The Amazing Race: Let's Name Our Chicken Phil

Posted by: Ariana  •  November 27, 2007 @ 3:08am

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

We're staying in Burkina Faso all episode long, so hunker down. I'm not the biggest fan of the episodes involving no flights, customs and/or borders, but I suppose if you have to stay somewhere for a while, Africa is an interesting place to stay.

A&H are first to depart, though Phil does not say that it's 12 hours after they arrived, and indeed it couldn't be, for it was daylight when they came and it is daylight now at 7:58 a.m. Hmm. I guess the streets of Greater Metropolitan Bingo just aren't safe at night.

The first clue tells the teams to find a certain tribal chief in the village, who will give them a gift. The gift, it is a live chicken. And this live chicken, they must carry it with them until the end of the leg. Well, I suppose it's good they aren't making them get on any planes then.

Once armed with chickens, teams receive a clue telling them to cab it to a town called Bouda Pelegtanga, and also, "No chicken, no check-in!" Bahaha. TK & Rachel, Nate & Jenn, the Lipsticks, Ronald & Christina and Nic & Gramps all leave and get their chickens. Shana & Jennifer aren't too far behind.

When the teams get to Bouda Pelegtanga, they find the Detour. The choices? Shake Your Pan or Shake Your Booty. Oh, now that is just silly. Not that I couldn't listen to Phil say "booty" all day long. Shake Your Pan involves a little gold panning, and Shake Your Booty involves "learning" a traditional African dance and "performing" it for a panel of three judges. Really, they don't care so much whether your steps are remotely close to what you're taught; it's the level at which you are prepared to make a fool of yourself that counts. This is where I would much rather be gold mining. I have a low tolerance for acting ridiculous on international television, which is why I would be a terrible reality show contestant.

At any rate, if the judges are satisfied with your moves and originality, you get your clue; if they're not, you get a ten minute penalty. Ah, and this is where I'd be right back in with the dancing: even at worst, it only costs you an extra ten minutes. With the mining, you could be stuck there all day, for all you know. Either that, or this entire leg is really tightly laid out and is only supposed to take a couple of hours total, heh.

Oh, and here are Jason & Lorena, leaving almost an hour and a half after Shana & Jennifer. They are in remarkably good spirits for being what is, relatively speaking, a great distance behind the main clump of teams.

Nate & Jenn try the dancing first and look utterly ridiculous, but not ridiculous enough for the judges. They get a ten-minute penalty. This may or may not be the point where I admit to myself that I might maybe think Nate is just a teeny, tiny, little bit cute. And then I hate myself for it. I'm a sucker for arrhythmic white boy dancing, I guess.

TK & Rachel consider dancing, but realize the moves are not as easy as they look and switch to mining. This is not the wisest of decisions, what with the aforementioned worst-case scenario of a measly ten-minute penalty. A&H go for the dancing and get a pass from the judges. I'm not really sure how, since I don't think they were together even once, or rhythmic on individually at all, not that we're really shown enough footage to decide for ourselves. (Nate: "Gosh darn it. We were in first." Nate and his epithets, honestly.) Nic & Gramps pan for gold.

Teams are on their way to a nearby goat market (!!) after the Detour, but first, Phil tells us about the U-Turn, a new game device in which a team can force another team behind them to go back and complete the detour option they haven't already done. There are only two on the entire race, each team can only use the U-Turn once, blah de blah.

The Lipsticks will be dancing. A&H will not be u-turning anyone. Ron & Christina dance, it is completely, completely awkward, with actual booty-shaking and butt-bumping, and I cringe every time I watch it. They don't pass. Nic & Gramps get their necessary gold. Shana & Jennifer choose dancing.

Oh, right! Jason & Lorena. Jason is yelling "Rapido!" in their cab on the way to the Detour, in what I think is an effort to be funny.

The Lipsticks dance and Lipstick Boy does some fancy stick twirling that earns them a pass. TK & Rachel get their gold, finally, having dropped from third to sixth place. Shana & Jennifer dance, looking no less stupid than anyone else.

