Tonight’s Amazing Race almost felt like two episodes split in half with the first half of the episode following the top half of the standings and the other part following the teams in the back. We also had the return of the Driver’s Seat twist where the team that gets there first adds extra work to the teams of their choosing. This twist caused a ton of drama last season. We start this episode following the top three teams of Jag & Jas, Jospeh & Adam, and Natalie & Stephanie. They have nicknamed themselves the “Train Wreck Alliance” after their train mess-up on the last episode. Jag and Jas say right off the bat that they do not want to get the Driver’s Seat where they’d have to make more enemies cause they’re already in the front and have the express pass. So, they wait for their alliance teams to catch up and all leave together. They arrive at the Driver’s Seat challenge early. So early that the place wasn’t even open yet. The teams talk strategy as they wait a couple of hours and they all decide to give Natalie & Stephanie the task of the Driver’s Seat. This particular task involves having to fill bottles of beer from a tap. Natalie & Stephanie get to choose who to add more crates of beer to. They hand out 3 extra crates to: Tucker and Eric. Chelsie and Jack. Jag and Jas. Joseph and Adam. Their alliance members were obviously aware of that they’d be getting more and had worked it all out. They give two crates to: Themselves. Rubina and Kristine. Kat and Alex. Taylor and Kyland. Matt and Megan. They give one crate to: Hannah and Simone. Izzy and Paige. This beer filling challenge was very funny. I laughed at it quite a bit with all the teams figuring out the learning curve of this tap to not spray themselves and to also not fill the bottles full of foam. My favorite reaction was Hannah excitedly saying she had it figured out on how to do the tap and then it backfiring again and saying nope, never mind, that’s not it. LOL. Love Hannah. That cracked me up. Rubina was also great too with her just laughing out loud at it as the tap kept spraying her. Stephanie had worked with a beer tap before so she was great at this. Her and Stephanie finish out of there first. They work on getting directions as Jag and Jas are still working on theirs. Jag and Jas finish and are on their way outside and at the same time, Natalie and Stephanie had just finished writing out directions for them. Incredible that they did that. Joseph and Adam had not finished yet so they had written out directions for them too and left it on their car. When Joseph and Adam leave out, they do catch the directions on the back bumper of their car and talk about how incredible of a move that was for them to take the time to do that. They move on to Plow The Field where each team will have to plow a field like a horse with one team member pulling their partner on a plow till they find a clue buried in their path in the dirt. Jag & Jas and Natalie & Stephanie finish this task and they are leaving as Joseph & Adam arrive. We have some drama for them when they finish the plow task only to get in the car and realize they lost their car keys. They decide it’s out in the field which is like finding a needle in a haystack. I believe it was Joseph that found them if I remember right. They let a big cheer out and they’re back out on the road making me laugh with their always fun celebration cheer . The teams from here go to a hockey task. One member will have to put a hockey uniform and skates and then score a goal where the goal is 90% covered. Jag & Jas and Natalie & Stephanie were living right here cause Jag and Natalie immediately score their goals. Jag on his second attempt. Natalie on her third. I found it funny cause they couldn’t skate well and just nailed their goals right away. But yet, Tucker comes up soon who can skate and had experience at this and it took him ages to score. So much of this challenge was almost luck cause that goal was hard to hit with so much covered. Jag & Jas and Natalie & Stephanie head for the pit stop and Jag & Jas decide to hold back and let Stephanie & Natalie have first place since the next day is Natalie’s birthday. Joseph struggles with the hockey which allows Tucker & Eric to move ahead. Tucker & Eric finish third while Joseph & Adam finish 4th.
That gets us to the middle of the pack teams. Again, this is like two episodes. We have seen some teams finish. Then, we have some that we haven’t really even seen yet besides just leaving the mat for this leg of the race showing how spread out these teams were tonight! I loved watching the dynamic of Izzy & Paige and Hannah & Kristine at the hockey challenge. Izzy wanting to cheer and admittedly saying that she will have trouble keeping her mouth shut on this one. LOL. She turned to Hannah with a basic ‘what do I do’ type reaction. LOL. Simone is out there battling taking some tumbles on the ice. Both complete it and are moving on. We see two teams struggling with directions and that is Jack & Chelsie and Rubina & Kristine. Kristine makes up for lost time quickly when she goes out there and nails it on the first try which was great. LOL. Taylor & Kyland were just doing their thing in this episode with getting things done. Their biggest feature on the episode task wise was showing Kyland working the beer filling where the detailed task was right up his alley. All these teams start finishing.
The sign of just how far behind the teams in the back were was when I said ‘we are an hour and five minutes into this episode and all we have seen Matt & Megan do is drive’. I said oh no. It’s a battle in the back once again with Kat & Alex vs Matt & Megan. They have a good battle with the beer filling. I enjoyed watching Megan and Kat on the side reacting and giving their commentary. I just absolutely love Megan. Love her whole energy as a person. Both teams move out of that task. Kat & Alex get to the hockey challenge. Alex struggles big with this and gets very frustrated. He gets it on the 25th attempt. Where are Matt & Megan? Unfortunately lost. And so lost that they get to the plow challenge and near dark and there is Phil waiting. You never want to see Phil waiting for you at a task which shows just how far behind you are. Matt and Megan are eliminated sadly. I really enjoyed them and just very sweet watching them walking off holding hands. I laughed out loud at Megan’s tumble as the episode ended while I said oh no, is she ok? LOL. Sad to see them go.
At the end of the episode, I said there is going to have to be something coming up to bring these teams together and get this thing closer. They are so spread out from the front of the pack to the back that the drama is limited and these teams in the back can’t even begin to catch up. It felt like tonight that those teams in the back just had no chance.
Current standings as we end this episode:
1. Natalie and Stephanie
2. Jag and Jas
3. Tucker and Eric
4. Joseph and Adam
5. Hannah and Simone
6. Izzy and Paige
7. Rubina and Kristine
8. Chelsie and Jack
9. Taylor and Kyland
10. Kat and Alex
11. Matt and Megan (Eliminated)
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