Back to reality on The Amazing Race

Amazing Race, 31, Episode 6

Dubai/Kampala, Uganda – Whew. Two straight TV hours covering two episodes of The Amazing Race can be Whiplash City.

In Episode 5, as reported earlier, the teams navigated the glitz of Dubai, bright lights, tall buildings, conspicuous consumption.

Fast forward to Kampala, Uganda, and Episode 6, and our racers are caught in traffic jams, their taxis slowed by cattle

Janelle searches for a Rolex

in the streets. They’re stuck in the maze of a crowded market. And, of course, they have to cook the local street food.

In Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, no team was eliminated, so it was fairly certain that the chaos in Kampala would end with a dismissal.

So it did, as Britney and Janelle lost out, taking poolsters

Britney worries

Cindy and Jim with them.

Some takeaways:

The elimination was in the cards, as the Survivors graduates hadn’t finished higher than fifth in any episode. 

Why did they lose? Well, they got stuck in traffic. That happens. And Janelle spent an enormous amount of time searching for a Rolex watch stand, not realizing she was supposed to be making a Rolex sandwich, a kind of frittata.

Culture clash

Tyler and Korey

Korey Kuhl and Tyler Oakley finished first, their win framed, more or less, as a victory for LGBT rights in a country where there are no LBGT rights.

“The challenge today is to appreciate a culture that doesn’t quite appreciate us as openly game men,” Tyler said at the beginning of the episode. At the end, both he and Korey stressed that they had been treated kindly by the people they met in Uganda. 

Of course, they had just left a culture in Dubai that is very restrictive of LGBT rights. No mention of that, but different themes emerge in different episodes.

Motherhood

In earlier episodes, Britney and Janelle had stressed the fact that they are mothers of small children.

That continued in Episode 6, and they formed the Mom

Rachel and Elissa

Squad with Elissa and Rachel, sisters who also have young children.

This made for a touching scene at the end, after the sisters defeated Britney and Janelle in the final head-to-head. Then all four women strode to the finish line hand-in-hand. 

Déjà vu

Floyd cooks up a Rolex

It’s the 31^stseason of the Race, so it’s no surprise that some of the challenges seem, well, familiar.

Transporting wood on the back of a bike, counting the number of steps in a winding staircase, zip-lining over a city, searching for ingredients and then cooking. Been there? 

Of course, food varies from country to country and from

Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara

continent to content, as is discussed by the travel agents Ron and Sheila Albertson Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara) in this scene in Waiting for Guffman, filmed during a meal at a Chinese restaurant in Iowa that leaves Dr. and Mrs. Pearl (Eugene Levy and Linda Kash) at a loss for words. 

New man

Statistically, Colin Guinn and Christie Woods, who finished second on the episode, remain the strongest team.

Colin continues to credit their good showing to his new, calmer attitude, one that contrasts with the way he was during his last time on the Race. That guy, in his words, is “Season 5 Colin.” 

Alarms go off when people refer to themselves in the third person. We'll see.

Meanwhile:

Nicole Franzel and Victor Arroyo, who finished third, have to be a favorite for the finals. 

The Afghanimals, Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran, continue to underperform. 

Team Fun, Becca Droz and Floyd Pierce, fell to fifth after winning the previous episode. They’ll be back.

Overheard:

Floyd: We definitely have to step up our game.

Chris: Slow down instead of screaming us up the stairs.

Elissa (to Rachel): Get your game face back on.

Victor: It looks like a food dish. I thought it was a watch.

Jamal: I love Uganda.

Colin:  I’ve been a lot more loving and forgiving of myself, so that allows you to be a lot more forgiving of other people.

Korey: We’re doomed.

Tyler: I just saw a rainbow

Rachel:  When I was little, my daddy taught me how to gut a fish and clean a fish.

Britney: Getting eliminated isn’t really the end of the world. My oldest daughter is a childhood cancer survivor… I draw so much inspiration and strength from her.

