Last night’s episode of The Amazing Race was a lot of the same as the teams made their way to Poland. Right from the start, Justin and Diana pulled ahead of everyone, getting on a flight that arrived over an hour before everyone else’s. They retained this commanding lead throughout the leg, not once faltering. While the couple has bickered a bit in the last few legs, they seems to have resolved their issues, determined to put the arguments behind them and work together to win the race. Which essentially means that Justin is back to making all the decisions for them while Diana simply comes along for the ride. Because Justin is such a student of the race, he clearly knows best and she should have to always listen to him. No matter how dysfunctional this may sound, it seems to be working for them right now as they took first place for the third time in a row.
All the other teams fully realize at this point that they’re playing for second, even noting that this week it was only a race between the five teams on the second flight. While they may acknowledge this, that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. Kelsey and Joey, who have consistently taken second or third place, know that this team must be stopped if they want a chance at ever winning a leg or the whole race. With a U-Turn coming up next leg, that may be their one chance. The only problem is that they’d need to be able to pull ahead of Justin and Diana to get to the U-Turn before them, something no team has been able to accomplish recently.
Disappointingly, Justin and Diana’s main competition from the first few weeks, Tanner and Josh, seem to have lost the momentum they carried at the beginning of the race. In the past weeks, they’ve made a few crucial mistakes that have taken them from a frontrunner team to a middle of the pack team. And this week only proved to further their downward spiral. With the five teams arriving in Poland at the same time, their first error came after getting the clue, as they struggled to find a taxi to take them to their Detour. While the other teams quickly figured out ways to get taxis, the boys continued to waste time trying the same thing over and over again. By the time they finally made it to the Detour, they were in a solid last place, having lost time that would prove to be impossible to make up.
Despite the cheerleaders struggling with their Detour, which consisted of playing music on the street and earning tips from locals, they still managed to finish before the boys completed the mining detour. Which is surprising, considering how bad the girls were at their Detour, eventually having to trade kisses on the cheek for money. Turns out asking someone who says they don’t have any money how they bought something they’re carrying isn’t the best way to earn tips. Who would’ve thought?
With Kelsey/Joey, Logan/Chris, and James Earl/Denise powering their way through the Detour with no problem and finding the same luck with the Roadblock, it came down to a race between the cheerleaders and the Texas boys, who had become good friends throughout the race. At the Roadblock, which required teams to identify dishes and deliver them to a restaurant, these two teams ended up working together, hoping that they could get ahead of Logan and Chris, who were still there. But when Chris finished before both of them, it became clear that they were now competing against each other.
This didn’t stop them from helping each other, with both finishing at the same time and needing to make it to the Pit Stop that was at the same restaurant that they delivered the food to. Although Josh and Tanner could have raced ahead of the girls, they knew it wouldn’t be fair, as they had gotten to the Roadblock well after the girls and only finished so quickly because of their help. Both teams selflessness paid off when Phil announced it was a non-elimination leg and they’d both be able to continue racing. While all ended well for both teams, Tanner and Josh are really going to need to pick up their game if they want to continue in the race. They’ve gone from Justin and Diana’s main competition to last place in just a few weeks, allowing Kelsey and Joey to take up their place as the only other competition. For the sake of this season remaining interesting, let’s hope that either the boys or other teams can pick it up and find a way to take out Justin and Diana. Otherwise, we’ll just continue to watch the same events play out every week.
[Photo via CBS]
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