Episode 18.10 – There’s Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
  
The Leg
The leg begins as teams get a clue telling to head into the unknown. To go there, they have to first make their way to the Air Rescue Helicopter Port to sign up for one of the helicopters, each leaving in five minute intervals. Before taking off, they’ll receive their next clue.
With all the teams at the heliport, they get their next clue, the Detour.
In Search, teams must use an avalanche beacon to search a glacier for a training dummy which they’ll dig up and exchange for their next clue.
In Rescue, teams use a special device to lower one team member into a crevasse to hook a carabiner to a trapped mountaineer. When the team member is pulled back up, the team will then pull the mountaineer out of the crevasse and he’ll hand them their next clue.
Zev & Justin and Gary & Mallory brave windy conditions to do Search while Kisha & Jen, Kent & Vyxsin, and the Globetrotters do Rescue.
  
Jen & Kisha finish first and get the clue telling them to take a helicopter to a nearby ski resort where they’ll find a train back to Zermatt where they’ll make their way to Le Petit Cervin for their next clue. Kent & Vyxsin and the Globetrotters are right behind.
Gary & Mallory struggle with pulling their dummy out of the snow, but not as much as Zev & Justin who get left in last place at the Detour.
The other teams catch an 11:08am train and they arrive at the clue box in Zermatt and find the Road Block.
In this Road Block, teams must create a Travelocity Roaming Gnome out of chocolate. Using a mold, teams will adhere to Swiss methods including using snow as a cooling agent to get the approval of the head chocolatier who will exchange the chocolate gmore for a real one with their next clue.
  
The four teams get started on the Road Block as Zev & Justin finally finish the Detour and are able to catch up. In probably the first time in a looong time, we have confirmation that the six Road Block rule still applies and because of that, Zev has to do the Road Block this time since he’s only done three so far.
With all five teams now making chocolate gnomes, tension starts to rise. Because teams work on two halves of the mold, they place one half in the oven freezer while working on the other half. When he goes to get his other half, Flight Time doesn’t seem to know or remember which one is his, so he just takes the mold sitting on the bottom which is the one Vyxsin had just placed.
She points that out, but now Flight Time doesn’t know where his mold is. Big Easy gets heated with Kisha agreeing with his conclusion that Vyxsin took Flight Time’s mold. Déjà vu sets in as Big Easy starts mouthing off towards Kent &Vyxsin to which Kent tells him to chill out. (Somewhere TAR15’s Mika is hoping the Globetrotters screw up this leg.)
Vyxsin gets upset and while waiting for their mold to harden outside, she cries about the mean spirited nastiness that’s suddenly popped up.
TAR doesn’t really explain how it all works out in the end, but oh well. They all move on. The teams all head outside to chill their mold. Zev gets rude with the head chocolatier.
  
The four teams head back upstairs with their molds. Carefully removing the chocolate from the mold, teams will now do touch up with the color before getting handed their next clue. Big Easy apparently hasn’t moved on and mocks Kent before Vyxsin finishes first.
Teams must now make their way on foot to the Pit Stop, an old cabin at Mürini & Mittagstadel.
Kent & Vyxsin head to the street… to find a taxi.
The other teams know how to read and they fight the high altitude to get to the Pit Stop. The Globetrotters snag first place with Jen & Kisha in 2nd.
Kent & Vyxsin arrive 3rd via taxi, but Phil informs them of their 30 minute penalty. Gary & Mallory slip officially slip into 3rd then leaving Zev & Justin still not at the Pit Stop.
They finish the Road Block and head off as Kent & Vyxsin wonder how in the world they could have missed the critical part of the clue. And it turns out that was their fatal mistake. Zev & Justin walk around the corner and officially check in as Team #4.
And Kent & Vyxsin are eliminated.
Episode Thoughts
First of all, thanks to CBS for actually airing the episode on the West Coast! I was sure we were going to have to settle for CBS.com or maybe a slight chance of a Saturday encore (thanks a lot evil terrorist mastermind).
But thankfully, CBS went straight to it at 9pm PDT.
And it was an interesting episode. What an excellent place for High Definition eh? The Matterhorn and the snow drifts and the crevasses looked absolutely stunning and some of the best images we’ve seen on The Amazing Race in a long time.
The Detour was good, though maybe the Rescue side was a little easier than the Search side (which is actually a Road Block they did on The Amazing Race Asia 4 a few months ago).
The Road Block was interesting because it took up half the episode for such a simple task. The pointless drama probably had something to do with it and yeah, déjà vu to the taunting of Mika at the pre-Pit Stop task in TAR15.
Once again though, we are all reminded that when you go on The Amazing Race, you must know HOW TO READ. I guess there will never be a day that teams no longer skip over the “on foot” part of clues.
|
|
Alright, I’m sorry but I must say something. How the hell did Kisha & Jen go from second on the list, to fourth under a “GAP”? Maybe I’m missing something because your recap of last week’s episode is not showing up, but “crushes on the Globetrotters”? The hell? They haven’t been any more friendly to the Globetrotters than any of the other teams have been. And karma for almost screwing over Ron & Chris in Japan? Jesus, people are still bitter over that? That’s almost as bad as the cowboy nonsense. But I don’t really care about that part, it’s just the reasoning behind Kisha & Jen that really burns me for some reason. I wouldn’t even care if you just flat out disliked them, but the reasoning just seems so stupid to me.
The playing footsie between Kisha & Jen and the Globetrotters on the train last week was beyond forced and annoying. And that continued this week at the Road Block, especially when Kisha chimed in on the chocolate drama only encouraging Big Easy’s big mouth. And I used to love Kisha’s hilarious laugh, but thanks to Big Easy, it isn’t fun anymore.
That’s possibly one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read in my life, but since I’ve spoken my piece I’m not bothered by it anymore, so whatever. If you don’t find Kisha & Jen’s awesomeness and hilarity fun anymore, for a completely exaggerated reason that makes absolute zero sense, well that’s your loss.On a more positive note, I too will miss Kent & Vyxsin’s hilarity, but it probably was their time to go. Now if only Zev & Justin will quit overstaying their welcome.