Recap: The Amazing Race 32, Episode 2 – “Why does he have a jacket on? It’s not even cold.”

Recap: The Amazing Race 32, Episode 2 – Red Lipstick is Not My Color

The next Leg of the Race begins immediately as all teams hop on the same, lone flight to Bogota, Colombia. Upon arrival in the capital city, the next clue outside the airport tells teams to make their way to Nemocon Salt Mine.

Inside the mines, teams will search for either a 10-minute or 20-minute hourglass which will give them the power to Yield another team for that specific amount of time. Teams can use that hourglass when they encounter a Yield board on the race.

The teams with a 10-minute hourglass are Hung & Chee, Leo & Alana, Kellie & LaVonne, Eswar & Aparna and Jerry & Frank. The teams with a 20-minute hourglass are Will & James, DeAngelo & Gary, Riley & Maddison, Kaylynn & Hayley and Michelle & Victoria.

Once teams find an hourglass, teams can sign-up for tomorrow morning’s departure time. Hung & Chee, Riley & Maddison, Will & James, DeAngelo & Gary, Eswar & Aparna make the 6am departure. All the other teams have to settle for the 6:30am departure.

After they all sleep in cramped quarters at the mine, teams wake up and make their way on foot to Templo Parroqual San Francisco de Asis. The leading five teams agree to a loose alliance. They must head up the belltower to retrieve either a pre-Colombian golden raft artifact or an emerald. They will then make their way to Plazoleta Rosario in Bogota.

Teams with an emerald must deliver it to an emerald broker in the plaza. Teams with a golden raft artifact must deliver it to an archaeology professor at the Universidad del Rosario.

Riley & Maddison find the historian who give them the next clue directing them to Escuela Nacional Circo Para Todos where they will find the first Yield board.

Hung & Chee and DeAngelo & Gary are close behind after they exchange their emerald. They arrive at the Yield first and neither decide to use the Yield. Both proceed to the Road Block: Who feels like clowning around?

For this Road Block, teams will first roll inside the wheel of death and then walk the tightrope first with a bottle of wine and then back with the bottle and two glasses. DeAngelo and Hung decide to do the Road Block. Riley, Will, Aparna and Victoria are next.

Teams must now make their way to Carrerra 26 #10-03 in Bogota. For the next task, teams must attach decorations onto a volqueta exactly like an example. That includes correctly connecting the horns.

Back at the Road Block, Alana struggles with several attempts. Kaylynn & Haley and Kellie & LaVonne are both in last. The sisters arrive at the Yield first and decide not to use it. They quickly regret it when they realize they are second to last.

At the volquetas, Hung & Chee ask for a check. But they did not hook up their horns. They correct their mistake when they realize it and can now head to Parque Nacional Enrique Olaya Herrerato, the Pit Stop. They officially check in as Team #1. With their second win in a row, they have won a trip to Switzerland from Travelocity. DeAngelo & Gary, who had arrived first at the volquetas, are now Team #2.

Riley & Maddison correct their horny oversight and are 3rd to leave followed by Eswar & Aparna and Michelle & Victoria. They finish as Teams #3 through #5, respectively.

Will & James get the thumbs down on their volqueta. James wants to re-read their clue, but Will says that’s not going to help them. All teams have now caught up. Will finally reads the clue and they realize they must hook up the horn. They’re loud about their epiphany and Alana hears them, allowing her and Leo to hook their horns up too. But they also have something else wrong.

Amazing Race fans Will & James finish as Team #6, upset that they didn’t read their clue properly.

Leo & Alana realize their missing flags and they get the thumbs up. Before leaving, they help Kaylynn & Haley by telling them about the horn. Kellie & LaVonne see them fixing it as do Jerry & Frank. And they all finally get the thumbs up.

Leo & Alana step on the Mat as Team #7. Kaylynn & Haley are 8th and Jerry & Frank are 9th.

That means Olympians Kellie & LaVonne are last and eliminated.

Episode Thoughts

An okay episode I think. Not the most exciting. Though I think that had a lot to do with the editing which feels as off as it’s ever been these last few seasons.

Starting off, with only one flight to Bogota, it looks to be a logistics decision. And that’s alright.

The biggest development from the episode was definitely the new rules Yield. It’s an interesting twist. We’ll have to see how it actually plays out whenever it’s used. Being ten or twenty minutes adds a little bit of tension since that might not really help all that much. Also depending where on the Leg the Yield is placed.

Will there be a Yield on every Leg though? I don’t see the point of this new twist if the Yield isn’t on most of the Legs this season.

I think the show missed a huge opportunity though. They showed the clip of the first ever used Yield in the Philippines from TAR5. It was placed before the task where teams had to decorate a jeepney. That task was essentially recycled on this Leg with the volquetas. So TAR should have absolutely placed the Yield before that task instead of before the Road Block.

Anyway, searching for the hourglasses in the mine at night is a good task to have teams do before sleeping for the morning equalizer.

And did you see the teams sleeping right next to each other at the mines? Boy, feels like such a lifetime ago. Zero social distancing. Craziness! Definitely not going to see that anytime soon.

The emerald and artifact task was a nice new kind of task. A sort of Detour, but not really. I don’t know that either side of this non-Detour was easier or quicker than the other. But being placed at the start of the Leg is good since teams can obviously catch up with the other tasks this Leg.

The Road Block was okay. But it’s a linear, first come-first served task. So that’s hard to edit into something exciting when it’s one team after another. The task itself was fine. But with so many teams, it gets tedious when they obviously have to wait before attempting the task.

I was waiting for a Detour. But it never came. So overall, the Leg was just okay. Other than overlooking the horn and taxis with no phone chargers, this Leg was pretty much decided early on.

My Subjective Team Rankings

I’m sad we didn’t get to see Michelle & Victoria much this episode. I missed their fun personalities that we saw in the premiere. But they did well this Leg and that’s great to see. Hung & Chee are out to an early lead and look poised to dominate the Race. Thankfully they have great personalities, so seeing them do well won’t get annoying.

Eswar & Aparna did much better this week, though they were a little invisible. It was great to see DeAngelo & Gary recover from their poor first Leg and do very well here. I think them on this Leg is more indicative of their Racing moving forward.

Will & James at the volquetas was annoying to watch. It’s always cringey to see a team not read their clue. But even more, Will shutting down James who wanted to re-read the clue. It’s good though that they realized how bad it was for them, being TAR fans, not reading the clue correctly. So at least they know what to correct. They definitely needed to keep their voices down though. lol And their shades of bickering couple has a lot of potential for fun later on.

Riley & Maddison and Jerry & Frank were alright this Leg. Not much from them. It’s too bad about Kellie & LaVonne. They ran into some bad luck, but they also weren’t really able to catch up. I do think they didn’t Race to their full potential. But it was just not their Leg.

Not sure about Leo & Alana telling Kaylynn & Hayley about the horns. They can work with whomever they want. But I’m always weary of such “helping” on the Race. It triggers my annoyance of “alliances” on TAR lol That’s why that big alliance earlier in the Leg was a little worrisome as well lol

Episode Quotes

DeAngelo: “Why does he have a jacket on? It’s not even cold.”