Culturally Preconditioned

I must say the “No Chicken, No Check In” was a pretty clever tag line from the TAR producers. Well done. But the episode tonight was just okay.. and actually, personally I think it was a let down. Nothing much to bitch about, so I’ll keep this to a short recap. Teams start off from the last pitstop, where they had to find the tribal chief, who will give them a clue, and a gift. It turns out the ‘gift’ was a live chicken that they had to carry around throughout the entire leg of the race. This actually served zero purpose except to prophesize the clever tag that they came up with - No chicken, no check in. Teams without a chicken at the pitstop at this leg of the race will not be able to check in.

Given that fact, and they were given ZERO dollars for this leg of the race, it was a no brainer that this entire episode will be focused on Burkina Faso still. The next clue led them to a detour where they had to (1) shake your pan - where they had to go mining for an ounce of gold using the local panning method, or (2) shake your booty - where they had to learn the local dance and improvise where they will be judged by ‘local celebrities’ (ie. future racers for The Amazing Race Africa - if Michael McKay has any say in it). The dancing detour was truly painful to see for some of the teams, so I’m not even going to comment.

After the detour, teams are faced with one of the two predetermined U-turn - a new element in this race - whereby teams may force another trailing team to perform BOTH detours. This is.. just plain mean, IMO. I didn’t think anyone would use this at this point in the game, but amazingly enough, the dumb blondes decided to use the U-turn on Lorena & Bobby (who was the last team at that point of the race).

Teams next had to go to the Tampouy Goat Market for their next roadblock - to load a flimsy bicycle with stuff, including a small baby goat (wtf?!) to be delivered to various appointed people in the market. Teams did their thing, and lastly had to take a cab (okay, they were given no money for this leg of the race, and yet, they had to take taxis for no less than three times in this leg) to the next pitstop - the Hotel de Ville in the city. In the order of their arrival at the pitstop :

1. Hank Azaria <3 <3 <3 (What an amazing feat! This team kicks ass - except when the sister went peeing and lost their lead)
2. Nate & Jennifer < / 3 < / 3 < / 3 (when Jennifer started crying about how bad they wanted 1st place and how 'everyone should get a chance to be first' - I was going FUCK YOU, you self entitled bitch. This is a race, get the fuck over it. I hope Hank Azaria will continue to beat your ass at 1st place, just like Nate will continue cheating on you. This team should NOT get anywhere near the top spot)
3. Ron & Chris < / 3 (sorry but I still hate the old Asian fart. I think he almost shut the door on Christina's head during their last taxi ride in this leg of the race)
4. Nicholas & Donald (the grandson is still useless. Urgh.. someone get Mitchell off my screen, please)
5. Kynt & Vyxsin <3 <3 <3 (still love them)
6. Blondes < / 3 < / 3 < / 3 (karma will come in the form of a truck creaming you over in the next episode)
7. TK & Rachel (They’re lagging, but I dunno.. I get winning vibes from them. Can we switch their places with the 2nd team, please?)
8. Lorena & Bobby (philiminated - all in all, I was very disappointed that Lorena was just too calm this episode. I DEMAND A MELTDOWN, DAMMIT. If I knew she was going to be this calm, I would’ve liked to see them eliminated last week. Pffft)