Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Down Under Blunders
By M. Giant | Season 18 | Episode 2 | Aired on 02.27.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.While the Cowboys continue to struggle, the Non-Pit Stop takes its toll on other teams. The trickiness of the first clue allows Jen/Kisha and Zev/Justin to grab an early lead while other teams flounder helplessly. Just about everyone has to work with another team to find it, which means the Cowboys continue to be left in the dust. Even so, they manage to get onto one of the two charter flights to Broken Hill in the Outback. In the Living Desert, a Detour is a choice between creating a ground mosaic out of rocks and chalk and then dancing on it, or spitting paint onto a stencil. Everyone opts for the first, but of course Amanda and Kris have to do both as a result of their U-Turn. They're not far behind 10th-place team Ron and Christina even after that.
The next thing is for everyone to dress up as kangaroos and then search a mining town for an intersection indicated by streets named after two elements on the periodic table. Zev and Justin win the first leg and get to keep it. Ron continues to be high-handed and frustrating, and nearly loses the race for himself and Christina. But not quite; Amanda and Kris are unable to eliminate their lag, and the U-Turn is their undoing for the second time in a row. Man, did I call that wrong.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Kind of an abrupt beginning this week; no reminder from Phil of what this is, so I guess it's up to me to tell you that we're still in Manly, Australia, north of Sydney, and the leg that began in last week's season premiere is still going on. We rejoin Jet's epic struggle with the flag-decoding task still in progress, if "progress" is the right word considering he isn't making any.
Meanwhile, over at Shelly Beach, which served as last week's non-Pit Stop Pit Stop, Kent and Vyxsin (currently in 10th place) are reading the clue sending them back to Sydney and something called "To Sail To Stop." And I thought they spoke English in Australia. Phil reminds us that now everyone is "racing to figure out that the seemingly nonsensical phrase refers to a sculpture of a giant anchor next to City Town Hall." I guess that would stop a sail in a hurry, ergo "To Sail To Stop" is the title of the artwork. Next to the anchor is a sign-up sheet for two charter flights: one leaving at 6:00 AM with room for six teams, and another leaving at 6:30 AM with room for five teams. Although the departure times aren't really played up at this point, for reasons that will become apparent later. Phil says the flights will take them to Broken Hill, "a small mining town 684 miles from Sydney." Or, in other words, a wide spot in the road on the far side of New South Wales.
First-place team Gary and Mallory jump into a cab and ask their driver where they can sign up for charter flights. The only reason he doesn't literally laugh in their faces is because they're sitting behind him and he can't turn around far enough. "Sydney's a very big area," he points out, and he also doesn't know what "To Sail To Stop" means. Hard to blame him.
Amanda and Kris, who got to the mat second, remind us that they were U-Turned their first time on the Amazing Race, and this time they essentially U-Turned themselves by being dumb at the starting line. In their own cab, Kris explains the significance of their singularly unhelpful clue: "This could open up the game to anybody because right now we're just driving around aimlessly." Which is pretty much how they started the race, and look how that turned out.
Jen and Kisha are more succinct: "Why did we do this again?" Kisha laughs as they ride in their cab back to Sydney.
We also check in with Zev and Justin in fourth place. Justin says that teams probably underestimate them, because of how Zev has Asperger's. I think they're more likely to be underestimated because the other teams are aware that they may or may not have their passports on them at any given moment.