Amazing Race Season 36 Episode 6
By Jim Memmott
Cordoba, Argentina – Alliances help on the Amazing Race. Racers joining forces, playing to their strenghts, scheming, plotting, whispering. OK, you get the point.
Alliances were key this time around, but, to be clear, the winners did it on their own.
The non-aligned team of military pilots, Shane Bilok (far right) and Juan Villa, early favorites, took first.
They edged out Ricky Rotandi and Cesar Aldrete, denying the dating couple a fourth-straight first-place win.
Those two teams had set off first, thanks to their top-place finishes in the previous episode.
Fifteen minutes later, three more teams headed out. They worked together from the get-go.
Really, Danny was born to race, and I know that he's angling for emcee Phil Keoghan's job. You heard that here first.
The nurses, Amber Craven and Vinny Cagungun, as well as the married couple of Rod and Leticia Gardner, quite happily followed Danny’s lead.
And a pact is a pact, so after Rod whizzed through a challenge involving a bicycle and plastic bottles, he waited for the other two teams to catch up with him.
Later, Angie and Leticia couldn't solve the race-course puzzle. All seemed lost. In addition, Angie was dehydrated, as is often the case. Danny, a dutiful son, was giving his mom a quasi-creepy pep talk. Leticia was about to quit, as she just doesn’t like puzzles.
Not to worry, Amber stepped in and showed them where the puzzle pieces went, pretty much doing this for them. (Was that cheating? Who knows? I half expected Phil to impose a yellow card, but he never showed his face.)
The teamwork came in handy in the second puzzle challenge, which involved getting the right cuts of beef in the right spots on a table-top diagram of a steer.
Danny, ever cunning, also realized that he could block the other teams by not leaving the table until the allied teams got their steer puzzles right. The kid has not shame.
A smaller alliance formed between two other teams, as firefighters Sunny Pulver and Bizzy Smith combined forces with the dating couple of Yvonne Chavez and Melissa Main. Thus, two teams that are no strangers to peril avoided disaster.
Of course, alliances on the Amazing Race are doomed to dissolve. That will probably happen next episode, but there were hints of a split at the end of this episode. Danny angled to finish ahead of the other two teams in his group, his best friends forever until they aren’t.
Derek had an especially hard time with the racecourse puzzle challenge.
(I should explain what the challenge was. Basically, you’re driven around a dusty, dirty racecourse at death-defying speed. You then stagger out of the car and try to put together a large tile map of where you just were.)
Derek doesn’t take to puzzles. Too much time was lost. They were eliminated, as were Louise and Will Wadsworth from this pool.
Oh, I’ve left off describing another Roadblock in which one racer donned a very large bubble and played soccer. Phil said it’s quite popular in Argentina. Really? The country that gave us Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi also gave us bubble soccer? Didn’t know that.
Overheard
Cesar: Whatever we have been doing, it’s working. Why change?
Danny: Holy cow, start of a Mega Leg, let’s go.
Shelisia: I saw your throws, and you weren’t even close.
Derek: I was close a lot of times.
Ricky: My brain just wasn’t clicking.
Vinny: Oh no, we got medics on mom
Angie: I had to remind myself why I’m here, and why I’m here is sitting next to me.
Derek: I’m not a puzzle guy.
Bizzy: I love scoring in all senses of the word.
Juan: I hope he’s (Cesar) not a meat-related chef or we’re going to get smoked.
Order of Finish
Juan and Shane
Ricky and Cesar
Leticia and Rod
Amber and Vinny
Angie and Danny
Melissa and Yvonne
Bizzy and Sunny
Eliminated
Derek and Shelisa
