The Amazing Race recap: Don't Look Backpack

While we have been made aware of many Amazing Race rules (only one player can complete a Roadblock; teams must follow every clue to the letter, etc.), there are apparently many that we viewers never learn, but which are written up in the Amazing Race Bill of Rights that are only spelled out to players. We were taught two of them tonight: You can not check in without your passport, and you can not barter your personal belongings for goods and services. Bertram Van Munster holds these truths to be self-evident (even if they’re not to viewers), and players must accept them as easily as they accept the rules that benefit them. For example, did you know that all Racers are promised a two-to-one tranny-to-player ratio in all matters karaoke? That’s a great deal!

Before we get into the penalties under debate, let’s back up to the beginning, when the teams found themselves off to Bangkok. When last night’s show was over, I turned on my computer only to be faced with this headline: Calls for revolution: Tourists warned to stay away as violent protesters take to Bangkok’s streets forcing Prime Minister to flee. Wow, it’s a good thing the Race wasn’t happening now. I imagine Jaime’s browbeating would not have gone over quite as well during a coup.

There was an odd moment at the beginning that left me utterly confused for a few minutes. Phil said that Tammy and Victor left at 9:27 p.m., while Jaime and Cara departed at 12:31 a.m., and Mark and Michael at 12:46 a.m. This made no sense at all, since Mark and Michael actually arrived at the pit stop before Tammy and Victor, and were only given a one-hour penalty. I spent far too much time drawing graphs and charts figuring out how this could be (had the time-shifting on Lost extended all the way to the Amazing Race?), only to realize that the producers had just made a mistake, and Tammy and Victor had left at 12:27 a.m., not 9:27. (Especially because they and the cheerleaders arrived at the pit stop at nearly the same amount of time.) There: now I’ve devoted far too much space dissecting this error, thereby wasting not just my own time, but yours as well. Is there a penalty for that, too? Do I now have to sit at my desk for four hours before I can start recapping again?

Anyway, the race resumed in Bangkok just as it had ended in Phuket: with Jaime yelling at cab drivers. When looking for verification that their cab was ”official,” Jaime asked someone else on the street and, when he consulted with someone else, she shouted at him, ”Listen! Listen! Stop talking to him!” Boy, her behavior really makes you want to invite Jaime over to your house for dinner, doesn’t it? Jaime said that language barriers turn her into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but does that analogy still hold when she’s never Dr. Jekyll? That’d be like if a prostitute said, ”I’m just like the main character in the movie Angel, where she was a high school honor student by day, and Hollywood hooker at night, except I’m not a high school honor student by day. Anyway, that’ll be twenty bucks.”

The teams are clearly getting more competitive. As they all took off in their cabs for their first destination—a boatyard—they mercilessly jockeyed for position as none of their cabbies knew where to go. When Kisha and Jen and Margie and Luke both pulled over, it seemed like Margie got her cabbie to give the sisters’ wrong directions, sending them off on a goose chase. You know someone’s truly bounced back from heatstroke when they have the presence of mind to screw someone over.

NEXT: The case of the disappearing nipple

And now a short break for a humanizing fact we learned in the cab: Jaime likes to call dogs ”doogies.” Isn’t that adorable?

And now a short break for a mitigating factor: After doing so, Jaime likes to scream at the ”doogies” for panting too loudly and for barking in a way that she can’t understand. Why the hell can’t they bark English like the rest of us? STUPID ANIMALS!

At the boatyard, the Roadblock involved attaching a propeller to a long-tail boat. Margie finished first, and Luke told her to make sure to bring their bags into the boat. Then, when Jaime finished, and their boat had set sail, she realized she’d left their bags with their cabbie, and made their boat captain turn around to get them. Why were the producers wasting time with all this talk of bags? Of course these people needed their bags, it’s a no-brainer! What kind of dope would…oh, whoops, never mind. Continue with your foreshadowing.

Moments later, the two doomed teams, Mark and Michael and Kisha and Jen, took off in their boats without their bags, passports, and wallets. Both teams realized their mistake, and just as quickly dismissed it. Jen seemed the most concerned, but gave in to her sister (who had gone so far as to leave her shoes back on the dock). Jen then carefully took a seat in the back of the boat so as to give the cameraman the optimal shot of her perched over her big sis’ shoulder, glowering. Sure, to further make her point she could have spent the whole trip silently shaking her fist at oblivious Kisha’s back, but that would have been gilding the lily.

