The Amazing Race: Bees are Much Calmer than All This!

Posted by: Sarah Miller  •  September 29, 2008 @ 12:26am

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

Welcome to Season 13 of the Amazing Race everybody! Just a little disclaimer, I'm not going to be the regular recapper (recapist?) for this season, I'm just filling in for Ariana who is taking a short sabbatical from TV land. Don't worry, she'll be back next week and I'll do my best to get through the introductions of all the teams for you. So here we go!

This season kicks of from Los Angeles. The teams get to travel by classic car to Los Angeles Coliseum, the starting line of this Race, and the only place to host the Olympics twice. And the teams are:

Aja and Ty: They're dating long distance, he's in Detriot, she's trying to be an actress in Los Angeles. They're confident that they're made for each other. I guess we will find out as the Race goes on.

Andrew and Dan: Frat brothers from Arizona State University. The only six pack they're concerned about is full of beer, not muscles.

Anita and Arthur: Ah yes, the obligatory hippies. These two are beekeepers who have been married for 14 years. Look out, there is a whole lot of white hair going on in this team.

Anthony and Stephanie: This couple is back for a second go around after a year-long breakup. Supposedly Anthony is going to propose to Stephanie if they make it through the Race. My question is, what happens if they don't make it? They might be better off... couples with rhyming names are not my cup of tea.

Kelly and Christy: Have been best friends for the last 10 years, they're both recently divorced, and they're from Texas.

Ken and Tina: A married couple who have been separated for the past 9 months and are looking to reconnect. He's an ex-NFL player and he cheated on her (which we get to hear about at least four more times in this episode). They're hoping that doing the race together will help them to reconnect and heal.

Marisa and Brooke: The Southern Belles (or, the Blondes redux) from South Carolina. They like to wear pearls and bake cupcakes. On Wednesdays they wear pink.

Mark and Bill: The Geeks who met at Science Fiction club and have been friends for 23 years. People who meet them think they live in their parents basements...and they don't tell us if they actually do or not.

Nick and Starr: The brother and sister Team. He's an actor in NYC, she's a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. They have a really close personal bond. And they always get what they want, supposedly.

Terence and Sarah: Have been dating for over a year and want to prove if they can be together long term by doing the race. He's a free spirit, she works in an office. They think their differences are what makes them a strong team.

Toni and Dallas: Mother/Son team from Northern California. Her biggest accomplishment has been raising him as a single mom. He plays a lot of sports.

The teams have to run up the steps of the Coliseum to get to their luggage and their first clue, ouch, running stairs! What a way to start! And...go! Dallas makes it up the stairs first, to prove to us that he is in good shape and he reads us the clue. The first stop is Salvador, Brazil.

One of the frat brothers tells us that he's worked in the tourism industry, and that they need to get on the American Airlines flight because it connects in Miami, and Miami is close to Brazil. Thanks, Arizona. On the way to the airport we learn that Ken & Tina went through some hard times when Ken cheated, Nick and Starr are hoping to find an older couple who is more well traveled than them to be their Mom & Dad on the race (uh, ok), and Aja and Tyler are the only ones smart enough to use the car pool lane.

At LAX there are two American Airlines counters, which confuses some people, because they have to go to the flagged one. The first 6 teams to find the flagged counter get on an earlier American Airlines flight, the Arizona boys and Toni and Dallas just miss the cut off. Mark & Bill, Ken & Tina, Nick & Starr, Aja & Tyler and Nick & Christy make the first flight, but it is delayed from Rio to Salvador so they're really only an hour ahead of everyone else instead of three hours like they originally planned.

Waiting for the plane Nick and Starr try to make an Alliance with Ken & Tina, and ask if they can call them "Mom & Dad". Tina looks mildly insulted, which is appropriate because she's probably only 10 years older than Nick & Starr, if that. But Ken is all for it and they agree to the alliance anyway.

