Monday, October 29, 2012

The Amazing Race 21: Episodes 4 and 5 Catch-up

The past two weeks have a bit crazy so I've fallen behind, loyal blog reading public of 30, in my vital mission of recapping reality shows. I went to my place upstate with my friend Diane where we watched Esther Williams and Van Johnson in Easy to Love and three episodes of Dark Shadows (it was a festival of bad art), then I caught a bad cold and there was a little hurricane called Sandy.

Project Runway ended (Dmitiri or Boris or Vladimir or whatever his name is won), I tried to DVR the first episode of Project Runway All-Stars and the latest of The Fabulous Beekman Boys, the damned thing didn't do it. Fortunately, it did get The Amazing Race. Episodes four and five both took place in the same city in Bangladesh which shows that the producers are still trimming the budget. But they are also trimming extraneous scenes which is a good thing. When they began in Indonesia not every team was shown opening their envelope and we didn't waste any time viewing the rush for the airport ticket counter. Once they all got to Dhakka, the first task was to repair a damaged bus. The Sri Lankan twins make the most noise, while Mutt and Jeff trailed behind.

The next challenge was a choice between sewing a mattress or banging out a crowbar thing. Naturally the Beekman Boys chose sewing, but so did alpha teams World Domination and the Chippendales. At the mattress sewing challenge, Chippendale dancers James and Jaymes brightened right up when Josh mentioned that he had been a drag queen and made his own costumes. Interesting. I had just finished reading Josh's memoir I Am Not Myself These Days in which he recounts his adventures playing Aquadisiac, a drag creation with goldfish swimming around in her plastic tits by night, and working in an ad agency by day, all while living with a drug addict-hustler. I'd say that was more life experience than most of the alpha teams have probably had. In addition, Josh is running a farm in Sharon Springs with Brent while he still holds down an advertising job. James and Abba, the rock and roll guys, went for the Fast Forward--a relatively easy job of rounding up dead rats--and won, Mutt and Jeff were eliminated.

In episode five, James and Abba were ahead the whole time, benefiting from the Fast Forward the week before, which was kind of unfair. They rarely put a fast forward in if they are not going to change cities. Usually there is some levelling event, like an airplane trip or park or a location that doesn't open until the next morning. James did receive some bad news at the top of the leg that his father had inoperable cancer. They came in first and Ryan of Team World Domination proved what a jerk he is. There I said it and I'm glad. It's not enough that Ryan and his love slave Abby are the only team who could possibly win $2 million for coming in first in leg one, he has to break the record set by Dave and Rachel last season of winning the most times. He opened up leg five by declaring this ambition. Then when he and Abby come in second at the end of the episode, he acted all downcast because they were only second and his dreams of being the most powerful Amazing Race contestant ever were dashed forever! (they can't possibly break the record now since there aren't enough legs left.) This caused poor Abby to tear up since she sweated bullets all day and thought she'd actually done a good job. But no, it wasn't enough for Mr. Super Alpha Male. He forced himself to smile and accept second place.

The Beekman Boys were almost eliminated having lost their way in trying to find a cab and then having trouble with building a gigantic scale with bamboos and ropes. But it turned out to be a non-elimination round   and they will make it to Istanbul nest week which we have not visited season seven with the accursed Rob and Amber. Since then I have visited Istanbul myself and am looking forward to this episode.



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