Recap: The Amazing Race 21, Episode 4 – Funky Monkey
The Leg
  
All teams are on the same 10am Singapore Airlines flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Once there, it’s a scramble for taxis and of course, some are luckier than others.
Abbie & Ryan and Natalie & Nadiya arrive at Rubel Model Auto Mobiles where they find the Road Block.
In this Road Block, teams must first use putty to fill in the dents on a section of a bus. They’ll then sand down a different section for painting before transporting three pairs of seats to a refurbishing area to receive their next clue.
  
Also in this clue envelope, a Fast Forward, which both decide not to do. The Chippendales and Rob & Kelley arrive next, but it is James & Abba who decide to go for it.
For this Fast Forward, James & Abba will have to become rat catching assistants by helping a pest control agent collect dead rats from three different locations.
James & Abba head out rat collecting as the rest of the teams arrive at the Road Block.
  
Ryan finishes puttying first, but has ruined the paper Road Block instructions. He asks James to see theirs and he lets him. Rob and Natalie are close behind, but James has to scrape off what he’s done and start over.
While everyone’s busy with their scraping and sanding, Nadiya’s loud words of encouragement for Natalie annoy Abbie & Ryan. Ryan and Rob deliver their pairs of seats and head out first, but Natalie easily handles the physical part of the Road Block and they are off to the next Route Marker.
Meanwhile, Abba steps into a sewer hole and a local pours some water on it. After completing the Fast Forward task, Abba rubs hand sanitizer on his foot while on the way to the Pit Stop where he and James officially check-in first and win a trip to Antigua.
  
At Kawran Bazar Shootkir Market, teams must dig through sacks of dried fish to find one with Race colors that they’ll exchange for a clue.
Abbie & Ryan find the fish and get the clue for the Detour.
In Pound the Metal, teams must both use sledgehammers to pound a metal rod into a sharp tool known as a Chheny.
In Pound the Cotton, teams must pound cotton using a bamboo stick then stuff and sew a mattress.
  
Abbie & Ryan choose Cotton while the Twins and Rob & Kelley choose Metal. Back at the Detour, after struggling with the putty, Trey and Gary finally finish and both teams are in last place.
Natalie & Nadiya, Rob & Kelley, and Abbie & Ryan finish the Detour just as Josh & Brent and Jaymes & James arrive at the fish Route Marker. Both of them choose Cotton and share Chippendales and drag queen stories.
Rob & Kelley have trouble finding a taxi, while Natalie & Nadiya catch up to Abbie & Ryan on the riverboat. Teams must take a boat from Keranigonj Kholamora launch ghat to Swarighat in Old Dhaka. Once there, it is a footrace to the Mat at Shambazaar Chan Mia Ghat and Abbie & Ryan just beat Natalie & Nadiya to claim 2nd while the Twins settle for 3rd.
  
Trey & Lexi and Gary & Will get started on the Metal and Cotton Detours respectively.
Rob & Kelley hop on a boat, but it takes them straight to Shambazaar Chan Mia Ghat and the Mat. Phil tells them they must correctly complete the course before they can be checked in. Meanwhile, Josh & Brent disembark from their boat at Swarighat where they run into Trey & Lexi who have arrived here via taxi. The Beekmans tell Texas they need to take the boat there, so they take the boat Josh & Brent just got off of, head to where they were supposed to take get on the boat and go back to Swarighat.
Josh & Brent find Phil and check-in as Team #4 while Rob & Kelley officially finish 5th after scolding their boat driver. Jaymes & James finish 6th.
Trey & Lexi arrive back at Swarighat where now they run into Gary & Will who have made the same mistake they have. They tell them how they took the boat there and back.
That allows Trey & Lexi to step on the Mat as Team #7 and TAR superfans Gary & Will are last and eliminated.
  
Episode Thoughts
This was a much better episode than last week and maybe the best of the season so far.
I think this episode would be a strong contender for TAR’s 2013 Emmy submission. It had a close Race, physical competition, taxi and even boat drama, a close finish, rats (!) and the third world country angle that seems to resonate a lot with Emmy voters.
The tasks were surprisingly physical this leg and not cakewalks. That’s definitely different for recent TAR. I’d say the tasks were so physical that it would be horribly unequal for all-female teams, but they were no problem for Natalie & Nadiya apparently.
That tricky final clue and having teams take a boat when apparently you could’ve just taken a taxi to the Pit Stop was another surprising, but welcome, task. As we saw, it caused plenty of drama and this time it wasn’t necessarily the taxi drivers’ faults.
With the Fast Forward, this might have been the first time since scaling it back that the first teams didn’t go for it. I wonder if the clue was too vague for teams to want to go for it or if it actually said what they had to do, since Fast Forward clues have been written more like Road Block clues in recent seasons. Very surprising to see the first four teams decide not to go for it.
So overall, definitely a much better leg and so far best one of the season.
And that dried fish looked delicious. Seriously! Filipino breakfast right there. Grab a bowl of rice, fry ’em up and dip ’em in vinegar!
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I was happy to see some harder challenges this week and how they helped out the local community. I was also surprised that the other teams that arrived before James and Abba didn’t take the Fast Forward. The one thing that I was left wondering after the show last night was just how much of a lead James and Abba have, and I don’t think that they ever told us. I missed the show because I was working late at DISH last night, but thankfully my Hopper recorded it for Primetime Anytime. I love how I don’t have to worry about having space on my hard drive and I can still keep up with everything on TAR. You can tell that the race is really kicking it into the next gear, and after Rob and Kelly are eliminated next leg there will a whole field of legitimate contenders left.
All teams are on the same 10am Singapore Airlines flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Once there, it’s a scramble for taxis and of course, some are luckier than others. latex mattress complaints
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