A Shocker on Amazing Race

It's been nearly 24 hours, and I'm still shocked about last night's episode of Amazing Race: All Stars.

Even though my favorites were eliminated, it was a good episode. Even though I hate the fact that there is a "catch-up" point on nearly every leg (a lot of former contestants call it the "great airport equalizer"), I liked the detour - I always like when there is a fairly equal split between the number of teams who choose each. And it broke my heart to see Rob & Amber struggle so much with it. Rob said in an interview today that even though we heard Phil's voice over telling us that spelling counted that the contestants weren't told that. (they were told that the directions of the arrows mattered, even though we were told they didn't) He didn't realize it was a misspelled word that was holding him back until he watched it last night. And it was just tough that he was the only one who realized the correct order but essentially lost the race because he spelled a word wrong.

Which brings us to Mirna & Charla. Could they be any more annoying? Charla isn't so bad, but Mirna is horrific. (one of the other things that Rob & Amber said today is that they all liked Charla, but the confrontational & "shrillness" of Mirna that we see on tv is about a million times worse in person). They were also the subject of perhaps the best edit of the season. Mirna had an interview where she confided that she is the hardest working person to ever have to run the race, because she has to make up for her partners "shortcomings." A poor choice of words in itself, but they ran it over a shot of poor little Charla running down the hill. Oh to be a fly on the wall in their house last night. It was also horrible how she treated Charla during the detour and during their run to the mat (what was up with her screaming "LEVEL 5!!! LEVEL 5!!!" the whole way?). And I'm sick of their attitude that they can leave teams in the dust when it suits them (see: treatment of Mary & David), but are horribly offended when it comes back on them.

I also didn't totally understand the letters in the roadblock. Even though I don't like the "needle in a haystack" tasks (too much luck, not enough skill), I understand where you need a couple of "luck" tasks in the race. I just don't understand why they chose to have letters from the former racers that they did. In some cases it was great - like Eric & Danielle getting a letter from their former teammates. And even letters like the Guido's (from Frank) were funny. But some of the letters were downright mean. You can't tell me that they couldn't find a team to write a nice letter to everyone. Or was it really just another opportunity for them to run the clip of Marshall & Lance yelling "bitch" at Mirna & Charla. So strange.

In the end, bad luck and a bad detour meant that Rob & Amber fell from first to last and got eliminated. I am bummed. But I was also pleased at how they handled the elimination. They were also really gracious during their interviews today, and talked a lot about how great the race was, and how much fun they had at sequester (they're calling it "Elimination Station" this season), especially with John Vito (they watched the episode last night at his house) and Dave & Mary. I know they're the couple that everyone loves to hate, but I still just love them.