The Amazing Race has always been a show that gets more exciting as it goes along, so it was no surprise that last night’s season premiere wasn’t the best episode I’ve ever seen. There are a lot of teams to try and get to know and they all start off on even footing, so it’s inherently not as thrilling as episodes later in the season can be. But I sure was glad to see that the show’s 20th season didn’t kick off with a non-elimination leg because the team that came in last? Yeah, those girls deserved to go home.

When the teams for this season of The Amazing Race were released, I wrote a post about the snap judgments I made. I was right in some situations, not in others. I expected to love “Bopper” and Mark, but instead I found them a little bit terrifying. Especially Mark, who screamed a lot. Dave and Cherie are, indeed, clowns and I can tell already that they won’t be my favorites. And I knew I wouldn’t be fans of Brendan and Rachel just from what little I’ve seen of Big Brother. (My boyfriend was opening a can of soup as Rachel was being introduced and suggested I pause the show because of the loud, high-pitched squeaking noise the can opener was making. “It’s OK, it’s basically the same as the sound of her voice,” I said. And I’m not even kidding.)

99 100 Red Yellow and Red Balloons

The race began in Santa Barbara, California, as Phil told the eleven teams they’d have to search in the baskets of 100 mini hot air balloons for their first clue. The first six teams to find a clue and make it to the airport would get on the earliest flight to Santa Barbara, Argentina. The remaining five teams would be on a later flight, a couple hours behind.

It was a task that required more luck than skill, but since teams had to run up a hill to get to the balloons it provided a good indication of which teams will find the race more physically challenging than others. The clowns were not in great shape. Bopper puked in the car on the way to the airport – it was unclear if it was because he overexerted himself running around looking for the clue, or if he gets carsick sitting in the back seat. Either way, it’ll be a long, vomit-y race for him!

I Wanna Jump To You

I really enjoyed the Road Block in this leg of the race, because it threw a lot of teams a curve ball. The clue asked who had a better sense of direction. One team member would enthusiastically declare “I do!”, and when they opened the clue they discovered that meant the OTHER person would be jumping out of a plane, while the walking, talking compass would have to locate them after they’d landed. Awesome. I loved seeing how some people who’d offered to “do the Road Block” were disappointed they wouldn’t get to jump out of a plane, while other people who thought they weren’t performing the Road Block were devastated to realize they’d gotten stuck with the scarier task.

Jersey meathead J.J. wasn’t thrilled to jump out of a plane since it “goes against all laws of nature” (physics? gravity?) and Stacy came the closest to not following through on the challenge.

Meanwhile, sisters Misa and Maiya made the first of their series of mistakes – while driving to the location where’s she’d pick up her skydiving sister, Maiya got her car stuck in some sand. She managed to flag down a friendly driver who towed her out, but incident put the sisters in last place. It was clear it would come down to the sisters or the Jersey boys – Danny had only attempted to learn to drive a stick the day before he left for The Amazing Race, so he had trouble driving to pick up his partner, Joey “Fitness”.

** Note to all reality TV hopefuls: If you’re going on The Amazing Race, train by learning to drive a stick and working on running for long periods of time. If you’re going on Survivor, train by learning to make a fire and overall strength and endurance. Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

Empanada 120

The next task required the teams to make 120 empanadas – 60 cheese and 60 meat, and each type had its own technique for creating the crust. I was shocked – shocked! – that Rachel of Big Brother noticed this so quickly, but apparently she is rather smart even though literally everything about her suggests otherwise.

The first team to finish the task was Dave and Rachel, a married career army officer and project manager, and they raced off to the pit stop to grab that Express Pass from Phil. I don’t think we’ve seen enough of this couple to know how much of a threat they are, but they did well this leg.

In second place were Brendan and Rachel, followed by Art and J.J., Nary and Jamie, Vanessa and Ralph and Elliot and Andrew. These were the teams that caught the earlier flight, so clearly there wasn’t a lot of room to make up ground in this leg.

In seventh place were Kerri and Stacy, followed by David and Cherie and Bopper and Mark. So it came down to the Jersey Shore meatheads “Fitness” and Danny, or the California airheads Misa and Maiya.

Misa and Maiya finished making their empanadas before the guys, so they should have made it to the pit stop in tenth place, narrowly avoiding elimination. Should have. But they made a few crucial mistakes that cost them a spot in the second leg. (I won’t say it cost them a million dollars, which is what the girls said in their post-elimination interview, because I don’t think they had a chance in hell of making it all the way to the final leg.) First, the girls left their bags in the car while everyone else had brought them to the challenge. So instead of taking off straight for the pit stop, they had to go get their stuff. That was bad enough, but it got so much worse. The ladies still made it to the pit stop ahead of the guys, Phil Keoghan could SEE THEM, yet they couldn’t see him. It was so weird. They went off to look somewhere else, and that was all the time Jersey Shore needed to finish their empanadas and make it to the pit stop, checking in in tenth place.

And on top of all that, Misa and Maiya tripped and fell over each other while looking for Phil in the wrong spot. It was like they were trying to look like complete fools! Their elimination was one of the silliest I’ve ever seen, because they were so close to the pit stop but too blinded by their own panic to see it.

All in all, I thought the first episode was decent but I’m more excited to see which teams rise to the top as we get a few legs in. I have my eye on the super-handsome twins. What did you guys think?

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