| Episode 18.05 – Don’t Ruin the Basketball Game
  
The Leg
The leg continues… or, it’s a new leg, but there’s no time for them to rest as the Race continues.
Kent & Vyxsin head back up the gondola and they find their fanny pack at the office. They continue Racing onto the Detour and then to Phil who informs them of their penalty for taking a different flight (I don’t get it). The 30 minute will be assessed at the next Mat.
Teams will all now take a train back to Kunming. And with seven hours downtime before the train leaves from Lijiang, they decide to have fun and play some basketball, though really it’s just more time to feature the Cowboys and Globetrotters.
  
Zev & Justin are relieved to see the teams sitting around on the basketball court, but even happier are Kent & Vyxsin who catch up as well.
The teams ask what happened to them and they decide not to tell them about the penalty for fear the other teams might target them with the upcoming Double U-Turn.
The teams arrive in Kunming at 5:30am and they head to Dounan Flower Market for their first clue. Teams must now head to Golden Horse and Jade Cock Memorial Arch for their next clue.
Ron & Christina arrive at the arch first and find the Detour.
In Honor the Past, teams will dress up in a Tibetan outfit and watch a traditional Tibetan performance where they must remember the order of the performers on stage without taking any notes. They will then go behind a curtain and put a series of 15 dolls dressed as the performers on stage in the correct order.
In Embrace the Future, teams head to a building where they will unload three large boxes and carry them up to the roof where they will unpack solar tubes and assemble a solar water heating system.
  
Ron & Chris choose Honor the Past and Zev & Justin, right behind, choose to follow whatever they’re doing. They’re in China after all.
Meanwhile, as the clue mentions “the golden arches,” several teams run straight towards a nearby McDonalds before heading to the real Arch and the cluebox. That allows Flight Time & Big Easy, last at the flower market to jump up to 5th.
Ron & Chris, Zev & Justin and Jen & Kisha are first at the theatre, while Margie & Luke are first at the solar tubes.
Zev & Justin finish the Detour first and they get their next clue, a photo of the next location. The teams don’t know the location is the Chinese Minority Heritage Center and it will be there they’ll find the Double U-Turn.
  
Jen & Kisha finish next, but both teams wait for Ron & Christina outside as their taxi drivers have no idea where to go. The three teams drive off together, but the taxis take them to the wrong place.
This allows Margie & Luke to arrive at the U-Turn first and they decide not to use it. Jaime & Cara and Kent & Vyxsin get to the U-Turn and the girls tell them to U-Turn the Globetrotters, but the Goths, from their own experience, decide to U-Turn Jaime & Cara as they are sure they are behind them and not make the same mistake they did back in TAR12.
Jaime & Cara in turn then U-Turn the Globetrotters. They quickly complete the Honor Detour, as do the Globetrotters and all the teams head for the Stone Forest for their next clue.
There, outside Kunming, teams find the Road Block. In this Road Block, teams will choose a dig site and collect scattered pieces to assemble a life-sized model of a Dilophosaurus. A paleontologist will determine if the model is structurally safe and if completed correctly, will receive their next clue.
  
The teams arrive one after the other and with Zev & Justin and Gary & Mallory falling behind in Kunming, the U-Turned Jaime & Cara and Globetrotters arrive at the Road Block first.
When Gary & Mallory finally get there, they decide to use their Express Pass. But Jet & Cord finish the Road Block and manage to leave Stone Forest before Gary & Mallory. That lets them officially check in at the Pit Stop, Green Lake Park in Kunming, as Team #1 where they each win $5000.
Gary & Mallory check in 2nd. Margie & Luke are next in 3rd.
Kent & Vyxsin arrive 4th at the Mat, but have to wait out their 30 minute penalty. That lets Jen & Kisha officially check in as Team #4. And just before Flight Time & Big Easy arrive, Phil calls Kent & Vyxsin over to check in 5th. The Globetrotters settle for 6th.
  
Ron & Christina finish the Road Block and head off and with two teams left at Stone Forest, Zev & Justin finish first leaving Jaime & Cara in last.
A footrace to the Mat has Ron & Christina officially 7th with Zev & Justin 8th.
Jaime has to disassemble her dinosaur all over again. She’s exhausted and frustrated, but doesn’t quit. She gets the okay from the paleontologist and they head to the Pit Stop where they are eliminated.
Episode Thoughts
It was a good episode. Exciting because of all the placement changes, but that was thanks to the equalizer at the Lijiang Train Station.
I have to admit, at first I thought the Detour was incredibly difficult and impossible as a U-Turn Detour. But it turned out to be all right. Maybe it was the editing, but both sides were more straightforward and less difficult than I originally thought.
The Road Block definitely was nothing new as TAR has had assembling sculptures and the like before. But the location made that task and it looked amazing in HD didn’t it?
The Double U-Turn this week also made it clear that the first U-Turned team is allowed to U-Turn another team even though that didn’t help Jaime & Cara at all.
Very interesting to consider how both U-Turned teams managed to get to the next clue before other teams. Either they were far ahead and made up some ground or Gary & Mallory and Zev & Justin were just completely lost for a long time.
And Kent & Vyxsin’s penalty is interesting. Usually, when flights are limited to a destination, teams are given tickets at the start of the leg to a flight but are not required to use to them. This time, teams were apparently absolutely required to take the flight given to them. That is actually a little odd and a precedent I hope TAR never brings up again.
Making teams take a mandatory flight pretty much equals a TAR-induced Hours of Operation. An equalizer like none we’ve ever seen before. Sure, I’m fine with trains and buses leaving on a schedule that allows other teams to catch up, and TAR has since eased up on the HOOs that were so obvious and egregious in early seasons, but to make teams all take the same flight is strange. And giving Kent & Vyxsin a penalty for missing a flight? I’m not so sure about that penalty.
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