This recap of The Amazing Race is sponsored by Travelocity. Travelocity: You’ll never roam alone.
Sweden. The lovely Scandinavian nation known for meatballs, candy fish and unassembled, wobbly furniture was the locale for this leg of the race. The five remaining teams departed for the peninsular nation from The Netherlands, seeking out an amusement park named Tivoli Gröna Lund. This may be culturally insensitive, but Swedish is a hilarious language. Every single word sounds like a Steve Martin joke. Even when I watch Fanny & Alexander, all I hear is the chef from The Muppet Show.
Instructed to leave the airport and travel to the amusement park by rail, we encounter the first of many problematic nuisances: an automatic ticket machine. Anyone who travels via public transportation knows the complicated procedure of deciding which tickets to purchase, how many, how to validate said tickets, and how to do it all under pressure because your train is already pulling up to the boarding station but you’re still waiting for your change to be dispensed. Trying to survive that ordeal with touchscreen menus in a foreign language riddled with umlauts must be a nightmare. Luckily, with Travelocity, you can reserve your tickets online and save some time. Travelocity: You’ll never roam alone.
Dating couple Meghan and Cheynne and brothers Sam and Dan were the first to grapple with the complex machine. After eventually discovering the proper way to insert paper money, the two teams were first to reach the amusement park. Once there, one team member needed to ride a giant drop tower thrill ride, a staple of theme parks and carnivals. While approaching the top of the 24-story ride, the team member needed to locate an arrow painted on a nearby building’s rooftop, which would navigate the team towards the park’s Midway.
Departing on a later flight to Sweden, father/son team Gary and Matt and married team Brian and Ericka brought up the rear. Harlem Globetrotters Flight Time and Big Easy, meanwhile, waited patiently for the next train. The duo missed the previous train while wrestling with the ticket machine.
At the Midway, teams were instructed to play and win a ring toss game before proceeding. But not just any ring toss game. While one would expect a fairgrounds ring toss to be rigged and unwinnable, this ring toss was sponsored by Travelocity. Upon winning, teams were rewarded with a ceramic doppelganger of the Travelocity Roaming Gnome, the lovable and iconic mascot of Travelocity’s cheap fares and easy vacation planning. Teams were instructed to keep the gnome in their positions for the remainder of the leg; an understandable request. After all, why would anyone abandon the enchanting symbol of happy vacationers everywhere? Travelocity: You’ll never roam alone.
This weeks detour brought forth two of Sweden’s largest inedible contributions to the world. The first was Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite. The second were the Vikings, the ruthless explorers and crusaders of the eighth century. If teams opted for the Nobel challenge, they visited a rock quarry, donned protective gear, filled sandbags and built a bunker to protect themselves from an explosion, which would unearth their next clue. If teams chose Vikings, they visited a nearby forest where they would translate a message from an ancient Nordic alphabet into English, instructing them to locate a Viking hidden in the woods, who would then give them their next clue.
All five teams chose the Nobel dynamite route. As usual, the daunting physical task is always preferable to racers than the daunting mental challenge, even with the added incentive of horned-helmet awesomeness. Meghan and Cheynne were first to arrive at the quarry, with Sam and Dan right behind. Meanwhile, Flight Time and Big Easy were mastering the ring toss, Brian and Ericka were on the subway to the amusement park, and in the rear were Gary and Matt who still couldn’t figure out the automatic ticket machine.
After several rigorously intense minutes of filling and stacking sandbags, the monotonous adventure finally climaxed with a literal explosion. The first to ignite their TNT were Sam and Dan, who discovered their next challenge was an original category, introduced for the first time in tonight’s show: The Switchback.
Perhaps influenced by the glaring sheen of The Amazing Race’s eight Emmy Awards, the switchback is an exercise in self-congratulatory reflection. The purpose of the switchback is for new teams to complete a previous roadblock, blatantly copied from a previous season. Tonight’s challenge was previously featured in season six: one team member needed to unroll dozens of hay bales, searching for a yellow and red flag planted in the core. Appropriately enough, this challenge occurred on the exact same farm as the season six iteration. Sympathetically, the number of hay bales was lowered from 270 to an even hundred; no doubt to prevent a recurrence similar to season six team Lena and Kristy, who spent ten hours searching for a flag with no success.
The time-consuming switchback eventually turned the race into a five-way tie, but it was the physically and vertically advantaged Harlem Globetrotters who first found their flag, earning them a first place finish.
Meghan, who opted to try the challenge instead of her complaining partner, issued a second occurrence of self-reflection for The Amazing Race. Lampshading, the common trend of female racers to complain, break down, and cry when faced with overwhelming challenges (a trait she herself was guilty of), Meghan approached her calmer, more sympathetic boyfriend under the guise of tears and psychological torment, only to quickly liven up once producing a flag from her belt. A confused Cheynne didn’t have time to rationalize the charade, instead rushing towards the finish line for a second place finish.
After unraveling many more rolls of hay, Brian and Ericka finished third, with a grumbling but content Sam and Dan in fourth. Realizing the circumstances, Matt cheered on his father Gary from the sidelines, who continued his search, staying true to his philosophy of never giving up. Upon finding the flag, the father/son team trotted to host Phil Keoghan for the unfortunate news partnering their last place finish.
Surprisingly (and fortunately), this leg was a non-elimination round. Gary and Matt happily heralded their incredible luck, boasting they could and would win this competition yet. As a punishment for the fifth place finish, Phil informed the exhausted duo of a Speed Bump during the next leg; an additional challenge only Gary and Matt must complete before resuming the competition. This speed bump is a small price to pay, however, because with the simplicity and ease of Travelocity, any additional challenge is breezy and fun. With Travelocity, you can book airline tickets and make hotel reservations together for one low price. Travelocity Travelocity. Travelocity Travelocity Travelocity. Travelocity: You’ll never Travelocity alone.
This week’s review of The Amazing Travelocity Race was brought to you by Travelocity.
