Integrity On Sale: Just $45!

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 11 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Eric & Danielle being the last team to reach the Pit Stop but the third team to be saved from elimination on the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located at Hong Kong Jockey Club, Happy Valley Racecourse on Hong Kong Island, China.

In the Roadblock for this leg of the Race, teams had to perform the world's tallest Skyjump, walking around the outer rim of the observation deck of Macau Tower, and then take a tethered jump off the deck to the ground below.

The Detour was ‘Noodle’ or ‘Dragon’. In ‘Noodle’, teams had to make two bundles of traditional Chinese noodles. In ‘Dragon’, teams had to carry a dragon head and drum and carry it 3/4 of a mile to Nan Van Lake to find the one dragon boat the dragon's head matched.

After the Detour, teams had to locate a marked Mini Moke and drive themselves to the Pit Stop.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Oswald & Danny
2. Dustin & Kandice
3. Charla & Mirna
4. Eric & Danielle


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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1. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 2
This week: Up one place

The smartest thing these girls have done in a while is take a punt on Oswald & Danny’s willingness to trade in their integrity and honour for $45. It showed how desperate the boys were and how readily they were happy to lie down and become someone’s bitch for the right price. And not even for a particularly high price. For some reason, the girls thought Eric & Danielle were a stronger team than Charla & Mirna, despite the results of this season saying quite the opposite. Personally, I’d have Yielded the team I knew was closest behind me, which would have given me a greater lead on ALL the teams, but these girls obviously has a reason for wanting to get rid of Eric & Danielle (they’re probably thinking of Eric’s prowess on the Race last time when he was partnered with Jeremy – but the key difference this time is that he’s now partnered with Duh-nielle). Still, the whole ploy ended up working for them, because they were able to break free from the other teams and arrive in first place … again. A truly telling moment for Dustin & Kandice was when Charla was talking to Oswald and saying how she’d have gladly given the boys some money without attaching any strings to the deal – and I believe her, because her priority is to see Dustin & Kandice eliminated before they get to the final three teams – but while watching this exchange, Dustin & Kandice suspected Oswald of double-crossing them and making a deal with Charla & Mirna instead. Talk about projecting your own evils onto another person! It’s clear that their distrust of the boys highlighted their own personal downfalls (it takes one to know one, etc). Their true colours were again on display when they reached the Pit Stop and lied to Eric & Danielle’s faces about what they’d told Oswald & Danny to do with their Yield ‘power’. Instead of being honest and saying they’d specifically instructed the boys to Yield Eric & Danielle, they flat-out deceived them by saying they’d only told the boys to Yield “someone else other than us”. Their story isn’t going to hold up to scrutiny when Oswald & Danny have a chance to talk to Eric & Danielle during the twelve-hour rest period – unless the latter refuse to speak to the boys (in which case their ire will be misdirected during the penultimate leg next week – at least in MY opinion it will be).




2. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 3
This week: Up one place

When Mirna likened Oswald & Danny’s deal with Dustin & Kandice to making a deal with the devil, I both snorted at her hypocrisy … and silently agreed with the sentiment. I’m not sure making a deal with herself and Charla would have been any better (each team wants to win, after all – and they’d already made a pack to work together and keep the beauty queens out of the top three teams if they could), but it was clear that Dustin & Kandice were ready to hang the boys out to dry (which is exactly what they did when they deflected the blame of the Yield back onto them as they were lying to Eric & Danielle about what they instructed Oswald & Danny to do at the Yield). When Charla & Mirna were doing the ‘Noodle’ Detour, it was surprising and irritating just how much Mirna went on and on about Charla having told her to cut the pasta thicker – when it should have been very thin. She kept on and on about it as they were completing the task, she kept on and on about it when they were in the car driving away, and she kept on and on about it when they were being interviewed about the leg during their twelve-hour rest period. Ridiculous. Does she not care about how she’s making her cousin look and feel in front of an international audience? Instead of being gracious about it, she clearly only has her own image at heart – she’s cruelly putting Charla down to make herself look better. Not an attractive quality at all. But I guess she felt that she needed a confidence boost after her truly abysmal attempts at driving! I don’t know why she didn’t learn how to drive manual (“stick”) when she applied for the All-Stars version of the Race … particularly after she’d had such similar trouble the first time they were on the Race! You’d think some simple driving lessons in a manual car would have been a smart investment before setting out! But oh well. It made it hysterical to watch, and helped give Eric & Danielle the jump on them (which was a necessary psychological scare for the girls, even though it didn’t amount to much because Eric & Danielle were ‘Marked For Elimination’). But what was with that oh-so-helpful bus driver continually beeping his horn at Mirna when her car wasn’t moving? He could have jumped out to help, or at least waited quietly – clearly if the car’s broken down and the woman’s in trouble, beeping your horn repeatedly isn’t actually going to HELP, moron!




