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'The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business' Season 18, Episode 3 Recap
by Jackie Schnoop, posted Mar 7th 2011 7:45AM
['The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business' - 'We Had a Lot of Evil Spirits Apparently (Japan)']What's the absolute best thing about 'The Amazing Race'? Sure, there's the adrenalin rush as the teams race around the world. Yes, there's Phil's infamous eyebrow raise. You can cheer on your favorite teams and jeer at the ones who irk you.
But the best thing about the race is learning odd trivia about other countries as we peek into their cultures and traditions. Yep, now we can add the Frog of Luck into our everyday conversations. Life is good.
As the teams headed off to get flights to Japan, they once again faced a quandary. Take a non-stop direct flight that arrived 15 minutes later than a flight with one stop, or go for the small lead time? To me, it seemed like a no-brainer: Take the non-stop flight.
However, they're in a race for a million dollars. They saw dollar signs in each minute of the 15-minute lead. And, as luck on the race usually has it, the last shall be first and the first shall be last once again. That doesn't mean the first can't be first again, but that comes along a bit later.
Yes, there was a flight delay. It turns out that in a large, confusing city such as Tokyo, 15 minutes is nothing. An hour isn't even anything that can't be overcome with lots of luck and determination.
The tasks aside, the coolest thing (other than the Frog of Luck) was a nifty car vending machine in Tokyo! Thankfully the cars don't seem to get stuck. It would be kind of difficult to shake that machine, nor do you really want your car to fall down.
When I saw that the Roadblock involved horses, Japanese cowboy hats and shooting an arrow, I figured the Cowboys would bolt to first place. Oh my. I was so wrong! Justin was absolutely amazing as he seemed to live the task, not just regurgitate what they showed him. Most of the teams had difficulty with it, including Cord (or was it Jet?). Maybe the Japanese cowboy hat was off-putting. Gary did surprisingly well.
In the Detour, with a choice between the Prayer of Purity and the Frog of Luck, most of the teams went for the latter. Heck, purity is a good thing, but you need all the luck you can get to win this race!
At the Prayer task, the Globetrotters accidentally picked up Christina's fanny pack. They realized their mistake and left it where Ron would see it. Should they have run it back to Ron and Christina? Well, apparently so, as it ended up costing them a 30-minute penalty at the Pit Stop and they went from third to fourth place.
The Frog of Luck task reminded me that, even though this is a higher quality reality show, contestants still end up doing things which are really humiliating. Crawling around in cold mud while wearing Sumo wrestler diapers as locals fling mud at you just might be where I'd draw the line, lucky frog or not.
Zev and Justin shined once again this week. Even though, thanks to the graciousness of the Globetrotters, they were on the ill-fated earlier flight that ended up arriving later, they came in first place once again. It's hard to imagine what the chaos of racing is doing to Zev, but he's handling everything thrown at him well. He didn't like the mud so much, though.
But the true touching story of the night belonged to Mel and Mike. Mel is old. We know that. How old is too old for the race? It's possible Mel might just be pushing the limits. Does he give up? Nope! Mel was determined to stay crawling around in the icy mud in the dark looking for the Frog of Luck. Mike, worried about his father's well-being, made Mel stop.
It's a race for a million dollars. Mike cared more about his father than any money in the world. That's as it should be. Yet sometimes you wonder when so-called loving teams are at each other's throats during the race. Kudos to Mel and Mike!
What did you think? Would you have preferred a Cara/Jaime elimination? Did the Globetrotters deserve their penalty? Would you even attempt the race at 70 years old? Let us know in comments!
'The Amazing Race' airs Sundays, 8PM ET on CBS.
| Margie and Luke | |
|---|---|
| Flight Time and Big Easy | |
| Jaime and Cara | |
| Jet and Cord | |
| Zev and Justin | |
| Jen and Kisha | |
| Gary and Mallory | |
| Kent and Vyxsin | |
| Ron and Christina |
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