It seems a little frivolous to be concerned about the goings-on of a group of people trying to win a million dollars on a TV game show in light of the breaking news that shortly followed the conclusion of this week’s episode of The Amazing Race, but the world goes on and while we can be stopped in our tracks by these breaking news items, we can still appreciate the diversion that television affords us.
Unfortunately, this week’s episode had little that was amazing beyond the (literally) breath-taking scenery of the Matterhorn. We left our teams in Switzerland last week and that is where they remained this week as each team received a cryptic clue at the beginning of the leg directing them to a helicopter rescue service. It’s interesting to note the times each team left with last week’s first place finishers Zev & Justin departing at 6:54 AM and last place team Flite Time & Big Easy departing at 8:43 AM. Also of note, but apparently not much consequence, each team was given $1.00 for this leg of the race — because they basically went everywhere on foot.
Again, the wide disparity in departure times was pretty much equalized at the helipad with flights not beginning until 9:15 AM on a first-come-first-served basis. With everyone at the helipad, the first and last place teams were now only about twenty minutes apart. Teams received their clues before takeoff and had to choose between one of two Detour tasks: Search or Rescue. Of the two tasks, Rescue sounded harder because one team member had to rappel down into a crevasse, attach a rescue rope to a trapped person, be lifted back out and then lift the other person out who would then hand them the next clue. Search consisted of using a global positioning device to located a buried body which had to be dug up with the attached clue. Zev & Justin and Gary & Mallory chose to do the Search task and found it was a lot harder than they imagined. Luckily they were searching for a dummy because the bodies were buried in about six feet of snow and ice and it turned out to be a much more time consuming task than Rescue was. Both teams also managed to dismember their dummies while trying to dig them out, which was hilarious and horrifying at the same time as I thought what they would have done to a real person.
The three teams doing Rescue finished first, Gary & Mallory beat Zev & Justin at digging up their dummy, and suddenly Zev & Justin found themselves gone from first to worst (to paraphrase the Globetrotters). Everyone else boarded a train to the next location and had started on the task of making a chocolate (cue product placement) Travelocity Roaming Gnome™ by the time Zev & Justin arrived. These poor guys just don’t know how to pick the right Detour task but they still manage to survive. Chocolate making brought some drama to the kitchen as Flite Time and Big Easy began accusing Vyxsin of stealing Flite Time’s mold from the freezer (which Kent kept insisting was an oven) even though she had only placed one half of her mold on the bottom shelf and Flite Time picked it up. It was never made clear who the culprit was, or even if there was a culprit, but after last week’s dirty move by the Globetrotters they showed more ungentlemanly conduct by continually mocking Vyxsin during the challenge. Meanwhile, Kent stood idly by.
Whether it was their plan or not, the Globetrotters totally unsettled Vyxsin and even though she was the first to finish the task, they fell behind because they couldn’t get a cab to take them to the Pit Stop. Unfortunately, the clue stated they had to travel by foot, something the rattled Vyxsin missed … as did Kent. Poor Zev was still sitting on the snow waiting for his chocolate to cool when Flite Time & Big Easy checked in first at the Pit Stop. I used to enjoy these guys but I’m not liking the low-brow approach they’re now taking to get ahead. Kent & Vyxsin checked in third, got the bad news about the clue and a 30-minute penalty (and Kent immediately began assigning all the blame to Vyxsin), giving Zev & Justin a shot at catching up … until they got lost on the way to the Pit Stop. At least they were on foot! But time ultimately was on their side and Kent & Vyxsin were eliminated. I can’t say I’m sorry to see them go. I think Vyxsin is pretty cool, but Kent has become such a whiner. She should have pulled the trapped person out of the crevasse first, gotten the clue and finished the race with him while Kent screamed, “Pull me up! Pull me up!”
Four teams are left for next week’s two-hour season finale. Who do you want to win?
“The Matterhorn was named after the Disneyland ride. Pretty mind-boggling to me.” — Zev
“Had I known he had our clue, I would have just got the clue and left his ass down there.” — Jen after learning her rescue subject was holding their next clue
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on May 02, 2011 @ 04:15 EST5EDT
