Recap: The Amazing Race 35, Episode 2 – “You Don’t See That At Home”

Recap: The Amazing Race 35, Episode 2 – “You Don’t See That At Home”

Teams will begin the second Leg by taking a cab to Wat Suwannaram in Nakhon Pathom, an agricultural village outside of Bangkok.

Jocelyn & Victor, who began the Leg at 8:26am and are celebrating their wedding anniversary, arrive first and open the next clue which reveals a Road Block: Who has a green thumb? For this Road Block, teams must become lotus farmers and collect enough bulbs and leaves to create two traditional bundles. When the lotus farmer approves of their bundles, they will get the next clue.

Jocelyn chooses to do the Road Block and hops into a boat to take her to the lotus farm. Rob, Lena and Ashlie are right behind her. Greg & John, who got lost on the way, arrive next with Greg choosing to do the Road Block.

Jocelyn goes for a few attempts, but she repeatedly gets the thumbs down. After the commercial break, on her 12th attempt, she finally gets the next clue. Rob gets it on his 5th attempt. The two of them hurry back to their partners who have been having fun feeding the fish.

Greg, who had been listening to what other teams were getting wrong, is able to move up a few spots. He leaves as Steve and Garrett arrive and get started. Meanwhile, Liam & Yeremi get lost and fall behind, arriving at Wat Suwannaram just before Elizabeth & Iliana.

Steve gets the lotuses on his 12th attempt, Ashlie on her 15th attempt,

Meanwhile, Jocelyn & Victor open the next clue directing teams to Wat Rai Khing where they must insert a coin into the marked elephant and then walk under it three times for good luck. Afterwards, they get the next clue revealing the Detour: Stock Up or Scoop Up.

In Stock Up, teams must pick up a phonetic Thai shopping list and then use baskets and a handcart to go shopping for the items in order to deliver them to a restaurant. In Scoop Up, teams load a boat full of pomelo and then unload them at a farmer’s basket down the creek. When they fill five baskets, they will get the next clue.

Jocelyn & Victor choose Stock Up while Rob & Corey choose Scoop Up.

Victor feels right at home with the shopping task because of how similar the Thai language is with his native Lao and having worked at his family’s grocery store since he was a teen. They seem to speed through it. However they get the wrong amount of coconut sugar and have to go back. Doesn’t matter though, as they soon get the thumbs up and open the next clue revealing the location of the next Pit Stop: Suan Sampran.

Jocelyn & Victor officially check-in as Team #1 and win $2000 each. Rob & Corey finish the pomelos and also hurry to the Pit Stop to take 2nd.

Back at the Road Block, Garrett gets the thumbs up on his 6th attempt. But when he reunites with Joel, they leave their fanny pack. While on the way to the next Route Marker, they realize they don’t have it and hurry back.

Ian and Yeremi are next to finish followed by Elizabeth, leaving Malaina and Robbin who is now last and gets it on her 16th attempt.

Meanwhile, Greg & John and Morgan & Lena choose the pomelos Detour and get started. The brothers fill their baskets and head to the Pit Stop to officially check-in as Team #3. Morgan & Lena finish as Team #4.

Todd & Ashlie choose the shopping Detour and claim 5th place. Steve & Anna Leigh do the pomelos. The father and daughter load up too much and end up sinking at one point, but they still secure 6th.

Joe & Ian choose the pomelos and head to the Pit Stop as Team #7. Robbin & Chelsea arrive at the pomelos just as Liam & Yeremi and Joel & Garrett leave to check-in at the Pit Stop as Teams 8 and 9.

Andrea & Malaina and Elizabeth & Iliana (who thought they asked their driver to take them to the pomelos) do the shopping Detour. The best friends manage to finish the shopping before the mother and daughter who have to go back and get the correct item.