And now for something odd that I noticed that I wonder if anyone else did. When Jaime dashed to the boatyard for the Roadblock, I noticed that she was slightly…asymmetrical. How do I put this delicately: She had one headlight on? She was winking at me? One of her turkeys was done? Am I not making myself clear? Let’s just say that in the chest region, one side was popping out, the other wasn’t. Now, I had no intention of including such a gauche observation in my recap. (Though considering I’ve noted the testi-Phils in the past, I’ve proved myself to be an equal-opportunity observer of clothing-poking appendages.) But something odd happened that made me comment: All the way up until the moment when the cheerleaders jumped onto the boat with their backpacks, Jaime was mono-nipplitic. But when we cut back to the boat after it had embarked on its journey, there was suddenly a black smear on Jaime’s shirt that looked like a Playboy bunny, and it covered Mt. Nipplest, rendering it invisible. And that bunny remained there for the rest of the leg. It could have been a grease stain from her propeller work, and yet it appeared long after she’d finished that task. Was it strategically placed as a demure cover-up? What else could it have been? Maybe her right breast has similar rage issues as Jaime, and some foreign bra made it so angry that its nipple exploded.

NEXT: Dentures or transvestites?

The Detour that awaited everybody was ”Broken Teeth” or ”Broken Record.” Broken Record involved getting in a karaoke cab and traveling/singing for five miles, while Broken Teeth involved searching through 50 sets of dentures soaking in off-colored water and jamming them into the mouths of five gummy patients until players found the right fit. It was a hilariously icky challenge, but I was confused by Phil’s explanation that both Detour choices were ”routine activities that the people in Bangkok have turned into something very unusual.” I get the karaoke cab, but the dentures? Is it a daily Bangkok routine to jam dentures into people’s mouths on the streets? Do people go about their business with a few sets of uppers jangling around in their pockets, in case they feel like stopping and slipping them into a stranger’s mouth, toothless or not? If I ever travel to Bangkok (and considering the news, it won’t be this week), I will make sure to keep my mouth shut.

Margie and Luke, in first place, opted for Broken Teeth, the only team to do so. Margie said, ”I’m a bad singer, but he’s a reeeeeally bad singer. I figured, we’ll spare the people of Bangkok.” This brings up an unrelated pet peeve of mine that I’ve been looking for a forum to air. As we all know, blind singer Scott MacIntyre was eliminated last week on American Idol, amidst endless patronizing praise by the judges about what an inspiration he was. My question is, why was he such an inspiration? I’m not saying he hasn’t had to struggle in life because of his disability, but in this particular forum, his handicap had nothing to do with the talent being judged. He’s blind, not mute. If he was in an archery competition, that would make him an inspiration. Just as if Luke was a reeeeally good singer, that would make him an inspiration. Okay, back to the show at hand. Thanks for indulging me.

Margie has a nursing background so, as she said, it was easier to invade someone’s personal space. (And by ”space,” she meant piehole.) She ended up finishing the whole task as Luke tried to stick uppers onto lower jaws, and lowers into uppers. I’m pretty sure at one point he tried to attach a propeller to one woman’s tongue.

Tammy and Victor and the cheerleaders jumped into taxis with their complimentary set of tranny backup singers. It was the happiest I’d seen Jaime all Race, but I can relate. At the age of 39, I’ve only recently had my eyes opened to the joys of karaoke, through the hilarious book Don’t Stop Believin’: How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life. In fact, just tomorrow night I will be going out to belt the cheesiest songs of my youth with the author of that very book, Brian Raftery. I revel in karaoke as a way to marinate in my own musical nostalgia, getting a lost-youth tear in my eye even from such inane tunes as John Parr’s ”Naughty Naughty.” Considering how I am prone to nostalgia over even the most mundane moments in my life, provided they are at least 20 years in the past, I wonder if in 2029 I will find myself in a private karaoke room, weeping openly as I make my way through the Thai pop tune from this very episode. ”Oh, Amazing Race transvestites,” I will snuffle after the last refrain. ”You taught a nation how to sing and how to tuck.”

Everyone seemed to enjoy the singing trannies. Jen was able to put aside the stress of their missing passports to deliver the line of the night: ”My first question was, Are those transvestites? My next question was, Why do they wear so much makeup? Third question was, Why are we in a party taxi with three transvestites?” Good questions, all!

NEXT: What is Michael smuggling in his bag?

