of Christmas Eve toy building experience as why he feels good about this task. But as you can imagine, the instructions are not in English.
You remember how just two paragraphs ago I commented that the team-clumping was high this leg? Well, that continues. Unless there is a majorly difficult task on the horizon this going to be a tight race to the end.
At the Roadblock, Margie happily steps up and Luke explains that she is great with these types of tasks, with the propeller building and dinosaur assembly from previous seasons as proof.
Jamal is on point for his team and is eager to jump into, as are Brendon and Mark. It must be pointed out that being surrounded by kids has kicked Rachel's baby fever into overdrive. Just pause for a minute and think about a world with an even more hormonal/emotional version of Rachel Reilly. It's hard for me to type as I shudder.
For the others teams on the scene, the roadblockers are Flight Time, Meghan and John.
All the nonparticipating racers are discussing the MIA cowboys and trailing blondes. That the girls are missing isn't shocking, but the guys clearly stumbled out of the gate in their summation. We know that assumption is correct.
The singers get to the academy for their next clue and the dire reality of the situation for Jet & Cord sets in with a “First to last” exclamation. The only thing missing is a sad trombone. The girls, on the other hand, are ecstatic they aren’t in very last.
While everyone else seems to be enjoying the atmosphere with kids running around, Flight has the “most ornery” kid in the place circling him. She is cute but she can’t stop pestering him and picking at him. It’s funny to see a guy who jokes around and makes another basketball team look foolish for a living be on the receiving end of similar treatment from a four-year-old.
The rush is on to be the first ones out of the Roadblock now that everyone is here, except the blonds, with Jet now doing the task for his team. But as the Globetrotters point out, any time the cowboys are trailing, you can’t just take it for granted they will stay behind because they have proven themselves competitors.
And the first one out is Mark, who hoists the toy car over his shoulder and they are now heading to the Guangzhou Children's Cultural Center to deliver their toy. Mark is strapping the car into a cab’s trunk and Mallory runs up to get into the cab. Cue the slow motion and the gong…Mallory has left Mark’s backpack on the ground outside the cabs. Of course, they don’t notice it and are all smiles and back-patting at being in first place.
The singers are the last to arrive and there is tension between the girls, who are quibbling over which of them is the "mechanic". Caroline convinces Jennifer that she should do it and immediately, the over-the-top exclamations start pouring out about how she hates assembling things more than anything in the world and it is her worst nightmare. She probably shouldn’t say that too loud because I imagine the producers can easily come up with a future task that will be exponentially worse than putting together a child’s toy.
Margie has lived up to her assembling potential again and they are the second team out of the Roadblock. They are just defying my very low expectations of them. David & Connor are next out and get loaded up, while Jamal gets their clue.
En route to the delivery site, New Kentucky has their driver stop just to make sure the car is still secure. It’s at this point that they realize that Mark’s backpack is not in the taxi. Now it’s time for these new teammates and virtual strangers to show how difficult it is to work together if you don’t have trust or familiarity with one another. Mallory insists that they leave it behind, since she has his passport, but Mark is not that eager to just ditch all his Race belongings on a Chinese curb. He tries to say he needs his motion sickness medicine, but Mallory counters that she has some for him. Then, he explains that he only has the clothes on his back, and she then rationalizes that other people will probably give him clothes. I can see both of their points but the lack of a friendship and the trust that goes along with it doesn’t help convince Mark.
Mallory caves in and says they will head back after delivering the toy car but she thinks it is a huge waste of time. Given how little time separates each team, she is probably right but if their situation was reversed, I doubt she would be as accepting of abandoning her backpack. She says she wouldn’t care but I don’t buy it.
They aren’t the only ones struggling, though the other teams are admittedly not getting along as poorly. The Afghanimals can’t seem to find a cab and are wandering the streets, which we all know is not the best use of time on an Amazing Race leg.
While the remaining workers work and the watchers watch, Caroline is lobbying hard for Cord to let them have the Express Pass because Caroline has been completely derailed before even starting. She tries everything to convince him from asking if there is any other team that they would like to have it more to calling her and Jennifer one of the weakest teams to flirting shamelessly. It seems to fall onto deaf ears.
Meghan is particularly disappointed to see that the singers are living up to the stereotype that women can’t do certain things as well as men. I think that Margie’s performance on the task counteracts any damage Caroline is doing.
Brendon is now done with the Roadblock, putting Team Fetch in fifth and the cowboys have a resurgence to jump back up to sixth, which is fueled by nothing but Jet’s assembly skills. Flight’s estimation of the cowboys’ abilities is accurate.
