How special will it be? I think they’ve left it intentionally vague. They do promise never-before-seen footage, so it will probably be outtakes from past laps of TAR7. If we’re lucky, there may be additional racing, taking them Out of Africa, which you’ll probably agree is about time. Whatever happened to Europe and Asia, guys?
Recap of Last Night's Race
Though the Race basically went nowhere last night, it was fast-paced and fun to watch, especially if you enjoy seeing giraffes and elephants and ostriches running around in the wild. Teams’ relationships were examined by the cameras, with interesting though unsurprising qualities revealed.
Here’s a quick rundown, culled from CBS and the notes I jotted down during the show.
Itinerary:
Botswana, going from nowhere to nowhere
1. Drive 141 miles to Maun, and another 48 to Sankuyo Village where a clue awaits under the water tower
2. Detour: Milk It or Carry It -- milk goats or balance stuff on their heads
3. Drive 21 miles to a point along the Khwai River
4. Roadblock: Drive thru “croc infested” river, move trees felled by elephants from a “road.”
5. Drive 9 miles to the Pit Stop, Khwai River Safari Lodge,
Teams leave the Pit Stop within an hour of one another. Relly leaves first at 5:29 a.m., followed four minutes later by Romber, with Rob saying “The gloves are off.” Juchenna leaves eight minutes later, Uchenna commenting that his dad was born in Nigeria. One minute later ExLax takes off, declaring “We’re sneaky.” Metch leaves 20 minutes after ExLax and Bregg leaves ten minutes after that, joking about seeing another sunrise together: “We should be dating.”
Teams must drive 141 miles past the city of Maun and then drive 48 miles to Sankuyo Village to find the clue under a water tower. We see a lot of driving footage and wild animals wandering on and off the dirt road, which are truly cool. Amber comments that she always wanted to go on an African safari. Rob says, “It’s going to be about 140 degrees today.”
Driving through mud and water, Ron says, “Now this is real African safari four-wheeling.” Relly arrives first at the water tower and find the clue, a Detour, Carry It or Milk It. They start carrying buckets of water on their heads without using their hands, heading for a cooking area 70 yards away. If Teams can master the balancing act, this should be a quick Detour. But Ron uses his hands and Kelly can’t move two steps without the bucket falling off. They start trading insults, with Ron muttering: “Miss Ballet can’t balance the bucket.” at his pageant queen girlfriend, who is increasingly acting exactly like a pageant queen. Theirs is hardly a romance made in heaven! Relly moves to the goat pen where they must round up four goats and milk them until they fill a ten-ounce cup. Since the goats are disinclined to cooperate, this could take some time.
As Relly starts rounding up goats, Romber arrives and tries to balance baskets of corn on their heads, but quickly decide it isn’t going to work and race over to grab goats. Kelly continues to snipe at Ron, who’s doing the milking, but Amber takes on the milking chore and does an excellent job, as Rob holds the goats and gives her encouragement. It’s a milking race for the lead.
Meanwhile, Juchenna, ExLax and Metch arrive and start in on their tasks. Uchenna absolutely aces the carrying task, and Joyce is good enough too. ExLax tries the balancing act but fails abysmally, forcing Alex to milk goats. Gretch picks goats with promising udders and Meredith is handy with milking. The squirting contest is on.
Relly fills their cup first and opens the clue telling them to drive through the bush to a particular place 21 miles away along the Khwai River. Romber leaves right behind them, with Juchenna following closely, leaving Metch and Exlax squirting away.
But wait! Where is Bregg? Would you believe that the blundering brothers are climbing the wrong water tower? Brain scratches his head. “We’re idiots, Gregg.” They reread their clue and finally arrive at the correct water tower. As Metch and ExLax finish the Detour, Bregg begins to milk goats, Brian quips, “We need some frosted flakes or something. Some Cheerios.” With the help of a bountiful goat, they quickly fill the cup and head off to the Khwai River.
Along the dirt road, ExLax’s truck breaks down. A new one is delivered in record time, allowing them to stay ahead of the bros.
Relly reaches the Route Marker just seconds ahead of Romber. They open their clues to find a Roadblock, requiring one person to navigate their Team’s vehicle through a crocodile-infested river crossing. Then, continuing through the bush, the driver must choose a driving path by removing the marking posts along the way. However, trees felled by elephants blocked each path. The racer must remove logs in the path, then drive to the next clue.
Relly plows through the river first, with Romber on their heels. Juchenna arrives third, and Uchenna gets stuck for a moment mid-river. No problem, his truck started up and he got through. But when Joyce goes back to remove the marking post, she only removes the ribbon attached to it. Bad mistake. Metch and ExLax arrive at the Roadblock, with Meredith and Alex opting to take the wheel.
Romber takes the lead as Rob aces the task of chaining logs to his truck and pulling them off the path. No sweat for a guy who knows construction, especially since Amber keeps up a stream of praise and admiration. After clearing the second log from the road, Romber found the next clue telling them to drive to the Pit Stop.
Ron takes longer, Kelly kvetches and nags. Ron snaps, “ “Shut up. I’m doing it as fast as I can,” and warns Miss Pageant Queen to “chill for a minute.” Believing he told her to shut the F... up, she calls Ron “a piece-of-trash redneck.” Relly is imploding. Will it have an effect on their racing abilities?
Pulling into the Khwai River Lodge, Romber stepped onto the mat in first place, winning a five-day vacation in Monte Carlo at Le Meridien hotel. They WILL break the bank at the casino.
Relly finished a close second. Ron commented, “Kelly and I are kind of starting to get up under each other’s skin finally.” Kelly the Grammar Queen added, “It’s kind of hard right now to really feel close to him. So I just try to put the Lord first and hope that that helps with Ron and I’s relationship.” Where did they get this girl? Is she superficial or what?
Arriving on the mat in third place, Uchenna & Joyce were shocked to learn they hadn’t completed the Roadblock correctly. They had to return to finish it before Phil could check them in. But they had enough of a lead on the last three Teams, they returned to the Pit Stop retaining their third-place slot.
Metch arrives fourth but they too made a booboo and must return to pick up their clue. Meanwhile, ExLax has had a second truck mishap, getting a flat tire. Again, TAR's production crew gets them back into the race in record time and they sneak into the Pit Stop in fourth place. They stopped along the way to put on layers of clothing, believing they were in last place and would be deprived of money and possessions if this were a non-elimination lap. It was quite a humorous moment but does not exonerate them from the cloying, disgusting, revolting baby, sweetie, honey language they've been dripping througout the race.
So the race is between Metch and Bregg for last place. Metch wanders around looking for the clue they missed while Gregg completes the log-clearing task in good efficient manly style. Bregg decided to put on their swim trunks and wool caps and scarves in hopes that Phil wouldn’t eliminate them and force them to wear this attire for the remainder of the Race.
In the end, Metch beats Bregg back to the lodge. They've been doing an excellent job in this race, hanging in, I believe, longer than any other AARP couple. (I could be wrong.)
Sadly, Bregg is eliminated from the race. Poor Brian and Gregg, victims of California public schools. They had everything it takes to win this thing except the ability to think things through thoroughly. But they’ll do just fine back in SoCal, where all of their friends have exactly the same problems. Will they look up the Megan and Heidi, SoCal Hair Queens? You bet!
Teams finished in the same order as last week, with only Romber and Relly changing places for first and second place:
1. Romber
2. Relly
3. Juchenna
4. ExLax
5. Metch
Bregg ELIMINATED
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