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Leaving India behind, they teams are off to Osaka, Japan for a whirlwind tour of the sites and an opportunity to try driving the crowded streets.
As the teams scramble to book flights out of India, TK & Rachel end up with an itinerary making two stops versus the other teams one stop. As expected, this puts them in last place for the entire leg.
The 3 lead teams hit the ground in Osaka and start following clues. Everyone is happy about taking taxis since driving looks to be a nightmare. Cue foreshadowing as the teams hit the Roadblock and are forced to drive a taxi and deliver their passengers to a given address. The address, of course, is in Japanese.
Christina is the only racer who knows Japanese, so she immediately knows the destination. You’d think this would be an advantage. And it would be, if Christina knew how to drive. So, the racers struggle to get to their destination, each with their own difficulties. In the end, they finish the Roadblock in the same order they started and head off to find the Detour clue.
The Detour sends them to either an artificial flower shop to hunt for a single real flower, or to play robot soccer using cellphones. Nick & Don choose robots while the other teams head to flowers. Turns out, controlling robots with a cell phone is a lot harder than it seems, especially for Don. But in the end, they figure it out and finish. Likewise, Ron & Christina and Nate & Jen find their flowers and are one the way to the pit stop.
Nate & Jen have their sites set on first place, but the race to the pit stop is decided when Nate & Jen have trouble finding a taxi driver that speaks English. Speaking Japanese ends up helping Ron & Christina make it into first place. Nate & Jen stumble into second place, again. And Nick & Don walk into third.
TK & Rachel, meanwhile, arrive in Osaka and we are treated to a montage of them working through each of the tasks while talking about how much they love each other and how much the race has meant to them. We are clearly expected to view this as their goodbye speech so that the non-elimination at the end is a surprise. But, eliminated teams at the back of the pack like this never get this much coverage. They always get the “go directly to the pitstop” edit.
Arriving at the mat, TK & Rachel are non-eliminated, Phil reexplains the Speed Bump, and we are ready for next week. One team will be eliminated, and the rest will race for the finish line.
