Amazing Race - Episode 5

 
 
This leg opened with the racers leaving early in the morning from Munich and driving to the airport to catch a flight to Palermo, Italy.  Eric & Jeremy, being the 1^st team to check in at the pitstop left 12 hours later at 2:15 am.  As in past races, the airport is a big equalizer and BJ & Tyler and Lake & Michelle caught up with them while they had to wait for the Al Italia airline offices to open.  The frat boys and the hippies indulged in a spirited game of balancing on 2 wheels in wheelchairs in the airport terminal.  Lake & Michelle very astutely decided there must be a workaround and went and found some computers with internet connections.  BJ & Tyler seeing the value of this abandoned the game and were able to secure the last 2 seats on the first flight out, due primarily to their language skills, which put them permanently in the lead for the entire leg.   Lake & Michelle booked a flight but it turned out maybe not the soonest flight in comparison to the other racers.  Michelle was stymied by the language barrier, of which Lake, Mr. Intensity, never let her forget how she let the hippies beat them to the punch.  Eric & Jeremy once Al Italia opened were able to get a flight out second to BJ & Tyler, which like the hippies, allowed the frat boys to stay a steady 2^nd place throughout this leg. 

 
Mr. Intensity & wife were still at the airport when the rest of the teams started coming in, and they had gotten at the least a 2 hour lead on the some of the other teams which drove Lake crazy.  He kept trying to blame Michelle for their delay in getting to Italy.  I am finding when I think he can’t hit any more lows – he sure does.  It is easy to assess blame when that person doesn’t do anything to help.  But anyway – all the teams made it to Palermo, Sicily and went to the Teatro Massmimo to get the 1^st clue.  This clue sent them to a detour.

 
The detour had the racers checking some 2400 pieces of laundry hanging across an alley strung from balconies for the Amazing Race tag or hauling a  100+ lb. church bell up some stairs to a church.  BJ & Tyler and Eric & Jeremy both did the laundry and were successful in locating the sought for piece of laundry.  Their quick exit from the task allowed them to get a jump on the rest of the racers to the next task, which was a roadblock.  The next set of teams to come through, Barry & Fran, Lake & Michelle and Monica & Joseph, 2 of them did the laundry task and Monica & Joseph, MoJo did the church bell task.  Monica was not up to helping Joseph haul the bell so he muscled it onto this minitruck and drove to the church and hefted it up the stairs to the church to grab the next clue to the roadblock.  Monica, who has been mostly seen and not heard in the last couple of weeks popped off at the start of the hour with her strategy of not showing how intelligent she is and allowing the others to assume she is a dumb blond and then the editors with a strong sense of irony included the clip of Monica asking for a flight to PAL-er-Mo, Italy, instead of Pa-LER-mo, Italy, and even correcting Joseph on his pronunciation.  Evidently she endeared herself to the production staff. (and I don’t mean endeared in the literal sense, but sarcastically – and I thought I would let you know because sarcasm does not convey well in the written form).

 
Barry & Fran and Lake & Michelle did the laundry task and were able to find the tagged piece of clothing fairly quickly.   The next set of teams to come were Dave & Lori and Dani & Danielle.   They struggled with the finding some marked clothing.  But after a bit of time they found it and were on their way.  It was at this juncture that the Dave & Lori team started showing cracks.  The frustration of searching for some clothing and not finding it caused them to snap at each other.  Pressure is appearing to mount and they are not handling it well.  Ray & Yolanda chose the church bell task.  Ray muscled the bell solo too. 

 
The roadblock was at this ancient city called Segesta at the archeological area, where ruins are located.  One member of each team was to assemble a statue and unbeknownst to them there were to be two extra pieces left over.  Most teams assembled the statue and didn’t try to fit the extra pieces and were awarded the next clue to the location of the pitstop.  Lori, of Dave & Lori fame, was the assembler for this task and was trying over and over again to fit in the extra pieces even going so far as to disassemble what she had constructed.  Both Dave and Lori were frustrated and Lori did start caving in to helplessness and started to get emotional.   But she decided to put the statue back together and see if it passed inspection.  She passed and they were on their way to the pitstop.  And then at the pitstop – Dave broke down and was so upset over the emotions that they exhibited to each other and was very remorseful.   Dani and Danielle upon getting to the roadblock were Yielded by Lake & Michelle and were angry and tearful over this setback for them.   They could hear the elimination knell ringing over them.  After the sand ran out of the hourglass they hotfooted it over to the statues where Dani started assembling.   Ray & Yolanda arrived to do their task and Ray finished assembling his statue before Dani.  She had constructed the leg wrong and was rejected and had to fix it.  This extra time allowed Ray & Yolanda to finish and go onto the pitstop before them and they got eliminated.  It was very lucky for Ray & Yolanda that Lake & Michelle yielded the girls. It allowed their lousy sense of direction to not make much of an impact on them other than put them in the back of the pack. 

 
Dani & Danielle got eliminated this week, and it was anti-climatic.  It seems when they had that big brain fart in Russia where Dani left the clue at the swimming center the air was let out of their balloon.  They never recovered from that event, it was a brutal tailspin.  But they were eliminated and the Yield from Mr. Intensity didn’t help, it might have gotten Ray & Yolanda eliminated this leg if they hadn’t been yielded.  But the girls are gone and I’m wondering if this will be talked about by the frat boys.  This might all be a tv romance but if not – will they confront Lake & Michelle?  Will the girls get a chance to say goodbye?  We will see on Tuesday night. 

Posted by deeteebee in The Amazing Race