The Amazing Race 21 Episode 7

Rob & Kelley continued marching to the beat of their own drummer in The Amazing Race 21 Episode 6, right out of the race.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Trey & Lexi – 12:35PM
Second: Abbie & Ryan – 12:56PM
Third: James & Abba – 1:03PM
Fourth: Natalie & Nadiya – 1:44PM
Fifth: Jaymes & James – 1:55PM
Sixth: Josh & Brent – 2:07PM

Teams will now fly to Moscow, Russia. There are multiple options available.

Abbie & Ryan have opted for a flight with a 1 hour connection. Josh & Brent end up on this same flight after flipping a coin. 1 hour to get through one of the top 10 busiest airports in the world for an international connection? Having been through the disaster that is Frankfurt, I sense danger. Their alternative would be to take a flight that arrives 1 or 2 hours later. Seeing as these flights are all landing before the sun comes up, I’m not clear why it would be worth the risk. What are the odds a task begins before 8AM?

Trey & Lexi are looking for some airline that sounds funny, so they decide to just eat because they don’t know what it’s called. When the twins come along, the four of them book together. Chippendales and the rockers both get on the earliest flight by just dumb lucking into ticket agents that give them better options than others happened to get.

Before they can even get to Frankfurt and run through the airport, Josh & Brent and Abbie & Ryan already find out they are screwed. An announcement is made that their flight will be an hour late, essentially guaranteeing them a missed connection.

It gets worse. The earliest flight will arrive at 3:10PM, a full 11 hours behind the flight that left third, and even accounting for an hours of operation of 9:30 puts them over six hours behind the rest of the pack. At least there are two teams in this boat, or otherwise this would be a very boring leg.

The detour is a choice between synchronize or alphabetized. In alphabetized, teams must find books in a library based on a list in Russian. In synchronized, teams must go synchronized swimming with a future Olympic team.

Alphabetized: Trey & Lexi
Synchronized: Natalie & Nadiya, Jaymes & James, James & Abba (switched from alphabetized), Abbie & Ryan, Josh & Brent

As frustrating as the Russian alphabet is likely to be, I wouldn’t think the second detour is even possible. The good news is it doesn’t need to be pretty, but it does at least need to be in sync. For any struggles the lead four teams may be going through on either task, it’s all moot. Even if they quit the task and take a penalty, they’re still ahead of the bottom two.

The only occurrence of any relevance is Natalie & Nadiya continuing to discuss wasting their express pass, which they’ve been thinking about since before the task even started. The Chippendales tell them not to be stupid. I’d let them go ahead and do it.

The road block requires them to unlock all ten locks securing a ribbon to the Trees of Love.

Road block (in order of arrival): Trey, James, Natalie, Abba

This fairly simple task is nothing like the nightmare lock challenge from The Amazing Race 6. That does not prevent Natalie and Nadiya from calling each other the worst partner ever as a result of it.

Still at the airport, Josh & Brent and Abbie & Ryan make a pact. They will run this leg together. I’m not sure exactly what that entails, but it sounds silly. Ryan has the perfect opportunity to screw them over when they suggest going to the library, but he declines to take it and tells everybody that it closes at 4, meaning both these teams have no choice but to do the swimming task. It seems, though, that this task is much more suited to Abbie & Ryan, which would still allow them to squeak through.

With the two last place teams having spent the past day together, we find out what their pact means. Abbie & Ryan, finishing the detour easily, stick around to watch Josh & Brent hopelessly flail about.

But wait. There’s more. James & Abba left their stuff in a cab. If that’s just their personal belongings, they’re hurting, but they can get through it. However, if either of them let his passport out of his sight, that would automatically mean elimination. That’s exactly what happened. They have several hours to locate that cab, but we now have an unforeseen scenario that may not make things so predictable after all.

What is it with Russian cabs taking off with people’s stuff (and passports)? Toni & Dallas were eliminated in this exact same scenario in The Amazing Race 13.

The pit stop for this leg of the race is The Bolshoi Theater, the picture on the back of the money they are given as a clue.

