Egging them on to the finale

By Jim Memmott

FOR STARTERS, RACE FANS, TAKE THE POLL TO YOUR RIGHT

Amazing Race, Season 23, Episode 10

Bandung, Indonesia – The contestants in this episode ate King cobra (“Tastes like chicken,” said Travis, the ER doc). They hard-boiled eggs in water heated by a volcano and searched for clipping shears in a maze or painted their faces as if they were brides.

Hard-boiled egg recipe

And, at the end of the leg, when the Afghanimals, Leo and Jamal were the last team to arrive at the pit stop, host Phil Koeghan let us all know that it was a non-elimination episode.

Yes, there will be four teams going into next week’s two-hour finale. Surprise? Not really. There usually are four teams left for the finale, one to be eliminated in the first hour.

The point of this leg was not to get rid of any team, but to let us get to know the teams better in advance of  the ultimate race.

So here’s the remaining teams, their strengths, their weaknesses and their karma:

Jason and Amy

Amy and Jason: Winners on this episode, they took first place for the first time, having finished second five times. “We are the best losers,” Jason says.

Maybe not. They get along well with each other; they’re unflappable in tough situations; they’re physically fit. On this episode, they had no trouble eating cobra and the face-painting challenge played to Amy’s strengths as a former beauty queen.

In addition to this, they are simply the most likeable couple remaining. Which may be their weakness. In the previous episode, Amy helped Nicole (the other doc) when she really didn’t have to. It’s easy to see her give another team a helping hand in the finale and have that team never return the favor.

Marie and Tim: They took a surprising second

Tim and Marie

in the episode, having lost what seems like 10 hours as they wandered around looking for the King Cobra House (is that a chain of eateries?)

They gained it back when Marie, not a good cook by her own admission, successfully hard-boiled eggs. (It was a little harder than it sounds.)

M and T have bickered throughout the season, that being their role as dueling exes. It’s hard to know if that’s a strength, a weakness or just their way of communicating.

But they have been set up as this season’s villains, which, I guess, would mean they shouldn’t emerge as champions. But, who knows, to me, at least Tim seems sneaky smart and Marie may be more self-aware, even brighter, than the persona she’s created.

Travis and Nicole: They took third on the episode, Travis losing time by rushing the egg boil on his

Nicole and Travis

first try (Jason had that problem, too). Both had difficulty with the face painting.

The ER docs have had the strongest season, but they seem to have lost their momentum. They’re smart; they are students of the Amazing Race. However, they may not be the united team they once seemed to be.

He continues to criticize her, and she continues to let him get away with it. (He was once her supervisor; things haven’t changed.) His certainty – he decided that 8 to 10 minutes would be long enough to boil an egg – could prove disastrous. Then again, it worked early on.

Jamal and Leo – The Afghanimals, cousins and best pals, have energized the season, stealing every scene they’re in.

Leo and Jamal

They’re cheerful. They joke around. They also seem a little impulsive and somewhat disorganized. They were the only team to take on the search for the clipping shears hidden in the tea-bush maze. Those kind of challenges are always nightmares, but it might have been easier if they had a clearer system of searching.

Their default position is to lie. Which might be a strength, though lately no one is trusting them. They’re also a little vain, as proven on this episode when they ran from the face-painting challenge rather than shave their beards.

Predictions:

For what it’s worth, I’ll say that the Afghanimals will finish first, if for no other reason than it would make for better theater, and I like the first to worst to first theme they laid out at the end of the episode.

Amy and Jason are the team I’d like to win. Virtue and kindness deserves a reward.

Overheard:

Tim: Marie is the toughest girl I know, but there are some food issues.

Travis: Luckily Nicole does eat; she’s not a salad-eating woman.

Leo: I called it. I said we were going to eat snake.

Tim: Marie lacks a little thing called patience… (There’s) no doubt in my mind she comes back with soft-boiled eggs.

Marie: I am 29 years old and I have not boiled an egg before.

Nicole: My husband looks like the sexist drag queen ever.

Marie (to Tim): Travis can’t do makeup; Jay can’t do make up. You’re so metro; you’ll be fine.

Tim: Travis looks like Dennis Rodman.

Order of Finish:

1) Amy and Jason

2) Marie and Tim

3) Nicole and Travis

4) Leo and Jamal

Overall:

If the Amazing Race were a horse race, it could be argued that Amy and Jason have the best form going into the finale. In the last four episodes, they’ve finished second twice, third once and first once, for a total of eight points.

Using this scoring method, where it’s best to have fewer points, Leo and Jamal are second best, accumulating 10 points with two first-place finishes and two fourth-places finishes. Nicole and Travis and Marie and Tim each have 11 points on the last four legs.

On the season, Nicole and Travis are way ahead, having accumulated 24 points. To their credit, many of these were picked up early on against a crowded field.