Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Gloves Come Off
By M. Giant | Season 20 | Episode 7 | Aired on 04.08.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The race takes a bit of a turn, in Phil's quaint phrasing, as teams start fighting in earnest. When Brendon pushes past Ralph and Vanessa while changing planes in Nairobi, some pretty nasty words fly between Rachel and Vanessa. Art and JJ are not only happy to perpetuate this, they also start some of their own by first airing their suspicions to the other teams that Nary and Jamie are cops, and then accusing Team Undercover in person.
Of course, with all this interpersonal sniping going on, how can we expect the actual leg to hold any interest? In actual race news, the teams all fly to the outlying regions of Tanzania to take in the scenery and the local fauna. Apparently not allowed to drive themselves on the wildlife preserve, they direct local drivers to a spot where they're supplied rickety bicycles to ride down a dirt road into a village. There, a Detour presents a choice between throwing clubs at moving clay targets or jumping up and down with the locals. Nobody has any trouble with that except Vanessa, who can't seem to actually ride the bicycle. It's when they leave the village that things get tricky.
First of all, Art and JJ, who were in first place with Brendon and Rachel, get going the wrong way and fall to fourth. Conversely, Other Rachel and Dave jump from fourth place to the lead by being the first team to find the next location, a campground where they have to set up a whole safari homestead, complete with shower. They fall to bickering, however, and their lead dwindles. As a result, their fourth first-place finish doesn't seem to come with a wide lead. Bopper and Mark, who assembled their campground efficiently, come in second, while Art and JJ take the bitter medicine of coming in third. Brendon and Rachel are fourth, while Vanessa and Ralph prove faster at erecting a tall tent than Nary and Jamie were, and come in fifth. The federal agents, however, keep at it. And even after stopping on their way to the Pit Stop to look at some elephants, reaching the mat in last place doesn't cost them the race, because it's non-elimination and they're still in it. Thank heavens; it would be a shame if something were to actually happen.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!For over ten years now, you've been talking to people about The Amazing Race. And for over ten years now, those same people have been putting their noses up in the air and haughtily declaring, "I don't watch reality TV." (Everybody says that, so obviously somebody is lying.) "It's always just a bunch of idiots arguing," they say. "But no," you tell them earnestly," The Amazing Race is different. You learn about other parts of the world and other cultures. And at the end, the team that took the longest to do everything goes home. It's not just idiots arguing." And then tonight you finally get them to watch an episode with you and now they'll never listen to anything you say about anything ever again.
Phil welcomes us back to Azerbaijan's capital city of Baku, specifically the vast esplanade that serves as the Pit Stop for the sixth leg of the race and the start of the seventh. We're over the hump, in other words. Since Other Rachel and Dave won the previous leg, they will be the first to start this one, at 9:15 PM. The clue tells them to "fly to the gateway of Africa's wildlife heritage, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania." We see lots of footage of wildebeests and zebras and leopards and even a lion... yet not a single airport, so that might prove tricky. But Other Rachel and Dave are up for it. They head to a travel agency to find out about flights and learn that the next one leaves at 8:30 the next morning and has a stop in Nairobi, so that's what they book. Simple enough.
Art and JJ are starting the leg at 10:45 PM, in second place. JJ interviews before the leg that they're the frontrunners, which is a bold statement to make when you're leaving ninety minutes behind the leaders, Fast Forward or no. He says they hope to soon see the last of some of the deadweight. "I.e.e. [sic] Big Brother team. I'm so tired of them following us. And we're kind of getting to the point where we're kind of getting a little cranky about it." Uh, when were they not?
Mark and Bopper -- otherwise known as Team Kentucky -- open their clue in third place at 10:55 PM. They're off to Africa a leg later than they thought. One minute later, Rachel jumps up and down screaming with happiness at this chance to fulfill not one but two lifelong dreams (hers, of going on an African safari and mine, of seeing her eaten by hyenas). Mark and Bopper are also amazed at their good fortune, being country boys who get to go to Africa. Wouldn't it be sad if they got home and their country-boy status was revoked? "Sorry, boys, y'all went to too many other places and went all cosmopolitan on us. Drinking your Coors with one pinky in the air was the last straw." These two teams soon show up at the same travel agency Art and JJ are at -- which is the same one that Other Rachel and Dave visited earlier. Well, it's the land of fire, not the land of travel agencies. JJ quietly (but not too quietly) predicts that Brendon and Rachel will try to get whatever they get. JJ warns the agent as much and things get tense as Brendon and Rachel sit down at the adjoining desk to try to listen in. Rachel VOs that they never did anything to Art and JJ, "They just don't think we deserve to be here." Rachel never did anything to me either, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been on every nerve I possess, most of them multiple times. Bopper and Mark show up next and the only tension there comes from Bopper loading up his pockets from the candy bowl. Which is to say, none -- other than my concerns about Bopper's remaining teeth.