Category: amazing race 23

Rowan & Shane outsmarted themselves in The Amazing Race 23 Episode 2 and ended up getting knocked out of the race.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Chester & Ephraim – 6:27PM
Second: Leo & Jamal – 6:39PM
Third: Brandon & Adam – 6:58PM
Fourth: Nicole & Travis – 7:11PM
Fifth: Jason & Amy –
Sixth: Tim & Danny – 12:25AM
Seventh: Ally & Ashley – 12:27AM
Eighth: Tim & Marie – 12:33AM
Ninth: Nicky & Kim – 1:00AM

Teams will now fly to Lisbon, Portugal.

First flight (arrives at 7:00): Nicole & Travis
Second flight (arrives at 7:00 with two connecting flights): Chester & Ephraim
Third flight (arrives at 10:00): Tim & Danny, Brandom & Adam
Fourth flight (arrives at 11:00): Leo & Jamal, Ally & Ashley
Fifth flight (arrives at 12:00): Nicky & Kim, Tim & Marie, Jason & Amy

I was thinking everybody was going to be on the same flight, but there is much drama at multiple airports. Chester & Ephraim arrive first, but their ticket agent books them on a flight for the wrong day. By the time she realizes it, Nicole & Travis have already taken the last seats on the flight. Then she does find them another flight that arrives at the same time but that has multiple connections. Upon arrival, they are delayed on both their original flight and the replacement flight. Meanwhile, Tim & Danny, deciding they don’t trust Leo & Jamal, try to hunt for an earlier flight, which they do end up finding. And then Nicky & Kim outsmart the other two teams on their flight and get put on standby first, allowing them to get on the earliest flight, and making Marie hate them. Jason & Amy are also on that flight, though Tim & Marie have no such luck.

When they land, they must head to the building on the painting they receive, Museu Nacional Dos Coches. The detour is a choice between tiles or miles. In tiles, they must assemble a life size puzzle out of tiles. In miles, they head to a giant map of the world to chart Magellan’s course and calculate the miles.

Tiles: Nicky & Kim, Brandon & Adam, Leo & Jamal (switched from miles), Ally & Ashley (switched from miles), Tim & Marie
Miles: Jason & Amy, Nicole & Travis, Tim & Danny

Tim & Marie debate whether they should use their express pass but ultimately decide against it, despite the fact that they have no reason to believe they are not in last place.

At the road block, they will fire arrows medieval style. Jason hits this on his first try, so I’m not sure how dificult it really is, even if most teams won’t be that lucky.

Road block (in order of arrival): Jason, Travis, Kim, Danny, Adam, Ally, Jamal, Tim

Considering the tasks that have been laid out, nothing seems so complicated that it will provide much of a challenge to the teams in the lead. There’s a reason the airport took up half of the episode, and that reason is that it’s all that really mattered. We return to this again as the other teams are landing, and Chester & Ephraim are facing yet another delay in a different country, making it blatantly obvious who is coming in last.

The pit stop for this leg of the race is Castelo Dos Mouros.

First: Nicole & Travis (win a trip to Costa Rica)
Second: Jason & Amy
Third: Nicky & Kim
Fourth: Tim & Danny
Fifth: Brandon & Adam
Sixth: Leo & Jamal
Seventh: Ally & Ashley
Eighth: Tim & Marie
Eliminated: Chester & Ephraim

Unable to catch a break at the airport, Chester & Ephraim ended up taking a risk that didn’t pay off, and they have been eliminated. They are so far behind that Phil eliminates them in the airport when they finally make it to Portugal.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 23 Episode 4, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Having struggled through both tasks, Hoskote & Naina were the first team eliminated in The Amazing Race 23 Episode 1.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Tim & Marie – 2:52AM
Second: Nicole & Travis – 3:02AM
Third: Rowan & Shane – 3:08AM
Fourth: Chester & Ephraim – 3:13AM
Fifth: Nicky & Kim – 3:14AM
Sixth: Ally & Ashley – 3:20AM
Seventh: Leo & Jamal – 4:00AM
Eighth: Jason & Amy – 5:17AM
Ninth: Tim & Danny – 5:28AM
Tenth: Brandon & Adam – 5:34AM

Museo Corbeta Esmeralda is their first destination, which ensure that all teams are bunched together due to hours of operation. Once the place opens, they must find a phrase and say it in Spanish.

From here, they will head to the Irlanda salt mines, home to the world’s largest concentration of sodium chloride. The detour is a choice between mining or brining. Brining requires them to add salt to pool water until they can comfortably float. Mining requires them to break open boulders of salt in search of a clue.

Mining: Brandon & Adam, Leo & Jamal, Chester & Ephraim, Rowan & Shane
Brining: Nicole & Travis, Jason & Amy, Ally & Ashley (switched from mining), Tim & Marie, Nicky & Kim, Tim & Danny

The dumb luck tasks are normally bad news, but that doesn’t stop multiple teams from doing the mining. Before they can actually start the detour, though, they must take a bike ride to get there, which proves to be more difficult for some than others. It ultimately does not seem to matter too much which detour they choose.

A bus 24 hour bus ride will take them to their next destination of Santiago, Chile.

