Recap: The Amazing Race 21, Episode 3 – There’s No Crying in Baseball
The Leg
  
The leg with the threat of a Double U-Turn begins with the first four teams. Natalie & Nadiya, Trey & Lexi, Jaymes & James and Abbie & Ryan, running around the market like chickens with their heads cut off, not knowing how to get to the first Route Marker at Antika Jaya Padang Restaurant. They try to work together, until the Twins find out they need to take a taxi.
Unfortunately for them, they get the bad taxi driver, allowing the other three teams plus Josh & Brent to arrive at the restaurant first where they open the Road Block.
In this Road Block, teams must serve 20 plates of Padang food all at once to a waiting table of patrons. If they drop any of the plates, they’ll have to start over.
  
Jaymes and Ryan finish first with Lexi and Brent close behind. James & Abba manage to finish and leave even before Natalie & Nadiya arrive. Brittany & Caitlin catch up and the twins leave just as Rob & Kelley arrive at the restaurant.
Meanwhile, the first five teams head to the Surabaya Gubang Train Station where they must hop on a train for Bangil. The train leaves at 7:36am and the Natalie & Nadiya just miss it. Now they and the other three teams must wait for a train that departs at 10:50am.
  
On the train to Bangil, teams must spot vendors who will hand them their next clue. Once in Bangil, teams must take a Becha to Alun-Alun park for the Detour.
In this Detour, teams choose between two Indonesian art forms.
In Egg Head, teams will take part in a traditional Indonesian mystic art known as Debus. First, teams must take a Becha to pick up four eggs and bring it back to the park. There, a coconut will be lit on fire on top of their heads to fry the eggs before they will have to eat them.
In Lion’s Head, teams will take part in a traditional Javanese procession known as Reog. Putting on costumes and a 40 pound lion mask, teams will join the procession while making stops along the way to perform certain moves.
  
Trey & Lexi, Jaymes & James, Abbie & Ryan and James & Abba choose Lion’s Head, while Josh & Brent go for Egg Head. They all finish before the other teams even leave Surabaya. Teams must not head to Perliman POS I.
Here teams find the Blind Double U-Turn. But none of the first five teams use it. They saunter on to the Pit Stop at SMA Negeri 1 High School where Abbie & Ryan finish 1st and win a trip to Fiji.
Trey & Lexi, Jaymes & James, James & Abba and Josh & Brent finish 2nd through 5th respectively.
  
The “stragglers” arrive in Bangil and Gary & Will are left behind at the station. At Alun-Alun, Caitlin & Brittany struggle to pay their Becha driver. All teams choose Lion’s Head.
Natalie & Nadiya finish the Detour first, head to the U-Turn, smash their face into the camera and hurry to the Pit Stop to officially finish Team #6.
Rob & Kelley arrive at the U-Turn and wanting a cushion before the Pit Stop, choose to U-Turn Gary & Will. The monster truckers take 7th.
Brittany & Caitlin finish the Detour and hop on a Becha, but their driver has no idea where Perliman POS is. Gary & Will manage to find the U-Turn first, but decide to U-Turn Rob & Kelley. They head back to the park to do the Egg Detour.
  
Brittany & Caitlin also return to the park and see Gary & Will. They continue looking for the U-Turn at the park and eventually decide to just look for the Route Marker on the way. Gary & Will finish the Detour.
The girls finally find the U-Turn and the cluebox, but their Becha driver again goes the wrong way. Gary & Will arrive at Perliman POS and grab the Pit Stop clue and head off. Brittany & Caitlin turn around and see them and tell their driver to follow them. They stay quiet until they are seen and they pass the guys.
They speed up, but at an intersection, the girls go left and the guys go right.
Turns out right was right and Gary & Will escape elimination by checking in 8th. Brittany & Caitlin arrive just behind them to finish 9th and are eliminated.
  
Episode Thoughts
What an odd leg.
Now first, the tasks themselves… all three of them, were cool on their own. Incredibly easy, but nice. Breaking plates is always fun, the head frying was interesting and anything that has to do with local culture like the procession is great.
But the leg design was one of the simplest yet for this era of TAR. Not to mention that 3 and a half hour difference between trains. You had teams finishing the leg before the other teams even left the other city. We all know Departure Times are whenever Bert & Co. want them to be these days. No more 12-hour Pit Stops. And we know they scout every single logistical aspect of the legs. So either they didn’t know the trains left so far apart from each other or they intentionally had teams begin the leg at times when they knew they’d be able to make the first train.
If so, then… WHY!? Separating already strong teams from teams already in the back by three hours? Come on now. That totally diminishes any excitement, even from an ending as unprecedented as this one was.
They could have easily started teams at say, 7am which would have meant all teams would’ve taken the 10:50 train. Not only would everyone have been equalized, the Detour would have been a lot more frenzied and the Race to the U-Turn more dramatic and tense.
Instead, half the teams finished the leg before the halfway point of the episode. So bad that having the U-Turn right before the Pit Stop, which is the worst possible place to put a U-Turn, doesn’t even compare to that horrible train equalizer.
When the teams got that Pit Stop clue at 8:30, I was all “OMG, they didn’t even do anything this leg.”
Probably one of the most poorly designed legs of TAR I’ve ever seen.
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