Pouring cocktails, Luke mixes it up

By Jim Memmott

Amazing Race, Season 24, Episode 4

Malaysian Borneo/Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Of course you were excited.

Petronas Towers

There, sparkling in the night in Kuala Lumpur, were the Petronas Towers, the tallest twin buildings in the whole world at 1,483 feet.

“Boy, I bet this season’s competitors, all duos from previous seasons, will have to glide off or rappel down those skyscrapers,” you said to yourself. “Rachel will scream; Luke will balk; the Afghanimals will giggle.” It will be good, clean, fun.

Not to be. The teams picked up a clue at the base of the towers and went onto a bar where they had to dee jay or bartend and well, the challenges were hard, but they wasn’t scary.

And, at the end of the episode, it didn’t really matter. Yes, it was a non-elimination leg, the first of the season.

Brenchel

Which was probably OK, as the newly married Brendon and Rachel (a.k.a Brenchel) would have been sent packing and it really wouldn’t have been fair.

Rachel, yes Rachel, the epically self-center Rachel, had saved another team from implosion, a team that would have been last were it not for her pep talk and comfort.

Here’s what happened:

Only Brendon and Rachel and Margie and Luke were still stalled at a Detour that involved some very tricky cocktail pouring. 

The easily rattled Luke was so frustrated that he smashed the glasses

Margie and Luke

and huffed off to the bathroom.

He returned to be given a stern mother-knows-best lecture from Margie.

“That is not acceptable behavior,” she said, finger waving. “You clean that up; you clean that up.”

And wait. Could this be? In an attack of empathy, Rachel then stepped in and urged Margie and Luke to stay in the game. 

Good heavens, viewers thought, if Rachel can reach out and help others, perhaps the University of Albany Great Danes will go far in this year's NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. 

Blog interruptus: I know that very few viewers made the connection between Rachel's transformation and basketball's Big Dance, but it's just fun to write the University of Albany Great Danes.

Back to the business at hand: Inspired by Rachel’s pep talk, Margie and Luke got the pouring right and left Rachel and Brendon in their dust. (I know, what does that say about gratitude?)

Not the cocktails people poured

Not to worry.  In what I think was the first ever Amazing Race barroom prayer, Rachel then locked hands with Brendon and sought divine intervention. 

It worked, and Rachel can keep dreaming her dream of getting pregnant should she and Brendon win it all.

Right now, the odds for a little Brenchel look long, as other teams, especially the Cowboys, Jet and Cord, are doing so well. 

The bronco-riding brothers won for the second time in four episodes.

Jet and Cord

Why? Well, they aced the cocktail challenge; those boys can pour.

They did this even though Cord had put on a display of poor "Cord-in-Nation" in the earlier bamboo trampoline Road Block.

The father-son duo of Dave and Connor, first last episode, took second this time, Dave at least twice expressing his surprise that he and his son – “two Mormon boys from Utah” found themselves pouring booze. (A rabbi, a minister and two Mormon boys walked into a bar and ....)

This week’s profile in courage: Jessica, the hapless John’s partner, getting her bloody feet taped up before she made a magnificent flat-capturing leap off the bamboo trampoline.

This week’s touching moment: Big Easy taking time out from the race to put a Harlem Globetrotters headband on a little kid.

This week's best decision: Choosing the music mixing over cocktail making. The duos that decided to go with the melody making (well, there wasn't really a melody) did better, especially country music regulars Caroline and Jennifer. 

Overheard:

Rachel: Brendon promised if we win then I can have babies.

Jessica: Your feet are really important during this race.

Rachel: Ladies at home, if you wear pantyhose, don’t try to do jumps on a trampoline.

Leo: You’ve got to feel the crowd. They were loving us.

Big Easy: We went back to school and got our degree in scratching. Stay in school kids.

Margie (to Luke): You have a very low frustration level.

Rachel:  Dear God, thank you for Brendon. … If we go home, we go home.

Order of finish: 

1) Jet and Cord

2) Dave and Connor

3) Leo and Jamal

4) Caroline and Jennifer

5) Jessica and John

6) Flight Time and Big Easy

7) Margie and Luke

8) Brendon and Rachel