Recap: The Amazing Race 31, Episode 6 – “It’s basically a head-on collision.”


Recap: The Amazing Race 31, Episode 6 – “Who Wants a Rolex?”

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

After the #MomSquad of Rachel & Elissa and Janelle & Britney reunite at Dubai’s airport, teams fly to Kampala, Uganda.

After a mad scramble for taxis at the airport, teams must make their way to the Uganda National Mosque. After dressing in appropriate attire, they must correctly count the marked steps in the minaret to receive their next clue.

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6 The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

Tyler & Korey researched the mosque before arriving in Kampala so they think they know the number of steps there are. But they are completely wrong so they have to go down and actually perform the task as described.

Janelle & Britney are having serious taxi trouble and have fallen behind.

After giving the correct number of steps, teams must make their way to Owino Market for their next clue which is the Road Block: Who wants a rolex?

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6 The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

For this Road Block, teams must purchase ingredients for and successfully make a rolex, a sandwich consisting of eggs and vegetables wrapped in a chapati.

Victor finishes first and gets the next clue telling teams to head to the Ggaba Landing Site to receive their next clue from the local boat builders. Korey, Colin and Chris are next. Jamal has to start over from scratch.

Janelle & Britney arrive at the market. Janelle decides to do the Road Block, but for some reason, she begins looking for a vendor selling Rolex watches.

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6 The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

Rachel & Elissa arrive and find their Speed Bump in which they must handwash a basin of laundry for a local laundry lady before continuing on the Race.

Janelle comes running over to them and Elissa encourages her, saying she’s looking good.

Rachel & Elissa finish the Speed Bump and thank the local laundry lady. They head over to the Road Block and Elissa decides to do it. Jamal finally gets the thumbs up for his rolex and Floyd drops his chapati on the ground, but still uses it.

Britney, meanwhile, is helpless as she watches Janelle running around the entire market trying to find a Rolex watch vendor.

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6 The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

Down by the water, the other teams find the boat builders and open the next clue revealing the Detour: Salty Roll or Move the Pole. In Salty Roll, teams must properly salt and roll the fish skin of Nile perch and then wash, gut and salt Nile perch to receive their next clue. In Move the Pole, teams must load firewood onto a bike to transport it to a stacking area to receive their next clue.

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6 The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

All the leading teams choose the firewood. Rachel & Elissa choose the fish and have no problems as their daddy taught them how to gut a fish when they were kids.

Janelle happens to walk by the rolex (sandwich) vendor who hands her the shopping list. She finally realizes her mistake and cannot believe it.

Meanwhile, teams have to face off in this season’s second first Head-to-Head at Jahazi Pier. In a Tower of Hanoi situation, teams must solve a puzzle using Ngoma drums where they must stack the same colored drums on the same pole, but only moving one drum at a time.

Tyler faces off against Colin and wins. Tyler & Korey are Team #1 and win a trip to Singapore. Colin & Christie defeat Nicole & Victor who defeat Chris & Bret to defeat Becca & Floyd who defeat Leo & Jamal who defeat Rachel & Elissa.

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6 The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

It’s down to the #MomSquad and Big Brother legends to see which team is eliminated. And it is Rachel & Elissa who come out on top. The two teams share an emotional hug. Janelle thanks Rachel for showing them the ropes on the Race.

The Amazing Race 30 Episode 6

The four awesome moms hold hands as they run to the Mat together.
Phil officially checks Rachel & Elissa in as Team #7. That means Janelle & Britney are last and unfortunately eliminated.

Episode Thoughts

So this was definitely a much better episode than the Dubai leg. Definitely nice to see a brand new country on the Race. And the show did a good job in not shying away from Uganda’s recent history of its government-sanctioned discrimination against the LGBT community.

So we start off this leg with a very typical counting steps task that is certainly very familiar to many a TAR around the world.

More importantly, I loved seeing the rain! I wish we could see more Legs with teams running around in the pouring rain.

