THE AMAZING RACE: No Chicken, No Check-In

Ok fans of THE AMAZING RACE, I have a question for you. Do you actually like any of the teams this season? Here we are in the fourth leg into the race and I have yet to find a team to pull for. In general the teams seem a bit more whiny this season. I thought I was liking Azaria and Hendekea for awhile, but he really annoyed me tonight. Kynt & Vyxsn are ok but I don’t always think they put in enough effort. And Donald & Nick don’t annoy me all that much but I don’t find them particularly interesting. The rest of them…eh, I couldn’t be bothered.There are a ton of reason that I could never run the race (including my inability to read a map and my ability to get lost in my own town), but I could seriously not deal with someone screaming in my face to ‘ go faster’ or ‘hurry up’ under already stressful circumstances. I’d probably lose it and try to kill someone on a Detour.

Anyway, the teams are still in Africa but Kynt and Vyxsn seem to be the only ones to notice (Azaria & Hendekea just keep comparing it to Ethiopia…where they are from…have they mentioned that?). Lots of running around aimlessly in this leg. The teams were first sent off to find a local leader who provided them with the chicken that was to remain with them throughout the leg – ‘no chicken, no check in’. Then it was off to a Detour: Shake Your Pan or Shake Your Booty. In shake your pan, the teams had to do enough gold mining to garner an ounce of gold. In shake your booty they had to learn an African dance and then perform it in front of local celebrity judges. If the judges liked your dance then you got the clue – if they didn’t then the team would incur a 10 minute penalty. I personally would have thought it to be more interesting if the teams had to perform the dance until it was approved by the judges, but hey, I don’t make the rules.

All the teams, with the exception of Don and Nick (who had no trouble with the gold mining task), chose to shake their booty. Kynt chose to not only shake his Goth booty but to share a little Jedi saber moves with Africa – talk about a cultural overload for our African friends. Shana & Jennifer chose to sex it up because someone must have once told them they were sexy – that someone lied. For the most part the teams found it easy and moved on. A few had to wait the ten minutes but it didn’t seem like a big deal. Rachel and TK opted to shake their asses but then deemed it to hard and went for the gold (a move which cost them more time than it would have taken to fail the booty shaking task).

After shaking things up a bit, the teams then headed to the next task. On their way the teams came across a brand new Amazing Race feature called the U-Turn. The U-Turn can appear after a Detour, and if used it allows one team to force another team back to complete the other part of the Detour before moving on. It’s somewhat similar to the Yield used in seasons past but much more interesting.

Showing they have absolutely no strategy, Shana & Jennifer chose to use The U-Turn on Lorena & Jason – a team that was so far behind that the use of the U-Turn probably would have no impact on the game whatsoever. If anything they should have used it on TK and Rachel who were right on their heels. It was a dumb and impulsive move, seemingly at the hands of Shana as Jennifer was vocal in her disagreement. But hey, she let her do it so it’s just as much Jennifer’s fault as it is Shana’s. Karma is a bitch and they’re going to be feeling it soon.

The next task was a Roadblock which had one team member loading a bike down with supplies (including a goat) that had to be delivered to what I think was a local market. All of the teams struggled a bit, not only in loading the bike but fighting the language barrier that prevented them from getting proper directions. Shana had an especially hard time with it and I laughed at her. Seriously, these teams would do so much better if they would just stop with all the whining and focus on the task at hand. Did you think you were going on vacation people?! Have you never seen the show?

In the end it was a foot race between Azaria & Hendekea and Nathan & Jennifer to be the first to meet Phil at the mat. Azaria and Hendekea won by an inch to take home their 3rd first place finish. Jennifer embarrassed herself by pouting and complaining that Azaria and Hendekea should have let them come in first because they haven’t yet won a leg. Um, has anyone told Jennifer that the name of this show is the Amazing RACE? If you want first place then earn it sweetheart.

Sadly we had to say goodbye to Jason and Lorena. I say sadly but as I mentioned earlier I don’t really care for any of these teams yet so I wasn’t all that sad.