The Amazing Race: A Clog & Ball Story

Whoosh! Wow, The Amazing Race is really, erm, racing along this season. How are we already down to five teams? It seems like just yesterday all of our traveling men and women were meeting in a grimy LA aqueduct and leaving that weirdo motorcycle couple in the dust. And now we've circled half the globe and wound up in the windswept Netherlands, where apparently it is custom to swim in long underwear to an island to play croquet with giant clogs on a stick. I've spent a small bit of time in the Netherlands, and I certainly never played clog croquet when I was there. Well if I did, I don't remember it, probably because I was really, really... um... tired at the time. Anyway, the noble and ancient sport of clog croquet proved too grueling a task for one team, and they just gave up and bowed out.

It wasn't surprising at all that this is how Maria & Tiffany, our Poker Girls, would be bumped (or bump themselves) out of the race, given that they were prone to frequent flights of helplessness, but this particular challenge just seemed... well, not that hard. I mean come on. I can understand why they weren't able to choose the other activity on the Detour, as it involved one of those strength test hammer and bell things that, by sheer virtue of physics, they weren't able to complete. But to have a second-place starting time only to end up whimpering and weeping and hugging (there was quite a bit of weeping and hugging) on a lovely grassy field because you can't hit a big ball into three golf-like holes just seemed silly. I suppose it was very windy and that grass was tall and hard to hit a ball through, but... come on! I mean, that day was Brian & Ericka's to lose.

Yes Brian & Ericka, who vacillate so widely between handling challenges well and completely bombing them, completely crumpled in this episode and were lucky to escape with their racing visas still stamped. And look, I was griping about Maria & Tiffany squandering their second place start, but in truth it didn't really matter what starting position any of the teams had. Because last night was one of those annoying challenge starts in which there was only one flight out to the next destination, so everyone winds up on the same plane together, making starting advantages earned the week previous completely moot. It just doesn't seem fair, does it? I guess some folks might think a level playing field makes each individual episode more exciting, but I think it makes each episode too, well, individual. There's no sense that the race is cumulative when everything resets to zero at the start of a mid-season episode. Let frontrunners be frontrunners, and we'll watch other teams try to catch up. That dynamic seems more true to the spirit of a race than leading teams constantly having to wait for everyone else to catch up.

Anyway, I understand that CBS doesn't control flight patterns from Dubai to Amsterdam (yet...) so it's not really their fault. So! We were in Amsterdam and the teams had to find a fleet of Mercedes sedans and drive them out of the city and into the bucolic, flat farmlands. Brian & Ericka's first silly hiccup was that Brian couldn't get the car into drive ("They're not used to luxury cars," snorted Tiffany). So that took up a silly bunch of time, while Ericka got more and more stressed out. When they finally got on the road and got to where they needed to be, Ericka nominated herself to do a challenge that involved climbing up into a historic bell tower and counting all the bells. There were 62, a number that all of the other teams easily reached, but Ericka... well, I don't know what Ericka was doing wrong, but I suspect it wasn't really paying enough attention. Because she kept getting the wrong count and got more and more frustrated with each try. It was agonizing enough to watch on television, I can't imagine what it must have felt like to be cramped in that bell tower or standing helplessly outside like Brian was.

After wayyyy too long, Ericka finally got it and stumbled outside and the weary pair figured they were out of the race. But they nobly pressed on, determined to at least finish this leg and put on a good show of sticktoitiveness. Good thing they did! While they normally would easily have lost, Maria & Tiffany were so wrapped up in their clog croquet debacle that Brian & Ericka were able to dash in and secure a fifth place finish. They had a time penalty for not using some bicycles as they were instructed to do, so there was a nail-biting half hour where they just had to sit on a bench and let the clock run, but in the end the Poker Girls needed way more than a half hour. Brian & Ericka: y'all dodged a big ol' bullet last night. Let's hope your trip to Sweden next week proves slightly less harrowing.

On the positive side, Meghan and Cheyne held out for a second place finish behind the Brothers Gay, Sam & Dan. There was an awkward scene at the Dubai airport where the boys decided to come out to everyone. I think they expected everyone to be shocked and amazed, but everyone was basically like "Mehh..." I think Brian said "Well that explains the matching bathing suits," and I wasn't entirely sure what that had to do with anything. I mean, the matching bathingsuits made it seem more like their mom was buying their clothes than it did that they were gay dudes. But what do I know. I mean I was really, really tired last night.

But yeah, Sam & Dan won, which is fine. I'd have preferred Meghan & Cheyne. The brothers just seem a little dumb, in an arrogant kind of way. It was funny to hear Dan describe Sam as "book smart" while Sam was talking about studying anthropology and wanting to travel and be immersed in new cultures for the rest of his life. This from the guy who couldn't identify Jackie freaking Kennedy in a photograph. The youth of America, ladies and gentlemen! I don't think they stand much of a chance of winning the whole competition, though, especially now that their Poker Girl alliance is no longer. My money's still on Meghan & Cheyne, though the Dad/Son pair could still stage an upset. Those two guys are just quietly chugging along, holding their own, not fighting. It's pretty remarkable.

And I regret to report that I just like the Globetrotters less and less with each episode. They're kind of obnoxious, don't you think? I dunno. I wouldn't have bragged like they did about taunting Mika at the waterslide last week. I think they're just getting big heads about the competish, which isn't good. As we saw last night, the game is constantly undermining and surprising its players. Let's see where things shake out next week.

Five legs left. Whoosh!