Season 29, Episode 2
Sal Paolo, Brazil:
It’s early, and it’s confusing. The members of the teams are strangers to each other
as well as to us.
Race-starved viewers have waited since last May for
the hijinks to resume, no wonder we can’t keep things straight.
 |
| Click and play: Strangers in the night |
Refresher: Last time around Dana and Matt (the Dancers) beat
out Sheri and Cole (mother-and-son Team Alabama) and Tyler and Korey (Best
Friends) for the $1 million first prize. And then the Race went dark even
though it has had Episode 29 in the can since last July.
Basically, CBS is starving the Race to death, moving its
time slot once again, giving it almost no promotion and neglecting the website.
(Good grief, they haven’t even updated the Cast page to show the teams.)
What’s especially sad is that Season 29 seems to be full of
promise. The gimmick this time is that the teams are made up of complete strangers
who paired off at the end of Episode One. First person to finish got to pick a
teammate and so on down the line.
 |
| Ashton |
Odd couples (Vanck and Ashton, especially) emerged, as did
pairs that seemed almost too-well matched (Francesca and Jessie might have been
separated at birth).
So Episode One got things going, with the lookalike,
too-cool-for-school pairing of Kevin and Jenn getting the boot. (Really, did
they even care?)
Episode Two found everyone in Sao Paolo, Brazil, some teams
arriving later than others. (As always, fates were determined at the airport
ticket counter.)
There was a Detour in which teams could either samba or
set up a
makeshift gym using oil drums and tin cans and ingenuity.
 |
| Floyd |
The samba challenge provided a no-brainer for the
exuberant Floyd, a former high school drummer. “It was so amazing to put my skills to use and
have a task perfectly catered to what I do,” he concluded.
Shamir, Sara’s partner, couldn’t say as much about the
high-altitude window cleaning challenge in which he experienced serious groin pain
thanks to an ill-fitting harness.
“My testicles are about to rupture,” he winced. “I need a doctor,
I need an ambulance.” Discreetly, the cameras didn’t follow him into the
ambulance. Sara waited outside as well, expressing little sympathy.
Shamir had it coming, of course. “I’m an alpha male, so I’m
very
aggressive at times,” he had declared at the beginning of the episode setting
himself up for a fall. Meanwhile Scott, Brooke’s partner, overcame his serious
fear of heights – good heavens, he was wailing in the elevator on his way up, but he got those windows washed and established himself as a crowd favorite.
 |
| Shamir |
Liz and Michael, perhaps the least likely couple to succeed,
finished first, an especially impressive win as they were on the last plane out
to Brazil. “We had a horseshoe right up our behinds,” Michael declared. “We
crushed it.”
The perfectly matched Francesca and Jessie finished 10th
and were thus eliminated, taking our Team Beltway with them.
 |
| Francesca |
As the season unfolds, the duos will take on clearer roles, but
it seems right now that Matt and Redmond are a skilled pair that will do
anything to win. Watch out for some dirty tricks.
And let’s hear it for Joey and Tara, this year’s token old
people. Good grief, he’s 46; she’s 38. Let AARP know.
Overheard:
Brooke: I seriously bruised
my elbow.
Michael: Being a band geek
pays off. Stay in the marching band, be a nerd.
Vanck: I hold grudges, I
really do.
Liz: Oh my gosh, I am
scared spitless.
Scott: I cried the first 20
minutes of this challenge.
Sharmir: My balls hurt.
Order of finish
1)
Liz and Michael
2)
Vanck and Ashton
3)
Matt and Redmond
4)
Seth and Olive
5)
Becca Floyd
6)
Brooke and Scott
7)
Tara and Joey
8)
London and Logan
9)
Shamir and Sara
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