First: Trey & Lexi (win a trip to Maui)
Second: Jaymes & James
Third: Natalie & Nadiya

After all the drama of the evening, we’re left with a cliffhanger. The most likely conclusion is that James & Abba cannot find their passports in this city of 10 million, but if they pull out a miracle, that leaves the other two teams battling for survival.

What we do know based on the preview is that Abbie & Ryan survive. Whether that means someone else was eliminated or non-eliminated is the question.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 21 Episode 8, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Survivor: Philippines Episode 8

Jonathan saved himself with his hidden immunity idol in Survivor: Philippines Episode 7 leaving RC in the path of the elimination vote.

Jonathan may have survived the vote, but still his alliance screwed him over. He now hates everybody.

The plan is to get rid of the veterans. Once their second shot has been ended, they will then target the obnoxious people: Pete, Abi, and Artis. Do us a favor and go after those guys first.

At the reward challenge, they will divide into two teams. One person from each team will be tied to a rope, swim out, dive and collect a fish trap, and be reeled back in by their team. Two people will then solve a puzzle using the retrieved pieces. Reward is a river cruise with food. Skupin, Pete, Abi, Artis, and Carter go against Jeff, Malcolm, Penner, Lisa, and Denise.

Jeff easily establishes a lead over Abi, which Penner narrowly retains over Pete. A very slow Lisa gives up the lead to Carter. Skupin’s inability to dive returns the lead back to the other team as Denise pulls ahead of him. Both teams are close enough that it comes down to the puzzle. Penner and Jeff go against Skupin and Pete. The puzzle goes very quickly, particularly for Jonathan and Jeff, who finish it to win reward for ther team.

Pete finds Abi annoying like everybody else does, but he’ll keep her around because nobody’s going to vote for her if she’s in the final three. Logically, since nobody likes either of them, they should be thinking along these lines. Of course, keeping them around would mean trusting them, which can’t be done. They can only trust each other, at least until another of Abi’s mood swings kicks in and she stops talking to Pete for two weeks without telling him why.

Though Penner remains the immediate target, there are multiple people thinking that flipping at 9 and keeping Skupin around might be a better move than getting rid of him. Lisa’s the first to get to him, and she tells him that Malcolm has an idol.

The two stage immunity challenge will have them untying puzzle bags and racing over a series of obstacles, then working on a snake puzzle. Pete, Jeff, and Penner are the three to advance to the second stage. Seeing as they were three of the four people who participated in the puzzle in the previous challenge, I assume they are all fairly comfortable with them. The main thing the onlookers are rooting for is just that Jonathan does not win. Penner wins immunity.

Oops. It doesn’t sound to me like anybody has even considered a plan B. Now they’ll have to come up with one.

This will make the other veteran, Michael, the target. But nice church lady Lisa isn’t about to let that happen. She tells another person, Pete, that Malcolm has an idol. Like I said, though, you can’t trust Pete. He asks Malcolm whether he has an idol. After their conversation, Pete is convinced that Malcolm does not have an idol because he freaked out (perhaps because his secret has been discovered?). Malcolm’s reaction is to tell everybody else about how Lisa’s saying he has an idol.

In any event, during their conversation, Pete proposed eliminating Jeff, which is the plan most people are now supporting. When he finds about this (good luck keeping a secret on this tribe), they toss around Pete and Abi as potential targets.

Not content dropping the issue, Malcolm brings it up at tribal council. As the questioning gets redirected to Abi, she’s upset. Oh, this again. She says she didn’t care if Skupin went home anyway because he was always on the outside with RC. During this discussion, Malcolm pulls out his idol and shows it to everybody, telling them it’s getting played tonight because there’s too much chaos. Probst has a follow up question: does anybody else want to reveal they have an idol? Yes, Abi does.

Now Penner would like to know whether everybody’s onboard to go with plan B, which would be voting out Pete. Lisa counters by saying they should go with her own plan B, which would be Jeff. This has gone from dull and predictable to revealing and suspenseful.

