The Amazing Race -- Land Of The Midnight Sun
Original Airing: October 20, 2013
Last week, Ephraim and Chester were the latest team to be eliminated. A ticket counter clerk put the wrong date on their tickets and from then on they had nothing but problems involving their travel arrangements until Phil finally showed up at the airport and eliminated them.
Nicole and Travis learn their first destination on this leg of the race is Svolvaer, Norway. Jason and Amy hope they and Travis and Nicole can get on the first flight together. The foursome learns the first flight leaves tomorrow morning. There’s only one flight so everyone will be on it.
All teams flying to Bodo, Norway. A foot race begins upon landing as they get on the ferry heading to Svolvaer.
Marie says they won’t be giving anyone the ExpressPass until they have to.
Another foot race begins to the clue box that’s a Detour:
Hang Your Heads – string together 6 strings of 10 fish heads and lay them out in the Arctic sun to dry. Once dried they’ll be made into fish head soup.
Hammer of the Cods – collect 15 pair of cods from a high hanging rack and hammer them until you make jerky out of them.
Teams scramble to find out where to go and to get a taxi. Some decide to walk because it’s early and taxis aren’t that available. Others wait to catch a taxi.
Teams run into trouble in the Hang Your Heads task because you have to push your wheel barrow full of fish heads a really long distance. To make matters worse, the Cousins wheel barrow develops a flat tire. They end up having to carry it.
It really doesn’t seem that one task will take less time than the other.
A tricky part of the Hang Your Head task if you have to pick a flag-marked pole. If you don’t put it on the marked pole, you don’t get credit. Tim and Marie don’t realize they’re not putting their heads on a marked pole. Brandon and Adam tell her they don’t need Marie’s stinking ExpressPass when she tries to bribe them with it.
I changed my mind. After seeing people doing the fish pounding task, I think it may actually be worse. The ones doing the fish heads task finish first.
Next you have to take a high-speed ride on an RIB boat as Sea Eagle Safari.
Once the ride is over they get a Roadblock: Whose The Biggest Swinger? and take an Arctic plunge. You have to put on a wetsuit and jump off a bridge attached to a rope then swim over to get the next clue. Jason has problems releasing himself from the rope so he can swim to the next clue.
Teams must return to shore and get a Ford Ranger to help them with their next challenge called the Ford Challenge to find their next clue. In short, this must be tonight’s vehicle promotion and when the first place team checks in at the pit stop they may get that as their reward. You have to attach a chain to a wooden platform with a huge rock sitting on top and then hitch the wooden platform to the back of the pick-up truck and move it. Underneath is a marked bag of gold coins that directs them to the Viking Longhouse, this leg’s pit stop.
The blondes have a problem driving the shift stick on the Ford Ranger. If you’re going on this race, you’d better learn to drive a shift stick, first. The Oklahoma Boys tell them how to reverse.
Tim and Marie miss something as they take-off for the pit stop [not knowing where the pit stop is] In short, the weird luck teams are having about not doing the right thing so they can check-in seems to be holding up. Of course, this is the first time a team has started driving to the pit stop when they don’t even know where it is.
- Brandon and Adam and they’ve won $5,000 each. I was wrong about the Ford Ranger.
Phil gives them another clue and tells them they’re still racing.
Meanwhile Nicole and Travis run into Tim and Marie and realize they don’t know where the pit stop is. Nicole decides to play hardball with Marie. She says she’ll only tell her where the pit stop is if she gives them the ExpressPass NOW. Marie doesn’t want to give it up. So Nicole basically flips her the bird and saying, “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.”
And that’s how the episode ends.
Just where is the next destination on the race? And will Marie pony up the ExpressPass to Nicole and Travis to learn where the pit stop is? Or will she refuse and use the ExpressPass she has to make it to the pit stop with out ponying up the ExpressPass to another team. However, isn’t an ExpressPass used to skip through a task but since she’s already finished the task it won’t do her any good to use it? So in this case the Express Pass may be completely useless to help her find the pit stop and hang on to the extra Express Pass she’s been holding over all the other racers heads. Seems Marie may finally be caught between a rock and a hard place? She may have no choice but to give Nicole the ExpressPass if she wants to make it to the pit stop, or try and follow Travis and Nicole as they head there themselves.
The Amazing Race isn’t known for cliffhangers, but this is a pretty good one. After using that Express Pass against all the racers now a racer has got her in a situation completely of her own making that may just force her to have to give it up and fall way behind by having to go back to the last task and trying to find the clue telling her where the pit stop is.
Can I say I’m really loving this season. It’s been the best one for a long time.
