The Amazing Race Season 30: Episode 1 Recap
By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower
January 15, 2018
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Our host, Phil Keoghan, is helicopter flying over the island of Manhattan. He wants us to know that this season is special. The cast is comprised of champions, although you shouldn’t take that literally in some cases. We’re just going to quote him on this. “They’re world champions, gold medalists, life savers, and music sensations.” Um, can we bet against the music sensations right now?
The first contestants they introduce are ones we actually know. #TeamChomp consists of Joey & Tim. We don’t recognize Tim right off the bat because he’s usually wearing face paint. He’s better known by his alter ego, Eater X. Yes, competitive eaters are participating in this season of The Amazing Race. So, in one challenge this season they’ll have a major advantage. The rest of the season? Well, they might not make that challenge.
His partner is Joey Chestnut, the multi-time reigning champion of the famous Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Nothing says champion like gluttony. USA! USA!
We also know the next two contestants. They’re former NBA players Shawn “The Matrix” Marion & Cedric Ceballos. They make sure to let us know that winning The Amazing Race will be “a slam dunk.” Also, we’d like to point out that while Shawn is a world champion, Cedric is only a champion if we count the Slam Dunk competition. Do you think we’ll see a blindfolded dunk competition this season?
We do want to make one other note. We’ve had Harlem Globetrotters players on two seasons. This NBA duo is different, because they are both huge dudes. One of the Globetrotters was a point guard.
Next we have Dessie & Kayla, #TheRingGirls. No, they aren’t professional wrestlers. Or MMA fighters. Or actresses from The Ring franchise. They’re not even from “Say Yes to the Dress.” They’re the women who go out between boxing rounds and, well, look pretty. They tell us their plight, which is that they are shorter than 5’7”, but we’re too busy trying to figure out if we can bet against them online to pay attention.
We now meet a team with a bona fide champion. Alex Rossi was the winner of the 100th Indy 500. His partner is Conor Daly, who is also an Indy Car driver. He is currently sleeping on Alex’s couch, so their goal is to make enough money that Conor can move out. Outside of driving, Conor doesn’t seem to have a lot of adulting skills.
Jen Hudak & Kristi Leskinen are X Games professional skiers. Kristi has been named one of the 20 Greatest Adventure Sport Athletes, and won the gold medal for Halfpipe at the Gravity Games, so she seems well suited for the race. Jen is also a Halfpipe skier, with several medals from the X-Games.
And then we have Cody & Jessica from Big Brother. No, neither of them won Big Brother. It seems that they are champions at Showmance. The good news is that they legitimately seem to like each other, which doesn’t always seem to be the case for contestants who hail from that show.
Although we’ve only met a handful of teams, the starting line reveals 11 duos. CBS had advertised an abbreviated season, which we thought meant fewer teams. Instead, it seems they’re just going to run 11 or 12 episodes between now and February. We’re going to be cranky by the end.
Anyway, Phil greets them all and forces Joey Chestnut to eat a hot dog. Then, he reveals to the contestants that their first clue is in the fountain behind them. So, they splash into the water to learn their destination, which is Reykjavik, Iceland.
We then meet the other teams, some of whom we’re going to consider fodder. That’s not necessarily true of Lucas & Brittany. They’re lifeguards, and she is the reigning champion of the USLA National Lifeguard Championships. We quickly learn that they’ve been dating nine years, and Lucas hasn’t proposed yet. Clearly, Lucas needs to propose. He knows this because he brought a ring along with him. We can’t wait for that awkward, manufactured TV moment.
April & Sarah are #TeamGoatYoga. The name speaks for itself. They interact with goats while they do yoga. Willingly. The over/under on them is two episodes.
#TeamYale is up next. Henry & Evan are master debaters, although Evan sounds pretty shaky vocally. We’re not sure she’s comfortable yet. She’s the reigning top speaker in the world for the World Universities Debating Championship. We can’t imagine anything worse on The Amazing Race than having a champion debater for a partner, but the two of them have been dating for 18 months and really like each other. They also seem like the team most likely to overthink a challenge, costing them elimination.
Then, there are the firefighters. Daniel & Eric are Louisiana firefighting twins. Yes, that also sounds like a description of a new show on the CW. They’re not even the oddest male duo this year. That honor belongs to Trevor & Chris, #TeamWellStrung. As far as we can tell, they’re bodybuilding violinists, which may or may not be weirder than Goat Yoga.
Upon their flight arriving in Iceland, the teams must proceed to Geitargljufur, and we have never been more thankful to have the copy/paste function on the computer.
