Is everyone ready for another season of The Amazing Race? This is a show that I think has really lagged for the past several seasons. I didn’t even bother to check out the teams in advance this year, in fact I almost forgot the show would be on.

I immediately hated two guys who called themselves the “Afghan-imals”, and two women who listed “baseball wives” as their careers. That is an insult to everyone with a real job, like ER doctors and social media managers!

The teams departed from the Western USA in the year 1800… oh wait, no. They were somewhere in L.A. and raced to the airport to book flights to Iquique, Chile.

Roadblock: Follow the Leader

In the first Roadblock, one team member had to paraglide while the other would follow from the ground. Fun! I would paraglide. I was glad to see the season kick off with a fun challenge.

One of the married ER doctors knew Spanish, which was a big advantage. She was able to communicate with her cab driver to explain that they were following her paragliding husband.

Roadblock: Collect Five Fish

In the second roadblock, one team member had to row a boat in search of the right ones to collect fish. Travis, the ER doctor, finished really quickly. It looked gross.

It felt like this episode moved too quickly. I wonder why the producers chose to do two Roadblocks instead of a Roadblock and Detour? The first team checked in when the show was only halfway through. The ER doctors arrived first, but they hadn’t followed clue instructions and didn’t go on foot. They had to wait out a thirty minute penalty.

The annoying exes arrived before the penalty was up, so they got first place and the two Express Passes. The docs were checked in in second place. The Bingo Queens came in third, the football players fourth, and the baseball wives fifth. The hockey girls were sixth, the “Afghan-imals” seventh, and the dating couple in eighth. The bearded guys and the Oklahoma boys were already rowing when the father/daughter team showed up, and I felt bad that the sixty year-old dad would have to row.

Except…they read the clue wrong and the daughter thought she had to row. Amateurs! Three teams did a crap job of reading clues during this leg. Get it together, people!

The Oklahoma boys came ninth, and the bearded dudes in tenth.

It was dark by the time the dad was finishing the Roadblock. They were eliminated from the race. It’s too bad to see a father/daughter team go because that can be an interesting dynamic, but we didn’t see much from this team to know whether they would have been fun to watch.