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The Watercooler: Challenges ring 'Race' contestant's bells

By Dawn Meade Davenport
Press TV Blogger
ddavenport@johnsoncitypress.com

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Who knew bells could be so confounding? On last night’s episode of “The Amazing Race,” one team fell hopelessly behind trying to count them at a Roadblock and another was defeated trying to ring one at a Detour.

All I can say is it’s about time. The first four episodes of the season featured some pretty lame challenges. The challenges should be complicated enough or require enough fortitude or skill that they separate the winners from the losers.

Last week, we finally got a taste of that when a six-story waterslide sent Mika into a panic. It was a pretty simple challenge for most of the teams, but poor Mika had a paralyzing fear of heights and water. She looked ridiculous, sitting at the top of that slide in her water wings wailing “Why?” Her teammate and boyfriend Canaan proved again that he’s a bully, at one point grabbing her arms and trying to push her down the slide. I can sympathize. I wanted to throttle her myself.

We only saw a few minutes of this, but from what I understand, this went on for 45 minutes, until Flight Time and Big Easy got to the slide, at which point Mika and Canaan were given two minutes to either go down the slide or step aside for the other team. I was dismayed that the Globetrotters chose to torment Mika and talk her out of going down the slide just when it seemed she might be ready to let go. I understand it might have meant the difference between winning or losing for them, but I still thought it was ugly.

That brings us to this week’s challenges. First, the Roadblock, in which one member of each time had to climb a bell tower and count the bells inside. It looked confusing to me, and it had to be especially hard to count when the bells were ringing, but five of the six players got the right number, 62, on the first try. (Granted, the poker players were given the answer by Dan and Sam.) Former Miss America Ericka was the only one who struggled, making several guesses and falling way behind the other teams before finally getting it right.

Ericka’s husband, Brian, was compassionate and encouraging throughout the task. It had to be frustrating for him to wait at the bottom and watch all of the other teams head toward the Detour while Ericka climbed that tower again and again.

Those carillon bells set Ericka and Brian back a lot, and then they failed to read the Detour clue properly and walked to the Farmers Dance Detour rather than riding bikes. This cost time the time it took to walk there in those wooden shoes and a 30-minute penalty when they finally made it to the Pit Stop. Their only salvation: Tiffany and Maria couldn’t complete either Detour challenge .

They started out at the Farmers Dance, where they had to ring a carnival-style bell with a hammer. Neither of them was strong enough to send the ringer to top. After a about two dozen tries, they gave up and decided to try the other Detour challenge, Farmers Golf. In this one, they had to strip to their Dutch costume underwear, swim across a cold river then hit a big ball into three holes in eight strokes or fewer per hole. By the time the women got there, the winds were blowing hard and they were already exhausted from trying to ring that blasted bell. They couldn’t make the first hole.

They gave up again, returning to the dance hall, where they hugged and cried and still couldn’t muster enough strength to ring the bell, so back to the river they went. They were visibly cold and downtrodden by this point, and their second attempt at this odd golf game didn’t go any better than the first one.

I always feel for the teams who must face host Phil Keoghan at the challenge location, but Tiffany and Maria seemed to take it pretty well.

I hated this pair the first week or two of the season, but by last night they had grown on me, particularly Tiffany, who played the game with enthusiasm and good humor.

I hope the challenges continue to test the physical and emotional capabilities of the five teams that remain. I can’t say I’m pulling for any particular team this season, so I’ll just wish them all the best.