One more piece before the vote is revealed. Now that he’s played them all for fools, Malcolm declines to play his idol. Granted, with the tribe split right down the middle, voting against him with even the chance that he might use it would have been too much of a risk. The good news for him is that he should be safe until they have enough votes to split the vote. The bad news is either if they get rid of him to flush the idol or view him as untrustworthy because he’s told the entire group at least two lies already.

Votes
Abi
Jeff
Pete
Jeff
Pete
Jeff
Pete
Jeff
Pete
Jeff

With 5 votes, Jeff has been voted off the island. He got what he deserved. He had total control and gave it up to jump to the other tribe because he so desperately wanted to get rid of one of his allies (and failed). Speaking of which, the swing Abi vote that prevented it from being a tie? Yeah, that came from Penner.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 9, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

The Amazing Race 21 Episode 6

Josh & Brent trailed the entire leg in The Amazing Race 21 Episode 5 but were saved by non-elimination.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: James & Abba – 8:30AM
Second: Abbie & Ryan – 11:04AM
Third: Natalie & Nadiya – 12:10PM
Fourth: Rob & Kelley – 12:31PM
Fifth: Trey & Lexi – 12:53PM
Sixth: Jaymes & James – 1:30PM
Seventh: Josh & Brent – 3:04PM

Ryan seems to have decided he hates every other team on the race.

At the travel agent, the twins find a wad of American money, which obviously belongs to one of the other teams. Lexi is standing there as well, and they make a deal to split it. It turns out the money belongs to James & Abba, who realize it’s missing before they leave, but by that time it’s too late. They’ll have to go begging in downtown Bangladesh, and the locals in the business district come together to give them enough to move on.

Teams will now fly 3700 miles to the European side of Turkey in Istanbul. With all the teams on the same flight, the stupidly big lead James & Abba were allowed to retain by last week’s poor leg planning will now evaporate, despite their 7 hour lead over the terribly performing last place team.

When they land, they have to choose between the potentially faster taxis that may hit traffic or the slower metro that will not have that same problem. The cab rides prove quicker, leaving Jaymes & James and Rob & Kelley at the back of the pack. Part way through the ride, the Chippendales get a tip from a fellow passenger that the subway’s slow, so they get off and take a cab the rest of the way. Rob & Kelley see them get off, but they keep doing what they’ve done all along: insist they don’t need to follow anyone and will run their own race, for better or worse.

Arriving at the ferry, they will take it to the Asian side of Turkey.

The detour is a choice between simit or scrub it. In simit, teams will transport Turkish bagels on their heads to three different addresses. In scrub it, teams will be scrubbed squeaky clean in a bathhouse.

Before they can get to the detour, Josh & Brent must first tackle their speed bump. They must eat an ice cream cone. Really, that’s their punishment for coming in last? This is made slightly harder by the fact that they just go to some random ice cream stand, which means they’ll have to do it a second time at the one marked by a race flag.

Scrub it: Trey & Lexi, James & Abba, Natalie & Nadiya, Abbie & Ryan, Jaymes & James
Simit: Josh & Brent, Rob & Kelley

The scrub it detour may sound like it has the potential for some painful scrubbing, and although they get a relaxing wash at first, that’s exactly the path they go down eventually. Still, this is the more relaxing and straightforward task of the two. The teams that did the more physical bagel task end up in last.

The road block requires teams to serve Turkish sherbet, regarded as the world’s first soft drink, until they have sold 40 and earned about $20.

Road block (in order of arrival): Lexi, Ryan, Abba, Natalie, James, Brent, Kelley

Lexi’s strategy is to be loud and obnoxious, which no doubt the twins will emulate. Ryan takes a different approach: he gets one of the locals to help him sell and offers a commission. Regardless, it doesn’t really seem to matter because there are two teams that are clearly trailing.

The pit stop for this leg of the race is Savarona, one of the world’s longest yachts.

