There's something that occurs at the beginning of most episodes of The Amazing Race that can be a big clue as to what's going to happen in that leg of the race. It's what veteran race watchers call the Loser Edit. In a Loser Edit, the team that's going to be eliminated at the end of the episode is given some interview time at the beginning of it to explain a little more about who they are and why they're racing and so on. Presumably every team gets interviewed like that all the time to provide Loser Edits for whichever team actually loses, but the one they show is a clue as to who's going out. The reason they do it, especially for teams who haven't had a lot of screen time, is to try to make that team more sympathetic, so that you feel bad for them when they leave the show.
This week's episode had a Loser Edit for Kerri and Stacy. Let's see how it turned out, shall we?
First off, we have some travel. There's a huge eight hour gap between the Fast Forwarded Team Border Patrol and the saved by non-elimination Bopper & Mark, but almost all of it gets eaten up by various travel related delays as the teams take trains across Europe to Bavaria. Most of the rest of it is lost by a good old fashioned Hours of Operation Bunching, so pretty much everyone is all caught up as they finally pick up clues and get rolling again.
That leads to the first decision point, a Detour. What's faster, sculpting an old German's beard into something really complicated, or following a trail of gingerbread then using it to complete a gingerbread house? It turns out that, like all the very best Detours, the answer is "it depends on who's doing it!" And if they're representative of the breed, my respect for the Border Patrol is growing in leaps and bounds. Who knew they were such good hair stylists?
Art & JJ prove to be good at beard sculpting, gnome curling, and perhaps most importantly, not getting lost, and manage to come in first. Again. That's three in a row for Team Border Patrol, and if that doesn't solidify them as the favorites to win it all, I don't know what does.
The rest of the leg plays out with relatively few surprises. A few teams get decoyed by the wrong castle, there being two on either side of the highway they're all travelling along, but in the end it comes down to race for last between Team DEA and Kerri & Stacy. Kerry & Stacy manage to finish the task, sliding a gnome along ice into the middle of a circle, first. Nery of the DEA girls has a horrible time of it, just being unable to get it right despite something like two hundred attempts, but to her credit, Jamie doesn't get down on her, and instead is encouraging as team after team races past them. They finally pull it off by a millimeter and rush to try and catch up with Kerri and Stacy, which any veteran race watcher will tell you almost never works.
Except that this time it does. Kerri & Stacy managed to get lost for the very last time, letting a relieved and nearly broken Team DEA hang on by their fingernails.
Loser Edit confirmed.
1st - JJ and Art (Border Patrol)
2nd - Joey "Fitness" and Danny (Jersey Boys)
3rd - Vanessa and Ralph
4th - Blonde Rachel and Dave
5th - Red Rachel and Brendon
6th - Bopper and Mark
7th - Nary and Jamie (DEA)
OUT - Kerri and Stacy (Cousins)
OUT - Eliott and Andrew (Twins)
OUT - Dave and Cherie (Clowns) OUT - Misa and Maiya
Dead Team Obituary: Kerri & Stacy
Kerri & Stacy had a pretty quiet race, all things considered. There was a brief fear of heights thing when they got fooled by the first Roadblock about who had to jump out of the plane, but other than that, they were rarely interesting enough to earn much in the way of screen time. What we did see of them was reasonably pleasant, certainly there was little of the overblown drama that infects the couples teams on this season. But that doesn't mean that I'm really upset to see them go. It's like that sometimes. With twenty two people racing around, the edits favor the most dramatic people and situations. Kerri & Stacy never had much drama. That's good for them in a way, because the drama is almost always ugly on this show, but it costs them the chance to be seen very much. C'est la vie.
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