This week as teams traveled from India to Austria, The Amazing Race became an hour-long commercial for the 2012 Ford Focus. Oh well, if that’s how they have to work things out to keep the show on the air, then we’re just going to have to live with this kind of product placement. The episode, however, did offer an answer to the question I posed last week about the 24-hour travel agents. Justin read in his clue that they had to go to the assigned travel agent to book their flight, so now we know that special arrangements are made to keep these people working late into the night.
The leg started off with an equalizer at the airport … except the cowboys didn’t get on the same flight at the other five teams. When they heard there were two connections on the flight that arrived 25 minutes before the flight with one connection, they opted to go for the single connection flight feeling that there would be problems and delays with two connections. They were wrong and arrived in Austria 25 minutes behind everyone else and were the last to pick up their 2012 Ford Focus from the garage. They nearly caught up to Gary and Mallory who failed to heed Phil’s instructions about putting the car in reverse to get their clue, but Gary finally listened to Phil’s recorded message and they were on their way.
The first clue was pretty simple — find a castle and get the next clue from a maiden with a very large book. Not difficult, but Kent thought she was a man. Teams then had to find the National Library in Vienna and locate the librarian for the next clue. I would have never guessed that the guy who looked like a tourist with a backpack was actually the librarian with a kind of portable book shelf strapped to his back. But everyone did find him in good time and then Flight Time decided that instead of going back inside to relieve himself, it was just better to pee on the wall outside. And people wonder why we’re called “Ugly Americans.”
The Detour clue was devious in that it made the easier challenge sound hard and vice versa. Teams had to either go to the Freud Museum, pick a couch and carry it one mile to the University of Vienna to get their clue or eat a simple meal in 12-minutes while on the ferris wheel from The Third Man. Three teams chose the meal because who can’t eat something in 12-minutes? The answer: three teams. Zev & Justin (who had gotten the clue first) Kisha & Jen (second) and Gary & Mallory (third) all decided to eat the meal while the other three teams took the couch. They all then had to do the couch task after not completing the meal, so three teams basically got Speed Bumped on this episode and really upset their momentum. The other teams had their various troubles carrying, pushing and pulling a couch through the streets of Vienna — Vyxsin should have cracked Kent upside his head with the dolly for all of his whining – but Flight Time & Big Easy managed to pull ahead while Gary & Mallory, who had been in third place before the meal, fell to last place.
The Road Block wasn’t very difficult or time consuming so the Pit Stop came down to who could find the Villa Trapp first. It’s intersting to note that during this leg of the race as teams drove all around Austria in their 2012 Ford Focuses that they were not allowed to use the car’s built in navigation system, relying instead on the usual maps and directions from locals (not always a good choice). After overcoming the bad decision to eat the meal, Zev & Justin managed to pull ahead of the Globetrotters (even after getting misdirected in the University) on the way to the villa to claim first place and … two brand new 2012 Ford Focuses! Unfortunately, Gary & Mallory never recovered from the meal and ended up in last place on the same leg in which they were eliminated last time. Silver lining to it all – this was a non-elimination leg so they get to play another day and have to face their second, but first official, Speed Bump of the race. The downside – they had to return their 2012 Ford Focus.
“We didn’t have to do much there. We just had to grab a big book from the chick from Harry Potter.” – Justin describing the first task of the leg
“Look, there’s a special man. Go on up. Let’s go visit him. He looks nice.” – Kent misidentifying Justin’s ‘chick from Harry Potter.’
“We are walking a couch to some chick’s office when she could’ve paid somebody to do it herself.” – Jen not talking about the Harry Potter chick.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Apr 18, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