First: Trey & Lexi (win a trip to Australia)
Second: Abbie & Ryan
Third: James & Abba
Fourth: Natalie & Nadiya
Fifth: Jaymes & James
Sixth: Josh & Brent
Eliminated: Rob & Kelley

Rob & Kelley lost this leg when it began. I can appreciate their desire to be independent, but there are times you have to accept that it makes more sense to follow the crowd.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 21 Episode 7, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Survivor: Philippines Episode 7

As her tribe continues to get decimated, Katie was the next obvious boot choice in Survivor: Philippines Episode 6.

Jonathan believes he’s built trust with Jeff, who plans to stab him in the back eventually.

This marks the day Michael fell into the fire in Australia. I’m guessing that won’t happen, though he looks like he’s been through a battle with all the wounds he’s sustained.

The tribes are given 10 minutes to gather their belongings so they can move to a new merged beach.

Down by 3 people, the awful Kalabaw tribe hopes the merge will bring them better luck. They need to get 2 to flip. Denise wants one of those to be Malcolm, her key ally regardless of having merged into a new terrible tribe from her old even worse tribe.

Pete, the ass that he is, is more than willing to throw away his tribe’s numbers advantage. He hates both RC and Mike. Abi, just as bad as Pete but with a bigger mouth, now has a favor to ask RC: get information from the other tribe. RC tells her straight that they aren’t one big happy family.

Jeff is pretty sure nobody on the new beach knows him either. Lisa, however, has another fan, Jonathan. Anybody under the age of 30 doesn’t care about some 80s sitcom, but the older people on the island will immediately recognize Blair Warner.

Lisa has decided to do a nice thing for everybody. While they’re making the shelter, she’ll just hang up everybody’s clothes so they don’t go to sleep with wet clothes. So of course she picks up Malcolm’s bag, the one with the idol in it. He realizes he waited a little to long to find a new hiding place, but he thinks he can trust the nice church lady. Welcome to your new three person alliance and a final three promise from Malcolm with Lisa and Denise.

Jeff, who pointlessly rambled last episode about getting rid of Jonathan, starts the same thing again, this time with the other tribe. While everybody else on his tribe wants to pull in two people, he’s going the other way and instead trying to join the majority tribe, putting himself at the bottom of their totem pole.

The first individual immunity challenge is as always endurance. They will hold a handle with a rope attached to a bucket, which contains 25% of their body weight. It’s nice to see Abi participate in a challenge for a change. Mike’s the first one out after 5 minutes. Pete immediately follows. Jonathan’s next. The good news for the men as they drop like flies is that they don’t have to outlast the women… they just have to outlast each other. Lisa’s next, and then Malcolm. RC’s out, then Abi. Denise wins the women’s immunity. After 15 minutes, Artis is out, leaving the young buck against the pro athlete. At 25 minutes, Jeff starts talking to Carter about making a deal. Though he never actually receives an okay, he drops anyway. Carter wins immunity.

Jeff’s plan is a 4-4 split between Jonathan and RC, which would require everybody other than them and Mike to go along. Unbeknownst to RC, she’s potentially one of the targets, which may not bode well for her belief that she’s in the majority with Kalabaw. Luckily for her, Mike’s planning on going down swinging, so he makes a deal with Jeff that he’ll get rid of Jonathan before him. This leaves Jeff with a lot of power. He can determine the fate of tonight’s vote, though either way he’s going to earn himself some new enemies for talking so much.

For Tandang (Malcolm notwithstanding), this marks their first visit to tribal council, which has never taken this long in 25 seasons. On the flip side, Denise has been to every single tribal council.

RC finally finds out why Abi’s been such a bitch to her all this time, which she would have found out a long time ago if Abi were capable of having a rational adult conversation. Anyway, it was something about an idol clue and hiding it or something. I still don’t know.

Not as in the dark as some may have hoped, Jonathan decides to play his idol, though the others did plan to split the vote specifically just in case this happened.

