Unable to catch up to the rest of the pack after their bus broke down in The Amazing Race 20 Episode 2, clowns Dave & Cherie found themselves out of the race.
Teams depart in the order in which they arrived, presumably.
They will now fly to Asuncion, Paraguay. With teams leaving at midnight, the airport serves as an equalizer.
Art & JJ have a prediction that they’ll dominate the whole season with Rachel & Dave. That’s probably the kiss of death, but as Mexican border patrol agents, they know they’ll be strong as long as they stick around Latin America.
The first two teams get on standby on the earliest flight. The “teachers” (aka federal agents) wave another team over so they, too, can get on standby, a strategy which Art or JJ takes credit for, as if getting on standby is some great mystery.
First flight (departs at 8:45AM): Rachel & Dave, Art & JJ, Nary & Jamie, Bopper & Mark
Second flight (departs at 10:40AM): Brendon & Rachel, Kerri & Stacy, Vanessa & Ralph, Joey & Danny, Elliott & Andrew
The detour is a choice between stacked up or strung out. In stacked up, they will stack watermelons in a 10×10 pyramid. In strung out, they must attach 36 strings to a harp and get it ready for tuning.
Stacked up: Art & JJ, Joey & Danny, Vanessa & Ralph
Strung out: Rachel & Dave (switched from stacked up), Nary & Jamie (switched from stacked up), Bopper & Mark (switched from stacked up), Kerri & Stacy (switched from stacked up), Brendon & Rachel (switched from stacked up), Elliott & Andrew (switched from strung out to stacked up to strung out)
Given the choice, the physical task is typically the best option, in spite of the heat and humidity, and that fact is not lost on these teams, almost all of whom choose to stack watermelons.
Rachel & Dave find themselves bickering to the point where he tells her to just sit on the cart and relax so he can work on his own. Art & JJ have no trouble with the task, but the other teams find the catch. Once they’re almost done stacking, their piles come crashing down. As the lead teams are leaving to switch detours, they see the Mississippi girls catching up. Bopper & Mark pretend that the task was easy and take their cab, but when they see all the melons all over the place, they’re not buying what the guys are selling, immediately turning around to switch detours. Meanwhile, Vanessa views this task primarily as an opportunity to talk smack about Brendon & Rachel. This ends when the Big Brother couple realizes that not only is this a difficult task, but they don’t want to listen to Vanessa’s mouth for the next two hours, so they just cut their losses and switch. As much as Ralph eventually finds himself wanting to quit, Vanessa declines to do so, stubbornly insisting on staying even after the sun sets.
By the time they get to the other detour, Rachel & Dave see that everybody else is stringing harps, so they decide to go ahead and use their express pass. Seems like a rush decision, but it’ll push them up to second place. The other teams find themselves in an air conditioned room with relaxing music, which makes them think they should have come here in the first place. This particular task goes on as short or as long as your skill allows it to, with little risk of being reset to zero by bad luck or bad planning. As the only ones who tried this task first, the twins find themselves heading off in that direction, but their decision to leave doesn’t last long.
Their next stop is Plaza de Democracia. The road block is to dance while balancing a bottle on top of their heads. Failure to complete the task before all bottles are broken will result in a 2 hour penalty. Could be easier to just smash them all right now.
Road block (in order of arrival): Art, Dave, Rachel, Joey, Mark, Kerri, Nary, Elliott, Ralph
Art makes it through unscathed. Dave is not so lucky and takes the penalty. Rachel and Joey have an easy time with the road block, allowing them to leapfrog the team that’s been penalized. As the seconds tick away in the penalty, two more teams pass them, but they’re still ahead of the trailing teams. Phil tells us this is the first time ever that a team has not completed a challenge but still stayed in the race. What about Rob & Amber in one of the best moments from their season, the meat eating challenge?
The pit stop for this leg of the race is the monument Escalinata de Antequera.
First: Art & JJ (win a trip to the Bahamas)
Second: Brendon & Rachel
Third: Joey & Danny
Fourth: Bopper & Mark
Fifth: Nary & Jamie
Sixth: Rachel & Dave
Seventh: Kerri & Stacy
Eighth: Vanessa & Ralph
Eliminated: Elliott & Andrew
Falling behind on the road block after a difficult detour, Elliott & Andrew have been eliminated. And I was so looking forward to Vanessa & Ralph getting their comeuppance due to her bad attitude and bad decisions. Maybe next time.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 20 Episode 4, which airs Sunday at 8/7cish on CBS.