The Road Block was certainly the most dramatic part of the episode. Yes even more dramatic than the Head-to-Head. Mainly because of Janelle’s huge mistake or misunderstanding of the clue, as it was. It was really very shocking to see Janelle being so clueless and helpless during the task. Although it would appear that the show has been setting up Janelle & Britney’s elimination all along the way they’ve only been highlighting them in their most frantic moments. Kind of depicting them as this bumbling duo who are in way over their heads. But knowing Janelle & Britney are fierce competitors, even if their time on Big Brother is years and many babies ago, I know that they are great competitors and strong competitors who do well at tasks and challenges and are smart as well.

So it was definitely tough watching Janelle struggle in just getting started at the Road Block. For the task itself it was a pretty good task. Definitely another typical TAR task. There didn’t really seem to be any extra skill involved. Just a straightforward task and making sure that you are making something edible. They apparently weren’t too strict since they allowed Floyd to use his dropped chapati.

Rachel and Elissa’s Speed Bump was all right. An above average Speed Bump, but it’s certainly a little unfair when you see what other teams had to do with their Speed Bumps. Even in this very season. But it was a nice task that got them working with locals.

The Detour was also a pretty good. Didn’t spend a lot of time on it as they wanted to spend much more time on the pointless Head-to-Head. But I think both sides of the Detour were pretty good. Rachel & Elissa and Janelle & Britney showed that maybe the fish side of the Detour was the faster and easier task. But one can assume that teams just didn’t want to deal with the fish.

As for the Head-to-Head, I’ve differently expressed my displeasure with the way TARUS has implemented and executed the Head-to-Heads so far. And this Leg was certainly no different. Again, the Head-to-Head should not be at the end of the Leg. It definitely negates everything else that’s happened in the rest of the Leg. It doesn’t give teams a chance to recover. And it’s the same kind of thinking about not having the U-Turn at the end of the Leg too.

Things like the U-Turn and the Head-to-Head should be things that induce competition and drama. Not be sole deciders in eliminations. The only purpose of these things is to cause drama and competition between teams. But where are you going to get the drama as a result of these twists if the team that is most affected by these twists gets eliminated at the end of the leg anyway.

So for the Head-to-Head task itself, it was pretty good. A good puzzle and speed task. But again, placement can make a whole lot of difference.

Overall it was a fine visit to Uganda. Again a much better leg then Dubai. And a much better episode as well. But definitely another horrible result. Another Leg in which I’d rather the placements were flipped. It would have been a much better result if that were the case.

My Subjective Team Rankings

The Amazing Race 31 Rachel & Elissa The Amazing Race 31 Janelle & Britney The Amazing Race 31 Colin & Christie The Amazing Race 31 Chris & Bret The Amazing Race 31 Nicole & Victor The Amazing Race 31 Leo & Jamal The Amazing Race 31 Becca & Floyd The Amazing Race 31 Tyler & Korey

This season is running out of teams to root for!

Rachel & Elissa had a much better Leg this time, but still not the cleanest Leg. Though the Speed Bump certainly put them in the back of the pack. (Which now brings up the question of why put a Head-to-Head on the Leg after a Non-Elimination?)

It was really sad to see Janelle & Britney have such a bad Leg and get eliminated like that. Even worse that it came down to my two favorite teams. Both #MomSquad teams deserved to stay longer in the Race, heck go all the way even.

But being a former Big Brother fan that actually watched the live feeds back in the day, it was really awesome to see legit All-Stars and BB legends Rachel, Janelle and Britney all competing on the same show together. It’s definitely a dream come true for many fans to see them working together and being friends. It certainly is for me. Big Brother does not produce players like them anymore. Not even someone like Elissa either who can successfully deal with a house full of racists and vile people.

Anyway, what’s there even to say about the rest of the cast after this horrible result.

I will say that Yes, we get it! Colin & Christie are not the same team that threatened police officers, yelled at carabaos, encouraged running over Filipinos crew members. That’s fine. But the show definitely doesn’t need to keep harping on that fact. It’s Episode 6, for goodness sakes.

Episode Quotes

Janelle: “It’s basically a head-on collision.”

Elissa: “We need to go slow counting up.”
Rachel: “No duh.”

Rachel: “Praise God!”

Janelle: “Thanks for showing us the ropes Rachel!”

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