(SPOILER ALERT: The following post contains results from Wednesday night’s two-hour installment of “The Amazing Race” on CBS):
Season 30 of “The Amazing Race” continued tonight with back-to-back episodes. Our first destination? Saint-Tropez, France — a “playground for the rich and famous.”
At the start of the night, nine teams remain in the competition, including Team Chomp — consisting of San Jose’s competitive-eating dynamo, Joey Chestnut, and his teammate Tim Janus. They haven’t exactly set the world on fire, but they’ve managed to hang in there, generally with middle-of-the-pack showings. Can they keep on just getting by?
In Saint-Tropez, they and their rivals were challenged to steer little white dinghies through choppy waters and collect clues off buoys. Team Extreme — with Kristi looking like a masterful skipper — mastered the task and got the jump on the Detour. Other teams didn’t handle the crafts nearly as well. In fact, Joey’s boat, at one point, took on lots of water and nearly capsized. Meanwhile, Cedric of Team Slam Dunk was just too big for the tiny dinghy.
The Detour had the teams choosing between learning how to make sandals, or bake baguettes. The women of Team Extreme chose the sandals and managed to maintain their lead through the task, pushing them on to a Head-to-Head competition.
The Head-to-Head battle consisted of a Bocce Ball-like game called Petanque. And this is where Team Extreme is knocked out of the lead as Team Indy Car — Alex and Conor — edged them to take the game and this leg of the race. (They also pocketed $5K apiece).
The leg’s other finishers, in order, were: Cody and Jessica (Team Big Brother), Kristi and Jen (Team Extreme), Joey and Tim (Team Chomp), Trevor and Chris (Team Well Strung), Henry and Evan (Team Yale) and Eric and Daniel (The Firefighters), Lucas and Brittany (Team Ocean Rescue) and Cedric and Shawn (Team Slam Dunk).
Cedric and Shawn, who only survived last week because it was a non-elimination leg, were eliminated for good when Lucas and Brittany beat them in the final had-to-head matchup.
Now, it’s on to Les Baux in the province of Provence, and Hour 2 of this marathon installment.
First up: A Road Block challenge. On a site where bloody battles happened during Medieval times, teams are tasked with constructing an actual catapult. While one team member does the building, the other is forced to be held in stockades. For Team Chomp, Tim does the building and Joey gets locked in the stocks.
Lucas was the first to complete his catapult, propelling Team Ocean Rescue from last place to first. Cody and Jessica were close behind, followed by Kristi and Jen.
After that, came the Detour, which offered the option of searching for ribbons in a bullfighting arena or unlocking a puzzle within a replica of a Van Gogh painting. But poor Team Chomp remained stuck with the catapult project. As Tim struggled, Joey could only look on helplessly from the stockade and mutter, “This is a nightmare.”
Tim wound up finishing the catapult before the Indy Car guys, but by now they had slipped from fourth to seventh place and their chances to remain in the race appear dire.
For The Detour, all of the teams except for Joey and Tim choose to search the bulls for ribbons — mainly because Joey doesn’t want to do “a lot of running” through the bullfighting arena. Apparently, competitive eaters aren’t into cardio. Is it a fatal mistake for Team Chomp? We’ll see.
Lucas and Brittany are the first team to finish — their first victory after nearly being eliminated several times. This calls for a proposal! Lucas gets down on his knees and presents a big glittery rock to his “princess.”
“I’m on Cloud 9,” she says. “It’s surreal.”
Kristi and Jen took second, followed by Eric and Daniel, Team Yale, Team Indy Car and Team Big Brother.
Meanwhile, Joey and Tim are stuck on the painting puzzle while Team Well Strung is headed to the arena. It’s a battle of futility! Who will make the fewest mistakes?
By the time Trevor and Chris get to the mat, they’re convinced that no one could have been slower than them. But Phil gives them the happy news: There is still one team out there and, yes, it’s Team Chomp.
“Damn,” Joey mutters when he and Tim are informed of their elimination. “… It’s sad. We really loved this. But I’m happy me and Tim competed. I’m happy he’s my partner. There are things that I couldn’t have done that Tim did. We succeeded together and we failed together.”
And then this final line:
“I guess we aren’t wieners today.”
Ugh.
