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Subscribe via RSSEpisode 11.7 - Somber Visits in Poland
Since this two part episode was only two part according to the Channel Guide on Dish Network, I’m going to treat it as a single episode.
It looks like the producers have managed, via a forced bunch on the bus trip, to get all of the teams back within a reasonable distance of each other. But not without more mishaps and problems with airline tickets. You know its going to be a long day when even the airline tickets the show provides can’t get you to your destination.
This leg started out with the lead teams heading out of Zanzibar and trying to get earlier flights to Warsaw than the tickets provided by the show. At least this week, the producers are trying to keep the teams within a certain time frame of each other. The provided tickets are late enough that the trailing teams can make it to the airport in time to get out of the country. But even that isn’t enough to get all of teams to Warsaw on time. Eric & Danielle and Joe & Bill both missed their connecting flight in Frankfurt. And Uchenna & Joyce missed their connecting flight as well. This year certainly seems to be the year of airport dynamics and scheduling mishaps.It became very obvious how far behind the trailing teams were when Dustin & Kandice hit the mat only 30 minutes into the show. And then, they were shown leaving for the second leg of the two parter only 10 minutes later, before Joe & Bill and Eric & Danielle had even landed! With all the airport drama in the first hour of the show, there isn’t much else to talk about, but I’ll try.
Mrs. Cosmic and I both enjoyed watching the teams try to tune the pianos. It was obvious that no one had ever done this before. Especially watching, I believe, Oswald yank on the tuning handle and snap the string. I spent most of the detour hoping that Charla and Mirna would get stuck and end up in last place. After all, Mirna is clearly tone deaf. Either that, or she thinks that her pretty smile and bad accents will cause the pianists to accept their poorly tuned piano. Even listening on TV, it was clear that most of the teams didn’t get the pianos perfectly tuned, but they got close enough that it wasn’t painful to listen to the pianist play, so we can let it slide.
The trip to Auschwitz was quite a change in tone for the episode with all of the teams taking a moment to reflect on the atrocities committed there. For some, the visit was clearly more emotional than others as both Danny & Oswald and Joe & Bill reflected on what it would have meant to be gay during Hitler’s reign. And even Mirna got in a relevant point with the story about her great grandfather.
From there, it was in to Krakow for an Intersection that left the Beauty Queens, who landed first in Poland, waiting for 4 hours for the next team to arrive. Their decision to go ahead and take the detour with Charla & Mirna shows a sense of pragmatism as they had no idea how far behind the trailing teams were. And Charla & Mirna’s difficulty eating the sausage didn’t affect the race one bit after Joe & Bill and Eric & Danielle failed to read the clue and blew the small lead they had managed to gain at the detour.
The best part of the episode was watching the Roadblock as team members were forced to dress up in Armor and lead a horse down to the castle walls. Watching Charla fall on her face, which was seen in the preview, was worth the price of admission. She clearly has no idea what to do with the horse as she spent quite a bit of time going around in circles with it.
Danny & Oswald and Uchenna & Joyce worked together well and were able to complete the fast forward with no problem. That lead them to the met in first place together. With only one prize to give away, Danny & Oswald graciously gave it to Uchenna & Joyce who seemed genuinely thankful for them.
The Guido’s fate was sealed when they blew the lead outside the detour by trying to get their cabs to take them to the next route marker instead of hopping into the provided cars. With 4 teams in such close proximity, unless someone royally screwed up the navigation, there was no way for them to open up a 30 minute gap that would allow them to overcome their penalty. Even if they hadn’t missed their connection in Frankfurt, they would still have been on the second charter.
Overall, the second half of the leg was better than the first, but the finishing order of the leg was pretty much set by the outcome of the Detour. Better than the first half where finishing order was practically predetermined by the order in which teams arrived at the airport, missed flights notwithstanding.
Let’s hope that next week involves lots of driving along twisty backroads so that teams have an opportunity to advance on their own merits, and not on the whims of the airline industry or poorly constructed tasks. all stars, amazing race, tar, tar11
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