Victor Jih’s TAR Blog: Episode 1

Sorry I missed Episode one! It was posted on Wednesday and I guess I didn’t see it. BUT I SAW IT NOW! I’ll have episode two up as soon as possible!

“Everybody ready? All right. The world is waiting for you. Good luck. Travel safe. Go!” And with those iconic words from Phil Keoghan, the eleven teams in the sixteenth installment of The Amazing Race took off from downtown Los Angeles to LAX via public transportation. Their destination? Santiago, Chile, where cable-walking, a funicular, and colorful house-painting await. This season features a Big Brother crossover couple, a former Miss Teen USA contestant seeking redemption from national humiliation, and a 71-year-old grandmother out to prove that the oldest are not the slowest.

I said in my pre-season blog that decision-making under difficult circumstances will separate the winners from the losers. I swear I had no idea the opening leg would be so dominated by bad decisions! In a mistake-filled start to the competition, the truly endearing Big Brother pair Jeff and Jordan emerge victorious while — spoiler alert — high school sweethearts Dana and Adrian fail to complete the leg and are the first eliminated.

So, with so many contenders, who made the most questionable decision this week? It was not Jordan, even though she nearly purchased tickets to China instead of Chile. With so few countries in the world starting with CH, you can almost forgive that mistake. And I’ll be the first to eat my words. I didn’t think Jeff and Jordan would have what it takes to race but at least for now I was wrong. It was fun to watch Jordan ask for seats at the front of the plane, and Jeff had the best move when he got Brent and Caite to help them surge into first place at the house-painting task. What was challenging about the final task was not the painting but finding the location of the houses. As usual, the powers that be give the teams an ambiguous clue to search on “Templeman St.”, which appears to run in many different directions. Instead of running in circles themselves, Jeff gets Brent and Caite to tell them the one place they haven’t looked yet (no duh — if you haven’t found it, it’s where you haven’t looked) and leaves them in the dust.

So if it’s not Jeff and Jordan, who then? It’s not Jet and Cord, even though they decide to purchase Brazilian dollars instead of Chilean dollars. It’s not Steve and Allie, who decide to run into a random person’s house and start painting their walls. It’s not Brent and Caite, who fail to read the clue and walk instead of ride. And it’s not Dan and Jordan, who — after three seasons in a row of people losing things –lose a brush. None of these mistakes proved fatal. Rather, they taught teams some valuable lessons.

The most questionable decision belongs to Dana and Adrian. They decide Adrian should do the cable-walking task, even though he is by far the heaviest person to attempt it. This was fatal as Adrian found it increasingly impossible (with fatigue) to complete. It’s easy to criticize knowing the outcome, but as a student of the Race, the more interesting question is whether they should have known in advance that having Adrian do it was the wrong decision. Would ordinary people looking at the cable-walking task have known that being light on your feet would be more important than being strong? I honestly don’t know. The clue itself said the task called for the “balance of a cat and the courage of a lion.” I don’t think “balance of a cat” when I see Adrian, but he does have the “courage of a lion.” – Victor Jih