I want you all to take a minute and look at that picture with me. This exercise is called "How Angry can Looking at a Pair of Human Beings Make Me?", and the answer to that question is (for me) "Extremely". Folks, I dare say that Kent and Vyxsin are the dumbest team I have ever seen on The Amazing Race, and that is saying A LOT. Keep in mind, this is a show that has featured the following:
- A girl who made her team lose because she wouldn't go down a water slide
- A team that thought a "battlement" was a person
- A team that couldn't unscramble the word "Franz" and instead took a 4 hour penalty
- Multiple teams getting angry at locals in foreign countries for not speaking fluent English
There are dozens of other instances that could have gone on that list, but I got lazy and didn't feel like trying to remember stupid things that had happened in past seasons. Regardless, I can't remember ever seeing a single team make more dumb mistakes in the course of a single episode in all the seasons of this show that I've watched.
I didn't watch Kent (formerly Kynt) and Vyxsin's first season on TAR, and for that I am eternally grateful, because this team makes me want to throw the remote through my TV screen. They're billed as "Dating Goths", but there is not a single thing about them that is "Goth" at all, unless you count wearing black clothing, and they can't even do that right (Kent constantly has some stupid pink thing on his clothes, and the hoodie he was wearing in Sunday's episode had cat ears on it. You CANNOT be Goth if you wear a hoodie with cat ears). They remind me a lot of Nick and Vicki from last season, as they're both borderline retarded and cling desperately to a stupid identity in an attempt to make themselves stand out from the crowd (in Nick and Vicki's case it was their "punk rocker" status). Your stupidity makes you stand out plenty guys, you don't need to dress it up in hot pink women's clothing (I swear to God that Kent has not worn a single piece of men's apparel this season).
ANYWAY, you came here for a recap, or to skip over this post because you're not the one person reading who cares about this show, so here it is. The teams left Japan (and Phil apparently did a PSA about the recent tsunami over there that I didn't see because I watched the show online) and headed for China on a required flight...OR DID THEY?! Well, yes, most of them did. Except for Kent and Vyxsin. As they opened their clue they proclaimed that their motto for the day would be "PMA - Positive Mental Attitude", and that they weren't going to let negativity get them down. And then they couldn't find their car. And then Kent couldn't get the car unlocked (because he's an idiot and was pressing the Lock button). And then they did get it unlocked but they still took a few tries to open the doors. And then they drove something like three hours in the wrong direction (because Vyxsin is an idiot and can't read a map or a compass). Now, I've never run The Amazing Race, but I feel like if you get instructions to drive to the airport, and you don't get there in half an hour or less, you should probably stop and make sure you're going the right way, because chances are you've made a mistake. I understand it's easy to get lost in a foreign country where very few (if any) of the signs are in English, but what you should NOT do is drive three hours without ever stopping to figure things out. It's a pretty safe bet that the airport you're looking for is not three hours from the Pit Stop. Needless to say, Kent and Vyxsin missed the required flight and were forced to take one that left something like six hours later (we've yet to find out whether or not they'll get a penalty for this; the instructions did explicitly say that it was a required flight). I'm also curious about the money situation this season. In previous seasons we've seen teams stating how much money they have for each leg of the Race, but there's been no mention of it so far, and I have a hard time believing that Kent and Vyxsin had enough spare money to purchase an additional plane ticket (I assume the producers paid for it, but who knows?).
With a huge lead over the last-place team, everyone else seemed to be in a pretty good mood, at least for the moment. Zev and Justin commented on the fact that Zev hasn't really had to do anything in the Race so far, and that pretty soon he'd have to step up and start doing some challenges. Zev was concerned about being in China, as he's "not really a people person" (if you'll recall, he has Asperger's Syndrome). Jen and Jaime also weren't happy about being back in China, as Jen recalled her fight with Luke ("I called a deaf guy a bitch") and Jaime remembered that she's a mean unlikable bitch who hates anyone who doesn't speak English (if I remember correctly they had a really hard time figuring out where to go during a challenge in China last time, and couldn't get directions from any of the locals).
Upon arriving in China, the teams had to go to Jade Dragon Mountain. Ron and Christina managed to get a pretty big lead over the other teams by getting on an early train (the fact that they're both fluent in Chinese is a big advantage at this point). Unfortunately, it seems that Ron can't go five minutes without stuffing his face with food, so they kept having to stop for him to eat (more on that later). None of the other teams seemed too concerned about their lead, however, as they knew that Kent and Vyxsin were still far behind them.
