Culturally Preconditioned

I missed watching the two hour premiere last Monday, but did catch up with it on Saturday.. and man, what a premiere. The instant elimination at the start of the race was deeply brutal. One probably couldn’t imagine going through all the audition process for weeks (or months, even) only to get eliminated within the first 10-20 minutes of the game. Brutal..  but probably not as brutal as the elimination for the first two (and often forgotten) castaways of Survivor : Palau (who got cut off based on first impressions). Man, that’s gotta suck bad. At least this TAR couple was Philiminated because they didn’t complete their task. Oh well.. sucks to be them.

In the two hour premier, teams travelled from the States to Tokyo. I LOVE Japanese legs of the Amazing Race, and this time it almost didn’t disappoint (it did disappoint me cause I felt it was too short).  One of the first of the wacky roadblocks this season was eating a wasabi bomb. I don’t know about you folks, but I had the biggest craving for sushi after the show. Wasabi = yum. The end of the Japanese leg was a non-elimination leg, which saved the sole all-female team  this season. In the second leg, teams continued to Vietname and did a bunch of stuff that I was a large blob of blur in my head at the moment.. and one of the more boring couples were eliminated (Garrett and Jessica).

Tonight teams start their third leg on a moving pitstop (the last pitstop was on a boat somewhere in Ho Chi Minh - evidently the boat travelled while all the racers were on board during the compulsory resting period). This was a pretty unique twist, seeing how the racers had no fricken clue where they were when they started this leg. Teams had to go to Ho Chi Minh city - which turns out to be a two-hour taxi ride away from where the boat took them - and retrieve their clue from the mouth of a Golden Water Dragon.

The clues were cleverly guised as a stamp wrapped around a bullet in the water dragon’s mouths. The photo on the stamp (HCM’s Post Office) indicates where their next clue was gonna be - all racers figured it out pretty quickly, except the ’smart’ lawyer dude - alol so much. Teams then had to choose between a detour of (1) Child’s Play - where they had to drag a porcelain (?) animal statue around town, collect 5 balloons and deliver it to a children’s playground, or (2) Word Play - where they had to spot six letters placed on random vehicles going round the street, from the top of an observation deck.. then decipher the six letters to a well known Vietnamese phrase - “Doc Lap”. All teams, except Marcy and Ron, did Child’s Play.

The final roadblock of this leg was to completely disassemble two used VCR. LOL is it just me, or does this bring back memories? I remember the days where I partially disassembled my VCR to clean the cylinder head.. man that was annoying. Once done, teams head to the pitstop at the Reunification Palace.

In the order of their arrival at the pitstop :

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1. Flight Time & Big Easy - Pre-show thoughts on this Harlem Globetrotter team.. is that I wasn’t gonna like them. But they seemed like pretty colourful characters and they did have a couple of witty lines from the last episode, so I’ve completely turned a 180 on them. Will they be the unstoppable alpha male team this season? They just might.. i just hope they won’t totally dominate the season though.
2. Megan & Cheyne - mmm yeah.. when did Shane turn into something spelled out as Cheyne? Two episodes in and I’m afraid they haven’t left that much impressions on me. Meh.
3. Gary & Matt - the son and dad team are doing surprisingly well! I like them and I think they might fare better than the last son/dad team from last season (which I also liked). Hopefully they can keep up staying ahead in the race
4. Brian & Ericka - when they referred themselves as Team Zebra, I have to admit that it took me a while to realize that they were referring to them being an interracial couple.. a-durrr. I’m kinda pleasantly surprised that they came from behind to the upper half of the pack. Amazing.
5. Sam & Dan - also known as Incestuous Brothers over at Survivor Sucks (LOL relax, it’s just a joke). I love this team. They claim to be polar opposite, and yet they don’t scream at each other every 10 minutes. Their confessionals are funny and they seem like pretty good guys. And the whole flirting thing with the girls? Precious. They’re officially the number one team I’m rooting for this season as of now.
6. Maria & Tiffany - Poker Bitches!!!! and I love them for it. The fact that they’re teaming up with my favorite team, just makes me like them more. They’re no saints, that’s for sure, but they don’t seem to be mean (just because they wanted to) like some of the bitchez that we’ve seen in previous seasons. I don’t LOVE them.. but I don’t hate them either, cause their whining and bickering can somewhat be entertaining. At times.
7. Mika & Canaan - Which one’s Mika and which one’s Canaan? And what kind of a name is Canaan? Sounds like duck in French - which if I’m not mistaken is canard. Yet another completely forgettable dating couple (see Megan/Cheyne and the last eliminated team). Not feeling em at all. Try harder.
8. Zev & Justin - Another team with funny confessionals! The only thing that puts me off from this team is the nasally and whiny voice from one of the guys. I wish they’d be more competent in their tasks.. I like them but I just think that they’re not really putting 100% into this.
9. Lance & Keri - the Jonathug wannabe. I hate this team.
10. Marcy & Ron (eliminated) - they just took too long with the detour earlier, but I guess they might as well go now than later.. cause I really almost felt like time stood still everytime they get screen time.

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All in all, tonight’s episode was just so and so for me… I thought the premier was slightly better though. And in next week’s episode, another team loses their passport. Oh for the love of fuck.

And kudos to A Dying Clown for creating this wonderful gif (yes, I still dislike the Professional Victim from last season)