Recap: The Amazing Race Asia 5, Episode 2 – "If I have to sh-t, I sh-t in my pants."

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No time to waste as teams open the first clue of the Leg telling them to book a Grab car to take them to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.

HOURS OF OPERATION! When teams enter the park at 6am, they must hop onto a Grab Bike and be driven around mini Indonesia where they find arrows in Grab colors pointing to letters which will spell out their next destination city: Bandung.

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Teams have a little trouble at first, but figure out what they’re looking for. Louisa & Treasuri is the first to make a guess, but they are incorrect. JK & Mike are the first to correctly guess Bandung and give Louisa & Treasuri a hint as they go for a 2nd ride.

Eric & Rona are missing a “B” from the guess and are able to figure that out when other teams correctly check in. Alex & Will are last because they memorized the whole words instead of just the letter the arrows were pointing to. They re-read the clue and figure out their mistake on their 4th attempt.

Teams can now take their Grab car to Cikole National Park in West Bandung.

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Brandon & Alphaeus arrive first and find the Detour: Basket Bikes or Bandung Biathlon.

In Basket Bikes, teams must ride along a 5km bicycle trail and deliver 2 dozen sellable eggs in their baskets to the Egg Merchant. In Bandung Biathlon, teams must complete a course on a pair of traditional tandem land skis known as bakiak. When they arrive at two firing stations, both team members must use bamboo guns to shoot a projectile into a basket.

JK & Mike, Maggie & Parul, Rach & Vicky and Brandon & Alphaeus choose Basket Bikes. Tom & Anita, Eric & Rona, Alex & Will, Chloe & Yvonne and Louisa & Treasuri choose Bandung Biathlon.

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Teams catch up to each other at the first shooting station. Chloe & Yvonne take a while to figure out the bamboo guns. That allows other teams to quickly pick it up after watching them with Tom & Anita taking advantage and leaving the station first.

Meanwhile, Brandon & Alphaeus have no problem delivering their eggs. They get the next clue telling them to take their Grab car to the Pit Stop(?) at Ciater Tea Plantation in Subang.

Tom & Anita are next to finish the Detour.

As others also finish, JK & Mike don’t have enough eggs. On their 2nd attempt, Mike grows upset and frustrated with JK’s comments toward him.

Brandon & Alphaeus’s Grab driver takes them the wrong way. That allows the other teams to arrive at the tea plantation before them. Chloe & Yvonne open the next clue revealing the first Road Block of the Race: Who likes a good character?

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For this Road Block, teams must search the vast plantation for a Wayang Golek doll.

Tom & Anita reach the Road Block area and start searching for the clue. Louisa & Treasuri, right behind them, don’t think that’s right and both head back when Chloe & Yvonne regrettably tell them where the clue is.

Chloe decides to do the Road Block and easily finds the doll. They exchange the doll for the clue pointing them to the Pit Stop on the other side of the plantation.

They step on the Mat and officially check in as Team #1.

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Anita and Louisa find their dolls. Tom & Anita and Louisa & Treasuri head to the Mat as teams 2 and 3.

While Brandon & Alphaeus finally find the right route to the plantation, Maggie & Parul find out they’ve been going the wrong direction as well.

Eric and Vicky finish the Road Block. Eric & Rona are Team #4 and Vicky & Rach are Team #5.

Maggie & Parul finally arrive at the plantation and Maggie chooses to do the Road Block. They end up checking in as Team #6.

Alex finds the doll and he and Will step on the Mat as Team #7.

JK does the Road Block and finds the doll as Alphaeus gets started. We are led to believe it is a foot race to the Mat. But it is JK & Mike who officially check in as team #8.

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That means Brandon & Alphaeus have gone from first to last and eliminated.

Episode Thoughts

This was a pretty good episode and Leg.

