photo: cbs
I Need Hair to be Pretty (Cochin, India)
Original Air Date: Apr 29 , 2012
Ryan O – Associate Staff Writer
ryano@thetwocentscorp.com
This was a really bad time for such a poorly designed leg. One team makes a bad decision but it doesn’t mean anything. Another team makes a bad choice and IT doesn’t mean anything either.
This hasn’t been a great season and this wasn’t a great episode. One team over-obsesses about choices that other teams make. One person tells his partner to stop with the positive reinforcement. Good times all around.
As Bopper and Mark wait for their starting time, Mark gets an IV to help him deal with the heat stroke and dehydration from the Bollywood dance task.
Here are the start times:
Dave and Rachel: 6:53 AM
Brendon and Rachel: 7:20 AM
Art and JJ: 7:28 AM
Vanessa and Ralph: 7:32 AM
Bopper and Mark: 10:38 AM
Speed Bump:
Bopper and Mark have to paint a tiger’s face on a dancer’s stomach. The rest of the dancer’s body is covered in tiger make-up.
Teams have to make their way to a temple that is somewhere close by to get the next clue. That clue directs them to Pattancaud Coir Mats and Mattings. There’s also a Fast Forward available. Brendon and Rachel are the first team to get to that clue that can do the Fast Forward and they decide to do it. They’re only told to go to another nearby temple and find two priests.
Fast Forward
Brendon and Rachel reach the Fast Forward and find out they have to have their heads shaved. Rachel starts to whine about not wanting to shave her head. She decides no, she doesn’t want to do it. I can understand that and in this case, it won’t hurt them because Bopper and Mark are so far behind. I’ve never really liked this Fast Forward. They decide to go get the next clue at the temple.
Road Block: Who’s at the End of Their Rope?
Whoever does this has to use coconut husks to spin 40 feet of rope. It involves feeding husks onto a strand that’s being spun by a machine.
Here’s who does the task.
Ralph
Dave
Art
Brendon
Here’s a fun game. Guess who says this during the task: “Babe, I don’t need positive reinforcement, please. I appreciate silence. Thanks, though.” Did you guess anyone but Dave?
JJ talks to Rachel about her not wanting to shave her head and tries to convince her she would look good with a shaved head. He’s worried about Mark and Bopper being to do the Fast Forward and then having to fight with Brendon and Rachel to stay out of last place.
Ralph finishes first. The clue tells them to make their way to Fort Kochi and then search for a barber working under an ancient tree.
As they’re racing from the rope spinning to their rickshaw, Vanessa sprains her ankle and falls. She decides to walk for a bit to see if it’s okay. She makes it to the rickshaw and then head for the next clue.
Detour: Pachyderm or Pack a Box
Pachyderm: Decorate an elephant with a headdress and jewelry. Then, they have to move 15 wheelbarrows of elephant poop to a truck.
Pack a Box: Fill and pack 10 boxes with ginger and then deliver them to a shipping depot
This is one of those times where there’s an obvious choice. The show wants you to do the elephant task. You choose to pack a box at your own risk.
Here’s what teams chose.
Dave and Rachel: Pachyderm
Vanessa and Ralph: Pachyderm
Brendon and Rachel: Pachyderm
Art and JJ: Pack a Box
JJ continues to complain about no one doing the Fast Forward. Dude just can’t EVER let anything go.
Dave and Rachel finish shoveling elephant poop first and the clue sends them to the Pit Stop at the Cheena Vala Fishing Nets. They’ll need to take a ferry to get there. Vanessa and Ralph leave in second and Brendon and Rachel are right behind them.
At the ferry, Dave and Rachel are waiting and Dave decides to pay the guy in charge of sending the way on its way to send the ferry on its way before any other teams get there. Brendon and Rachel pull up just as Dave and Rachel pull away on the ferry. Vanessa and Ralph pull up right behind them. Money well spent on Dave’s part.
At this point, we switch to seeing Mark and Bopper on their way to the Fast Forward. We alternate views between Art and JJ working on filling boxes with ginger and Mark and Bopper.
Bopper and Mark are getting their heads shaved. Art and JJ are delivering the ginger.