Meanwhile, Mark and Michael were not having a good time yet. The two brothers were in a state of permanent bickering over whether to go back and get their bags before the Detour, or after. Michael was pressing for now, as he kept referring to ”important stuff in that bag that’s not replaceable.” Mark became angry that his brother’s belongings were more important to him than winning. It was a difficult debate to settle without knowing just what this unnamed stuff was that Michael was hoarding. Was it mementoes from home, or trinkets he’d picked up along the way? Players can’t spare any cash, so he probably wouldn’t be buying any souvenirs. Oh my God, maybe he stole something off the Gypsies, and one put a curse on him that made him short! What’s that? He was that way when the Race started? Never mind then, it’s probably just a Transylvania snow globe.

Unlike Kisha and Jen, the brothers ultimately decided to go back and get their stuff before continuing on the leg of the Race. To give a sense of how far back they were, even before they made that call, Marge and Luke were already arriving at the pit stop. And to add insult to injury, as they neared the mat, Luke yelled, ”Mom, let’s drop our bags now.” Rub it in, why don’t you!

After finishing their karaoke, Kisha and Jen were able to beg a cabbie to give them a free ride to the mat, arriving after the cheerleaders, but right before Tammy and Victor. There Phil delivered the bad news: They could not check in until they had their passports, so off they dashed to track down their stuff back by the boatyard. Meanwhile, Mark and Michael had finally arrived at the Detour with their bags, but without enough money to pay their cabbie, so Mark offered a flashlight and compass to make up the difference. How did he manage to find the one spelunking cabbie in all of Bangkok?

The brothers then hooked up with their posse of trannies (although I’m not convinced they ever realized their companions weren’t really women) and were ready to croon. Said Mark, ”We’re part of the entertainment business, so we know how to show these girls a good time.” Wait a minute, aren’t they stuntmen? That means that they know how to show these girls a good way to get over the head with a two-by-four, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re naturals at the mike.

Having arrived at the pit stop, Mark again began haggling with the cabbie, offering him a very expensive carabiner. I’ll be damned, now he found the one rock-climbing cabbie in Bangkok! What else does he have in his knapsack of fun, and what could he get for it? Perhaps by handing over just one allen wrench (”very expensive!”) he could get the one Ikea-obsessed cabbie in Bangkok to give him and Michael really tiny foot massages.

NEXT: Battle of the penalties

The brothers arrived at the mat; when I looked at the clock and saw there was ten minutes left, I knew that clearly this wasn’t over yet. Sure enough, Phil looked at them disappointingly, and broke the news: Because they’d ”used personal possessions to settle a bill” twice, they got a four-hour penalty; that’s two hours per settled bill. Damn, those guys can not catch a break! Either that or those guys can not read a rule book. After the show, EW’s Kristen Baldwin emailed me to call bulls— on this call; she thinks it was made up to punish Mark and Michael, or just play favorites. I don’t think so, but the only other time I can think of a team losing their passports was last season, when Dallas lost his and his mom’s in a Russian cab. They finished the leg without their papers, and no penalty was mentioned at the mat, but they were in last place anyway and were eliminated, so it was moot.

I can’t know what really happened, but I will say this: If I were a Race producer, and I’d been doing this for 14 seasons, it would be tempting to start randomly inventing rules just to watch the shocked expressions on the contestants’ faces. And what would be more fun than doing it to the same team two weeks in a row? Next week I’d penalize them six hours for not skipping to the mat. Anything to take my mind off the constant jet lag.

Kisha and Jen finally made it in, and were so shocked to find out that they weren’t in last place that they broke down in tears. (They had been around 50 minutes behind, judging from the brothers’ penalty clock.) Phil then summoned Mark and Michael to tell them that they’d been granted a reprieve: It was, in fact, a non-elimination leg, but their full penalty would be added to their departure time. So not only would they have to do a Speed Bump, but they’d be leaving about three-plus hours after the second-to-last team. (Of course, if everyone ends up bunching up at the airport like they did on this leg, the late departure time is irrelevant.) Michael tried to explain to Phil that they only paid with belongings because ”In the land of Buddha, we didn’t want to create bad karma,” but Phil just stared down at them like, ”Oh, go peddle that faux-spiritual crap to Ty Pennington, ’cause I ain’t buying it, no matter how many flashlights and compasses you throw in.” (Check out Phil Keoghan’s blog to see if he shows any empathy toward the brothers, because he sure wasn’t showing any last night!)

What do you think about these suddenly-revealed penalties? Or are you glad Mark and Michael got saved? And are you looking forward to next week’s (literal) bitch-slap between Jen and Luke? I know I am: Phil’s been promising a mat meltdown all season long, and I think this will be the week that mat goes up in flames.