The Amazing Race 13, Episode 3

Did You Push My Sports Bra Off the Ledge?

By Reagen Sulewski

October 17, 2008

Goodbye to the only likable people on this show.

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The split seems to be about half and half for the choice of Detour, but with both Detours being relatively physical, teams are really feeling the altitude. The bikes handle worse than shopping carts and the streets are all cobbled, so honestly, as slow as the band members are walking, it might actually be the better choice.

At the end of this Detour is a U-Turn, which would send a team of their choice back to do the other Detour choice. It's early in the race, so in theory, enmity should be low between teams... but here we are. For some reason, this and the Yield consistently get treated as dirty play, as if following the rules of the game was wrong somehow. But teams never quite use it properly to deliver the knockout blow to another team trailing them, so that could be part of it. They can't get revenge on you if you're out of the race.

Having to interact with the bands causes some of our first incidents of the universal language of "Amazing Race-ese", i.e. Spanglicized English. At least they're in the right country.

The U-Turn proves exceedingly unpopular to use as expected, but one team comes close – Nick and Starr attempt to convince Aja and Ty to do their dirty work for them by sending Kelly and Christy back. Have some guts, man. Christy becomes her own team's delay, by crashing her bike into a building.

The teams have to head out to a small town outside of La Paz, where they'll have to participate in the Bolivian version of WWE Smackdown, fighting against women wrestlers, or Cholitas, for their Roadblock. Thrown into a ridiculous costume, they'll have to perform a six-item routine in the ring. Ken and Tina are there first, and Ken is thrown for a loop when he realizes he's fighting a girl. But hey, think about it this way – you're going to be wrestling a girl while wearing spandex and you won't have to pay for it!




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Ken does pretty well, and his athletic training comes in handy. If Tina's face were still capable of expression, she'd be proud of him. They then are sent to the Pit Stop, a park overlooking most of the city.

Some teams' lack of physical fitness starts to bite them here, as Mark proves to be fairly uncoordinated in the ring and gets his fatass sent back to wrestling school. Marisa also bombs out on her first try, and Toni and Dallas breeze by these teams into second place. Mark fails for a second time, and it's looking pretty bad for them – they don't even know they've screwed up yet!

Meanwhile, Ken and Tina arrive at the Pit Stop and are greeted by a woman with a truly impressive hat. Children could take shade under it. They're first there, and are given a prize of a trip to Cabo San Lucas, which I hope can be taken separately. Although, credit where it's due, Tina was tolerable this week. Toni and Dallas come in for second, and have gone three weeks without doing anything notable, which may be a record.

With several other teams now well through the Roadblock, it's down to a race between Mark and Bill, Terence and Sarah and Kelly and Christy to not be eliminated. The taxi journey for them, as well as well as the middle of the pack teams, proves to be surprisingly impactful, with Terence and Sarah somehow going from eighth to third in the span of minutes. I think they used a portal gun.

Marisa and Brooke are fourth, with Aja and Ty, Nick and Starr and Andrew and Dan making it in for fifth through seventh. Mark and Bill arrive at the mat in second-to-last, but now must serve a 30 minute penalty for being idiots, something they've just now realized. Kelly and Christy aren't bad enough to screw up this opportunity, and sneak in for eighth place by those two sweetest words in the English language, "De" "Fault". I suppose it qualifies as irony that they survive because someone else read their clue wrong.

BOP is doing a link exchange with our good friends at Buddy TV this season. For more The Amazing Race info, visit their site.


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