'Amazing Race': To Tattoo or Not to Tattoo...
So, no surprise here: With just five teams left, "Amazing Race" had its first non-elimination round Sunday night--the first of only two on this race, Phil informed us. Which turned out to be excellent timing, since this was the leg when Kynt and Vyxsin had their first meltdown, and finished last, and it would have been such a blow to lose the pink hair, the makeup and all that personality.
Personally, I'm not ready to get stuck with a lot more camera time of Ronald treating his daughter Christina like dirt. Really, there is some entertainment value to watching how truly nasty Nate and Jen can be to each other in their dysfunctional relationship. But watching "Who's Your Daddy? (hint to Ron: those shirts are soooooo tired) condescend and belittle Christina--and worse yet, watching her take it--is really just awful.Â
Anyway, to recap, this episode took the teams from Croatia to Italy--no airline flights involved this time, but a lot of bad directions and driving disasters--with the pit stop in Florence.
Jen continued in her desperate, whiny quest to finish first on a leg--any leg--and win a prize, but couldn't persuade Nate to take the Fast Forward. (Nate to Jen: "Some Fast Forwards don't work out, Jenny.") Major bummer that he won this particular disagreement, because the FF--which, it turns out, will be the only one on this race--involved getting the letters "FF" permanently tattooed on your body. Wouldn't it have been great to see the look on Jen's face when she heard that? Would she have or wouldn't she? Alas, we don't know. The "FF" went instead to Nicholas and Grandpa Donald, who balked for a few pitiful moments before rolling up his sleeve. That gave them the win in the leg, followed by Nate & Jen and Christina & Ron.
TK and Rachel were a disaster area. First, she leaves the clue in a cafe. (TK, though clearly frustrated, gets points for not descending into typical "Amazing Race" "how-could-you-screw-up-so-badly" meanness). Then TK is completely inept at finding a clue at the Roadblock and everybody passes them. (Rachel, though clearly frustrated, gets points for not descending into, well, you get the point). They are "newly dating," which apparently means they're still biting their tongues and trying to present the best versions of themselves to each other.
In the end, despite a nail-biting (not) flat tire on the way to the pitstop, they still wound up beating out  Kynt and Vyxsin, whose ineptitude with directions was astonishing (oh, and they also wound up with a broken car.) But after his dramatic pause, Phil gave them the good news. But there's a twist! Nope, Phil's not taking the money away anymore--thank God someone at NBC finally realized how unbelievably tacky that was. Now, there is something called a "speed bump"--in  the next leg, at any moment, Kynt and Vyxsin will be assigned an extra task that only they have to complete.
Oh, and also in the next leg, according to the brief previews, Ronald will be really, really, really mean to Christina. Shocking!
-- JENNIFER FREY
Michael Cavna
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December 24, 2007; 8:04 AM ET
Amazing Race
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Posted by: Doug Berger | December 24, 2007 9:49 AM
NBC wishes that it had the Amazing Race!!! Kudos to CBS for changing that policy on the contestants keeping the money--it was awful having to watch the teams beg strangers for money.
Posted by: Daphney | December 24, 2007 3:26 PM
I thought Nicholas and Donald were the perfect pair for the tattoos, and was surprised that Donald hesitated - he seems like the salty old man type. I was surprised he didn't already have tattoos from, yknow, his wild youth or whatever.
Posted by: h3 | December 24, 2007 8:03 PM
I liked the Fast Forward tattoo. I think I'll get one.
Posted by: Leya | December 27, 2007 1:04 PM
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Amazing Race is on CBS. I doubt NBC would have told them to ditch the no-money last place punishment.