1st bus (departs at 1:30): Brandon & Adam, Leo & Jamal, Chester & Ephraim, Jason & Amy, Nicole & Travis
2nd bus (departs at 2:00): Tim & Marie, Ally & Ashley, Tim & Danny, Nicky & Kim
3rd bus (departs around 3:00): Rowan & Shane

Rowan & Shane, who arrived in time to take the second bus, believe they have outsmarted everybody and will be departing on the third bus instead. They later learn that this bus is just as slow as the others and they just screwed themselves out of an hour or so.

The good news for them is that this is a day long bus ride. Anything can happen. The first bus arrives on schedule. The second bus arrives second, but it’s 5 hours later. This puts the third bus only about 15 minutes behind.

We’re starting to see some early alliances form. Leo & Jamal have dubbed Ally & Ashley their race wives. Having played minor league ball, Tim knows the husband of one of the baseball wives, which allows Tim & Marie to forge an alliance with Nicky & Kim. Out of this, Nicky & Kim are likely to get an express pass while Marie’s ability to make everybody hate her at least hasn’t backfired with every single team.

The road block requires teams to play the role of shoe shiners, figuring out how to put together their equipment then pushing it six blocks. In the strangest road block I’ve ever seen, Rowan does everything correctly… except he is just working with some random street vendor rather than going where he’s supposed to go. Meanwhile, Nicky neglects to take the mat with her, and her pleas to her new ally Marie to give her the express pass fall on deaf ears. Still, though it creates some drama, just running back to get the rug is not enough to drop her behind Rowan & Shane

The pit stop for this leg of the race is Cascada de Las Animas. Leo & Jamal speak Spanish, so there’s no excuse for what just happened, but they try to stiff their cab driver, which causes them to give up the win for this leg. They both very loudly blame each other.

First: Chester & Ephraim (win a trip to Turks and Caicos)
Second: Leo & Jamal
Third: Brandon & Adam
Fourth: Nicole & Travis
Fifth: Jason & Amy
Sixth: Tim & Danny
Seventh: Ally & Ashley
Eighth: Tim & Marie
Ninth: Nicky & Kim
Eliminated: Rowan & Shane

After a couple of very bad mistakes, Rowan & Shane have been eliminated from the race.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 23 Episode 3, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Because Comcast scrambled my DVR signal, this will be the first time I’m trying to live recap this show without one. I know it tends to be a bit of a fast paced show with far too many contestants, many of whom have similar (or the same) names, but I’ll see how it goes.

Following the traditional formula, The Amazing Race 23 cast consists of 11 teams of two each with a preexisting relationship. Included in this group is the usual smattering of people who used to be famous or who know somebody famous. And of course I see meatheads, cute blondes, hippies, and gay guys.

Ally & Ashley (Ice Crew Girls)
Brandon & Adam (Childhood Friends)
Chester & Ephraim (Former NFL Teammates)
Hoskote & Naina (Father/Daughter)
Jason & Amy (Dating)
Leo & Jamal (Cousins)
Nicky & Kim (Baseball Wives)
Nicole & Travis (Married ER Doctors)
Rowan & Shane (Theater Performers)
Tim & Danny (Best Friends)
Tim & Marie (Exes)

The pit start for the race is the old wild west (or a movie set resembling it), and their first destination is the coastline of South America (Iquique, Chile). At least there when they say “rapido”, it will be correct. The winners of this first leg will win two express passes, one to keep and one to give away.

Tim & Marie are already arguing on the drive to the airport. They used to date but don’t any more because they hate each other. They should be fun.

Jason & Amy, Hoskote & Naina, Brandon & Adam, and Tim & Danny get on the second flight 3 hours behind the first 7 teams, so they will be battling for last.

Their first road block is a paragliding task in which the second teammate must follow the paraglider by taxi cab to meet them at their final destination. It’s also the first trick of the race because the person who volunteers to do the road block is not the person who’s paragliding. The way some of these people are freaking out, they’re in for a rude awakening later because this is probably the least scary heights task they will encounter.

The second road block requires them to choose a rowboat and search the harbor for 5 fish from any of 3 fishing boats, each of which has a limited number of fish. The paraglider is required to do this road block because technically they did not do the last one. Leo & Jamal neglect this detail, and Jamal does the road block anyway before someone points out the mistake.

Each of these tasks is largely moot for most of the show since the end result comes down to who was on the second plane. Following the first road block, things are looking bleak for Hoskote & Naina. Then after they arrive and she stumbles around on the boat for a while, she actually reads the clue and realizes he should be doing the task instead of her.

The clue for the pit stop (half an hour into the show?) is an early test of reading comprehension. Let’s see how many teams fail it. Nicole & Travis receive a 30 minute penalty for taking a cab rather than making their way on foot, which costs them the win.

First: Tim & Marie (win two express passes)
Second: Nicole & Travis
Third: Rowan & Shane
Fourth: Chester & Ephraim
Fifth: Nicky & Kim
Sixth: Ally & Ashley
Seventh: Leo & Jamal
Eighth: Jason & Amy
Ninth: Tim & Danny
Tenth: Brandon & Adam
Eliminated: Hoskote & Naina

Sometimes you get a surprise first elimination, but this is not one of them. Hoskote & Naina seemed to be one of the weakest teams and have been eliminated from the race.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 23 Episode 2, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.