First things first. CBS publicized this fourth episode of "The Amazing Race 14" promising a shocking new twist related to the U-Turn, the feature that required a team so targeted to turn around and do the second Detour. The twist turns out that the U-Turn was a Blind U-Turn, meaning that the team utilizing the feature could choose to remain anonymous.
What was more shocking was that sympathetic team mother/son Margie & Luke chose to anonymously utilize the Detour against daters Amanda & Kris. The daters were absolutely shocked that a team would choose to U-Turn them considering that they had not made any enemies. They suspected (wrongly) that then-race leaders Kisha & Jen or the somehow untrustworthy Christie & Jodi had done the deed.
What Amanda & Kris didn't suspect was that a team would U-Turn them purely for strategic reasons, without an intent of malice. The daters had proven one of the consistently stronger teams on TAR14, a viable threat to any of the other teams should they have remained. As a longtime "Amazing Race" viewer, Luke would no doubt have analyzed this the same way.
The mother/son duo was also working to help Jaime & Cara, an alliance that clearly seems to have boosted the ex-NFL cheerleaders more than their counterparts to date. Amanda & Kris were already running in last place at the time so the U-Turn may not have even been needed for their elimination. The U-Turn though proved to remove all doubt, eliminating a team that genuinely could have won TAR14.
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The top of the race field was defined before teams even reached Krasnoyarsk, Russia in the Siberia region of the country. The eight remaining squads made reservations through four different European connecting cities to Moscow, which presumably would have led to all teams being grouped together on one plane from Moscow to Siberia.
That expectation fell apart as the switchovers in Moscow took so long that only three teams could made the planned Siberia plane. Brothers/stuntmen Mark & Michael, sisters Kisha & Jen and flight attendants Christie & Jodi left in the first tier of racers.
In retrospect, the switchover issue may have been the first instance of the flight attendants used their famed insider knowledge of the airline industry to full effect. Christie & Jodi declined a flight that would have allowed an hour and five minutes in Moscow in favor of one with a full three hour gap. The implication is that Christie & Jodi saw this potential pitfall in advance and actively worked to avoid it.
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Once in Russia, Mark and Michael failed to keep up with the other first tier racers, getting lost en route to the Detour site. As noted by the top all-female teams (a.k.a. the ones not named Jaime & Cara), Mark and Michael had a tendency to get lost a lot. The brothers got further lost with the Amanda/Kris and Mel/Mike teams looking for the house in which they were to install wood shutters for a Detour.
At one point, I was screaming that the three teams were looking for my house. (Seriously, my home renovations are taking forever, help me!) Mel & Mike eventually pitted in sixth place with Mark and Michael as the seventh of eight race teams.
Anyway, both remaining top teams were neck and neck upon reaching the Pit Stop till Kisha & Jen fell off the pace by failing to use the designated main entrance for the Krasnoyarsk Theatre. This allowed Christie & Jodi to claim their first race leg win, a development nearly as shocking as Amanda and Kris' elimination.
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Among remaining racers, Tammy & Victor recovered their bearings from the previous week's fiasco. The siblings were the first team to complete the other Detour task of piling firewood in the famed traditional local method. After completing the Roadblock, the sibs pitted in third place.
Luke had problems with the Roadblock, a task that concluded with each racer unscrambling the letters of a famous Russian playwright's last name (Chekhov). While Victor recognized the name instantly, Luke didn't have the educational background to be clued in. With Margie not allowed to help, her son eventually had to sound out the words the complete the Roadblock. Fortunately, the delay was to no ill effect with the mother & son scoring yet another fourth place finish.
After their initial Detour attempt fell through when their log pile collapsed, Jaime & Cara stuck it out to complete the task. After some requisite "girls rule" rhetoric, they pitted in fifth place. Presumably, they didn't notice that alliance partner Luke is a boy. Presumably, they also didn't notice that the girls who actually ruled the race leg were named Christie and Jodi.
____________________________Labels: amanda and kris, recaplette, tar 14.4, the amazing race, the amazing race 14