Order of finish:

1) Tyler and Korey

2) Christie and Colin

3) Nicole and Victor

4) Chris and Bret

5) Becca and Floyd

6) Leo and Jamal

7) Rachel and Elissa

8) Janelle and Britney

Live to whine another day

Amazing Race, 31, Episode 5

Vietnam/Dubai – We’ve got a wealth of riches, an almost annoying wealth of riches on our hands.

After a week off, the Race returned with two episodes, back-to-back on the same night. (Starting an hour early to fill the vacancy left in the absence of Survivor.) 

Rachel and Elissa at the end

Why then recap Episode 5 – which turned out to be non-elimination in played out in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates – when you know it has already been upstaged by Episode 6? Then again, why not?  

Here’s some takeaways:

Sisters, sisters

It took five episodes for Rachel Reilly to revert to her wonderfully whiny self, her default position on earlier versions of the Amazing Race.  But, finally, the meltdown happened. 

Facing sure elimination, she became distraught, woe was her.

Rising to the occasion her sister, Elissa Slater, tried an intervention: “Rach, please stop!”

And so she did, after Phil Keoghan let her know it was a non-elimination leg. Which means, of course, that we’ll have Rachel to kick around for at least another episode. 

Rap star

Becca and Floyd

Becca Droz and Floyd Pierce, Team Fun, came in first, in large part because Floyd drew upon his drum-major experience and instantly figured out the silent-rave challenge, which is something this viewer still hasn’t done.

After Phil told the Funsters they had each won $5,000, they then asked him to join them a free-style circle rap contest. And so it was that Phil earned his Phil-o-meter. Life is rich.

Ride share

The Amazing Race has always focused on the lives of ordinary people who staff the shops, plow the fields and cook the meals.

In Dubai, where luxury and tall buildings and bright lights were on display, we were treated to the working stiffs who own and drive Ferraris, Maseratis and Rolls Royces. Next stop Mar-a-Lago.

Bait and Switch

World's tallest building

There’s a really tall building in Dubai, the tallest in the universe. The Racers were whisked upward, riding in the fastest elevator in the universe. When they got to the top, I knew they would bungee jump all the way almost to the ground. Many of us would avert our eyes.

But wait. They weren’t asked to jump, or free fall or even look over the side.

No, they were subjected to a virtual reality challenge in which they digitally climbed. Good grief, a  reality show was engaging in virtual reality. Lame.

Dino-mite

The Race is no stranger to the surreal. Case in point, a challenge in this episode took place in Dinosaur Garden Glow, a park filled with models of dinosaurs in which the Racers donned dinosaur costumes and hunted for day-glo dinosaur eggs. 

Do people do this for fun in Dubai? I guess so.

Odds and end

Fortunes, rise, fortunes fall. 

Chris Hammons and Bret LaBelle, second on the episode, are rising stars given to trash talking about each other. Gotta like them.

Colin Guinn and Christi Woods, life partners, continue to do well, their old, more volatile ways forgotten. “We’re

We met at Starbucks

appreciating ourselves differently,” said Colin, in mellow-speak echoing Hamilton and Meg Swan in Best in Show (Michael Hitchcock and Parker Posey)

Alas, Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl, once outsized personalities, seem content to reside quietly in the middle of the pack. 

And the Afghanimals, cousins Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran, are slumping. They finished next-to-last, undone by virtual reality. I’m beginning to think they aren’t as strong a team as they think they are.

Overheard: 

Elissa: It’s my show.

Rachel: Well, it’s my show, too.

Jamal: Amazing Race you tricked us again.

Britney: I’ve had three babies in five years; so I’m not some kind of seasoned Olympic runner by any stretch of the imagination.

Floyd: I know how to feel a rhythm in myself and recognize it in other people.

Colin: You can go just as fast and just suck the juice out of every experience.

Korey: I’m a bird; I’m a plane; I’m on the Amazing Race.

Rachel: A little mistake can cost you the whole entire leg. 

Order of finish:

1) Becca and Floyd

2) Chris and Bret

3) Christie and Colin

4) Tyler and Korey

5) Nicole and Victor

6) Janelle and Britney

7) Leo and Jamal

8) Rachel and Elissa