The fifth episode of "The Amazing Race 14" may have been one of the more surreal episodes in memory, including a truncated launch of the new leg, an elongated railroad ride, cars slip-sliding on an icy Siberian street and a racer running through below freezing temperatures in thong underwear.
At some point, Luke may have referred to himself as a "sinister deaf kid" but that would have just been weird.
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Editing for "The Amazing Race 14" continued breaking the usual formulas as we saw the top two teams (Christie/Jodi & Kisha/Jen) start the new leg 2 minutes apart. Once it was shown though that the race field would be equalized at the train station, the remainder of the team starts for leg five went unaired.
Despite the train equalization, the race field quickly broke down into three tiers. Alliance teams Jaime & Cara and Margie & Luke raced at the top of the pack with Tammy & Victor temporarily aligning with the others at first. The siblings would abandon the other teams though when the alliance partners were stopped asking for directions.
Unfortunately for the siblings, Victor's difficulty driving stick on the icy Siberian streets kept the pair from maintaining a lead. Instead, the Margie/Luke team prevailed after Luke completed a Roadblock task running the cold Siberian streets in his underwear to the Pit Stop. Tammy ran past the walking Cara on the task, allowing the siblings to pit in second place.
While the mother and son deserve kudos for their second leg win, it does come as a sort of karma though that the son too embarrassed to wear a gymnastic leotard for one Roadblock would have to go out in his underwear to complete another one.
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The middle tier of racers featured father/son duo Mel & Mike who became the first team to complete the other Detour task of finding a bride in a Russian apartment complex and transporting her to her groom for a wedding picture.
Mike wanted to do the bridal option because he simply found it to be more fun. The elaborate nature of the task though, combined with the logistical difficulties in simply driving to the sites involved made it the far slower Detour choice.
The father and son ended up pitting in fourth place followed by brothers Mark & Michael who chose the snow plow Detour to move up to the fifth spot.
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Sisters Kisha and Jen were plagued by car trouble as Jen stalled out the provided Russian custom vehicle. The sisters would remain in sixth place though as flight attendants Christie and Jodi got lost far away from the central city with their bride in tow.
Christie and Jodi had problems getting reliable directions from anyone, encountering drunken (and horny) Russian men at one point, then getting off-track when a local inadvertently directed the pair to the wrong church. The team would attempt to catch up but once it came down to a cold foot race between Christie (in pixillated thong underwear) against former college scholarship athlete Jen, there was no hope.
The flight attendants would pit in last place ...... only to finally encounter some good luck as they triggered the first non-elimination of TAR14. Christie & Jodi would live to compete for another race leg. Back to last place form, it's hard to imagine them competing further but then we'll have to watch next time to find out fo ourselves.
____________________________Labels: christie and jodi, recaplette, tar 14.5, the amazing race, the amazing race 14