The first task at the park was a good, simple extra Route Info task. And of course the show got that extra Grab money as well. At first I thought the teams would be driving the bikes themselves. That would’ve been very interesting and probably a tense, worrisome nightmare for TARA producers lol

The Detour was fine, especially with nine teams. Neither side was easy. It was a balanced choice.

The Road Block was okay as well. Simple and straightforward. I wish they maybe could’ve done something else at the tea plantation. But there’s really only two choices: look for something or harvest tea leaves. So maybe an extra task elsewhere would’ve been good.

But even these three simple Route Markers, the episode still felt very full. The teams helped make that happen, of course. And that’s a good thing. It’s great when teams and the Race course both equally contribute to making the show enjoyable.

I don’t know if this was the best Grab commercial though if Brandon & Alphaeus were eliminated because their Grab ride took them in the completely wrong direction. Lol

My favorite thing about this episode though had to be hearing all those “shits” and “God damns” and even a “Jesus Christ!” coming from the teams’ mouths. Craziness! And very refreshing. Hehe. None of the cursing was vulgar or out of line. So it very different hearing it uncensored on TAR. (Like TARAu would do as well.)

On the negative side, I think there were a few graphics errors. One being the shown team placement on-screen. I think part of that though is the editing of scenes where we don’t necessarily see teams finishing a task (in this case the Detour) in order.

The biggest mistake (I think it was a mistake) was showing the “Proceed to the Pit Stop” graphic instead of a “Proceed to Ciater” when teams were going from the Detour to the plantation. Yes, the tea plantation was the Pit Stop location, but that graphic should’ve only pointed to the plantation and not just “Pit Stop” at that point in the Leg.

Hope they check those things out in the future.

But anyway, this was a good, solid Leg and a nice way to build upon the premiere.

My Subjective Team Rankings


^Pretty even in the rankings this week again.

With Brandon & Alphaeus‘s surprise elimination, this Race is really anyone’s to win. There’s no one dominant team (and no race bots yet! Woohoo!), so that means everything is wide open, which is great. You can see any of these teams winning.

It’s too bad Brandon & Alphaeus had bad taxi Grab luck. They were really poised to become one of the strongest contenders. And not only that, I got the sense that they could be one of the “villains” of the season. Not so much a team you disliked, but a competitive team who would do anything like U-Turn or lie to a team to get ahead. Not a bad thing, but just uber-competitive. You always need a team like that on the Race.

Kinda sad we didn’t get Rach & Vicky bickering like their awesome moment in the premiere. Their Leg was mainly to show their Indonesian pride. Thankfully, JK & Mike picked up the bickering couple slot for this Leg. It was actually very surprising, even though they did show it in the preview last week. Just the way the whole thing unfolded was surprising and funny at the same time.

Eric & Rona are definitely strong contenders. If you believe in edgic, they’re getting an underdog winner’s edit, I think. Should be interesting to see if they stay consistent.

TARA has been known for casting strong all-female teams. And that’s definitely the case for this season as well. Chloe & Yvonne, Louisa & Treasuri and Maggie & Parul all have shown they could be very competitive on the Race. Solid Legs from them.

Tom & Anita are poised for some bickering couple moments, I think, in the future. Hehe. But an okay Leg from them. They’re flying under the radar for now.

Alex & Will were saved by the bad Grab car I think. But it was good to see them keep going after the first task. Never quit!

Episode Quotes

JK: “I’ll pee in my bottle later.”
Mike: “JK!”
JK:” Michael! Just pee in the bottle. If I have to shit, I shit in my pants.”

Maggie: “I’ve definitely broken a few of my eggs.”

Rach: “I’m afraid I’m going to hatch those eggs.”

Brandon: “This guy loves our eggs.”

Rona: “Lead me to the Promised Land, my love.”

JK: “Hopefully we won’t see you again.”

Yvonne: “I could smell Allan.”

Chloe: “We tried to be less of bimbos.”

Parul: “Get your skinny ass back here.”

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