Water Cooler Talk from Two Guys Who Look Alarmingly Similar
Episode 8
Well, it would appear that our job of writing smart-ass columns is going to be infinitely more difficult in the remaining weeks of The Amazing Race, thanks to tonight's departure of Lynn and Alex.
We've been extremely grateful to these guys, who have had such a great knack for saying some real gems throughout the race.
When a couple of extremely gay guys are constantly saying things like, "take your stick all the way out!" while on camera, these columns just tend to write themselves.
All good things have to come to an end.
Gretchen wishes she hadn't had quite so much Indian food the previous night.
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Tonight's episode began as Phil handed everyone a clue to head across a street to the Lucknow Train Station, where they began a 24-hour ride-a-thon. Lynn spent most of the trip lamenting about how much he missed his various creams. We're serious.
He mentioned that he would love to have his hand cream, eye cream, skin cream, Creme de la Creme, ice cream, Cream of Wheat, the cream of the crop, a copy of the song Cream by the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince, and God alone knows what other kinds of cream.
When the teams arrived in Jodhpur, India, they were instructed to head a mile to Sardar Market for their next clue. The teams were given the option of attempting the race's second and final Fast Forward which would propel them to Pit Stop, or they could try the next Detour.
Things could have been worse for Uchenna and Joyce; they could have been forced to wear one of these whacky hats.
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The Fast Forward involved heading to a temple where the first team would have to participate in a Mysterious Ancient Ritual; the Detour provided the option of pushing a giant pretend elephant through a street, or finding their next clue in some tie-died shirts, presumably being manufactured for the family of Rupert Boneham from Survivor.
Uchenna and Joyce zipped off to attempt the Fast Forward, which turned out to be a little more challenging for Joyce than it was for Uchenna. The Mysterious Ancient Ritual was simply a hair cut for the couple. Each of them had to have their heads shaved completely bald in order for them to earn the shortcut to the end of the leg.
Out of sympathy for Joyce, Gretchen attempts to yank her own hair out.
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Uchenna is already bald, so the elders simply lopped off a few inches of his scalp so he could meet the requirements of the challenge. Meanwhile, Joyce's full head of hair was shaved down to a shiny pate.
Ironically, both of these folks seemed to look perfectly attractive as bald people. Some people can get away with that look, as they have done; conversely, if we were to shave our heads, we would look like giant thumbs.
The rest of the teams chose the Elephant of Doom Challenge, choosing to push the giant porcelain animals through town.
Gretchen pulls her weight by whining from atop the Fake Elephant of Doom.
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We would have loved to have been in India on that day, purely so we could have listened to the traffic report: "Things are tied up on Route 404 this afternoon because there's an old lady screaming at the top of her lungs from high atop a fake elephant."
For reasons we still don't quite understand, Gretchen thought it would be helpful if she simply rode on top of the elephant, leaving poor Meredith down below to push the elephant by himself. Gretchen did offer as much help as possible, in the form of shrieking loudly at people around her, and bellowing her patented "OOOOOOOHHHH!" to express her ongoing angst.
As they have done for the past several weeks, Rob and Amber simply kidnapped numerous people to help them complete their task. They first detained their hotel manager, Sanjay, and proceeded to grab innocent bystanders, including several infants, to help them proceed.
Camel Master definitely sounds like a better job than Webmaster.
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At this point of the show, Lynn told Alex, "I want to ride on top, Alex!" Again, you can see why we'll miss these guys.
Once everyone successfully navigated their elephants to the finish line, they had to make their way to the Deora Krishi Farm, a camel-infested park.
One member from each team had to ride in a cart behind a camel for a couple laps around a track. Afterwards, the Camel Master would provide them with their next clue. As a side note, if we had known that "Camel Master" was an actual job, we certainly would have chosen that course of study back in high school.
Amber's camel turned out to be a practical joker, choosing to sprint around the laps, only to stop within inches of the finish line so it could run in circles. Once Rob bribed the camel, he and Amber were able to continue on to the Pit Stop.
Lynn and Alex pause to perform a scene from The Sound of Music, leading to their ultimate demise.
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Teams headed to the Pit Stop at Jaswant Thada, a royal tomb. Ron & Kelly and Rob & Amber were temporarily blinded by the glare from Uchenna & Joyce's heads, but they managed to finish this leg of the race in second and third place.
The fiesty Meredith and Gretchen team managed to claim fourth place, and Phil noted that they were the oldest couple to ever make it this far in The Amazing Race.
Phil welcomed Lynn and Alex to the Pit Stop, noting that they were the gayest couple ever to make it this far, but they were still eliminated from the competition.
Next week's show promises to show more love between Ron and Kelly, as Kelly uses her charm to suggest that Ron took the easy way out of the military by becoming a prisoner of war. Ahhh, we can just feel the love!
Previous Insightful Commentaries:
The Amazing Race
Survivor: All-Stars
Survivor: Australia