3. Eric & Danielle - ”Marked For Elimination” (but SAFE!)


Last week: 4
This week: Up one place

I was glad to see these guys arrive at the Pit Stop in second place – they did well, considering they started off in last place and were also Yielded. It was also good for them that Oswald & Danny had such a terrible leg (not their first such leg in this Race, incidentally), and also that Mirna’s so shocking behind the wheel, because these factors all helped them leap from last to second place … even though their half-hour penalty pushed them back into third place. Earlier in the episode, when Eric & Danielle were running through the gardens in the rain, Danielle took a fall and Eric didn’t appear to show much (if any) sympathy. But his initial response could have been edited out, because he was immediately heard to tell her she was alright – when there’s no way he could have known this without checking first if she’d hit her head or broken a leg or something. Also, they were both laughing about it – so she clearly wasn’t injured. I think they removed his initial response for the sake of brevity. I thought the ‘Dragon’ detour looked like the swifter of the two options, but Eric & Danielle proved that doing the ‘Noodle’ one properly was the better decision – and they were able to overtake both Charla & Mirna and Oswald & Danny at this point. I still think these guys are likely to be eliminated before we get to the final three teams, but my man-crush on Eric means part of me is still hopeful they’ll make the cut.




4. Oswald & Danny - SAFE!


Last week: 1
This week: Down three places

Well, didn’t these guys have a terrible leg! I knew they’d be in financial trouble of some sort when such a big deal was made out of them only receiving $73 for this leg of the Race – we don’t usually hear this information (or at least no drama is made out of it) unless it’s gonna be important. And important it was! It was the reason they felt desperate as they stood waiting to enter Macau Tower – and their justification behind making ‘a deal with the devil’ in Dustin & Kandice. They sold out. They traded their integrity for a measly $45. (So that’s what thirty pieces of silver will get you nowadays?) Frankly I thought the power to Yield another team for thirty minutes would be worth more than $45. But anyway, they made the deal (against their better judgement, I might add – but they still made the deal), and almost immediately regretted it. It didn’t help that Mirna told them she’d have given them money for nothing (and – presumably – their chicks for free), but by then Oswald & Danny were wracked with guilt regardless. And then the Yield Karma Fairy followed them on the rest of the leg, swatting at them with a big plank of Karma wood and causing them to royally stuff up at almost every turn. First they caught a Karma Taxi, which took them all over the place but never to the right place. Oswald’s prayer in the back of the taxi was very amusing: “God, grant me the patience to accept the things I cannot change … and the intelligence to bury this taxi driver’s body when I kill him.” Their non-English-speaking taxi driver (here’s an idea – find one who CAN speak English!) got them worked up into quite a state, and so began their unravelling decline. They were the only team to choose the ‘Dragon’ Detour (which I actually thought would have been quicker than the ‘Noodle’ Detour – if they had good directions), and made an absolute dog’s breakfast of it. They got lost on the streets and “took the long way around”. It didn’t help their cause later when they were so patronising to their poor, long-suffering taxi driver: “This is going to be very easy for you!” The fact that they were also saved from elimination was a little odd (having two such legs in a row is uncommon at best), but made sense when I thought about it: With two legs remaining and only the final leg containing three teams, having the non-elimination leg now was the only way they were going to stretch the Race out into the right amount of episodes. I just wasn’t sure what would have happened if Eric & Danielle arrived in last place this time: They were told by host Phil Keoghan in the last episode that if they were last this time they would be eliminated. Strange, but at least all four teams are now in another episode – these guys make for some good drama! I’ll be interested to see what Javatari thinks of all this, because he hates non-elimination rounds but wants Oswald & Danny to win. I wonder if he’s changed his mind on either of those two points after seeing this episode. Who’ll be the final three teams, racing to the Finish Line for the $1 million? There’s only one way to find out …



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Last week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny. (Wrong)
Last Team: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong)
Yield? Yes. Correct!
Fast Forward? No. Correct!
Elimination Week? Yes. (Wrong)
Biggest Argument: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong) – It was Charla & Mirna.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice. Correct!


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Next week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice.
Last Team: Eric & Danielle.
Yield? No.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? Yes.
Biggest Argument: Oswald & Danny.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog (once it’s up).


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