TAR - All Stars Episode 12

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 12 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Eric & Danielle being the last team to reach the Pit Stop but the third team to be saved from elimination on the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located at Trilho da Taipa Pequena 2000 Park in Taipa, Macau, China.

In the Detour for this leg of the Race, teams had to choose between ‘Care Package’ or ‘Engine Care’. In ‘Care Package’, teams had to fill a 500-pound package with various humanitarian aid items for a neighbouring island. Once that was completed, the teams then had to board a transport plane and participate in an ‘air drop’ training exercise. Though the easier of the two Detour tasks, the mission took at least half an hour to complete. In ‘Engine Care’, teams had to clean an engine pod and associated flap section on the wing of a B-52 bomber until one of the base's sergeants felt the portion of the plane was clean enough.

In the Roadblock, teams had to perform a search-and-rescue mission. Using a GPS receiver, team members had to locate a pilot in the Guam forest, receive new GPS coordinates from him, locate the landing zone, and signal for a helicopter to pick them up and take them back to the naval base.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Dustin & Kandice
2. Charla & Mirna
3. Eric & Danielle
4. Oswald & Danny


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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1. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 1
This week: No change

I think everyone, including myself really discounted this pair of blondes from the start of the race. Early on this discounting seemed fairly valid, but as the race progressed they’ve really shone and done well. Perhaps as no one thought of them as a threat that has played to their advantage. In the last few episodes they’ve really been disliked by the other teams and yet still seem to get to the head of the pack, so good on them I say.

They didn’t do anything wrong this week and in a leg where everyone seemed to be racing very close together they did well to not fall behind at all. It was funny seeing the girls trying to charm the drill sergeant into thinking they had done an adequate cleaning job.

Whichever one of them did the navigating task had no problems finding the lost soldier and making it back to the landing zone. Best of all she really seemed to enjoy herself doing the task. This summed up the one good quality that I like about this team, that no matter what the task was, they were always cheerful to do it and I don’t think I recall them ever being really prissy or precious about it.

Of the remaining teams these two are the most deserving to win, but I’m not too bothered if they do or not, cause for some reason I just can’t empathise with them. I don’t think they are horrible people or disagree with much of what they did, but I just don’t care much about them.



2. Eric & Danielle


Last week: 3
This week: Up one place

Who? Oh that’s right, they’re dead to me.


3. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 2
This week: Down one place

I actually don’t care if these guys win the race as long as someone beats, ‘dead team walking’. And I don’t really think this team should win, although if they did maybe Mirna could afford some driving lessons. As it was pretty rich to hear her telling the soldier who was chauffeuring them somewhere, “I hope you’re a good driver.”

These two were the only team to choose the task which involved packing and dropping off a care package. The soldier who was supervising this task had to tell them to be careful with the stuff they were packing as it was not garbage, when they were just chucking the food and books into the box.
I actually thought that they were goners when they chose this task when no one else did, and although the care package drop off took about 30 minutes, it didn’t put them too far behind everyone else.

I reckon that if I were to write a script for TAR which involved C&M, my summary for detours would read: (Charla performs detour – hilarity ensues). And indeed this was the case! I think I heard the soldier who walked with her on the navigating task tell Charla off at least 3 times for pushing buttons on the GPS device. Each time the guy sounded more and more pissed off as well, “I’ve told you mama, don’t press any buttons.” I could have sworn the guy was muttering, ‘Moron’ under his breath. It was made even funnier by the fact that in the beginning even Mirna had told her not to press any buttons, as though she had some predisposition to press random buttons on any electronic device that she got in her hands.


4. Oswald & Danny: ELIMINATED!


Last week: 4
This week: No change

Apart from Bevis, who’s nose is so far up Eric’s butt, he appears to be his tail (kidding!), everyone who’s anyone wanted this pair to win. Unless you’re a gay hating homophobe…and you’re not one of them…are you??? Now that hope is gone. The final three really should have included them, but that’s not to be. It doesn’t matter how deserving you are, or how many legs you win, this game has so many random elements that even complete jerks, plastic mannequins, or….Charla and Mirna have a chance at winning.

O&D bowed out gracefully and made a few more funny comments as they left. After Rob and Amber left these two were my main reason for enjoying and being entertained by this shows ‘personalities’. Without wanting to sound like one of the homophobe types I mentioned above, I find that with many game shows, the gay people or couples they have on them really seem chosen to help portray a certain type of bitchy, overly sensitive personality, but O&D were a refreshing change from this. They were always funny and very entertaining. I was a little thrown by their wanting C&M to win, but after their incident with yields, D&K and E&D, I can understand they might be biased against the other two teams.

So may the best of a bad lot win.



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If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that BEVIS posted on his blog.


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