There's a bit of a tense moment as Shana resolves to u-turn someone, but we know not whom, and TK & Rachel appear to be getting to the U-Turn just a little behind the girls. Fortunately for those of us who like TK & Rachel, and indeed for TK & Rachel themselves, Shana & Jennifer u-turn Jason & Lorena, which makes the most sense at this point, since it really only matters that you're ahead of one team. Jennifer isn't happy that Shana decided to do this, but really she didn't put up much of a fight, and will now proceed to passive-aggressively blame Shana's bad karma for every single bad thing that will happen to them throughout the rest of their stay on the race. Awesome. Also, I think Shana actually mistook TK & Rachel for Jason & Lorena, which is dumb on so many levels. First of all, no. Second of all, she didn't really make the best strategic decision then, did she? She was strategic by accident.

So here we are at the goat market, which is troublesome for me. There are a lot of tiny, adorable goats tied up in all kinds of compromising positions, and I am sad. Nonetheless, it's Roadblock time. The roadblocking teammate will have to load a bicycle with a bunch of random stuff and deliver it to someone somewhere in the middle of the market. You think I'm just being vague, but the clue is not much more specific. Included in the random stuff is a little goat in a laundry basket. Oh me. Azaria, Jenn (who is having as much trouble with the goat idea as I am), Lipstick Girl, Christina and Nic take the Roadblock for their teams.

Lorena & Jason are throwing everything they've got into the dancing detour. They tell a very touching story of how he fell in love with her when he saw her dancing. Yes, I'm sure this is just like that. Oh, if you missed this dancing, how I wish you could've seen it. Every single person who does it looks just totally silly. It's good for some giggles, it is. Anyway, Lorena & Jason get their clue after Jason's American Idol comparison. They discover they've been u-turned and go back to do the gold panning half of the detour. They are surprisingly, even shockingly, uncomplainy about the whole thing. I couldn't tell you what's gotten into them.

Azaria and Jenn finish the Roadblock, and the next clue tells them to head to the Hotel de Ville in Ouagadougou, the next pit stop. A&H and Nate & Jenn are in a race for first, which A&H win by about a hair. (Best part? This little soliloquy by Jenn in their taxi on the way to the pit stop as Nate tries to hug her: "I can't touch, sorry. Okay, touch me, touch me. I'm so hot." Without context, that's... well, it's something else, that's what it is.) Oh, and yes, they still have their chickens.

TK & Rachel and Shana & Jennifer finally get to the Roadblock, and Rachel and Shana will be doing it. Uh, the roadblock, that is. Everyone is frustrated and hot and lost and dirty and, well, you know how it can get. (How has this turned so dirty all of a sudden? I got distracted by Jenn's comments.) Christina, Nic and Lipstick Girl finish. Ron & Christina check in to the pit stop in third, and Nic & Gramps are fourth. The Lipsticks arrive in fifth.

Rachel is lost in the goat market after dropping off her random stuff, but she has the right idea and makes her way back to her someone somewhere and asks him for directions to get out. It's smart because at least she knows the name of the guy and can ask people how to get to him and then he can point her toward the outside. If she just asked the random kids running around the marketplace how to get to TK, they might not be able to be quite so helpful.

Shana & Jennifer are in sixth, and TK & Rachel come in seventh, with Rachel somehow convinced they were last.

Jason & Lorena are cabbing to the pit stop in eighth and last, and he is being weirdly sweet about the whole thing, all like, "We'll make a million bucks some other way, babe," and telling her to be positive and that money isn't everything. They're eliminated and their chicken is very sad. Then Jason ruins the whole illusion with his comments about how he's down for any adventure, except for maybe marriage because then you're forced to be with someone, and you can't just be with them because you want to be. Oy vey, that is a sad philosophy to travel through life holding on to.

And on that note... Come back next week for some bickering and potentially life-threatening car accidents!

Tags: The Amazing Race

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