The Amazing Race 15 – Episode 7 – Get Me A Birthday Present Baby

[MaxxFisher]

Get Me A Birthday Present Baby

Greetings my loyal minions, Maxx Fisher here,

Looking back on the past can be a terrible thing. By nature and by the laws of physics, time moves forward, so by extension, people should move forward. But every now & then, looking back is a good thing, a wonderful thing and tonight, looking back was a wonderful thing. Hay is for horse every other day of the year, but not tonight and not in Sweden, but more on that later.

The entire episode was a lead up to the Roadblock. Everyone that was watching the previews the week before was simply waiting for the hay bales. I’m sorry to say I can’t just skip everything. So I’m going to trudge through it all like a giant roll of hay and then get to the good stuff.

Looking at the departure times it was really lucky for Brian & Ericka that the Poker Princess went home because they were 4 hours behind the first place team, but none of that mattered because there was a 5 hour wait at the airport for any ticket counters to open. During the wait we found out that Ericka’s mother is a racist and has a problem with her daughter being married to a white man. Sam & Dan started the leg bickering and it didn’t stop until they got to the finish mat. Meghan & Cheyne feel that running the race well together makes them compatible. What the hell are they talking about? Flight Time mentioned that it was his birthday, as soon as I heard this I feared that he would be going home ala Jen & Nathan during TAR 12.

It turns out there were only 2 flights to Sweden that morning, one at 6:55 and one at 9:25. Sam & Dan, Meghan & Cheyne and The Globetrotters made the first flight sticking Gary & Matt and Brian & Ericka are and hour and a half behind. Little did they know this wouldn’t matter.

Once the teams arrive at the airport they need to take a train into the city to an amusement park for their next clue. Meghan & Cheyne and Sam & Dan buy their tickets and get on, but the Globetrotters miss that train waiting to get their tickets. Once the teams got to the amusement park, one member from ach team would have to go up in one of those 200 foot plunge rides. While on the ride they would have to spot an arrow and follow that to their next clue. Sam (or Dan) & Cheyne worked together to spot the clue, which they did in no time and when the ride plunged Cheyne looked like he was peeing his pants.

After the plunge the teams would need to go to the ring toss and get a ring on a cone on order to get a Travelocity Gnome with their next clue on it, which was a Detour.

Noble Dynamite: The teams would travel to a quarry, fill sand bags, stack them into some sort of bunker and then blow something the hell up to find a metal box containing the clue.
Viking Alphabet: The teams would decode a message using a Viking rune and then hand it over to a large imposing Viking.

Viking alphabet was great cause we got to see a bunch of guys dressed as Vikings, but how could anyone not know every team would pick the Detour where they got to blow stuff up? So each team chose to go to the quarry and the results varied. Sam & Dan and Meghan & Cheyne got lost, they finally paid a cab and followed it, but this misstep allowed The Globetrotters to catch up. At the site each team was given sand bags shovels to build their bunks. Sam & Dan decided to forgo the shovels and just use their hands, which was a smart strategy because they finished first and got to blow up their stuff and move on. You know what is not a winning strategy? Whining. That is Meghan was doing the entire time she and Cheyne were filling their bags. He thought they would finish faster if each of them concentrated on their own bags. She said that the bags wouldn’t stay open so they should work together. Translation: (Cheyne) I can do this faster than you and don’t want you slowing me down, (Meghan) I can’t do this so you have to do it my way so I don’t look like I’m slowing you down.

The constant complaining from Meghan and the lack of attention to her from Cheyne allowed the Globetrotters to pass them. But the 2 managed to finish right behind them. Once the task was over Meghan kept harping on this last challenge. “That was awful teamwork” which really meant “this is all your fault, not mine”.