Andrea & Malaina catch up to Joel & Garrett at the Mat to check-in as Team #10. So it’s down to the final two teams. Robbin & Chelsea check-in as Team #11, meaning Elizabeth & Iliana are last and eliminated.

Episode Thoughts

Definitely a much better Leg and episode than the premiere.

First off though, let’s get to the nitpicking. What does it say about the Leg or the teams that the placements were basically the exact same as last Leg? Linear or not? I’m not sure. There was a three hour difference between the first and last teams departing from the Pit Stop. Which then makes you think about how staggered departure times might actually be a good thing.

The only difference maker was Joel & Garrett forgetting their fanny pack and Liam & Yeremi getting taken to the wrong temple. Otherwise, the teams would’ve gotten the exact same placements, one through twelve.

I know in the past, equalizers were frowned upon. But in modern TAR, even with the supposedly upgraded 90-minute Legs, equalizers seem necessary. Especially when Legs in the modern era can only last a few hours at most.

Having teams spread out so much give the editors a lot more work to do to make the episode feel as seamless as possible. And unfortunately, I don’t think they were able to accomplish that. You really don’t get a sense of time with how they had to maneuver around teams being so far apart. So it felt like things were happening in chunks instead of a fluid, free-flowing Race.

Anyway, TARUS specifically wanted to go back to non-staggered Pit Starts to reflect the commercial air travel return. A return to “classic” TAR. So we’ll just have to hope the tasks and the teams themselves can do a lot to be able and shuffle the placements on their own.

Okay, so with that out of the way, it’s kind of funny how people (fans mostly) made a big deal about how 90-minute episodes would likely mean more tasks. Yet, we only get a Road Block and Detour in this Leg. Plus one simple task with the elephant and good luck that wouldn’t take more then a minute to complete. Lol

Still, it’s understandable to have a basic Leg like this when there’s 12 teams. So we’ll have to wait and see if there will be fuller Legs later as there are less teams.

It’s great to have this Leg outside of Bangkok. Modern TAR has kind of avoided rural Asian Legs. So it’s wonderful to get it here. And the lotus Road Block was a very nice task relevant to the location. Getting teams into the muddy water and experience local life is part of what TAR is all about!

For the Detour, I really like the pomelo side of it. The shopping task is typical TAR. And good to get teams out and about amongst the people. But the pomelo task was refreshingly different. I think it could’ve been made a bit more difficult perhaps. And it would’ve been great having more than a few teams there at a time. But it was still a good, physical task.

For the shopping, I think just giving them the list in Thai and having to ask locals instead of getting them to speak the words in a phonetic way might have been better. I dunno.

Another nitpick about the editing though, they spent so much time on the lotus Road Block that I felt like they just sped through the Detour. So maybe one thing the show needs to do is to find a better balance between tasks. When you focus too much on one task, it becomes repetitive and drawn out. And that takes away from the originally good task and instead makes you go like “Okay, let’s move on now.”

Overall though, it was a good Leg and fine episode. Definitely better than last week. But certainly not much different from a normal modern TAR Leg, even as a 90-minute episode. That is, I’m not seeing what they necessarily changed for the longer episode other than spending unnecessarily longer time on a certain task.

Also, good we don’t have to watch the horrible opening credits every week. lol We are far from the iconic headturns or TARAu2-level opening credits that you want to watch every week hehe

Team Thoughts

Hard to form any new opinions on the teams when they basically just carried over the same dynamics from the first episode.

Jocelyn & Victor are awesome! Yes, the Leg design certainly helped them. But they’ve definitely shown that they are a strong team. I hope the preview for next week is just a misdirection and they actually are not in danger. I’m really rooting for them. Rob & Corey as well. They had another good Leg.

Everyone else was alright. This episode was really more focused on the tasks I think. No one became less appealing. No one became more rootable. So overall, alright from the teams.

Elizabeth & Iliana just couldn’t overcome how far behind they were. It’s too bad. But hopefully they had a great experience in their short time on the Race.