By Jim Memmott
Amazing Race, Season
26, episode 11 preview
Amsterdam/Peru – Four teams left, two episodes to go, here’s
a theory:
This season’s Amazing Race focused on
love with five previously dating couples joining six blind-dating couples in
the quest for the $1 million prize.
 |
| Hayley and Blair cooperate |
At the end of each episode host and matchmaker Phil Keoghan
has peppered the blind-daters with quasi-creepy questions about the state of
their relationships.
The couples, with one now-gone exception (Jackie and
Jeffrey), have always insisted that love is not in the air, that they are,
well, just friends.
“They’re
BFFs,” Phil said of the always bickering Blair and Hayley,
who, despite or because of their dysfunction, won Episode 10.
 |
| Rochelle and Mike, still racing |
And, indeed, they may be best friends forever, and like best
friends they quarrel and tease and, in the end, make up.
Early on in the episode blind-dater Laura, said, “If
I was here with a boyfriend, it would be a little bit harder.”
She has a point. Only one previously dating couple remains,
the entirely likeable truckstop lovers, Mike and Rochelle.
Ashley and Matt, who also had been dating before the Race, went out
in Episode 10, taking poolsters Drew and Emily with them.
Matt’s hyperactivity and inability to
focus were again a problem.
He seemed like a great guy, but
 |
| Ashley and Matt typing |
(Attention educators: Cursive writing is making a comeback, could typewriting be far behind.)
But, to their credit, Ashley and Matt didn’t
quarrel. After a goof-up they kissed. Love does count for something.
Episode 10 had lots of scenery once they got to Peru, where,
of course, the racers had to do local labor (sugar-cane cutting) and Fitbit synching.
Yes, in a bit of product placement excessive even
by Amazing Race standards, the couples used their Fitbits to calculate the calories they
needed to compensate for a local sugar brew. I have no idea what it was all about as it involved math, but I think the point is that a Fitbit helps you
drink, or something.
 |
| Product placement, Fitbit |
Presumably one of the four couples will be given the boot
tonight.
Odds are it will be Mike and Rochelle – really, how have
they survived this long? – but you never know.
The crafty constructors of the Amazing Race story line may be setting us up for a surprise ending,
one in which the last becomes first.
Then again, that’s what happened last
season, when Amy and Maya, the sweet scientists, took the prize.
Personally, I don’t want any of the couples
to lose. I’ve watched them so long now that they've become my
friends, which, come to think of it, may be the point.
Overheard:
Blair: I just
peed myself.
Matt: We do great
with our backs up against the wall.
Hayley: This is
what I frigging (told) you to do.
Blair: After you, teammate.
Jenny: I’m
also quite clumsy; so I don’t think I should be operating a
machete.
Hayley: I’m
never a person that yells ever. It takes me a lot to make me mad.
Blair: Sometimes I
wish she (Hayley) would just shut up.
Hayley: Sometimes
I wish he would pay attention or listen.
Phil (to Jelani and
Jenny): Are you disappointed that there wasn't more than a friendship?
Tyler: It wouldn’t
be fun if Laura and Tyler kept winning every leg.
Ashley: We really
do work better together.
Order of finish,
Episode 10
1) Hayley and Blair
2) Jelani and Jenny
3) Mike and Rochelle
4) Laura and Tyler