Order of finish
Dave and Rachel — they win $10,000 each. It’s their sixth win and they need one more to tie the record. They talk about winning a seventh leg and winning the race. Shh, let’s not tell them that the team that won six legs came in second overall. (Eric and Jeremy on season 9, who lost to the hippies).
Brendon and Rachel
Vanessa and Ralph — they get to the mat just a moment after Brendon and Rachel. Vanessa brings up the fact that Brendon and Rachel might’ve done too few wheelbarrows of poop. Both Brendon and Ralph tell their partners just to let it go. It’s not Vanessa’s job to count Brendon and Rachel’s wheelbarrows of poop. There’s crew for that. Vanessa then apologizes for saying Rachel needed a nose job a few episodes back. Rachel can’t quite just take the apology and move on but, eventually, Vanessa apologizes again, for everything and even seems to come across as sincere. Rachel apologizes, too.
Art and JJ — they figure they’re in last. They’re really just too tired to react when Phil tells them they’re fourth.
Bopper and Mark
Well, there’s goes the last team that I had any interest in rooting for. Just the two-hour finale next weekend left for this season.
What do you expect to happen in the coming weeks? Let’s hear your Two Cents!
TheTwoCents 
I really feel like The Amazing Race has lost its way this season with all the focusing on inter-team drama. I know they can’t totally be sure what they’ll get when they cast, but they did a pretty good job of casting a lot of objectionable people this season, many of whom clearly like causing drama.
And even if there IS drama between teams, The Amazing Race could choose NOT to focus on it. They are a better brand of reality show. They focus on existing relationships and how they evolve when faced with these outside forces and challenges. That’s why it’s been so successful. People like me who hate the drama of strangers manipulating each other (like Survivor) can usually watch this show and avoid that kind of base, evil behavior from permeating our brains.
It also cheapens Phil. Phil is fantastic. He is 80-times better than Jeff Probst will ever be. Let’s leave the ham-fisted pot-stirring to Jeff and bask in the awesomeness that is Phil. 🙂
I don’t remember ever seeing a team as focused on what everyone else is doing as Art & JJ are this season. For the second time they’ve freaked out about some other team not doing what Art & JJ wanted them to — all to have it not make any difference to them at all. I don’t like any of the teams left, but I especially hope Art & JJ don’t win. Their whole approach to the race is antithetical to how it’s designed. This isn’t Survivor where you need alliances. No one is going to beat you, but yourselves or the uncontrollable circumstances of The Race. It’s all about how you deal with those circumstances. Art (or JJ, I haven’t bothered learning which is which) was so quick to say they’d failed on the mat, even though it turned out they were 4th, and they’d done their best. But I think he was right, they have failed. They have been vile, hateful people this whole race. They say adversity brings out who you really are. And if this is who they really are, they ARE failing — at life.
I think the worst part about this season is that none of these objectionable people has had any sort of revelation about themselves or about how they treat their partner or the other teams. This show is at its best when relationships evolve for the better, whether it’s one person’s epiphany or a new mutual respect. Heck, even when a relationship reaches it’s logical ending, it’s often still better for both people. Ian of Terry and Ian still sticks out in my mind as such an amazing transformation and a wonderful bit of TV. His realization of the hurt he had been carrying with him all these years and how he’d taken that pain out on Terry completely changed him and their marriage for the better. The Amazing Race can be transformative. This season is just a new layer of junk to add to the pile of crap Reality TV has become known for.
I prefer to let myself believe Bopper and Mark won this race. Any of the teams left winning makes us all losers. Bopper and Mark may not have won the money, but they have unlocked the true treasures of life — friendship, love and kindness towards others. They are what The Amazing Race is supposed to be about.
Not much I can add here. You pretty said it all.
This is the first season where I don’t even want to finish watching it. So unwatchable. I just hope the next season is better. Almost anything can be better than this one.
If I weren’t a completest and obligated to write the review for it, I’d consider skipping next week’s finale. As it is, the recap might read, “Dave and Rachel won. The end.”
I just read your review for this episode, so I didn’t even watch this one. Actually, I unfortunately turned it on at the end for mat placement. And from that I decided not to watch the rest of it. And I’m with you. The only redeeming team left.