At the mountain, one team member had to ride a yak across a river to get a clue telling them to take a gondola up to Spruce Meadow, which was around three miles above sea level. The teams quickly discovered that they couldn't just sprint around, as the altitude made them all dizzy and exhausted. At the Meadow, the teams hit a Roadblock, where one team member had to search among tens of thousands of charms to find twelve matching the symbols of the zodiac. Margie quickly nominated Luke for the task, saying that he was really great at the detail-oriented challenges, and everyone who had seen Luke's temper tantrum during the surfboard challenge in his season groaned out loud. Lucky for him, Mallory showed him the correct order (by mouthing/yelling the word ORDER over and over again) and he was able to finish quickly. No one seemed to have much trouble with this, with two exceptions: Zev and Vyxsin. That's right, Zev had such a hard time with the challenge that Team Fake Goth (Fauxth?) was actually able to catch up and start the challenge before he had finished. Kent lied and said that their car had broken down, and Justin seemed incredibly skeptical of this (because it didn't make a lick of goddamn sense; TAR would have replaced their car so they could make the required flight if that had been true). Zev's biggest problem came after actually finding all of the charms; he was then supposed to arrange them in the correct order, but instead he just hung them all in a bunch and then turned to the Charm-Master and got pissed when he was told it was incorrect. Instead of actually trying to figure it out, he'd just kind of slap at them for a few seconds, and then turn back to see if his jumble had magically become correct. Eventually he realized that he had two of the same charm, and finally figured it out. Fortunately for him, Vyxsin completely broke down in the middle of the challenge when she couldn't find the last charm, allowing Justin and Zev to break away.
After finishing the Roadblock, the teams had to take a marked bus back down the mountain. Ron and Christina ignored these instructions and hopped in a golf cart, and once they realized their mistake Ron hulked out and started screaming incoherently (this dude is a real asshole, and I can't wait for him to get eliminated). They hopped out of the cart (Christina hilariously fell on the ground as she did this), and Ron threw rocks at passing buses (like a real asshole) to try to get them to stop. They were incredibly lucky in that Flight Time and Big Easy spotted them as they passed and (probably in an attempt to make up for accidentally stealing their fanny pack in the last episode) got their bus driver to stop and let Ron and Christina on. An admirable thing to do, but fantastically stupid and frustrating. In a Race for a million dollars, being nice to other teams isn't really the smartest move. I also wanted to see Ron freak out some more, so I was hoping he'd stay stranded at the side of the road.
Returning to Old Town Lijang, teams had to insert a wish written on a piece of paper in a slot matching their zodiac sign on an ancient fair wheel. Flight Time and Big Easy had no idea what their zodiac signs were, so they took a while to do this before heading to the Detour: Hammer or Horn. Hammer had teams using big mallets to pound some sort of candy (it looked like toffee or something), while Horn had them leading a group of dancers across town while carrying a huge horn. Most teams picked the Hammer task and had little difficulty with it, although Christina got really frustrated when her real asshole of a father kept shoving candy in his face instead of working on the challenge. Seriously, one minute this guy is screaming that they're falling behind, the next he's stopping them on the way to a challenge so he can buy some fish from a roadside vendor. Make up your mind, dick; either you care about this Race or you don't.
Upon arriving at the Pit Stop (the Eternal Tower at a high point in town), Phil revealed another HUGE TWIST: they're STILL RACING! OK, we get it; you've brought back the whole "still racing" thing. You don't need to do it every other episode. Most teams just seemed pissed off by this, as the altitude had most of them really winded and I'm sure they all just wanted to go and rest.
The final bit of drama of the show was yet another phenomenally stupid mistake by Kent and Vyxsin: they lost their fanny pack. Vyxsin had actually lost her passport at the airport earlier in the episode, and they were lucky enough to find it, but this time Kent actually left their entire fanny pack (with all their money and travel documents) on the gondola they used to get back down off the mountain, and they didn't realize it until they were on the bus back into town. If you are running a Race like this, and you know that your travel documents are basically your life blood in the game, WHY WOULD YOU EVER LET THEM OUT OF YOUR SIGHT?! Kent didn't even do the challenge, for God's sake; there was no reason for him to take the fanny pack off! Unfortunately, this is The Amazing Race, so I'm sure we'll have some bullshit delay that will bunch all the teams together again, like they'll arrive at 7pm to a place that doesn't open until the next morning at 8am, so it's probable that Kent and Vyxsin won't be eliminated because of this. Dammit.
Current Rankings
- Margie and Luke
- Jet and Cord
- Gary and Mallory
- Ron and Christina
- Kisha and Jen
- Flight Time and Big Easy
- Jaime and Cara
- Zev and Justin*
- Kent and Vyxsin*
* Neither Zev/Justin nor Kent/Vyxsin had arrived at the mat at the Eternal Tower.
Stay tuned.
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