While all of this was going on the other 2 teams had arrived in Sweden with Gary & Matt missing the train that Brian & Ericka were on, once again because of the ticket machines. Do they have a grudge against the racers? So Ericka went on the plunge ride because Brian is afraid of heights. I was worried about her doing this for 2 reasons, 1) it meant she had to do something in the race and 2) she couldn’t count last week so I wasn’t sure she would even be able to see the ground let alone an arrow. But not only did she see the arrow, she also was the one that tossed the ring to get the gnome. They smartly paid a cab to take them to the quarry to keep from getting lost. Gary & Matt got to the park with Matt taking the plunge. They did not get a cab to take them on to the Detour and that had them driving in circles & mangling the Swedish street names. But both teams eventually got to the Detour and we only had about 3 hours worth of Ericka complaining about what the sand & gravel was doing to her nails.

Once the detour was complete, that’s when we got to the good stuff. It was time for the Roadblock, the Switchback Roadblock which is just a fancy way of saying that they were recycling a task. A member of each team would need to unroll a giant roll of hay looking for 1 of only 7 flags among 180 hay rolls. Now as they mentioned many times, when this was originally done, one team was out there for 10 hours (not the 8 the contestants kept mentioning, but the 10 hours Phil told us about) and they never even found a flag. They were even at the same farm the original Roadblock took place at.

Sam decided to do this task and he must of immediately regretted it because Dan would not leave him alone. I mean he would just not shut up. Telling him he was doing it wrong, telling him the right way to do it, just yelling the same things over & over. I would have punched him myself. Cheyne played a game of passive aggression with Meghan to determine who would do the task. She asked him “you or me” and he went completely silent. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Finally Meghan volunteered. I think Cheyne was going to make her do it no matter what and his silent treatment forced her to volunteer so he couldn’t be blamed for it later. The Globetrotters showed up third with Big Easy looking for the flag and Flight time asking him to bring it back as a birthday present.

Did I mention Dan just won’t shut up? Cause he was still going. Now I can’t completely blame him because it looked like Sam was going through every individual piece of hay looking for the flags. Just as Brian & Ericka arrive Big Easy finds the first flag, infuriating Sam who feels that the Globetrotters are the luckiest team in the history of the Amazing Race. A win is a win whether it’s from luck or skill and since the Pit Stop was right there at the farm, the basketball players were team #1. Take that Washington Generals.

Meghan by this time looks like a gang of hay bales got together to rough her up. But just as she was about to break she finds a flag and she has the best move of the night. Concealing the flag she runs up to Cheyne crying that she can’t do it anymore, she’s done, then she shows him the flag and tells him she’s done because she found the flag. Pretty sneaky sis. She is quickly followed by Brian, which upset me. I like Brian. I hate Ericka. Sorry you married her pal, but I want her gone, so that means you gotta go too. That Left Sam & Dan and Gary & Matt to go home, 2 teams I actually like.

Sam finds it not too long after that and skips his way to the Matt followed by Dan who upon finding out they were safe began to cry because he had been such a jerk to his brother during the Roadblock. Yeah you were, hope those tears sting. So the gay brothers ended this leg skipping & crying? I’m going to leave that one alone.

That meant Gary & Matt were going home. Gary continued on with the hay for 2 hours & 46 minutes before he came limping into last place. But crafty old Phil informed them that this was a non elimination leg, so father & son could continue with the race, but they would have to perform a Speed Bump in the next leg to make up for coming in last. Good luck fellas.

I leave you with this my unused Detour Vikings, did any of you think this wasn’t a non-elimination leg? I figured that since they decide to have such a potentially long task that this would be a non-elim, and I resume this is the last one too. Can Gary & Matt pull it out? Will Brian & Ericka finally go home? Tune in next week, same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.

Later Minions

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[nyuguy]

Of course it was a non-elim. I figured that from the hale bales being a challenge and then the fact that the pit stop was on the farm...they were practically screaming it at us.

Sam finds it not too long after that and skips his way to the Matt followed by Dan

I know this was just a typo, but the implications are HILARIOUS!