Once they land in Brazil, the teams have to take a taxi and find a sandwich shop for their next clue. Tina gets mad at Ken for not learning how to say "Take the fastest way there" in Spanish. Good thing they speak Portuguese in Brazil, Ken's off the hook. The first challenge is becoming a "Barista Old Style", and the teams have to wheel a cart full of stuff that keeps falling off through the streets of Brazil to find a vendor who has their next clue. Terence and Sarah are having some issues with their cart and he keeps yelling at her, for someone who is supposed to be a free spirit, he's pretty intense. But they find the vendor with the clues first so I guess it pays off.

After they deliver their carts to the right street vendor, teams have to make it to a military base where they will spend the night sleeping under mosquito nets. There are three departure times scheduled for the next morning, each a half hour apart. Kelly & Christy, who had some major cab problems on this leg, get stuck with the second departure time.

Meanwhile, the second flight arrives and the teams are in an even bigger hurry to catch up to everybody. "The bees are much calmer than all of this!!" Anita cries, giving us the title for this episode. The frat boys are at the front of the second pack and manage to make up some ground by arriving at the base first and signing up for the last spot on the second departure time.

On the overnight campout at the base, Dallas takes his shirt off and flirts with the ladies. Terence gets mad because Sarah is talking with the other teams and not with him. Chill out co-dependent boy! In the morning, the teams have to take a taxi to a historic church in the center of Salvador. Some teams have a hard time finding a taxi, other teams scare the taxi drivers by talking really fast and yelling at them in English. The second crew and third crew are only 15 minutes apart, so they all run to get their taxis. Tyler carries Aja's bags for her so she can run faster. How chivalrous!

Here we are at the Detour, this week the teams have to decide between:

Hard way up: They have to climb the stairs on their hands and knees and answer a mystery question. If they answer it correctly they'll be handed the next clue. If not, they have to walk down around the streets and do the whole thing again.

Soft way down: They have to climb down a cargo net, which is attached to a cargo elevator 240ft above the street. Yikes.

Nick and Starr are the first to reach the detour and they decide to do Soft Way Down. So does everyone else. Terence tells Sarah she's not allowed to talk while she's climbing, but he can. So he'll talk for her. Ugh, I hate this guy already. Toni & Dallas are cute, she tells us she's excited that she gets to do this with him because he's been athletic and doing sporty things all his life and he is nice and supportive and cheers her on the whole way down. I think I might like them best right now. They seem to be the nicest to each other so far.

Once they're down the net, the teams get to make their way to the pit stop, Forte Sao Marcelo. It's a floating battlement that used to defend the city from pirates. Thanks for the history tidbit Phil! Some of the teams realize they can just walk there while others decide to take a taxi. The taxi teams end up being worse off, because their drivers point and tell them, "It's right over there!"

Nick and Starr make it down the cargo net and to the pit stop first. They win a trip for two to Belize and they get to go snorkeling and on a river tube daytrip! Awesome! They are followed shortly after by Ken & Tina and Terence & Sarah.

The Arizona Frat boys decide to do Hard Way Up, and they're the only ones. Turns out they picked the harder detour because when they get to the top the guy asks how many stairs they just climbed, but since they didn't know beforehand they were supposed to be counting, they have no idea. Back to the bottom, ouch!

The rest of the teams make it to the pit stop in the following order: Mark & Bill, Kelly & Christy, Toni & Dallas, Andrew & Dan, Aja & Ty, Anthony & Stephanie, and Marisa & Brooke.

And sadly, it's the hippie bee keepers that arrive last and get eliminated first. They seem sweet, and say they gave it their all and tried as hard as they could. Tune in next week when Terence gets mad about the alliance between Ken & Tina and Nick & Starr, and Sarah gets mad because they didn't even say hi to her!

Original Comments Posted (2)

Ariana says...

Terence is awful. Good call on the codependence. Seriously.

Lucky for you no guys' names rhyme with Sarah, hey? Hahaha.

Sep 29, 2008 12:58am

sarahm says...

Praise the Lord!!

Sep 29, 2008 1:15am

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