Amazing Race: week 4

I just love it when a team makes a statement: you know the producers wouldn't bother showing it unless it had big, sharp teeth and would come back to bite the speaker. This week the brothers kicked it off by declaring their ambition for the day was to not make any mistakes, then promptly getting lost.

The gay guys were first to the roadblock event, and judging by their squeals of delight at the cowboy horsie riding adventure challenge they were hoping they'd get to wear chaps. One person had to ride a horse through a slalom course of barrels in under 40 seconds. The token black couple declared they'd picked a "nice" horse (there's the declaration again): strangely they changed their minds after it bucked her off twice, especially when they found out they were stuck with their initial choice.

It was clear from the first episode of this series that Ray and Deanna are the new Jonathan and Victoria, and they cemented it this week. Ray declared (oooh goody, here comes his downfall!) that he was embarrassed to be stuck at the back of the pack with the 'bottom feeders' and people of the calibre of the gay guy and his Mom and the oldies. Naturally the oldies easily beat them at the challenge because Deanna's horse started shying away from her and she was clearly scared of it. I suppose it's hard to stay calm and not upset the poor beast (the horse, not Deanna) when your other half is screaming abuse at you. In the end, oddly enough, she recorded one of the fastest times of all. It didn't help them catch up though, because all three teams ended up on a plane so far after the first one that other teams were at the pit stop before they'd even taken off. Possibly my favourite scene for the week was Gretchen (one of this season's token old old people) referring to what Ray (aka Jonathan) calls the 'bottom feeders' as a menage a trois!

Somehow the gay guy and his Mom deduced that they must be ahead of the other bottom feeders when they were the only people to catch a particular train. The thought that the others had already left on an earlier train never occurred to them! And yet, somehow, they still made it to the detour before Ray/Jonathan and Deanna who decided to walk – in the wrong direction – instead of getting a cab. Scenes like that restore my faith in karma.

The detour involved cruising through a river delta in a rubber boat looking either for an island marked on a map, or for a specific shipwreck where their only clue was a photo of what the boat looked like thirty years earlier. The token black couple started looking for the boat but found the island by accident, and decided to grab the clue. I was actually quite surprised that they weren't penalised for it, but I guess the difference between the detour and the roadblock is that you can change your mind.

The key deciding factor for many of the teams was the seaworthiness of their boats. Either that or the crews were homophobic, because it was really only the gay couple and the gay guy and his mom whose boats needed to be replaced. Hmmm, interesting...

Rob declared at one point towards the end that he's always been lucky: "I was born with a horseshoe up my ass!" He's right, because this week alone:

• They got lost but still managed to find the roadblock site by accident;
• The first plane was held a few minutes so they could make it on and be saved a five hour wait for the next one, much to the horror of the others who had all just finished gloating that Rob and Amber were never going to make it;
• Their bags were last to be checked into the cargo hold so they were the first to be unloaded in Buenos Aries;
• They spotted that the gay guys had a map, and simply followed them to the detour site while everyone else got lost; and then
• Their boat actually sprung a leak, but it was still able to limp back to port while the others awaited a replacement.

Despite having taken a four hour penalty the day before, they made up the time and came in first for the second time this season. Can anything stop them? Ray took another step toward confirmed Jonathan-ism with the look on host Phil's face when they arrived at the pit stop: I can't work out whether it's better described as sheer disgust or "Please tell me I don't have to shake hands with this prick!"

Phil didn't seem much more impressed with the gay guy and his Mom; their names are actually Patrick and Susan but that's irrelevant now because they're out of the race. In many ways they are this season's Rebecca and Adam: she's tough and he's a girly quitter, although Mom is better than Rebecca at biting her tongue and not saying what she's actually thinking of her perpetually disappointing partner in the game. Somehow I don’t think Santa will be coming to Patrick this year.

The producers will be pleased that the token black couple are still in, because it looks like they're off to Africa next week and they'll be able to wring an emotional scene out of them recounting their slave ancestry: they do it every year, and the exploitation is ironic to say the least. The oldies also suffer the traditional severe injury that the oldies always seem to suffer, and there's plenty of blood: you'll just have to watch next week to see which one of them it is.