By David McAlpine

Last time on The Amazing Race, one team, Eric and Lisa was eliminated barely 10 minutes into the race—only because they were the last to find a license plate amongst a collection of many. Maria and Tiffany were the last to arrive at the pit stop in Tokyo, but weren’t eliminated. Instead, they conquered their Speed Bump in Vietnam and Garrett and Jessica, the on-again, off-again couple was the last to arrive.

All the teams depart from the Mekong Delta on moving boats, en route to Ho Chi Minh City, the capital of Vietnam, where they had to find a puppet theater. Taxis are the first priority on everyone’s minds except Lance and Keri, who run around trying to find the theater because they think they’re already in Ho Chi Minh City. From what I can gather, they’re almost two hours (by car, nonetheless) outside the city, so where they got that notion is beyond me.

The Harlem Globetrotters are the first to reach the clue, where they have to pull small clues out of the mouths of dragon puppets, darting back and forth in the water. In each clue is a bullet which contained a stamp, directing them to the city’s post office. Everyone had their own, very creative way of doing it, from teasing the puppet to outright physically attacking it.

At the post office is the season’s first detour: Child’s Play or Word Play. In Child’s Play, teams had to pick up an unusually large animal figurine that looked very fragile and move it from one side of the park to the other, collection balloons from people along the way. Once they had arrived with their entire figurine (including pieces that broke off because they dropped it) and five balloons, they could move on. For Word Play, teams had to go to the top of a hotel and look down on a busy turnabout for six different letters on various forms of transportation going around it. Once they had all six letters, they had to unscramble them to form “doc lap” a popular Vietnamese word for “independence.”

At the beginning, everyone goes for Child’s Play because they’re afraid they don’t know how to speak Vietnamese. What happened to talking to the local people? It seems easier than pushing a huge statuette through a bumpy park on an old dolly with no handles. The only people who seem to agree with me are Marcy and Ron, since everyone else opts for Child’s Play.

Sam and Dan show their nice side when they try to help out Maria and Tiffany when they hit a snag with their dolly. Zev and Justin are one of the only ones to choose the giraffe statue, which they have trouble managing and end up smashing. Lance, meanwhile, loses one of his teams’ balloons, making him throw a fit and run to get a new one. Marcy and Ron, meanwhile, seem to be doing well at their detour until they have trouble getting the last letter. When they finally get all six letters, a majority of the teams have left the detour—and the two still have to unscramble the letters (which they’re hoping is on a sign somewhere nearby).

The next clue directs teams to a chop shop at a busy intersection in Ho Chi Minh and a Roadblock. Basically, each team is given 2 VCRs and they have to break it down and sort their parts into ready-made piles. The Globetrotters and Meghan and Cheyne get to work on breaking them down while we flash back to Marcy and Ron at the Detour. Now, they’re looking around for signs with the word on it, but they can’t find it. Eventually, a local helps them decode the clue. The two front-runners finish their chopping and make their way to Reunification Palace, the third pit stop.

One by one, the teams get to the chop shop, and no one seems to be moving up or down in position, which is understandable given how straightforward the task is. Lance and Keri are still going at it over which way to go and, by the time they get to the Detour, they’re one of the last teams. Lance decides to rip right into the VCR with his bare hands and tear all the pieces out, rocketing them up a couple spots. At this point, Marcy and Ron are still on their way, and it comes down to a footrace between the Globetrotters and Meghan and Cheyne for first place. Flight Time and Big Easy beat the couple out by seconds, earning them a nice trip to Aruba. The finishes were:

1st: Flight Time and Big Easy

2nd: Meghan and Cheyne

3rd: Mike and Gary

4th: Brian and Ericka (what??)

5th: Sam and Dan

6th: Maria and Tiffany

7th: Mika and Canaan

Although it’s edited to look like it’s a close race, it’s clearly not, because both Lance and Keri and Zev and Justin leave the roadblock before Marcy and Ron get there. It ends up being another footrace between the two, which Justin and Zev surprisingly win. Regardless, neither of them are going home because they place eighth and ninth. Instead, Marcy and Ron are the last team to arrive, eliminating them from the race. I was so disappointed to see them go because I thought they had the potential to go far, though after seeing their lax attitude about the detour (which can be a good thing), it made me wonder if they had the competitive edge to hold their own against the pack.

Be sure to watch the next episode of the Amazing Race on CBS, Sundays at 8/7c!

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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