By Jim Memmott
Amazing Race, Season
26, episode 10 preview
Namibia/Amsterdam – It’s crunch time on the Race, as after tonight (May 1) there are
only two episodes left.
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| GoldDerby |
Odds are that Ashley and Matt, the couple who got engaged in
an earlier episode, will be saying goodbyet.
I've got science on my side in saying that. In a gold derby.com poll, 43 percent of the respondents predicted the heave-ho for A & M.
You’ve got to believe that Matt’s
frantic and disastrous performance in the Episode 9 wooden shoe challenge is
behind the public’s lack of faith in him and
Ashley.
It was painful to watch, as Matt, running and
talking but not thinking, tried to find a match for a wooden
shoe among hundreds of wooden shoes.
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| Matt matching shoes |
He succeeded on the 43rd try. Time by that time, had flown.
If they had been eliminated, they were, by their own
admission, going to go right out there and procreate.
Ashley put that process on hold, saying they will focus on the race. Host Phil Keoghan, who thinks of little else but
love and matchmaking, did not comment.
Next most likely to go are truck stop lovers Rochelle and
Mike, as 29 percent of those voting believe they are goners.
True to the pattern they’ve
established, they did just well enough to survive in Episode 9, finishing
fourth.
Rochelle, to her credit, proved adept at Dutch Masters
shuffleboard. All she needed was a beer, she said, to make the moment complete.
You gotta like her.
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| Rochelle shuffles with Dutch Masters |
Who likes Jealani and Jenny, lawyers not in love? Poll
participants have them as the third-most likely team to be eliminated (15
percent say they will go.)
I suspect that most Race watchers don’t
really care all that much about or for J & J. And they don’t
particularly like or dislike each other, so they’re not all that much fun
to watch.
The bickering Blair and Hayley are quite the opposite; they’re
fun, fun, fun. For better or for worse, they remain a reason to watch the show,
which has to be why only 5 percent of the voters think they will be eliminated
tonight.
And maybe we should give the nagging and nasal Hayley some love. Yes, she can't even put a
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| Hayley and Blair in the hot tub |
Laura and Tyler won Episode 9, just as they won Episode 8.
They’re making the whole thing look easy. No one – repeat no
one – taking the poll believes they will be eliminated.
Which means, of course, that they will go out tonight in an
episode won easily by a newly focused, calm and celibate Ashley and Matt. We’ll
see.
Overheard:
Hayley: (to Blair):
Get out of this dream…you’re excused from my dream right now.
Jenny: Oh my god,
a windmill,
Hayley: Oh that
smell; it smells like poop.
Ashley: The
longer we’re here the worse it gets.
Tyler: I never
thought I would be sitting in my underwear,
Laura: You’re not
paying attention. You’re too busy staring at your muscles.
Matt: Note to
self: try to calm down.
Hayley: We can’t
keep riding around in the wrong direction.
Blair: Hayley, you’re not thinking, you’re screaming,
Hayley: I told
you we should go down this street.
Phil (to Laura and
Tyler): I would assume that you guys
are madly in love right now.
Tyler: We share
such a love for the Amazing Race; so that has overpowered anything else.
Matt: We’ve got
stories to tell our kids when we have them; which is going to be soon.
Ashley: We/re not
having babies yet.
Order of finish,
Episode 9
1) Laura and Tyler
2) Hayley and
Blair
3) Jenny and Jelani
4) Mike and Rochelle
5) Matt and Ashley
