The Amazing Race 20 -- Hot Like New Love And Mississippi Mud
That's how two teams described the temperatures during the watermelon pyramid task. Bopper and Mark were the team responsible for the new love comment and I think it was Kerri and Stacy who said Mississippi mud.
This was the week Rachel and Dave from their domination of the number one spot and I learned the difference between an Express Pass and a Fast Forward. I thought when you used the Express Pass you skipped all tasks right to the pit stop. Not so, if only allows you to skip a task. Unfortunately the next task was even worse than the previous task.
Four teams managed to get on an earlier flight by getting put on standby and get a huge lead over the other teams. The teams that got the earlier flight were: Border Patrol, Rachel and Dave, The Feds and Bopper and Mark.
Upon arriving in Asuncion, Paraguay they face a Detour: Stacked Up or Strung Out. When I heard what the tasks were, I said people should pick Strung Out, but no one listened to me and all went for Stacked Up. Only one team picked Strung Out, first, and they got all jammed up on the task and maybe should have gone to do Stacked Up.
Stacked Up featured building a 10 x10 pyramid of watermelons. Border Patrol gets it on the first try, while other teams find their pyramids come tumbling down before they can finish and they abandon the watermelons to go do Stung Up.
Strung Up is untangling harp strings and attaching them. Vanessa and Ralph won't give up on the watermelon task and head over to Strung Up and The Twins won't give up on doing Strung Up and head over to do the watermelon task. Unfortunately, this stubbornness causes one of these teams to be eliminated.
When Rachel and Dave can't do the watermelon task they head over to the harp task, but see so many people there, they decide to use the Express Pass, and head to the next task. Bad mistake, if they used the Express Pass, it should of been on the next task which was balancing a bottle on your head while doing a dance routine.
While Border Patrol gets through the task without too much trouble, Dave can't and he and Rachel incur a two hour penalty, even though they're the second team to arrive at the pit stop.
At the watermelon task, the other Rachel or Team Big Brother gets into it with Vanessa of The Divorcees. Vanessa keeps making catty comments as Rachel is bending over picking up watermelons. Team Big Brother decide to go do the harp task, because Vanessa's comments are getting to them. In the cab Rachel and Brendon trash-talk Vanessa. It turns out to be a good decision because Rachel races through the harp task and is able to do the bottle dance task and she and Brendon manage to check in as the second team.
As I stated earlier, The Twins won't give up on the harp tasks and the Divorcees won't give up on the watermelon task. It's dark before either team completes their tasks and all the other teams have checked in. The Twins have problem doing the bottle dance, while the Divorcees whiz through it. It allows them to check in before The Twins and The Twins get eliminated.
The official check-in at the pit stop was:
1. JJ and Art who win a trip to the Bahamas.
2. Rachel and Brendon
3. Team Guido
4. Bopper and Mark
5. Nary and Jaime
6. Rachel and Dave
7. Kerri and Stacey
8 Vanessa and Ralph
9 --The Twins -- Eliminated.
And the average standings after the first three weeks of the race are:
1. JJ and Art 2.0
2. Rachel and Dave 2.7
2. Rachel and Brendon 2.7
4. Nary and Jaime 5.0
5. Bopper and Mark 5.3
6. Kerri and Stacy 6.3
7. Vanessa and Ralph 6.7
8. Team Guido 7.0
While Team Guido is still in last place, they made a surprise recovery and if they can keep that up they could become one of the teams to beat. They have the advantage of starting out as third team if they can keep their lead.
Vanessa and Ralph cracked and burned at the watermelon task partly because Vanessa was more interested in trashing Rachel then doing the task and the fact when they were having problems with the watermelon task, they didn't try to go over and do the harp task.
Rachel and Dave also had problems when the stress of the task got to them. If that keeps up it could continue to cause them problems on the race.
Ralph and Vanessa could be the next to go. It looked like that arrived at the pit stop hours later than the next to last team to check in and unless they can get ahead of the pack or the next leg is a non-elimation [which we haven't had yet] it may be bye-bye to The Divorcees.
