The Amazing Race: Drumming Dummies
With only five teams left, things got personal on this leg of the race. One unlucky team was U-Turned in Singapore as the racers drummed, zipped, and sold ice cream (random much, Amazing Race?) to stay on top.
Fresh off the most epic comeback in Race history, Jet & Cord led the pack from Penang to Singapore, where they would have to find Allan Wu, the cute host of The Amazing Race: Asia, at the Victoria Concert Hall.
In their clue, teams were alerted that there would be another U-Turn somewhere in this leg. As soon as Caite heard this, her eyes narrowed, turned red with fury and everything about this leg became focused on Team Dumb making it to the U-Turn first, so they could, and I quote the ever so articulate ex-pageant queen, "U-Turn the shit out of the lesbians." On the other end of the spectrum, Dan & Jordan vowed not to use the U-Turn, unless the situation was dire, because they're well liked and would rather stay out of everyone's hair. Well played, boys. Well played.
On the bus, Dan & Jordan, Mike & Louie, and Brent & Caite had a nice long ride to discuss the impending U-Turn. While Dan & Jordan tried to reason that there's no game changing benefit to U-Turning Carol & Brandy (who have come in first place a total of zero times) the other two teams had their minds made up. Logic was never Caite's strong point.
All teams joined up for an even race on the sleeper train from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. As they got ready to approach, Carol & Brandy, who are already on two shit lists, made their way on to everyone else's shit list when they tried to push forward to the front car, in order to get ahead. Didn't their mother's ever tell them shoving isn't very nice?
Proving that niceness conquers all, Dan & Jordan made it to Allan Wu first, and were rewarded with a head start to the Fast Forward, which was no small feat. In order to complete it (and head straight to the Pit Stop afterward) they had to ride the Singapore Flyer (which looks a hell of a lot like the London Eye) to the top and, at 541 feet in the air, climb across a thin beam from one capsule to another.
The rest of the teams got their clues from Allan Wu and found out the details for Singapore's Detour. The choice was either Pounding Drums or Pounding Pavement. In Pounding Drums, they had to go to Speaker's Corner, learn a drum routine from their "drum teacher" which is code for 8 year old Singaporean boy, and then perform it on a stage with the troupe to get their clue. In Pounding Pavement, they had to sell 25 ice cream sandwiches to people in a pedestrian mall. The sandwiches were literally hunks of ice cream shoved into one folded slice of Wonder Bread. That's the best way Phil and The Amazing Race producers could think of to illustrate "modern living"? Ice cream sandwiches? I know we've had some dumb challenges over the last 16 seasons, but this just seemed ridiculous. Wouldn't modern living be better shown through, say, a pod hotel or mopeds or something? Ice cream just seems... lazy. I'll allow it, only because they clearly put all of their Singapore budget into the death defying Fast Forward. But next time, try to be a bit more creative, guys, eh?
The remaining four teams headed to Pounding Drums, because how hard could a drum set be? I mean, it's just drumming...right? Wrong. Very wrong. Either drums are a lot harder than they look, or we have three of the most musically deficient teams in Race history on our hands. As Cord put it, "The closest thing to an instrument we've ever played is the radio! Quick, will someone get this guy to an open mic night? Surprisingly, Caite & Brent pretty much blew through this challenge, thanks to Caite's butt dancing. I suppose when there's so little going on upstairs, something as easy as a simple as a drum sequence comes pretty easily to you, because you can't over think it.
Meanwhile, Carol & Brandy had a drummer who was about maybe five years old "teaching" them how to do the routine. And by teaching I mean performing way too fast and staring at them as if to say "Who the fuck are these bitches and why can't they keep up?" So they moved to another drummer while Mike & Louie cut their losses and went to try the Fast Forward (which was a pretty amateur move).
When the detectives got to the Singapore Flyer, they had to ride all an elevator to the top, only to find what they expected the whole time: a sign that let them know the brothers were already doing the Fast Forward. So off they went to the pedestrian walk to sell ice cream (after a minor snafu when their cabbie took a pee break), while Jordan freaked out about heights. Hearing Dan say "Hey, if you fall and die, I love you." right before it was his turn to go up probably didn't help his nerves. The whole shaky crawl across the beam, Jordan coaxed himself across, not by prayer as we saw way back with the Momtrepreneurs, not by freaking out, but reminding himself of the glory that comes with winning the race. One miiiillion dollars.
Back at Speaker's Corner, Jet & Cord and Carol & Brandy were still having a hard time, while Brent & Caite were the first to drum their way out of the Detour. Their next clue took them to Istana Park, where *gasp!* there was a U-Turn! They predictably U-Turned the lesbians with glee, and went on to the Road Block which was to count a bunch of chain links at a ship yard, while tons of noise and a loud speaker shouting random numbers was supposed to distract you. Spoiler alert: It wasn't that distracting.
Over in nobody-cares-because-it's-not-interesting-or-dramatic land, Dan & Jordan were the first to check in and won scooters that their mom wouldn't let them ride because it's dangerous... or something. Didn't they almost just fall from 541 feet in the air for no good reason? How would their mom feel about that? Anyway, yawn. Back to the bitchiness!
Mike & Louie used their obnoxious American charm, and abused cab driver (he bought 10 of them!), to sell their 25 ice cream sandwiches lightning fast. Carol & Brandy finished the drum challenge before the struggling cowboys, only to find out they were U-Turned by, in the wise words of my dad, an avid Race fan, "the idiot pageant queen and her ectomorphic freak of a boyfriend." They were rightfully pissed off, and I'm glad, because what came of it was some quality trash talk and a pretty good Forrest Gump impression from Carol & Brandy.
So as the lesbians went to complete the other half of the Detour, selling ice cream sandwiches to fame hungry Singaporeans who just wanted to be on TV, the detectives and cowboys (who finally made it through the drum challenge) counted the chain links at the dock. Carol & Brandy got through the ice cream quickly enough, and as both other teams were leaving, they were just arriving to the Road Block.
I have to hand it to Mike on this one. He had a nifty little device that counted clicks as he went down the massive chain link, which probably made it a lot easier for him to get through the Road Block. Too bad their trusty cabbie, who wasted $10 Singapore bucks on crappy ice cream sandwiches, left them in the dust. The cowboys slid into third place while the detectives fumbled around for a taxi, because trying to steal Carol & Brandy's didn't work. Don't the detectives know? Cabbies are the most loyal players in The Amazing Race. It was their fault for not being clearer to their own cab driver to stick around for them. Or maybe the cabbie was just tired of Mike's Ray Romano voice and took off for his own sanity.
There was one last task all teams had to go through before checking in with Phil, a super awesome zip line at an amusement park! All teams were super excited to go down the Mega Zip, and one by one they checked in. First Brent & Caite, then the cowboys, and it looked like the last two teams were neck and neck for a while, due to the whole cab fiasco. But in the end the U-Turn - which, for the record I thought they came back from quite nicely - ended up dooming the lesbians, and they were eliminated from the race. I'm not going to lie, their blatant hatred for Brent & Caite got them on my good side this week, and for the first time in this entire season, I was kind of sad to see them down and out. Oh well, now they can go buy that chateau in France we heard so much about a few episodes ago. Ces't la vie, ladies!
We're off next week due to the Country Music Awards, graciously presented to us in a commercial starring Jet & Cord. What, Brent's southern accent wasn't good enough? They just had to use the cowboys to promote the CMAs? But fear not, fellow Race fans! In two weeks things are getting pretty crazy for the teams! More anger, fighting, and Jordan crying! Oh my! I can't wait to see what Phil & the gang have in store for the final four.