Amazing Race 14 Episode Recap: "Our Parents Will Cry Themselves to Death"
In normal circumstances, ballroom dancing and learning to write calligraphy are leisure activities. But since this is The Amazing Race, it's a frantic fight to finish the tasks in the quickest amount of time, and the tension accelerates as two racers replicate something close to a WWE SmackDown match. Read on to find out how push comes to shove.
Departure
On the ninth leg of the race, the teams leave "the Venice of the East" and fly over 1,000 miles to Guilin, China. Margie and Luke are the first to leave and are able to book a flight leaving in less than two hours. But while the next two teams, cheerleaders Jaime and Cara and siblings Tammy and Victor, take a later flight, there is a delay with the connection in Guangzhou, causing these three teams to meet up and travel together. Kisha and Jen fly alone but land just ahead of the others. Only Mark and Michael — with over a three-hour delay tacked on from last week's penalty — take off in the late afternoon and have difficulty catching up.
As they look for a hair salon to find the first clue, Margie comments that it's eye-opening for her to be in a country where no one speaks English, which puts her sort of on the same playing field as her son. Jen mentions that she is competitive, and if she sees someone in front of her she will "knock them over". It would be interesting to know if Jen stated this before or after the following blow-by-blow account.
Margie/Luke and Kisha/Jen see the sign for the Speed Bump but run right past the clue box. At one point, it looks as if Luke is going to trip over it. Suddenly Luke and Jen both spot the clue box at the same time. Luke maneuvers his way there first. Jen runs right up behind him, and in an effort to push her off of him, he elbows her away. Tempers flare and she calls him a bitch. This is the second incident in a row with these two teams. Mistrust was established in Bangkok when Margie told her cabdriver not to share directions with the sisters. Moving forward, hurt feelings will be hard to repair, even after we see that bitch is the one word that Jen knows how to say in sign-language.
It was bad enough that there was trouble at the first clue box, but for it to happen a second time was deplorable. Once again, these two teams arrive together, and Luke and Jen are literally running side-by-side. It's obvious they'll slam into each other. Their interview accounts of what happened are just a little skewed and perspective may not be easy for them to determine in the heat of the moment. But they should have avoided unnecessary roughness. At that point in the day, does it really matter who takes the clue first? I don't think waiting a millisecond to get their clue is going to determine the outcome of that leg of the race.
Roadblock
Who's ready for some fowl play? After the last two scenes, perhaps an umpire is needed to determine if anyone is safe. With the brothers still behind, the four teams in the lead take a boat to the middle of a river and toss whole fish into it for the cormorant birds to retrieve them. It was remarkable to watch the birds put the majority of the fish into their mouth and return it to the fisherman. Jen blames karma when she learns Luke is bitten by the feathered fliers. Tammy's lead was jeopardized by an "uncooperative" bird. Victor notes that the cormorants are very disobedient. And shortly after Margie relates her boat ride is slow, Victor tries to be sly by telling Margie's cab driver, in Chinese, to drive away slowly.
Speed Bump
Mark and Michael must wash and dry the hair of two ladies. This didn't really seem like a huge time delay, particularly since they didn't have to go to another location to perform the task. It must have been uncomfortable for the women when the stuntmen added shampoo and created lather without adding water to their hair first.
Detour
At an outdoor landing with at least a dozen couples dancing a tango, Jaime and Cara were the first to take the choreography challenge. With lots of cheerleading experience, the duo sense familiarity and think mastering the movements will be a cinch. But after bumping into the other couples and stepping on toes, they weren't approved by the judge. After the fourth try, they get a pass and move on.
The alternate challenge, calligraphy, is to recreate the Chinese characters shown to them at four different stations. Tammy and Victor, who are not good at dancing, state they are not much better at writing either. But that doesn't stop Kisha/Jen and Margie/Luke from following them everywhere. The funniest moment was when Victor mentions the episode title, encouraging the calligraphers to write faster by saying: "If we don't win, our parents will cry themselves to death."
Pit Stop
When the first three teams show up simultaneously, Phil's comments that things are "getting a little more tense" as the race winds down seem almost like an understatement. Margie defends her son when she accuses Kisha of laughing at Luke's handicap. But Kisha insists she is only smiling as she always does. Margie counters that Kisha and Jen should understand "the pressure" because they're black. Phil tries to offer an objective opinion but Margie won't hear it.
Finally, having fed the fish and danced a waltz, Mark and Michael are the last team to arrive and have finally been eliminated.
Return Trips
• Victor: "Make sure you communicate with the bird... they only understand Chinese."
• Phil: "Jaime and Cara, you are team number four." Cara: "Were there five on this leg?"
• What do you think about the unnecessary roughness at the clue boxes? Should there be a penalty for this kind of behavior? And were Margie's comments on target or out of line?
Order of Finish:
1. Kisha and Jen
2. Tammy and Victor
3. Margie and Luke
4. Jaime and Cara
5. Mark and Michael
If you'd like to watch clips of The Amazing Race, waltz on over to our Online Video Guide.