Votes
Jonathan (does not count)
Jonathan (does not count)
Jonathan (does not count)
RC
Pete
Jonathan (does not ocunt)
Jonathan (does not count)
RC
Pete
RC
RC

With 4 votes, RC has been voted off the island. Having received the majority of the votes and only voted the same as the person who just went home, Jonathan knows he can’t trust anybody. The fifth vote to put him over the top: Mike.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 8, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

The Amazing Race 21 Episode 5

Following two narrow escapes in second to last, Gary & Will were eliminated in The Amazing Race 21 Episode 4.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: James & Abba – 7:39AM
Second: Abbie & Ryan – 9:41AM
Third: Natalie & Nadiya – 9:42AM
Fourth: Josh & Brent – 10:53AM
Fifth: Rob & Kelley – 10:59AM
Sixth: Jaymes & James – 11:10AM
Seventh: Trey & Lexi – 11:34AM

As the only team to have gone for the fast forward, James & Abba have a 2 hour lead over the second place team, a seemingly insurmountable amount of time if they remain local. Seeing as they only have $1 for this leg of the race, that’s a pretty safe bet.

They continue to fight their way through the heat and sea of people in Bangladesh. Ryan thinks he has found where hell is, but by that same respect, he realizes how good they have it at home.

The road block requires them to use an ancient scale (that they must build) to weigh a specific amount of wood using rocks as a counterbalance.

Road block (in order of arrival): James, Abbie, Nadiya, Kelley, Jaymes, Brent, Trey

Oh, great, now we get to listen to more screaming from the twins. They consider Ryan obnoxious for mocking them. Have they heard themselves? I could do without hearing the word twinny being screamed once again, let alone 48 more times.

Immediately after the road block, they head straight to the detour. It’s really not looking good for anybody hoping to shake up the standings. 15 minutes in, it’s already obvious who will place first. Poor leg planning. If you know someone will have this large a lead, there needs to be an equalizer. At least the back of the pack is close enough that there are a few teams that could place last.

The physical nature of these tasks should allow Trey and the Chippendales to escape the axe. Kelley manages to claw her way through the road block as well, leaving Josh & Brent sitting in dead last as they continue to struggle.

The detour is a choice between straw dogs or bamboo jungle. In straw dogs, they will manufacture an eco-friendly bag. In bamboo jungle, they will collect bamboo and deliver it to a construction site. Either work in a 100+ degree factory or haul extremely long poles that will be whacking each other and passers by in equally oppressive conditions. The bamboo task seems to be the smartest move since heavy lifting tasks typically are the quicker choice, though both are going to be physically draining after an already exhausting road block.

Straw dogs: Abbie & Ryan
Bamboo jungle: James & Abba, Natalie & Nadiya, Jaymes & James, Trey & Lexi, Rob & Kelley, Josh & Brent

Having placed their bamboo incorrectly and noticed it, Jaymes & James toss some wood on the ground to reorganize it. In doing so, they forget some of it. This will provide the drama the editors were hoping for, even though it still will not be enough, as they are rejected when they arrive at the detour judge.

The pit stop for this leg of the race (the image stenciled on their detour clue) is Lok Shilpa Jadughar, a folk art and craft museum.

First: James & Abba (win a trip to Malaysia)
Second: Abbie & Ryan
Third: Natalie & Nadiya
Fourth: Rob & Kelley
Fifth: Trey & Lexi
Sixth: Jaymes & James
Non-eliminated: Josh & Brent

Having been in last since the road block, Josh & Brent finish last, but they are saved by non-elimination.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 21 Episode 6, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Survivor: Philippines Episode 6

First a sick Dana left the island in Survivor: Philippines Episode 5. Then Dawson talked her way out of the game by not so cleverly dancing around Jeff Kent’s fame and wealth rather than just blurting it out.

Odd woman out Katie has found herself a target: returning player Jonathan.

Tandang is running out of rice, and they blame Mike. They already wanted to get rid of him anyway, so this is just another easy reason to justify it.

