bunt sign live

Just be quiet and smell
What stood out most for me on tonight’s episode of The Amazing Race 12 wasn’t the mysterious disappearance of TK and Rachel for most of the show, or Nicolas getting lost yet again (this time in Osaka), or even Ronald’s sudden emergence as a beacon of support for his long-suffering daughter Christina. What stood out was what an engaging person Jen can be, when Nate isn’t around. I suspect the same might be true of him without her, but together they are poison. If they’re still together after the race, they’ll have to invent new things to bicker about.

Somehow, even though they started out last, nearly an hour behind, Nate and Jen got to the front of the pack early in the leg and stayed there until the end. That’s when Christina’s fluency in Japanese got her team to the Pit Stop first, even though they finished the Detour second. Both of these teams have always been good when things were going well, and really, this was an episode of sweetness and light for all the teams. There was none of the breakneck jockeying for position or underhanded sabotage that has marked earlier legs. In fact, it was a pretty tame episode, by Amazing Race standards.

Still, it will be fun to see how TK and Rachel fare next time, with a three hour time gap and an extra task to complete. Now is when teams start turning on each other, which means they’d better stop turning on themselves. I’m talking to you, Nate and Jen. The other three teams seem to have figured that out already. I love how solicitous Nicolas is of his grandfather, and how patient Christina is with her father (though I also love it when she gets fed up and tells him off).

I wish TK and Rachel had a better shot at winning, because they’re a wonderful couple and a lot of fun to watch, but they got some bad travel advice tonight and committed the cardinal sin of not staying aware of where the other teams were. If you’re all alone on an airplane, you’ve probably taken the wrong flight. At least if another team is on the same wrong flight, you know there’s someone you can beat.

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