As far as The Amazing Race goes, it’s a high pressure show and pretty suspenseful. This episode? Not so much. I don’t know if they just didn’t capture the essence of urgency or if it was totally lacking from this leg, but it was calm as hell.
The teams leave Bariloche and must fly to Frankfurt and then go by train to Hamburg. The teams are split up between three different flights but it seems like they’re all within minutes of each other, save the cowboys and detectives.
Those two teams get to Hamburg first, the only teams to make the first train and get to the Road Block first. But wait! It’s the first ever Intersection. Two teams must work together to complete their Road Block. What they have to do is go through the metro to Hamburg Harbor and then bungee jump! As Jeff says, “That’s gunna be up high yo-yo’s!”
Brandy has a minor meltdown but Jordan helps her through it, everyone jumps without issue. Joe though, does have a busted knee and it does exacerbate it a bit. This came back to bite him in the ass later, but we’ll get to that when we get to that.
Once they complete the jump and get back to their teammate, they have to find the statue of the first German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, on a horse. Once they get there they find the Detour.
Their choices are soccer or sauerkraut. Being German, there is absolutely no reason to choose anything other than sauerkraut, regardless of the actual task. In soccer, they have to kick at targets in a goal from the penalty line. Once they hit all five, they’ll get their clue. In sauerkraut, they have to get to a restaurant and finish a plate of sauerkraut before a band finishes playing the sauerkraut polka. Sauerkraut, sauerkraut, sauerkraut. If they don’t finish in the allotted time, they have to start all over again. Sauerkraut.
Oddly enough, most choose soccer and kill it! The detectives are way ahead of everyone, even though they did the Road Block with Jet and Cord. They finish sauerkraut in an instant and extend their lead. Joe and Heidi were set back a bit, Joe’s knee was hurting too much to finish so they had to switch. Jeff and Jordan were the only other team to switch as well, they got ridiculously lost on the way to sauerkraut then couldn’t finish the task. Even though they were way behind, they were really collected the whole time.
So once they finish the Detour, they have to go to Haifisch Bar and finish a boot of beer before receiving their next clue. Here we learn that many, many of these contestants don’t drink beer or at all. Jet and Cord looked like they were wasted half was through. Cord’s motivational words for Jet to finish included, “you’re down to a tennis shoe”.
With at least a quart of beer inside their bellies, they have to get to Beatles-Platz, a monument honoring The Beatles. Once there, they have to run through the bust streets of Hamburg’s red light district and find the place The Beatles played their first gig in Germany, Indra.
The detectives are the first to arrive and Jeff and Jordan were the last. Not to worry though! This was a non-elimination leg. So they must complete an extra task the next leg of the race and not be last again to continue on.
Next week is looking to pack all the punch of a normal leg and then some. Not only is there the added pressure on Jeff and Jordan but the dreaded blind U-turn makes a return and is used! Drama!
I was in suspense! But only because I was worried about Jeff and Jordan.
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