| Episode 18.02: I Never Looked So Foolish in My Entire Life
  
The Leg
Jet & Cord are still trying to figure out the Road Block as the rest of the teams continue on with the double-leg. The clue Phil hands them tells them to find “To Sail to Stop” which refers to a statue of an anchor at Sydney Town Hall. There, they will sign up for charter flights leaving at 6am and 6:30am tomorrow morning to the town of Broken Hill in the Outback. There are only six slots on the first flight.
Leaders Gary & Mallory and Amanda & Kris have no idea where to go, allowing Jen & Kisha and Zev & Justin to find their way to the sign-up sheet first and secure their spots on the first flight. The rest of the teams are on a ferry and like the two teams, use the internet to find out where to go.
Mel’s leg starts acting up and lies down on the ferry. Mike cries.
Ron & Christina end up running into Gary & Mallory who end up running into Amanda & Kris and they all get pointed in the right direction by a lady. But they get to the anchor after Jaime & Cara, Margie & Luke, Mel & Mike, and Kent & Vyxsin fill up the rest of the first flight.
  
That leaves Ron & Chris, Gary & Mallory, Amanda & Kris, and the Globetrotters on the second flight with the Cowboys searching the streets of Sydney well into the night before finding the sign-up sheet.
The teams leave Sydney the next morning and as soon as the first flight arrives, they run to the cars and find the next clue telling them to drive themselves to The Living Desert for their next clue.
With the 2nd flight close behind, the teams get to the cluebox and find the Detour. In this Detour, teams will take part in Aboriginal traditions.
In Spirit World, teams will use traditional materials to create an Aboriginal ground mosaic that matches the example. Once properly recreated, the teams will dance on top of the mosaic to raise the ancestral spirits.
In Natural World, teams will create a set of Aboriginal territory markers using a natural paint made from water and clay pigment. Teams must put the paint in their mouths and spit it out onto stencils of four images.
  
All the teams choose Spirit World. Zev & Justin, Jen & Kisha, and Mel & Mike are first at the Detour but all the other teams quickly follow. Most of the guys decide to take their shirts off for whatever reason (for the camera?) and it’s madness as all eleven teams are at the same exact Detour at the same exact time. When was the last time that happened? If ever?
Kent & Vyxsin finish their mosaic first and Kent believes they need the children to come dance with them. But Zev & Justin know they just have to dance on top of their mosaic themselves and they get their clue first and head off.
The next clue tells the teams to head back to Broken Hill and search for “the home of the Magpies” or the Central Football Club for their next clue.
  
The other teams leave one after the other, leaving Amanda & Kris and Ron & Christina. Amanda & Kris finish this side of the Detour and head over to the Natural World side while Ron & Chris are having trouble fixing their mosaic.
Both teams completely finish the Detour and they’re off to catch up with the others.
Teams arrive at the football field and find the next clue. They have to dress up as kangaroos and hop around town with only a Periodic Table of Elements. Two highlighted elements, Hg and Bi correspond to Mercury and Bismuth, two streets that cross each other in a neighborhood where streets are named after elements. It is at this intersection that they will find their next clue.
  
When Margie & Luke have to go back to find her kangaroo foot she dropped, Zev & Justin run ahead and find the clue pointing them to the Pit Stop, Junction Mine. The last team to check in here, WILL be eliminated.
That team won’t be Zev & Justin because they officially check in first and win a trip to Cancun.
All the other teams are bunched up hopping around on the streets. Mel picks up the foot and hands it to Margie. Luke is so grateful, he kisses Mel on the lips.
Flight Time & Big Easy head to the Mat and check-in 2nd, followed closely by Jet & Cord who just edge Kisha & Jen for 3rd.
As Ron & Chris, Gary & Mallory, and Amanda & Kris hop around, Margie & Luke, Mel & Mike, Kent & Vyxsin and Jaime & Cara check in 5th through 8th.
Gary & Mallory hop into 9th and Ron & Christina squeak by in 10th.
That leaves Kris & Amanda an unfortunate 11th and last and that means first eliminated team from Unfinished Business.
Episode Thoughts
Very very good episode! Very fun and entertaining and one of the few times when equalizers are actually good things.
When the teams do get bunched up together, the chaos that ensues is great television. Also having the teams so close together makes the Race much more exciting and pushes the teams to work that much harder to move forward.
When Amanda & Kris were dealt with the automatic U-Turn, one of the concerns was having Detours that were so disparate and even so far apart that no one could recover from getting U-Turned. TAR did an excellent job with having two good Detours just a couple of yards away from each other to at least give the U-Turned team a chance to fight and stay in the Race. Amanda & Kris certainly had a shot.
The Detour was great, but it seems like the Natural World Detour was the easier one. All they had to do was put paint in their mouths and spit it out and they’re done as opposed to having to run back and forth with rocks in your shirt and having to meticulously look at the details of something.
This leg made me realize though that Googles and the internets are taking some of the fun away from TAR and the teams’ interactions with the locals. Instead of asking locals where to go, all they have to do is type stuff into the computer and they’ve found it. That is less fun and exciting than teams having to actually talk to people, a human being! I’d like to see TAR take steps to encourage human contact instead of using the internets whether on computers or phones. It takes away from the personal experiences element of the Race.
Well, it was a great episode, though I would’ve enjoyed it more had teams I liked been in the front instead of all in the back. But awesome episode nonetheless. TARUB is definitely growing on me. I could never stay mad at TAR for too long really.
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