Cord calls Jet over to tell him that Jennifer has a question. She quickly pleads her case about getting the Express Pass and Jet doesn’t object, so the girls are now done with the task in seventh with the Globetrotters in eighth.
In the cab ride to the cultural center, the girls feel like they were victorious in finagling the Pass from the brothers but the boys view it a different way. As Jet explained in the beginning, they didn’t like having to give another team an advantage and for them to give it to a team that would use it immediately, right then, takes the Pass out of play. This means that the only team left with such an advantage is The Lone Rangers. I have to agree with his rationalization. Well done on both teams, though.
That leaves a shell-shocked John & Jessica and Meghan & Joey at the Roadblock fighting for "not last." These teams were allied on their previous seasons and that connection carries over into this season as well.
At the cultural center, New Kentucky is there first but that is about as short-lived as possible when they load back up into the cab to return for Mark’s bag. That puts Margie & Luke in first place for the time being. The next clue is the Detour – Featherball or China Cups. For Featherball, the teams have to play a Chinese variation of hacky sack, which uses a shuttlecock with a feather tail. They have to successfully pass it between team members 10 consecutive times. For China Cups, they go to a place to receive a therapeutic cup treatment that is placed on your back. The mother/son team goes for Featherball.
This fast and furious leg keeps on chugging along with team after team delivering the toy and opting for Featherball. I hope that the producers didn’t pay too much money to the people manning the China Cups task.
Back at the Roadblock, Meghan has finished her assembly but John is still stuck. In a bit of questionable Race judgment but overall human decency, Meghan helps John identify his problem, despite fighting for last place.
As they are leaving the Roadblock, the feuding Kentuckians are back and have retrieved the forgotten bag. Mark’s frustration is growing because Mallory now refuses to listen to him at all. The beginning of the end for a team that just began is what we are seeing here.
Flooding the park now one team at a time with a cameraperson in tow, the Detour quickly becomes a repeat of the Roadblock as each team has opted to try their foot at Featherball. The only teams missing are John & Jessica and Meghan & Joey, who should be arriving soon.
No one, and I mean not a single team, is having an easy time with this task. Footage (pun intended, of course) of so many failed attempts is proof that they are in for a long afternoon. Guess who is still upset and arguing? No, not Team Fetch, who have been surprisingly supportive of one another this season (but it’s still early). I am talking about New Kentucky. Mallory doesn’t want to hear Mark talk any more and Mark calls her out for being rude and dismissive, which he says is not the way people from Kentucky act. This just pisses her off even more, like that was the most insulting thing anyone could ever say to her.
Recapping hacky sack-esque mishaps is not really that effective. So I will just leave you with the image of flailing limbs, racers falling over and overall pathetic displays of foot prowess that would make '80s college students weep onto their Birkenstocks.
And the order with which they eventually complete the Detour is inconsequential, because they all seem to finish it within a matter of minutes if not seconds, which has Margie & Luke as first and Leo & Jamal as number seven, with all but Mark & Mallory in between. The teams are converging upon the Shamian Island Promenade.
All seven teams are at the promenade at the same time and it’s a footrace to the mat for first. Despite being in the lead, Margie & Luke are lapped by Brendon & Rachel, who claim their first ever first place finish on a leg.
In an Amazing Race first, the teams overwhelm an unsuspecting Phil, who can’t even go through the formality of telling Team Fetch their prize for first place, because teams keep running up. He even gets flustered and messes up the ranking. So, in the span of less than five minutes, Phil checks in Team Fetch as number one, Margie & Luke as number two, the singers as number three, Team Murphy’s Law as number four, the Globetrotters as number five, the cowboys as number six and the Afghanimals as number seven.
Whew…that’s exhausting.
Back at Featherball, the allied tandem of John & Jessica and Meghan & Joey kick their way past New Kentucky and head to Phil. Before those teams are checked in as numbers eight and nine, Mark & Mallory are now foolishly debating switching tasks. This was suggested by Mallory and it is the height of ridiculousness. They are in last, they know it and should just try to finish as soon as possible, all the while praying it is a non-elimination. Well, I guess I was wrong in assuming that the producers wouldn’t give away the ending to this leg in last week’s previews.
Well, it’s not a non-elimination. Given the unique makeup of this team and the circumstances around its formation, all the other teams are standing behind Phil when he breaks the news to them. Tears are shed and Mark makes the observation that maybe he's just not meant to travel the world without his best friend Bopper.
Another leg down and next week takes the teams river rafting with shots of Brendon & Rachel capsizing. Those of us that are not fans of the Big Brother alums will have to wait anxiously to see how that shakes out.