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'The Amazing Race 15:' introducing the comeback kids
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Brian & Ericka looked dead in the water.
"The Amazing Race" is always at its best when somebody manages to fight back in spite of nearly impossible odds. That definitely happened this week, and it made for one of the more intense episodes of the "Race" in a long, long time. Then again, this episode also had a key flaw that caused one team to be eliminated for a situation that wasn't entirely their fault.
A step above
Before we get to this episode's collection of surprises, let's focus in on what all of us saw coming at this point: Meghan & Cheyne are pretty darn good at this racing thing. They had some trouble with the detour (which offered teams a choice between playing some "country golf" or doing a dance routine), but the rest of the way it was all smooth sailing as they coasted to a second-place victory.
Sam & Dan, meanwhile, finally put it all together for one of their most successful legs yet. They seem to have developed a rather bizarre strategy to help out their fellow teams as much as possible, and to this point it hasn't necessarily hurt them as much as it has teams in the past. (Paging Erwin & Godwin!) Sam & Dan helped out poker players Maria & Tiffany at the roadblock (counting bells at a tower near Amsterdam), but then focused in and took home their first finish at the top of the pack.
Enough bells to make Edgar Allan Poe sick
This roadblock was a tricky one, especially since it really forced people to try and spot bells of varying sizes in the dark. Suffice it to say, Ericka had problems. She struggled to find all of the bells and fared so poorly that many other teams would have quit. Hats off to her and Brian, though, for sticking with it. As every other team finished, it looked like a foregone conclusion that the married couple would be on their way over to Elimination Station. Then...
Bring on the cross-dressing!
Forcing the racers to dress up in costume is always fun, isn't it? (Suggestion to CBS: get gorilla suits!) After the roadblock, teams this week had to put on traditional Dutch outfits; however, what teams didn't realize right away was that there was only one male outfit and one female outfit for each team. So yes, that's right--Flight Time and Montana Gary had to wear a dress.
The real "easy" choice for the detour appeared to be the dancing routine, since the only real "challenge" seemed to be memorizing the routine and hitting the button outside the tent hard enough with a mallet to make a bell ring (kind of like one of those cheesy carnival games). At the end of the dance, teams did have to eat raw fish and onions. Gross? Yes, but at that point teams might have been pretty hungry. For Gary & Matt, though, that fish was surprisingly enough to make them switch over to golf (and that move potentially cost them a chance at moving up to first or second).
A potential disadvantage brings hope for Brian & Ericka
Maria & Tiffany, meanwhile, did not appear to be strong enough to ring the bell...and then they were apparently not strong enough to hit the oversized golf ball far enough down the course with their wooden-shoe club. Was this exactly fair? It's hard for us to say, since we can't really tell watching from home what kind of skill is involved in hitting a button hard enough with a mallet so that it makes a bell ring. Usually the "Race" is kind enough to allow racers to choose between a physical and "non-physical" option, but it didn't happen this time.
Maria & Tiffany's struggles enabled Brian & Ericka to literally rise from the ashes...only to quickly fall back down into the fire. Here's a note to future contestants: read the clue! So many mistakes happen on this race because people get in a hurry! Brian & Ericka did the bell-ringing / dance routine with ease, but their failure to pick up bicycles upon arriving to the detour cost them 30 minutes...a long enough delay that would have doomed them in just about any other situation.
In the end, Maria & Tiffany just couldn't manage to do either one of the detour choices and actually became one of the few teams in "Amazing Race" history to throw in the towel (joining the ranks of Dallas pizza restaurant owners Marshall and Lance). The two of them really had no hope of catching up at that point, so their decision to walk away was fairly understandable. On the other hand, couldn't they have decided to just take off to the Pit Stop and been eliminated the old-fashioned way?
What do you think, "Amazing Race" fans: were Maria & Tiffany put at a disadvantage by the detour...or were you just happy that Brian & Ericka pulled out the comeback? Let me know by leaving a comment! Next week "The Amazing Race" returns to one of their roughest roadblocks ever: trying to find clues hidden within bales of hay. The last time they did this challenge, Phil had to forcibly tell a team after 8 hours of unrolling hay to stop trying since all of the other teams had finished.
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