Rebooting after an Olympian failure

By Jim Memmott

Amazing Race, Season 26, episode 9 preview

Monaco/Namibia – Once again we’ve got to shuffle the deck.

Going into last week’s double episode Olympians Aly and Steve were dubbed (at least by this writer) as the race favorites.

Aly and Steve enroute to elimination

Well, they had an astonishingly bad outing in Namibia, finishing last in the first episode – a non-eliminator – and last in the second. Host Phil Keoghan sent them packing. (Team Walkworth is thus out of the Pool.)

My gut says that blind-daters Laura and Tyler, who took Episode 8, are the new favorites. They get along. They’re self-aware. They have generally done well.

Then again, though the recently engaged Matt and Ashley may seem a little excitable – he had a brief bout with paranoia while at the wheel in the desert --  but their finishes in the last four episodes, a second, fourth, first and second, are the strongest of the remaining teams.

Matt freaks out checks cars on his trail

I’d rule out blind-daters Jenny and Jelani, as they have never recaptured their earlier form, perhaps because her control-freak personality is getting to Jelani.

Likewise, Blair and Hayley, the Bickersons who haven’t been bickering that much of late, still seem like a match made in Hell. She simply can’t be quiet.

Which leaves us with Mike and Rochelle, perhaps the longest of long shots. The do love each other; they don’t panic; but they always seem to be struggling.

Good heavens, he operates a truck stop back home in Michigan, and yet he has trouble with a stick

Mike and Rochelle, a little dazed but still racing

shift, or, for that matter, problems even starting a car.

And yet, sometimes those crafty Race editors lower our expectations just to surprise us in the end (think Beekman Boys).

Sometimes, too, they raise our expectations merely to smash them to pieces. Witness the implosion of Aly and Steve in Episodes Seven and Eight.

Previously on The Amazing Race, they had seemed an ideal couple. And yet she proved to be a whiner last week, especially when she had to do a physically demanding Road Block pitching a straw hut with the help of some scantily clad natives. (Don’t worry their private parts were digitally fig-leafed.)

But fault him for not listening to her backseat driving. She told him to stay in the middle of the road. He ignored her. Cue the flat tire and a chorus of I told you sos.

A tire flat, Aly rebukes Steve 

So it didn’t go well for them, except perhaps when they had to butcher up some wildebeest remains so they could feed some wild dogs. (What’s with that, anyway? Can’t wild dogs get their own grub?) Aly liked the butchering. Indeed, she said it was in her genes. So she had at least a little fun in Africa.

Footnote: Follow this link to an interesting posting on the blind-date gimmick. Does it work? Doesn't it work?

Overheard:

Blair:  The saving grave is that Hayley has a big crush on our pilot.

Hayley: We’re in a really little plane with a really hot pilot.

Aly: I’m bleeding all over.

Jenny:  I’ve never really touched my meat; this is a first.

Tyler: Let’s go feed some dogs.

Hayley (to Blair): I can’t see what’s going on. So can you communicate with me?

Aly: I would be fine with a lion coming and eating me right now.

Laura: The Bickersons (Blair and Hayley) have shown up here.

Tyler: They suck.

Rochelle: I couldn't ask for a better partner in this race or in life.

Matt (to Ashley): Look at me, look at your boy, look at your fiancé.

Hayley (to Blair): I’m just giving you a friendly heads up... You have to admit you haven’t been the best of drivers.

Mike: I have the strongest girl on this entire race.

Tyler: I’m walking a zebra; now this is so cool.

Jenny: If there is a situation where we can single a team out, we will single out the team that U-turned us.

Aly: We actually took ourselves out.

Order of finish, Episode 7

1) Matt and Ashley

2) Laura and Tyler

3) Hayley and Blair

4) Jenny and Jelani

5) Mike and Rochelle

6) Aly and Steve

Order of finish, Episode 8

1) Laura and Tyler

2) Matt and Ashley

3) Hayley and Blair

4) Jenny and Jelani

5) Mike and Rochelle

6) Aly and Steve