This has been my favourite episode yet this season. Indeed, the twelfth season in general has been full of the essential things that make TAR entertaining: racers having to deal with stubborn animals and embarrassing themselves in front of the locals.
When we last saw the racers, they were chilling in Bingo, population: not a damn lot. Azaria and Hendekea were the first to leave. Their mission was to find the village chief and receive a gift for harassing the village camels.
The big plotline for the siblings this episode was Azaria’s frustration with Hendekea’s slowness. He spoke of her having to overcome her limitations. She laughed and wondered why he was making her sound like she was a “retard” (bleeped out by the pearl-clutching editors). She was all “I don’t exactly have a gimp leg here”. Somewhere, S10's Sarah was watching this with her bionic leg stretched out on the coffee table thinking “Damn straight, skippy. Don’t steal my thunder."
The Goths interviewed that despite their…well, gothiness, they weren’t sullen, emo wankers but instead they were happy, smurfy folk. Considering their fondness for pink, this doesn’t exactly come as a shock. They’re the cheeriest Goths I’ve ever seen. Someone should tell the Goth Union about this.
The chief had a very interesting present for all the teams – a pet chicken. All of the teams would have to carry around the DIY Nando’s with them for the rest of the leg, like a third team-member. I wonder if the chicken is allowed to do Roadblocks.
Nate and Jen’s chicken immediately tried to escape at the sight of them. It knows! Shana and Jennifer named their chicken Phil on account of account of the close resemblance. Poor Phil, being compared to a chicken. It could have been worse though; someone could have named a goat after him.
On the way to the next Route Marker, in a place called Bouda Pelewhatsit, Hendekea took a very inconvenient bathroom break. She shouldn’t have had that fifth bowl of sorghum beer before she left the Pit Stop. Azaria fretted as a couple of teams passed them to arrive at the next Detour.
The choice was between panning for gold, and getting critically panned for bad dancing. The dancing choice meant teams had to perform a routine in front of some local celebrities. If they liked it, the team would get their clue. If they didn’t, they’d suffer a ten-minute penalty before being sent on their way. Bah, I’d prefer it if they had to dance again until they pleased the judges.
The dancing was great fun to watch, mostly because of the crowd reaction. The actual village dancers were wearing these awesome fuzzy costumes which made them look like rainbow-coloured yetis. Sadly, the racers did not have to wear the fuzzy yeti outfits while wowing the judges.
Nate and Jen were the first up. Jen was confident because of her dance training. They shook their booties. The crowd laughed. The judges smiled and told them “You suck”. To be fair, Jen, you brought it on yourself when you were bragging about your dance-training. The gods of reality TV love to humiliate people for saying things like that.
It's true: white people really can't dance..
Azaria and Hendekea did much better and got a pass from the judges. Ronald and Christina…not so much. Ron claimed to be a “wild dancer” which is pretty much code for “dances like your drunken uncle at a wedding”.
Neither can Asians, apparentlyNicolas and Donald were one of the few teams to pan for gold. The much-experienced Donald revealed he had mined in the past. Pfft, after having a real-life coalminer on this show, a part-time miner isn’t that special.
TK and Rachel too chose the gold-digging option. They found it very, very frustrating. How frustrating? TK said, “Babe, I’m very frustrated” in his mellow monotone. CALM DOWN, MAN! You’re going to have a heart attack if you don’t.
The Goths were easily the best dancers and scored race reviews. Kynt especially worked his sticks like a professional drummie. Anyone want to bet he was a cheerleader? With like black pom-poms?
A brand new twist lay beyond the Detour: a U-turn. This new twist means that one team can force another team to do the other Detour option than the one they have just completed. Ouch! That makes the Yield look like a picnic.
Since the teams only get one U-turn, most of them chose not to U-turn anyone else. That is, until Shana and Jennifer showed up. Their hoochiest of hoochie dance routine had impressed the judges enough to give them a pass (take note two out of the three judges were male) but they were nevertheless convinced they were at the back of the pack, for some reason.
A million pics of Shana and Jen's dancing because, well, look at them
The pole-dancing portion
And the reactions
W. T. F?
Thus, Shana decided they had to U-turn the team trailing just behind them. They thought it was Jason and Florena – wrong beard, it was actually TK and Rachel. The hippies breathed a sigh of relief (that could have just been them exhaling a drag of their latest spliff) while Jason and Florena remained oblivious to their upcoming fate and took on the dance challenge.
I didn’t think Jason and Florena danced all that well but the judges disagreed and gave them a pass. They were mucho pissed when they saw that Shana and Jennifer had U-turned them. They managed to complete the gold-digging fairly quickly but by now they were a good distance behind the other teams, who were already deep into the next Roadblock.
Said Roadblock had the chosen racer overload a bicycle with various items, including a live goat, and deliver them to a specific market stall. Since the goats were only babies, they were not as uncooperative as I would have liked to have seen. None of them managed to eat the clues. Still, the goats wailed like Florena milking a camel when they were put in the baskets.
And you thought minibus taxis were overloadedI was robbed of the opportunity to make an ‘old goat meets young goat’ joke about Ronald when Christina was the one chose to do the Roadblock. A glimpse of Grandpa Simpson Ronald came through when he started haranguing Christina about balancing the bike right. Considering he got a hernia last time he was on a bike, he shouldn’t be telling anyone how to ride.
Vyxsin got lost on the way to her delivery point but was saved by some local children, drawn to her beacon-like hair. Afterwards, when she was in the taxi with Kynt, she spoke about how seeing the sweet, helpful kids living in poverty had affected her. Then she had a good cry and I couldn’t even make fun of it because she was so sincere about it. Aww, she’s a sweet girl.
The Pit Stop was at a place called Hotel DeVille. Gasp! Does Cruella own it? Is that why the teams need to keep the chickens until the Pit Stop? Cruella wants a coat out of feathers?
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Azaria and Hendekea narrowly beat Nate and Jen to the mat by a second. Yay! No bathroom breaks can sink them! Phil was feeling punny and asked for their chickens thusly: “Without a chicken, there’s no check-in”. Oh Lord, he’s been hanging out with the Survivor treemail-writers.
Jen was disappointed and wished that the siblings could have given her and Nate a shot at first place because they’d already had their turn. It’s not freakin’ turn-based, you twit. If you want to win first place, arrive there first.
The editing didn’t even try to make it seem as if Jason and Florena had a shot. They were too far behind TK and Rachel to possibly claim second-last place, although Jason did encourage Florena to have hope on the way to the Pit Stop. I got really worried at this point that it was a Non-Elimination because of a couple of things I’d noticed but thankfully, this was not the case.
Jason and Florena were eliminated and I gave thanks I would never have to see them again, even though Florena had behaved herself during the episode. Did this experience change Jason’s mind about wanting to marry Florena? Hell no. In fact, this had confirmed for him that the greatest love happened when you had freedom within your relationship. Translation: he’s ready to cut and run if she ever gets too screechy for him to handle.