In yet another thoroughly predictable outcome, Nick & Vicki were noneliminated in The Amazing Race 17 Episode 6.
Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.
First: Jill & Thomas – 8:30AM
Second: Brook & Claire – 8:36AM
Third: Michael & Kevin – 8:40AM
Other departures not revealed.
6 legs in, and Jill still doesn’t feel part of her team.
Seems nothing has been learned from the last few legs. No flights yet again. There better be an hours of operation or something because otherwise this is the most obvious outcome in the history of most obvious outcomes.
Teams will travel by taxi to Avtovo Circus. Once they arrive, the circus is closed. It’s closed long enough for all the teams to be bunched together. The detour is a choice between circus band or circus clown. In circus band, teams will learn a Russian folk song on accordians. In circus clown, they will have to learn a plate spinning routine, and keep at least 10 plates spinning simultaneously for at least 10 seconds.
Circus band: Nat & Kat, Gary & Mallory, Chad & Stephanie (switched from clown)
Circus clown: Michael & Kevin, Brook & Claire, Nick & Vicki, Jill & Thomas (switched from clown to band to clown)
Nat & Kat decide to turn the keys into numbers, a nerdy solution but a good one nonetheless. This task may well be the easiest because they can play as slowly as they want as long as they play the right notes in the right order. A quickly impatient Thomas bails and goes to the other task without giving a great deal of effort to the first one. Nick, who claims he learned from his first blow up, is calling Vicki a dumbass before long. Chad decides plate spinning is stupid. He and Stephanie come up with a numbering concept like Nat & Kat, but there’s no way Thomas is going to learn all of the song, so he opts to head back to the place where he lost his patience earlier.
From there, teams will have to figure out they are looking for Bank Bridge, based only on the description that it has creatures with golden wings surrounding it. It’s not so much a mystery as just asking their cab drivers to take them there.
1 Vladimirskiy Prospekt Tower, a historic building, is their next destination, which they will reach on foot by asking locals for help. Two team members can then go to the top and figure out that their next stop from there is the Church on Spilled Blood. They may not pay a taxi to lead them there, a part of the clue that Michael & Kevin miss. As the first two teams to arrive at the tower, Nat & Kat and Nick & Vicki decide to work together. This works out well for both teams, and the fact that they take a while to find it is completely irrelevant because everybody has to wait for them before they can go up. Nick lies about what he finds to the other teams. Kevin trusts him, but Claire doesn’t want to take him for his word. This works out because Kevin decides Nick may have lied to them. Thomas and Mallory are the next pair up, leaving Chad & Stephanie in last place. As with the other pairs who climbed up together, Thomas and Mallory decide to work together. Stephanie can’t find it, so she sends Chad up to take a look, and the fact that he found it and not her will serve as an opportunity for him to rub it in. He’ll do so in the cab ride over, which will cost them a penalty.
Michael & Kevin didn’t learn from their first penalty, and now they drag Brook & Claire into the penalization with them, taking their cab yet again. However, Brook & Claire discover the error and have their cab driver turn around so they can walk as they should have.
The riddle continues, as they head to Peter and Paul Fortress. Trying to get there will lead Nick to calling Vicki a moron. This team is just waiting to self implode.
The road block is to master a Russian game, gorodki. Using a wooden bat, teams have two tries to clear all the pins before they’re reset. They must clear three different pin formations each.
Road block (in order of arrival): Kat, Michael, Brook, Nick, Stephanie, Thomas, Gary
When Kat gets her first formation done apparently in one try, I’m thinking this won’t be so difficult. Then she gets another. Brook does fairly well, and Gary and Thomas blow right through it. However, Kevin quickly regrets letting his dad do this road block, but that’s par for the course for this team. He’s in a battle for last with Stephanie, but regardless, the penalties will screw them over. Michael makes his way through the last couple pretty quickly after spending an hour on the first one, leaving Stephanie behind with an increasingly agitated Chad. Not that Chad was calm to begin with.
After completion of the road block, Michael & Kevin argue with their cab driver. When Stephanie does finish, Chad makes the executive decision to screw the bags and just take off running. This is enough to get to them to the mat in sixth. The problem is that they have not paid their cab yet, so whether he has all their stuff or not is moot because they have to go settle up. That now puts Michael & Kevin in sixth place. The problem is they broke a couple of rules. They had a taxi lead them to the tower, and then they took a taxi to the church. That’s a 30 minute penalty for each infringement, which should be enough to cost them the race. Like Michael & Kevin, Chad & Stephanie broke a rule, taking a taxi from the tower to the church, resulting in a 30 minute penalty. In spite of that, Michael & Kevin’s 1 hour penalty is enough to save them.
The pit stop for this leg of the race is the Peter and Paul Fortress.
First: Nat & Kat (win $5,000 each)
Second: Brook & Claire
Third: Nick & Vicki
Fourth: Gary & Mallory
Fifth: Jill & Thomas
Sixth: Chad & Stephanie
Eliminated: Michael & Kevin
I would have expected their inability to complete a task to be their undoing, but it was ultimately the inability to read their clues that caused Michael & Kevin to be eliminated.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 17 Episode 8 Ali Baba in a Suit, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.