Amazing Race, Amazing Strengths

Amazing Race, Amazing Strengths by Roxanne McDonald

While a Road Block asks which of the partners is better at a particular task, all legs of the race call on skills of brains or brawn or bravado….

Even though we are only two weeks in to the new season of The Amazing Race, it is already clear that Rob and Amber have honed their skills and strategies (maybe thanks to that six month stint of poker?): they have come in first for both legs of the race, and have done so using good old sneaky Robs special tricks and requests for special treatment.

For instance, in episode two, the couple is getting tickets to Santiago. They talk the agent into giving them a special flight which arrives a half hour earlier, and then Rob begs her not to tell any other team about the earlier flight. She complies. Ahhh, that Boston charm. And. Well, Rob’s relentless efforts this time around to not necessarily put the fear or intimidation into fellow all-stars but keep them “preoccupied” by him and Amber just enough to throw them off focus and thus off their game.

But Rob and Amber aside, for now, the other teams have some strengths of their own that are keeping them in the running.

When Drew and Kevin get stuck in the mud flats of Lima, Kevin gets out of the vehicle, straps himself into a nylon harness and pulls the car out! [Unfortunately, Drew’s failing health and falling down land them in last place, but their teamwork is not to be discounted….]

Uchenna is also bringing a different kind of strength to the effort. This time, he says, while he wants Mrs. Right, he also acknowledges he has to be Mr. Right. I trust he intends to ease up on Joyce, not always having the last word and not pushing her to be more than he himself can be.

And despite how much I don’t care for them, or don’t care enough about them to watch them all that closely, I have to give it to the beauty queens, Dustin and Kandace. In the Road Block task, Dustin decides to be the one who is good at details. And she is. Very good. While it takes other teams up to what seems like the full hour, Dustin steps into the fake boardroom, looks at the letters placed about the room (on sleeves, lapels, pens, scratch pads, etc.), and then takes into account the photos in frames around the room. This is necessary to the task, though many others don’t get it until they see an opponent studying the pics, and Dustin figures out that of all the letters as clues, only one, the “Q” (or maybe the “H”, I can’t recall) is shared with one pic—of copper mines in Chuquicamata, and with this she is first to be passed through.

Ian and partner Teri have a more subtle strength on their side at this point in the game. For while Ian was nowhere near as discerning in the Road Block, despite how he is an ex-detective/investigator for the FBI, and therefore is one of the last two to figure out the challenge, he does bring to the game a humility (which translates to dignity for the couple) that is less apparent in other teams and players. Hopefully this will keep him going long and strong.

Screw humility, Oswald and Danny might say. Their strength is in sarcasm and humor—still. And while I noted how Oswald was the funnyman of the two last week, this leg of the trip has Danny cracking wiseass—saying how his manicurist would be horrified if she saw what he was doing to his hands; and a few hours later, as Oswald praises him for doing such fine driving, asking, “Do you think I was a man in a previous life?”

Charla and Mirna can’t be bothered with humor or humility at this stage, and instead seem to rely on their ballsy approach: they have no problem asking for special favors, cutting in lines, and using the kindness of fellow competitors to give them a much-needed leg up when they are lost or late.

Of course, Charla also waxes philosophical, implying they have good hearts, when, for instance, they are being followed by the beauty queens who also want their taxi driver to give up a map so they can beat the cousins. Charla has a profound idea that while beauty is easy to have or get, what with access to plastic surgery and all, morals and a pure heart are not easy to “make up”, she says. I love these guys, but I fear for their jinxing their own progress, as morals will be questioned when they try to cut in line and get preferential treatment next week. Sigh.
Along with morals, kindness and politeness seem to be the boons for Mary and David. However, the couple is quickly realizing that such niceness might be the bane for them—again. So I would say the strength here is in Mary’s realizing nice guys risk coming in last…as she and David have come close to doing as they trail directly behind the cousins they have just finished helping out with this or that.

It’s nice to be nice. It’s even smarter to be smart. You know what I mean.

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