The reward challenge will have them pushing a large ball through the mud. Reward is food. RC and Artis sit out for Tandang. The physical challenge quickly becomes a mud wrestling match, one in which nobody moves very far or very fast. The first set of teams of three is sitting on the ground after an hour.

Mike and Jonathan finally start talking deals. Mike’s willing to trade the sandwiches for the rest of their rice. The other tribe is seriously considering this deal. They say they can get by without rice. Artis, who was whining about Mike eating all the rice earlier, doesn’t want any part of this deal. But the rest of his tribe is onboard. Deal struck, the challenge is over. Kalabaw wins reward in exchange for all their rice.

Despite the fact that giving away all their rice was clearly insane, Kalabaw does have a couple of things going for them. As the tribe down by two people, they may have just received some much needed momentum. They should also have more energy when they compete for immunity.

In addition to the food, they receive letters from home. They claim this is better than food.

Back at the other camp, Artis has a new problem with Mike. He doesn’t like that he got them rice and “is making decisions for the tribe” (that the tribe voted on and agreed to). Pete and Abi, who also were loudly complaining that they did not have enough rice before, are complaining just as much about their newfound bounty of rice.

Jonathan’s confident that his tribe can get fish, despite the fact that they apparently have not had much luck so far. His confidence does not translate into results. The couple of guppies does not help their spirits.

At the immunity challenge, they must launch and catch balls. Whether they catch their own or intercept the opposition’s, it counts as a point. bi, who is completely useless in all aspects of this game, sits out for Tandang yet again. Losing the battle of rock, paper, scissors, Mike does as well.

Jonathan scores for Kalabaw. Pete and RC score for Tandang to take the 2-1 lead. Jeff scores to tie. Jeff takes the 3-2 lead for Kalabaw. Jeff scores again. Taking Mike’s advice to go for Malcolm, Lisa targets Malcolm, who scores to make it 4-3. Malcolm scores again. Carter’s completely ineffective, so he swaps places with Jeff. Malcolm scores again, and Tandang wins immunity.

Now they have a choice between Katie or Jonathan. Katie’s useless, but Jonathan is a veteran. They’re discussing the merge as if it matters. With this loss, they’re now outnumbered 7-4.

Denise and Katie say they feel like they are in trouble.

Votes
Katie
Jonathan
Katie
Katie

With 3 votes, Katie has been voted off the island, an obvious conclusion from a tribe that desperately needs a win based on something other than a willingness to give away food.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 7, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

The Amazing Race 21 Episode 4

Having bad luck with cab drivers, Caitlin & Brittany were eliminated in The Amazing Race 21 Episode 3, then they proceeded to whine that far worse teams like Gary & Will managed to beat them.

Despite the built-in half hour delay, this week’s episode is still delayed by half an hour.

Teams depart in the order in which they arrived.

First: Abbie & Ryan – 9:52PM
Second: Trey & Lexi – 9:54PM
Third: Jaymes & James
Fourth: James & Abba
Fifth: Josh & Brent
Sixth: Natalie & Nadiya
Seventh: Rob & Kelley
Eighth: Gary & Will

Teams will now fly north more than 2600 miles to Dhaka, Bangladesh. The earliest flight is 10:00 the next morning, equalizing all teams.

Gary & Will correctly suspect that Rob & Kelley are the ones who needlessly U-turned them last week.

The road block requires them to repair buses with putty, do some sanding, and remove the seats.

Road block (in order of arrival): Ryan, Natalie, James, Rob, Josh, Trey, Gary

The fast forward involves collecting a bag of rats. The first four teams decline, but James & Abba decide to do it. They start off by going to a restaurant for their first bundle of rats. Reassuring.

Having ruined his clue, Ryan makes an alliance with Jaymes & James so that he can see theirs.

Nadiya’s mouth is quickly getting on everybody’s nerves. She keeps shouting and won’t shut the hell up.

Their next task is to fight the crowds in a market and search through a bag of dried fish for one with race colors.

The detour is a choice between pound the metal or pound the cotton. In pound the metal, teams use sledge hammers to beat iron rods into tools. In pound the cotton, teams make a cotton mattress.