Most of the teams happily celebrate their morning drive in Iceland. Then there’s April & Sarah, who almost immediately start backbiting one another. April makes sure to point out that her partner was sleeping while she was looking for directions on the flight. Sarah’s face indicates that she’s not going to let that go the rest of the trip. (Spoiler: She doesn’t.)
The first challenge today is High Wire Act, wherein they scare the bejesus out of the contestants. One of them is strapped to a high wire that is hundreds of feet over a rushing river. The other contestant is able to help control their return.
The first team to arrive is #TeamYale followed by the pair from Big Brother, with the debaters first to complete the relatively easy albeit nerve-wracking challenge. They receive the next clue, which tells them to proceed to Esjumelur. We are really looking forward to them changing countries to someplace like England (not Ireland).
For the first challenge, the remaining arrival order is Indy 500, NBA and snowboarders. The teams that are lagging behind and most likely to get eliminated are the ring girls, the competitive eaters, the goat yoga ladies, and the firefighters. #TeamGoatYoga is already reduced to calling each other bitches to the camera. Well, “Bs.”
Over at Esjumelur, the first Roadblock is awaiting Henry & Evan. One of the teammates will ride a buggy through a muddy river. During the journey, they’ll see letters that they have to organize to spell Ingólfstorg. There are two tricks to this. The first is that the letters the will see have numbers up in the corner that may be difficult to spot. The number indicates the order of the letters. The second trick is that the first o has an accent mark over it.
The next two teams to arrive are the Indy drivers and the team from Big Brother. Meanwhile, Henry from #TeamYale does an excellent job of breaking down the situation quickly. He would have gotten it on the first try if not for the accent issue on the Os.
In a moderate upset, Cody from Big Brother solves the puzzle first. It could be something as simple as he was lucky with the Os rather than deducing it. But if not, good for him. They may be more formidable than we expected. Meanwhile, Shawn Marion arrives, and he’s about to have a bad time.
While the NBA team has a huge advantage, the firefighters and the yoga teams are just now finishing the high wire challenge and are vying for last place.
Believe it or not, the NBA team is going to wind up in a photo finish to stay in this leg. Well, it’s exactly what we thought. The regular O and the accented O confuse Shawn, who may not even see the difference at his height. After he misses for what seems like the 20th time, you can see from the closed captioning that Cedric is shouting out to pay attention to the Os and the Ps. Shawn doesn’t hear him, but it’s still cheating to help your partner according to The Amazing Race’s rules.
The frontrunners in the race are arriving at the next area, where they meet up with some World’s Strongest Men types, as well as a strong woman who gives them their next task. They need to find the answers to the following questions:
What do Icelanders call the drink known as The Black Death?
What is Porskalysi?
The Black Death is some horrible alcoholic drink that we can’t spell, but it’s alcohol and not coffee, which is what Cody from Big Brother guesses on their first try. The other is Cod Liver Oil. The contestants have to take a shot of each one before they get their next clue, which leads them to the Pit Stop at Reykjavikurtjorn. Fuck the accents and umlauts in that word. They know what they did.
Although Big Brother is first to get the answers and the shots, this challenge is breathtakingly simple. Everyone tears through it. The second team to chug the nasty stuff is #TeamExtreme. Unfortunately for Big Brother, they get lost along the way, allowing Kristi & Jen to win the first leg. Big Brother is second. The order for the next teams is Yale, the violinists, the Indy Car drivers, Joey Chestnut & Eater X, and the lifeguards.
Around this time, Shawn deduces his mistake and finishes his challenge. They wind up as the eighth team to arrive out of 11. Unfortunately, Phil can’t check them in because of the letters yelled out by Cedric. It’s a 30-minute, potentially fatal mistake. The firefighting twins are checked in while Cedric pleads his case. Alas, it’s not the NBA, and he’s not going to talk this referee out of a foul call.
What happens next is historic for The Amazing Race. There is a legitimate foot race and a photo finish. The remaining two teams are the Ring Girls and Goat Yoga, the two teams that sounded the weakest on first blush. Cedric & Shawn sweats through most of their time before seeing the two teams off in the distance. Phil has them check in with only a few seconds to spare. They are the ninth team by the narrowest of margins.
As for tenth place, you should Google for video of this. It’s amazing. One of the ring girls races past the two yoga women. Her companion is ahead of them as well. At some point, she removes her snow boots to run more comfortable. She does not, however, drop her extremely heavy backpack. That’s a mistake that has probably haunted her for several months. Team Goat Yoga and the Ring Girls hit the mat at almost exactly the same time. The video reveals that the ring girl hits the mat last by just a fraction of a second. Cedric & Shawn were safe by 13 seconds.
Episode 2 and beyond would actually be more upbeat if the ring girls had survived. Instead, we’ll see more angry goat yoga. Well, hopefully not beyond Episode 2.