I just hate it when the voiceovers in TAR says “Can xxx and yyy’s relationship withstand the pressure of the race?”. For fucks sake, do you really need to get on this race to find out if your relationship is going to last? Hmm.. let’s see. If you can withstand 10 years of your guy shoving you around when he doesn’t get his way.. I’m sure this race won’t do any jackass shit difference to what your relationship is heading into. (Yes yes I’m being over dramatic, but that’s allowed - and very welcomed - on my blog)
But let’s not jump to that just yet. Teams started off at Fort Santiago in Manila for the start of this leg of the race. They had to board a taxi to the GreenStar Bus Terminal and head to Pila Laguna which is an hour and a half bus ride away. Lots of unnecessary bus footage, I almost dozed off. And it was interesting to hear Marc say that “It’s amazing what pretty girls can do (to get what they want) in this country”.. cause I was thinking almost the same thing “It’s amazing what pretty mactors can to get on this show”. Well I guess that’s why it’s called the Amazing Race. Amazing things happen, and amazingly enough, I am still slightly bitter. LOLtastic.
Once they reach their destination, they find out it’s a Roadblock, where they had to go into the muddy rice field and plow a figure of 8 using the carabou. When Allan first explained it, I was like.. WTF is a carabou? I know a caribou… but what the hell is a carabao. It took me several minutes to realize that he was talking about the water buffalos, and interestingly enough.. carabou = kerbau. Duh, right? Yeah, must admit that I was stupid enough not to realize that instantly. I was kinda excited to see this because a few months ago, some spoilers surfaced showing Paula and Natasha finishing this roadblock.
After their roadblock, they next had to go to a Caltex Star Mart (dumbass token product placement of the week) in Manila and deliver 4 boxes of donation using a jeepney to some orphanage. I love the Chong sisters, but man, they really fucked it up by missing the “in Manila” clue, but I guess it could happen to anyone. And I’m not going to go all politically correct here, but the orphanage kids scrambling/attacking the donation package was downright scary/sorry at the same time. Geez! I swear the kids at the African orphanage seemed a lot more civilized than these poor kids. I know that’s not a nice thing to say, but I was just surprised at how the kids were reacting to the care packages. And one of the Chong sisters totally stole my heart for saying this : “given between the kids and the kerbau, I’ll go back to the kerbaus right now”. Again, probably not a nice thing to say, and she’s probably joking, but that’s exactly how I felt. And this is nothing to do with them being orphans. I personally just don’t have the patience around kids. Yeah I’m an asshole. Tough shit.
Okay, next was a detour in Santa Cruz between (1) Heel - where they had to match up 250 pairs of shoes, and (2) Wheel - where they had to assemble a bicycle from scratch. I personally thought matching 250 pairs of shoes would be a total nightmare, but surprisingly the Australian-speaking girls from Thailand did really well on this detour. And finally, the next stop after the detour was the Pitstop for this leg of the race. And in the order of their arrival at the pitstop :
- Marc & Rovilson - pretty strong team, but after a while, I can’t help but noticed that almost everything these two have to say sounds rehearsed (very much like their audition video). Their likeability is wearing thin, and it’s only been the second episode.
- Paula & Natasha - I’ll give credit where credit is due, and they did pretty well on this leg of the race, so kudos to them.
- Anne & Diane - Wow. Third place again. Quite an amazing feat. I’m loving this team more and more.
- Pamela & Vanessa - Poor girls had a shitload of bad luck in this leg. But hey, 4th place isn’t too shabby. They’re still proving to be one of the teams to beat. I hope they’ll continue to do well on this show.
- Adrian & Collin - I’m glad their ranking is improving. I like this team, but seriously now, are we going to be preached every goddamn week how they are having communication advantage because they can read body and sign language? God! This is going to be Charla all over again (but then again, I totally heart Charla and Mirna, so that’s okay)
- Brett & Kinar - I thought this team would continue to be all boring. Oh hang on, they did. However, Kinar literally made me laugh out loud when she wanted to mount the water buffalo. OMGWTFLMFAO! At least she was able to laugh at herself, so they’re okay, I guess. I look forward to seeing more personality from this team.
- Sophie & Aurelia - “I got ze clue!”. LOL I love it when she sayz zat. And I sincerely believe this will be team to bring us the trainwreck entertainment value this season. You can tell how badly Sophie wanted to strangle Aurelia at the bicycle detour, and how Aurelia was all “oh I’m pretty! look at me! *wink* *flirt*”. LOL. I hope this team won’t go anywhere anytime soon.
- Daichi & Sawaka - so they’re ‘big’ story this leg was them having a ’small argument’ in the taxi. Mmmm okay.. moving on….
- Henry & Terri - Not much coming from them this week, but if I was in the same bus with them, I wouldn’t hesitate to shout out “shut the fuck up, lady!” during all the singing in the bus.
Monica & Edwin - (eliminated) - Urgh.. I don’t know if I even want to start. The Asian Romber? Dude, Rob doesn’t sit on the sidelines and whine, oh we cant stop cars like that, oh we cant do this, blah fucking blah. Rob doesn’t shove his partner around like Jonathug does. Man, what a douche. I’m so glad, they are off the show.
That said, I do think the editing still has a lot of room for improvement. They didn’t even bother to mislead the viewers at how large the gaps were in between the teams. Halfway through the show, did anyone REALLY think Monica and Edwin wasn’t going to be eliminated? Hmm I thought so.