Pound the cotton: Abbie & Ryan, Josh & Brent, Jaymes & James, Gary & Will
Pound the metal: Natalie & Nadiya, Rob & Kelley, Trey & Lexi

It seems that the iron task is the quicker of the two, particularly for teams such as Jaymes & James that are not seamstresses.

As per usual, the editors are going out of their way to stuff this task with as many double entendres as possible. I presume somebody appreciates them going for the cheap laugh.

Meanwhile, back at the road block, there are a couple of stragglers bringing up the rear. Trey & Lexi are in seventh place, but their cab breaks down. Once again, the team that’s been in last place this entire race, Gary & Will, catch a lucky break and pull out of last for a little bit anyway.

The pit stop for this leg of the race is Shambazar Chan Mia Ghat.

Because they took the boat directly to the pit stop rather than to the location specified, Rob & Kelley are rejected when they arrive in fourth. Trey & Lexi make a similar mistake, taking a cab there instead of a boat. Gary & Will do the same.

First: James & Abba (win a trip to Antigua)
Second: Abbie & Ryan
Third: Natalie & Nadiya
Fourth: Josh & Brent
Fifth: Rob & Kelley
Sixth: Jaymes & James
Seventh: Trey & Lexi
Eliminated: Gary & Will

Gary & Will have finally been eliminated. Perhaps now they will stop snapping at each other.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Amazing Race 21 Episode 5, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Survivor: Philippines Episode 5

The Russell meltdown concluded in Survivor: Philippines Episode 4 when he was finally eliminated.

Is there going to be a tribe shuffle today, or do we keep watching the losers and see the other tribes sit out four members each?

At least Malcolm finally finds the idol, making their tribe the last to find it.

Probst tosses them each a buff. Malcolm goes to Tandang, and Denise goes to Kalabaw.

Reward is coffee and baked goods. Each contestant holds an idol, which they must force their opponent to drop. Jeff beats Malcolm to take the lead. Artis stomps Dana. Katie (who are these people every week that nobody ever heard of?) beats Lisa. Mike beats Jonathan to tie it again. Denise beats RC. Pete beats Carter for another tie. Abi beats Dawson despite her hair pulling attempt. Malcolm beats Jeff, and Tandang wins reward.

Malcolm’s tribe is a lot happier to have him than Denise’s tribe is to have her, except for RC, who feels she has one more enemy.

Pete quickly tells Malcolm he has the idol. Of course, Malcolm does not volunteer the same information in return.

For Kalabaw, it’s men against women, and it will be up to Denise to decide whether she wishes to continue that trend.

Dana is struggling with the cold, and she is having sharp pains in her stomach. The medics will allow her to continue for another 12 hours if she wants because her life is not in danger. Given the choice, Dana decides to quit because she doesn’t think she’s going to get any better.

The immunity challenge is an obstacle course followed by a bamboo word puzzle. Abi sits out for Tandang. Again. She says she’s only participated in two challenges.

Tandang is first across the first set of obstacles. Katie has to be dragged up the hill. This allows Tandang to build a large lead. The rope untying portion in which Katie becomes moot allows Kalabaw to gain a bit of ground. Jeff struggles in the chopping task, so Jonathan bails him out, further extending Tandang’s lead. Both tribes have figured out the puzzle. It’s just a matter of who can get the pieces in place first. By seconds, Tandang wins immunity.

Without Dana, the women’s alliance is done. This makes Katie an easy target seeing as she sucked at the challenge. Her only hope is that Denise, who still has not won anything, will be voted out because she is new. But Denise agrees to be the fourth vote for the men.

Though Katie is the most logical vote considering how pathetic she was at the challenge, Dawson’s not out of the woods just yet. She’s not a great performer either, and being the only one who knows Jeff Kent’s secret is not helping her because he gets the sense she knows.

Votes
Denise
Dawson
Dawson
Dawson
Dawson

With 4 votes, Dawson has been voted off the island.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 6, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.