“Good Doing Business with You” spoilers below:

Things that happened

Teams must now take a Turbo Ferry to Macao (Studio 60 throw-back!!!) and find a man with a rickshaw at the terminal to give them their next clue. Danny and Oswald are first to leave and are over two hours ahead of Kandice and Dustin. Since it’s the middle of the night, I expect that lead will mean nothing. The ferry leaves every ten minutes or so, so no bunching right away! Danny and Oswald are almost broke and the ferry is expensive. Don’t worry, it turns out later that Danny and Oswald are shrewd business men.

Team must then figure out what the tallest tower in Macao is and search inside for their next clue. Surprisingly, it’s the Macao Tower! Dustin and Kandice catch up to Danny and Oswald. Danny and Oswald make them an offer: they ill Yield whomever the Beauty Queens want if they give them some money. Dustin and Kandice decide to go for it, and choose to Yield Eric and Danielle (again!)!

I get that the Yield is a racing strategy. I also get the Eric and Danielle are stronger racers than Charla and Mirna, and strategically, Yielding them makes the most sense, and the Beauty Queens have been smart and strategic racers for most of this race (let’s forget about their first couple legs, shall we?) . However, I really feel bad for Eric and Danielle to get Yielded again. Seeing Charla and Mirna get Yielded would have made this episode.

The Macao Tower opens at 10am, which gives Charla and Mirna enough time to catch up. Inside, the teams get a clue telling them it’s Roadblock time! This Roadblock is Sky Jump, and one team member gets to jump the 660 feet off the top of the tower to the ground! Danny also takes this opportunity to tell Charla and Mirna about the deal (because for some reason, Charla and Mirna offered them money, with no strings attached!) and Mirna takes this opportunity to switch it all around with the “devil” beauty Queens “convincing” Danny and Oswald to make an “evil” deal.

Mirna also takes this time to interview about how everyone underestimates Charla except her. Again, she gets things backwards. ONLY YOU underestimate Charla, Mirna! Did you not see your own Amazing Race season?!

Kandice, Danny and Charla do the jump in that order. From there, teams must take a taxi to Lou Lim IOC Gardens and search for their next clue. Here, it’s time for the Detour. I’m so glad the final three will be decided by racing skills and not flights, but the produces have been pretty good about that through all ten seasons. However, with the way this season has been going, I didn’t know what to expect. The Detour choices are Noodle, where teams can make noodles in a traditional Macao style that involves humping a pool, or Dragon, that involves carrying and installing a dragon head on a dragon boat.

Dustin and Kandice arrive first and decide to do Noodle. Danny and Oswald arrive second and decide to do Dragon. Dustin and Kandice appear to be doing well, and are having a good time with it, but cut the noodles too wide and need to redo it. While they are redoing it, Charla and Mirna show up.

Danny and Oswald are having an awful time with their Detour. First, the cabbie doesn’t know where to go, then takes them to the end of the Detour. Then, while transporting the dragon head, they get lost.

Dustin and Kandice finish the task quickly and are off. Teams now need to these weird mini cars and drive themselves to the island of Taipa, where the Pit Stop and Phil are waiting.

Eric and Danielle catch up, decide to do the Noodle task, and complete it before Charla and Mirna because they bickered far less than Charla and Mirna did. Charla and Mirna finally get it done, and Danny and Oswald are still lost.

Dustin and Kandice hire a scooter to take them to the Pit Stop. Dustin and Kandice are team number one! Hooray!!!

Eric and Danielle hire a cabbie to take them to the Pit Stop. They are team number two, but must wait out their non-elimination penalty before they can check in. They keep showing Eric saying evil, immature (but understandable) things while Charla and Mirna have a difficult time with the car. They manage to figure out how to drive it, hire a cabbie and get to check in as team number three.

Dustin and Kandice take this time to tell Eric and Danielle why they are Yielded but leave out WHO choose what team to Yield. Maybe they ARE sneaky and evil.

Danny and Oswald finally get unlost, follow a cabbie, only to have the cabbie take them to the wrong entrance. While they are lost, Eric and Danielle’s penalty runs out and get to be team number three.

Danny and Oswald are the last team to arrive but IT’S ANOTHER NON-ELIMINATION. I’m sorry, but that is the worst leg planning EVER. I’d rather see a super leg (which is probably coming up next) than multiple non-eliminations in a row.

Things that were good

• Eric and Danielle and the Beauty Queens raced well this leg. Really well. The last leg before the final three should be like this one: all about racign skills and a team’s ability to stay calm. However, this wasn’t the last leg before the final three. Can you tell I’m pissed about that?!
• The deal Danny and Oswald made with Dustin and Kandice was a smart racing move. They shouldn’t have felt so guilty about that. And karma biting them in the ass, pfffffft. They had a cabbie whose English was terrible. That’s Macao, not karma.
• The Detours seemed fairly evenly matched, and Danny and Oswald sucked at it because they sucked at it and not because it was overly hard.
• The fact the jump at the Roadblock was an Amazing Race record. That is what an All-Stars season should be about. Without being ridiculous, of course.
• Charla impresses me with every episode. I guess I’m one of those people who underestimates her. I probably wouldn’t if I didn’t have to listen to Mirna so much.

Things that were not so good

• I like Danny and Oswald and seeing them so frustrated and doing so poorly hurts, especially with teams like Charla and Mirna and Eric and Danielle still left. However, if they had been eliminated today, I wouldn’t have minded: it would have been completely because of their poor leg and nothing else.
• The Beauty Queens using the second Yield was snarky, but it helped out Danny and Oswald, so maybe I put this in the wrong category.
• Mirna, please shut the fuck up. You twist the truth and make yourself a martyr and everyone else evil. The Yield is a strategy, Charla is perfectly competent and is a better racer than you, NO ONE on this race is more evil than you, and if you keep getting the most interview screen time, I will tear the rest of Eric’s hair out.
• Eric has a right to be pissed, but there’s a difference between “This totally sucks!” and “All these teams are evil and don’t deserve to be here” repeatedly. You got screwed by the design of the race, not because the other teams are inherently evil. Although, as Eric and Danielle get more and more screen time, I realize it’s mostly just because they are so very immature. And they raced well this week. Impressively well. But comparing what comes out of their mouths to what comes out of Dustin and Kandice’s this season – they are all about the same age—makes listening to them that much harder. (I know Dustin and Kandice are racing doing well and Eric and Danielle get kicked in the head at every turn, but he was this annoying in Season Nine and he did well then. I was just expecting him to learn more, that’s all.)
• That being said, I want them in the final three over Mirna.
• Can someone please explain to me why this was another non-elimination? It would have been a perfect leg if it hadn’t ended that way!

Worth watching if….

….This was a well designed, tense leg, with a lot of racing strategy, that despite not having a lot of lead changes, kept me on the edge of my seat and guessing until the very end. The racers’ personalities are really starting to come out under all this stress, and some teams are stepping up to the plate and some are collapsing. I just wish the collapsing teams wouldn’t be helped out by multiple non-elimination legs, even if it’s Danny and Oswald.

In Five Words

Someone Should Have Squashed Mirna

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