Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Run for the Border
By M. Giant | Season 17 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.17.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After the teams get to feel all virtuous doing some repainting of the Ghanaian school, they head to Kiruna, Sweden, at the Arctic Circle. The race gives everyone the same tickets north, but most teams either research an earlier flight out of Frankfurt or learn about it from teams who did. Which is not to say that everyone gets on it. Once there, they go to the famous Icehotel (or rather the warehouse where the Icehotel is stored in the summer). Michael and Kevin's lame little Speed Bump consists of sitting in ice chairs there for ten minutes, so they're the first to get to a dog-sledding Road Block. Jill and Thomas are already in last place when they go running full-tilt in the wrong direction. At the Detour, they have to either sled down a course or build tents in the snow with Scandinavian nomads. Michael and Kevin struggle with the tent while Kat breaks the sledding course but still makes it with Nat to the Norwegian border Pit Stop first. Not bad for the team that came in eighth last week. Three other teams bail on the sledding task, but Jill and Thomas don't know that and use their Express Pass on the Detour, landing them in fifth place. And Jonathan and Connor are the last-place team, meaning they missed their Princeton graduation during this leg for nothing. Not that they don't try really hard to make up for it.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!"This is Doryumu," Phil tells us as he welcomes us back to Ghana, although it's a little odd that this is the first time I've heard that word. By which I mean "Doryumu," not "this," even if Phil makes "this" sound new every time. "Here, where people live and work much the same as they have for generations, teams found this rural homestead in a race around the world." So I guess it is just some dude's house then. But the race is on hold for a bit, because as we see the yellow-and-brown uniformed kids at the Asebi D/A Primary School singing a morning song, the racers walk up shyly in a big knot, "to help with renovations." That's putting it a but generously, because it looks like all they're doing is painting some support columns, and they're only doing that when they're not talking to the cameras about how good it feels. Jonathan and Connor harmonize, "We've been working on the schoolhouse, a gift from Amazing Race." Giftwise from those two, the school might have preferred a pair of ball gags. It looks nice when they're done, though. Or, at least when someone's done. No way did the racers do all that.
Jonathan and Connor are leaving at 10:15 AM, in first place. Remember that. "You're headed to the Arctic Circle!" Connor reads from the clue. That covers a lot of area; could the clue be more specific? Fortunately, Phil clarifies that they'll be traveling "4,500 miles, from the furnace to the freezer; the city of Kiruna, in the area known as Swedish Lapland." Thank you, that does narrows it down. He goes on to say that because there aren't a lot of planes out of Ghana, the show has thoughtfully provided all the teams with tickets on the same flight, but Phil specifies that the teams aren't required to use them. In case they'd rather walk, I guess. Once they land, they'll drive themselves to Jukkasjärvi and find "the world-famous Icehotel." Because when The Amazing Race starts running low in exotic new locations, they can always just raid the James Bond filmography. We see the Icehotel glittering in the arctic sun as Phil explains that in the winter it "offers a not-even-close-to-warm reception to its guests." Whereas in summer, the ten thousand tons of ice are stored in a warehouse. Oops, maybe coming here in the summer wasn't your best move, Amazing Race. But that's where the racers will find the next clue anyway.