Amazing Race
Season 33, Episode 8
By Jim Memmott
Greece – A creature of habit, I always order a grande dry cappuccino – skim milk, extra shot – at Starbucks.
One hundred (or many more) grandes in, you’d think I could spell “cappuccino” without looking the word up.
Stalled at the lunch line, I would not be alone.. The Gonzalez twins, LuLu and LaLa, finished last in Episode 8, which took place in Greece, because, among other reasons, the spelling of “souvlaki” was Greek to them.
They also didn’t realize that the clue for their next stop was printed on their souvlaki wrapper. And they lost even more time when they had to double back after mistakenly skipping a challenge and arriving at the pit stop early. Not their day. Game over.
The sisters took elimination with remarkable grace, saying goodbye and jumping into the ocean. It was the “most dramatic gesture” host Phil Keoghan had seen a while. Thus, Team SchMoMott (Cindy, Drew, Emily and Jim) was out of our pool, and the number of Race duos was reduced to four.
In addition to asking them to spell and eat souvlaki, Episode 8 required contestants to prepare dolmades wraps and later listen to a 15- mnsermon and remember 10 of the saints mentioned.
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| Penn celebrates |
Penn Holderness credited his impressive success at the memory challenge to his ADHD, which has led him to hyperfocus in order to tune distractions out. And with lots of time gained, he and wife Kim went on to their third win in a row.
Flight attendants Raquel Moore and Cayla Pratt seemed to struggle from challenge to challenge, and yet they finished second.
The challenges didn’t play to Ryan Ferguson and Dusty Harris’s strengths – their strength – and they were third, but a strong third.
Natalia and Arun Kumar, daughter and father, didn’t get that lost. Their navigation skills are still shaky, but improving, and they survived in fourth place.
Three episodes remain with the last leg airing on March 2. Presumably, this means there might be one more non-elimination leg, if the last episode is to consist of three teams.
Kim and Penn have to be the favorites to win, as they’ve finished first on four of the eight legs. They’re smart, fearless, compatible, and they can spell. I’ll bet a cappuccino that they walk away with the $1 million.
Overheard
Kim: At the end of the day, you just want to see the next day.
Penn: My wife likes to wrap.
Kim: Closest thing I’ve done to this is swaddling a baby.
Dusty (while wrapping a dolmades): This is where my Colorado extracurricular activities are going to come into play.
Kim: He (Penn) really is bizarrely patient.
Dusty: The dude (Rusty) had 10 years (in prison) to work on his mind.
Order of Finish
Kim and Penn
Raquel and Cayla
Ryan and Dusty
Arun and Natalia
Lulu and Lala
