Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Taxiing Their Patience
By M. Giant | Season 13 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.05.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After Terence and Sarah have a stupid argument about his possessive neediness, the race heads to Fortaleza, the second Brazilian city in as many legs. The airport drama takes the form of Tina claiming credit for getting the airline to switch to a bigger plane, allowing all ten teams to get on a previously full flight. Terence is a total bitch about it (probably due to the massive, debilitating head wound he claims to have), but Ken manages to disarm him handily. Advantage: Ken.
In Fortaleza, the Detour is a choice between logrolling boats across the beach and using computers to locate a specific shipping container in a giant shipyard. The Geeks steal the lead by being the only team to select the latter option (not counting the Southern Belles, who picked the computers but ended up at the boats by being dumb), and one of the few to actually read the clue and pay attention. After the Detour, Terence and Sarah outsmart themselves looking for a taxi, blowing most of their lead until Toni and Dallas take pity on them. And Terence's heart grew three sizes that day.
Then the needle/haystack-style Detour requires players to find the next destination on a hundred-foot billboard covered in Portuguese text. Ken and Tina win the leg, and a pair of ATVs, by passing the Geeks right before the Pit Stop. Terence|Sarah, Toni|Dallas, and Aja|Ty arrive in a near tie, while the other teams turn it into a race for the bottom. Nick offers to partner with Sarah, then rudely blows her off and screws over Andrew; Kelly and Christy fail to read their clue for the second time in the episode and thus end up abandoned by their cab; and the Frat Boys, Belles, and Team Tick-Tock end up just being too dim to manage it. Thus it's the end of the race for Anthony and Stephanie, but at least he still has his looks. His words, not mine.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on The Amazing Race: Phil apparently agreed to call Dan and Andrew "Team Superbad," and part of me dies inside. Ten teams remain, and none of them is "Superbad," if you ask me.
We pick up moments after we left off last week, at the first Pit Stop on Forte Sao Marcelo in Salvador, Brazil, the "Capital of Joy." Why they let Terence in is beyond me. Because even before they get to leave the next morning, we see a tense moment between Terence and Sarah from right after they arrived at the Pit Stop: "I do want to be with you, I just don't want to not speak to another single person," she tells him tearfully. "Which I think is the only thing that's going to make you feel like I want to be with you." Terence just walks away to go to the bathroom, but she protests that they don't have a resolution. Here is where a gentleman would say, "I'd like to resolve this with you, but I have yet to pee since we've been on this side of the Equator and I'll be right back." Terence says, "There is no resolution" and walks away, grinning toolishly. Sarah's left to finish pleading her case to a cameraman, who is probably more sympathetic than Terence is anyway.
Nick and Starr leave precisely twelve hours after they arrived, at 4:07 a.m. It's full-on dark, of course. I don't care what anyone says: the hardest part of the Race for me would be getting up and being ready before the sun comes up, regardless of time zone. The clue tells them to fly to Fortaleza, Brazil, 640 miles up the Atlantic coast. From there, they'll taxi to Cumboco, specifically Plaza Del Cumboco. In their taxi to the airport, Starr is nervous because their cabdriver is going too fast. Nick interviews that it's generally his job to calm her down in stressful situations. Which, from what I can tell about Starr, would seem to apply to all situations. No wonder they live in different time zones. By the way, I need to make a correction: in last week's recap, I assumed for some reason that Nick was gay, and then later read that he has a girlfriend named Monica. So, my bad. Still, we'll be seeing later on that he knows some pretty good dick moves.
Ken and Tina leave at 4:13 a.m., seven minutes behind the leaders, and reveal that everyone's getting $125 for the leg. In their cab, Tina is haranguing the driver for a cell phone. Ken tries unsuccessfully to get a word in edgewise, which leads to an interview clip where he says, "As far as the relationship, we made a decision before we ever got on this race that it's gonna be yes or it's gonna be no." How is that a decision? But they do agree that neither of them wants a life sentence with the other. Well, that sounds like an easily solved problem to me.