BWW Recap: Double the Challenges on THE AMAZING RACE

To root for, or not to root for? That is the question. Normally, by this point in THE AMAZING RACE, I've made my decision about who I want to win, and about who i definitely don't want to win. While I still have my selection for Team I Absolutely Don't Want to Win (congratulations, Chris and Logan, you take home that prize this season!), I'm not quite sure who I'm rooting for. If I had to pick, I'd go with the Reporters, but they haven't really done much of anything spectacular just yet. Until this last leg, that is!

Teams traveled from Poland to India - quite the drastic change, to say the least - and were welcomed by traveling in tuk tuks (a mode of transportation I'm desperate to test out for myself)! India always puts teams to the test. Between the exotic food and the insanely crowded streets and markets, at least one team is inevitably thrown off by the overwhelming, unique, and incredibly exciting country. If you can get through a leg in India without making any crucial mistakes, consider yourself a winner.

I'm going to do this recap a bit differently today. Instead of starting almost every paragraph with something along the lines of, "after the Green Team finished the challenge, everyone else arrived," I'm going to do a challenge-by-challenge breakdown. You know, for organizational purposes. Let's start off with...

The Road Block.

This week's Road Block, Coming Out in the Wash, requires teams to load a bicycle with dirty clothes, ride it down to the river, wash the clothes, and lay them out to dry. Sound pretty straightforward and easy, right? Wrong. So very, very wrong. This is probably one of the most physically demanding challenges yet (right up there with last week's mining challenge), and it absolutely takes a toll on the teams. There's a very particular process involving tying saris in knots, stirring them in a pot of water (surely I wasn't the only one who thought of that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Charlie's mom was doing laundry in a vat the same way, right?), and then laying them out to dry that really wipes teams out.

Especially the Texans, who, thanks to the Speed Bump, have to each complete the challenge. Nobody really has a major issue completing this task, but it takes quite some time. The Texans are essentially an entire challenge behind everybody else by the time they finish.

Next up?

The Detour.

It's Cans vs. Candy this week. In Cans, teams must load up a bike with 120 oil cans, ride it through an insanely crowded market (which looks awesome and terrifying all at the same time), and bring them to the New Taj Oil Company. See, now, this one seems like it should be really tricky. They've got cans piled ridiculously high, and they have to navigate through the bazaar. In India. Good luck, teams.

Except...it wasn't that difficult. The Green Team (obviously) flew through this challenge (just as they do in pretty much every single challenge ever), as did the Reporters.

In Candy, teams had to, well, make Indian candy. Fun, right? Sort of. Teams must cut pumpkins into slices, then

use a circular cookie cutter type of thing to push out approximately 90 pounds of candy. At least, they keep saying it's candy. It doesn't look like candy, though, that's for sure. It just looks like circular pumpkin slices.

Anyway, this challenge was surprisingly tricky compared to the Cans challenge, mostly because it was time consuming. Ninety pounds of pumpkin is a lot of pumpkin. True to form, the Paparazzi pretty much spent the entire challenge yelling at each other, but what's new there. In the end, they didn't have many major problems getting through this Detour. The Cheerleaders did fine after deciding to rotate between who slices the pumpkins and who pushes it through the cylinder to make the candy. They didn't seem as defeated as they did last week, but they definitely did not seem to enjoy their tuk tuk ride. Denise and James Earl (who are pretty much only still on this show for comic relief) did just fine, which, yet again, surprised me. I don't know why, but I always expect them to be worse at things than they actually are.

Much to my surprise, the Texans make it to the Detour while the Cheerleaders are still working, even though they had to go back and repeat the Detour. They're actually able to make up ground by being crafty and cutting out giant pumpkin slices! Good for you, Texans! Where has this umph been the rest of the Race!?

That umph was put to the test once again at...

The U-Turn.

Oh, the U-Turn: destroying teams since the first season of THE AMAZING RACE. Drama went down early in the episode regarding the U-Turn, which somehow ended up with the Green Team and the Paparazzi getting mad at each other even though the Cheerleaders were the ones who lied.

But I digress.

The Green Team obviously gets to the U-Turn mat first, but chooses not to U-Turn anyone. The Reporters arrive next, and they use it on the Texans! I was shocked! The Reporters?! Of all teams, they were the last team I expected to U-Turn anyone! Good for them, though - they finally made a move! Granted, they used it on a team that was already pretty darn far behind, and they weren't exactly on the brink of elimination, but still, a move's a move! As a result, the Texans must go back and do the other Detour challenge.

Those poor Texans. Not only did they have to repeat the Road Block, but now they also have to repeat the Detour. Poor guys. They're trying to hard this race.

Finally, teams start arriving at...

The Pit Stop.

The Moonlight Garden at the Taj Mahal. Gorgeous. It's just gorgeous. These are the things that desperately make me want to be on this show. In what other context would you be able to race around India, washing clothes and making traditional candy, and then get to rest at the Taj Mahal? It's a once in a lifetime experience that I'm determined to take part in.

Anyway, Justin and Diana arrive in first place...for the sixth time. What a surprise. Look how shocked we all are. At this point, we may as well just hand them the million dollars. No one else seems to be putting up a fight for them, which is one of the reasons I'm having problems choosing who to root for. The Reporters arrive in second place, and they're just as determined to beat the Green Team as I would be if I were on this season. Good luck to them. They're going to have to step it up, though, if they want to stand a chance.

The Paparazzi come in third place, which is genuinely surprising because they've been consistently in the bottom chunk of the teams. Good for them. They're still annoying, though. The Cheerleaders come in fourth place, and they seem just as surprised as we all are. Poor Denise and James Earl finally arrive in fifth place after having a multitude of problems finding the Pit Stop (why do I feel like this happens to them pretty darn frequently?), and th Texans arrive last. Unfortunately for them, their non-elimination leg luck has run out, and they're eliminated. They put up an intense fight, though, and should be (mostly) proud of themselves. Except for all of those blatantly stupid mistakes they made regarding the Express Pass. They should be proud of everything except that.

What did you think of the Texan's elimination? Who do you want to say goodbye to next week? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @CourtHenley!

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