Amazing Race: week 3

Watching Boston Rob manipulating his way through the Amazing Race is what I imagine it must be like to have seen Donald Bradman bat. He is just a master of the sport; a natural, a freak. As my friend Kiwi Andrew put it, "He takes the game to a new level. Of course that level is down here (*points at kneecaps*), but still…"

Last week we had him bribing security guards and bus drivers. This week he bribed a taxi driver to leave the Rollergirls stranded and then somehow convinced two other teams at the Roadblock that it's impossible to eat 1.8kg of meat and offal, just because he didn't want to do it. This is only my third season of Amazing Race, but it's still incredible to me to see anyone simply give up on a challenge, let alone the lemming-like exodus we saw this week.

Best of all was the incredible show-down between the gay guy and his Mom (sorry, but it's too early in the game to bother remember names). In case you missed it there was some seriously Fraudian action going down, with Mom telling him to eat everything on his plate and Sonny Boy threatening to quit. He looked like he'd really do it, too. From memory Boston Rob was still there when that happened, so it'll be interesting to see if he manipulates the hairline crack into a full-on crevasse when necessary.

The Rollergirls were supposed to be driving themselves east from Chile to Argentina. At least they had the sense to realise something was kinda wrong when they saw the Pacific Ocean. It was impressive how well they made up the time, although from the editing it's hard to tell how manufactured the tension might have been. The dusk gave some pretty good clues, and suggested that Mother and Son really did get lost between the BBQ camp and the pit stop.

The detour options of paddling downstream or riding mountain bikes along a railway track were a bit dull. We didn't get any real details of how one of the Rollergirls almost died a few months ago white water rafting, but it can't have been that bad if they chose it over the bike option.
In the end they couldn't make up the time, so that's the last of the all-girl teams out. Somebody at work said that "it's the last of the good looking girls out": I'm presuming that means he doesn’t find the gay guy's Mom attractive…

Next week looks like we get another couple of rounds from this season's Jonathan and Victoria, which could be interesting. There's definite shades of Lori and Bolo and a bit of Hayden and Aaron there as well. Let's hope they don't get knocked out too soon.