Libby & CJ barely survived the first time, which led to a rather pointless The Amazing Race 26 Episode 2 in which they lagged far behind the others with no chance of recovery.
Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.
First: Jelani & Jenny – 4:35PM
Second: Laura & Tyler – 4:44PM
Third: Aly & Steve – 5:31PM
Fourth: Harley & Jonathan – 6:19PM
Fifth: Bergen & Kurt – 6:32PM
Sixth: Jeff & Jackie
Seventh: Matt & Ashley
Eighth: Mike & Rochelle
Ninth: Hayley & Blair
Jeff & Jackie happily share a room at the pit stop, while Bergen & Kurt acknowledge already that they are not going to be dating.
Teams must now fly south to Phuket, Thailand. There is no counter open at the airport, so everybody will wait until the morning, and they are all trying to get on the same flight, which is not going to be possible. Whoever arrives last to the counter is going to get screwed, which probably should be a lesson to not do that.
First flight (arrives 4:50PM): Matt & Ashley, Aly & Steve, Jeff & Jackie, Hayley & Blair, Mike & Rochelle
Second flight (arrives 9:10PM): Laura & Tyler, Jelani & Jenny
Third flight (arrives 11:59PM): Bergen & Kurt
Fourth flight (arrives 9:35AM): Harley & Jonathan
That’s a crazy big gap. Even if they get lucky with an hours of operation delay, they’re still behind the rest, which may not be entirely impossible depending on the tasks but still is very bleak.
First departure (8:30AM): Matt & Ashley, Aly & Steve, Mike & Rochelle
Second departure (8:45AM): Hayley & Blair, Jeff & Jackie, Jelani & Jenny
Third departure (9:00AM): Laura & Tyler, Bergen & Kurt
Based on these times, Harley & Jonathan are at least an hour behind the others, which is not bad considering they were 17 hours behind.
The detour is a choice between ski or tree. In ski, teams must survive one lap around a wave park. In tree, teams must deliver a meal through the treetops.
Tree: Jelani & Jenny, Matt & Ashley, Mike & Rochelle, Bergen & Kurt, Laura & Tyler, Jeff & Jackie (switched from Ski), Aly & Steve (switched from Ski), Harley & Jonathan
Both of these tasks may require multiple attempts. In the wakeboarding task, they’ll be falling a lot. In the waiter task, they’ll be dropping a lot of stuff. The waiter task proves much simpler, however. Multiple teams are finishing in one or two tries, while even the Olympic athletes have to stop wasting time on the sporting task.
Then there’s Hayley & Blair. He continues to ignore her while she tries to do things correctly. Which she goes on and on and on about. Even after they complete the task pretty quickly and are in 2nd place, she’s still going on and on and on. Try to move on, or just quit now. As much as he needs to learn to listen, he does not need to learn to listen to whining.
Their next task is to dress up and perform a cabaret show (in drag for the guys). Even Mike & Rochelle get the dance in a few tries, so it’s not that difficult. More bad news for Harley & Jonathan, as there is no road block.
The pit stop for this leg of the race is Baba Nest.
On their way there, Matt makes a crucial potentially game ending mistake of leaving his fanny pack behind, but they realize where it is quickly and go back and find it. As he talks about how supportive Ashley is no matter what, this is the perfect set up for what comes next, a pit stop proposal. Is this like the new thing now? I’ve seen this 3 times in the last several months.
First: Mike & Rochelle (win a trip to Prague)
Second: Hayley & Blair
Third: Jelani & Jenny
Fourth: Laura & Tyler
Fifth: Aly & Steve
Sixth: Matt & Ashley
Seventh: Bergen & Kurt
Eighth: Jeff & Jackie
Non-eliminated: Harley & Jonathan
The bad luck at the airport won’t end their journey yet, as Harley & Jonathan have been saved by non-elimination, but I suspect there were lessons to be learned from the process.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 26 Episode 3, which airs Friday at 8/7c on CBS.