Jaunted

THE RACE
At Dubai's Souk Madinat Jumeirah resort, the racers choose a locked suitcase Deal or No Deal Style-style (sans scantily clad ladies) and bring it to Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club's marina to search for the next clue. Having a big lead from their fast forward, the beautiful blonds arrive first at the yacht club and they hit a roadblock.

ROADBLOCK
During this roadblock, each team must row an inflatable boat in the marina to a yacht anchored offshore. Cheyne, who has some rowing experience, jumps into the budget flotation device and takes some effort paddling and singing, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down Dubai." He climbs aboard the yacht and receives a watch from a sheik. After rowing back to shore, Cheyne quickly realizes that the watch is stuck on 8:35 and that the three digits are the code to open the suitcase, where the next clue awaits. Mr. and Mrs. America and Pinky and the Brain follow suit. The latter two teams even have time to dispense some beauty tips. Mrs. America says that even in that nasty Dubai heat, you have to try to look good. "You gotta start fresh and clean, you gotta try," she says. We also learn to never travel without your hair dye—in case "see-me-neon pink" isn't available in Dubai—as Pinky had dad help him with some touch-ups.

In the meantime, the Globetrotters get stuck with a dud taxi driver, who brings them to the Dubai Marina Yacht Club instead of the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club. When the ballers finally get there, they're neck-in-neck with the hot guys. Big Easy quickly abandons the oars and uses his looong arms to paddle. Flight Time tries to pump up his partner by saying, "Do it for the hood!" Not to be outdone, Sam hollers to his hot bro, "Do it for the suburbs!" When Big Easy makes it to the yacht, Flight Time—always looking to help his bud—tells him to pull up his wet undies. "Forget 'em, I'm from the 'hood remember?" Big Easy shouts.

Although the Globetrotters were at fourth place when they came to the marina, uncoding the suitcase does them in. Big Easy struggles to figure out the code as he watches the other teams easily open their cases and move on, including last-place team the God squaders. "The 'hood’s mad at me now," Big Easy says about his "duh" move.

DETOUR
The clue leads the teams to Abra Station, a water taxi port, where they get a detour and must choose between gold or glass. In gold, teams must find a jewelry store to measure out $500,000 worth of gold on a scale. The secret is to divide $500,000 by the gold exchange rate shown on the store's monitor and get that weight on the scale before the constantly-in-flux rate changes. In glass, racers go to a spice market where large crates of hookah parts await. The teams have to assemble 12 hookahs with their only guide being three already assembled Middle Eastern smoking pipes.

The beautiful blonds choose glass and do well assembling the hookahs, but they don't realize they have extra parts laying on the side. Meghan freaks out when they keep getting thumbs-down from the hookah checker, but the beautiful blonds finally spot the stray washers.

Mr. and Mrs. America choose gold, but after scratching their heads on how to calculate the correct weight, they ditch it for the glass task. "I'm better at spending money than counting and keeping it," Mrs. America explains. But the marrieds don't fare much better there, spending almost two hours trying to assemble the hookahs. They finally realize their error—the striped bases must have striped hoses attached—before moving on. Pinky and the Brain have no problems building the hookahs, except they can't find the gold tongs in the crate's hay.

Back at the jewelry store, the hot guys whip out a calculator, which they smartly packed, but they were at a loss as what to do with it. Luckily, the poker pals show up and since those ladies are good with numbers, they quickly figured out the mathematical formula. The allies help one another; the guys lend the ladies the calculator and in turn the ladies gave them the answer. The last-place Trotters originally choose glass, but when they see how long it took Mr. and Mrs. America, they leave to do gold instead. Big Easy asks the store next door to borrow a calculator and he redeems himself by figuring out the formula and getting the clue.

Next, the racers go to Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai, where teams must drop down a six-story, 90-degree-angle water slide that goes through a shark tank called the "Leap of Faith." The beautiful blonds admit they are both afraid of heights, but they take the plunge rather easily, as does everyone but God squader Mika.

Mika is scared of water and heights—why she'd join TAR knowing these fears makes no sense—and refuses to go down the slide, even though her team is in second-to-last place with the Globetrotters gaining on them. "I can't do it. I don't want to do it. I don't care, I'm scared to death," she cries to Canaan. "Dear God, please hear me." Canaan tries to push her down the slide, but Mika screams, "Help me! Help me!" at the poor water slide lifeguard, who looks unsure as what he should do. "You're gonna make us lose the race if you don't go down the water slide," Canaan yells. As he pleads for her to slide, the Globetrotters show up, which leaves the God squaders only two minutes to glide down the slide. Seeing an opportunity to psych out the competition, the usually kind Globetrotters (who helped the God squaders in the last ep) start playing on Mika's fears, shouting, "Don't do it!" When Big Easy taunts, "Don't hurt yourself, baby," the lifeguard tells the God squaders time is up. They move aside as the Trotters tackle the slide. As Big Easy queues up for his turn, Canaan angrily says to him, "I thought you were decent, Big Easy. You're a piece of crap, man."

PIT STOP
After the "Leap of Faith," teams have to find Dolphin Bay Beach in the sprawling Atlantis resort. The beautiful blonds arrive first, winning two personal watercraft and scoring their second consecutive win. The poker pals come in second, with the hot guys in third running in their red shorts, like a scene from Baywatch. The foursome have a group hug in the water.

OUSTED
"I didn't like seeing her cry, but it's a race," Big Easy says about the psyching out Mika at the top of the slide. "We're here for the race." Mika's refusal to go down the slide gave the trailing Trotters the advantage and the the God squaders get eliminated. "This is one of the most dramatic finishes we've ever had," Phil says.

NEXT WEEK
Mrs. America has a meltdown and the Trotters boogie on down in some ethnic garb, with Flight Time looking cute in a bonnet.

RECENT RACER'S RECAP by Kelly Crabb

Kelly Crabb competed in Season 13 of The Amazing Race, taking 6th place with her best friend, Christy. Coined as "America's Divorcee," this freelance writer and travel enthusiast lives life to its fullest in Houston, Texas and remains "bitchy with a heart of gold." This is her take on the show:

Last night’s episode showed us more of Dubai and its scorching temperatures. Meghan and Cheyne maintained their steady lead, once again, smoking all other teams. They might end up having more 1st place consecutive mat finishes than record holding brother and sister Nick and Star, who won Season 13. These youngins’ are just full of energy.

Thank God Matt redyed his hair. I was starting to get concerned that the pink was fading! In other news, Globe trotter “Big Easy” impressed us by rowing a boat with his own arms in lieu of oars at the beginning of the episode. Poker players Maria and Tiffany hoped to leave Dubai, but instead expertly calculated and weighed gold with ally team Sam and Dan during the detour. Several teams had trouble with this task and instead switched to assembling hookahs.

Mika pissed off a slew of viewers and Race fans by simply being too scared of a water slide. Flapping frantically in her floaties, she refused to slide down at The Atlantis Dubai Resort. The Harlem Globetrotters took strategic advantage of her fear and coached her not to do it, so that they could down go before her! Mika’s sheer lack of determination successfully slid them into last place, and they were therefore eliminated. The pitstop was beautiful Dolphin Bay Beach and all the teams rejoiced by splashing in the water, except, for Mika and Canaan. Canaan’s comment, “there’s freedom in forgiveness” surely shows how much he cares for Mika, because if it were me, I would have ditched the bitch.

I’m on edge to see who gets the ax next week!

Related Stories:
· The Amazing Race [Official Site]
· Amazing Race Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photos: CBS]