The Amazing Race
Season 35, Episode 2
By Jim Memmott
Bangkok, Thailand – Everything was sort of as it ever was in a second Amazing Race episode that featured flower arranging, grocery shopping, pomelo scooping and performances remarkably like those of the previous episode.
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| Greg and John Franklin, plus pomelos |
Pomelo? Wikipedia tells me that the pomelo is the largest citrus fruit and an ancestor of the grapefruit. Like the grapefruit, it can interact with some drugs, so be careful.
The pomelos were floating in a maze of narrow canals set up as one of the challenges teams could choose in the Detour at the end of the episode.
Riding in small flat-bottom boats, racers had to scoop up the pomelos, take them to shore and load them into five big buckets.
It took at least a couple trips, and it was labor-intensive, though not all that hard. (Only one boat sank, sent down by pomelo overload.)
The racers could have been grocery shopping, the other option in the Detour. It involved scouring a large market and finding 12 items on a phonetically spelled list.
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| Victor and Jocelyn |
Last week’s winners, Victor Limary and Jocelyn Chao, a married couple celebrating their 20th anniversary, had a distinct advantage.
His family is from Laos. He can understand Thai, the language of the list. The store he and Jocelyn run stocks a lot of the items on the shopping list. Talk about a finger on the scales. Seemed a little unfair, but, then again, I like Victor and Jocelyn, so I won’t give them a penalty.
It was Victor and Jocelyn’s second win a row. Rob and Corey McArthur, the wonderful father-son team, were second last week and second this week. The next four finishers also ended in the same spot they ended before.
And following a kind of form, the mother-daughter team of Elizabeth and Iliana Rivera, next to last in the first episode, finished last in this one, and were therefore eliminated.
Why? Well, they started last, and they had troubled shopping. But they did enjoy their time together.
The Roadblock at the beinning of the episode involved contestants wading through a muddy and catfish-infested pond to pick 20 lotus bulbs.They had to then assemble two design- specific bouquets.
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| Rob with lotus bouquets |
Two shoes were sucked up in the mire during the bouquet hunt; one racer (Steve Cargile) fell in, and Ashlie Martin’s anxiety issues were aired. Beyond all of that, the Amazing Race drone shot some gorgeous green overheads.
Speaking of Ashlie, her husband and Race partner, Todd Martin, who seemed a little overbearing in the first episode, turns out to be just a big goofball, a good guy who cheers on his partner and has fun meeting the locals.
There was some classic Race drama featuring a left-behind fanny pack. Joel Strasser and Garrett Smith were guilty of that offense. Turned out it didn’t matter all that much. They told their cabbie to head back. He did. Fanny bag retrieved.
Why do moments like this in the Race put me on high alert? Why do I yell at the TV, “Your bag, your bag, get your bag?” Perhaps I should get a life.
Overheard:
Lena Franklin: I’m afraid of crocodiles.
Ashlie Martin: I’ve been knee-deep in baby poop with my three kids; this is nothing.
Robbin Tomich: Something just touched my butt, and it wasn’t in a good way.
Todd Martin: We didn’t speak the same language; we were from a different culture. But we connected.
Eliazbeth Rivera on her daughter, Iliana: She’s a mini-me, and it pisses me off sometimes.
Order of finish:
Victor Limary and Jocelyn Chao, married entrepreneurs
Corey and Rob McArthur, son and father
Gregg and John Franklin, brothers
Morgan and Lena Franklin, sisters
Todd and Ashlie Martin, married, high school sweethearts
Steve Cargile and Anna Leigh Wilson, father and daughter
Joe Moskowitz and Ian Todd, engaged
Liam and Yeremi Hykel, brothers
Joel Strasser and Garrett Smith, best friends
Andrea Simpson and Malaina Hatcher, college friends
Robbin Tomich and Chelsea Day, childhood best friends
Eliminated
Elizabeth and Iliana Rivera, mother and daughter
Alexandra and Sheridan Lichtor, siblings and roommates
