'Amazing Race': Amanda and Kris cannot overcome the U-turn

When we last left our "Amazing Race: Unfinished Business" teams, Jet and Cord the Cowboys were last - but the leg was not over yet and Kris/Amanda still had to perform both sides of a Detour because of their U-turn.

The teams head into Sydney, where the first six teams to get to a famous anchor are on flight 1 and the other five teams are on a second flight. Just as an aside, Jaime and Cara's clashing shades of red hair (unnatural auburn for Cara, Manic Panic Vampire Red for Jaime) is really annoying. Color coordination, girls!

On the Mel/Mike team, Mel is not doing so well. He's pretty old and realizes how the race is not pulling any punches for these experienced racers. Aww, c'mon Mel! You can do it, take it slow. You never know what mistakes some other team might make.

The smart teams figure out to use Google instead of relying on a cabbie when all the clue says is "to sail to stop." Zev/Justin, Jen/Kisha, Jaime/Cara, Margie/Luke, Mel/Mike and Kent/Vyxsin. See, Mel! I told you to stick it out.

Jet and Cord are just now making it to the pitstop, but they are about to evened right up with the Globetrotters, Amanda/Kris, Christina/Ron and Mallory/Gary since the show is forcing them to be on certain flights.

Detour - Spirit World vs. Natural World

The teams fly to Broken Hill, hop in cars and drive themselves to the Living Desert in the Outback. There they find the Detour, which is Spirit World vs. Natural World. In SW, they use materials to create an Aboriginal mosaic and perform a dance on top of it. In NW, they create Aboriginal territory markers suing homemade paint that they put in their mouths and spit onto a stencil.

I think I'd do the paint. The mosaic looks like lots of little things, you have to be more slow and deliberate, versus just mixing up paint and spitting it out. But everybody picks Spirit World. Huh.

Kent gets really insistent about getting children to dance with them, it's like - take it down a notch, they might have registry's in Australia like they have here. Eventually all the teams start taking off, while Amanda/Kris are stuck doing the paint as well. But there is hope because Ron and Christina are having their patented communication problems (mostly because of Ron not listening to Christina or taking the time to do it right).

It may be the editing, but after watching Kris/Amanda do the spit painting, I'm inclined to think I was right about which Detour would've been quicker, so K/A are lucky everybody chose to do the first one. I'm really rooting for them now, they rocked those tasks.

Roadblock

After the Detour, the teams go back to Broken Hill to the home of the Magpies, which is the Central Football Club stadium because they are the fightin' Magpies of Broken Hill. The task is dressing up as Kangaroos, then figuring out where to go based on a periodic table that has two elements highlighted. The streets in this town are often named after elements, so the task is to figure out that the highlighted elements cross and to go to that intersection (it's Mercury and Bismuth, just btw).

I love tricky, cerebral tasks and that is great. Plus, making them wear Kangaroo outfits makes it like 100x better, especially since the suits come with springy feet that are hard to walk/bounce around on.

The first two teams are Zev/Justin and Margie/Luke. They smartly find a local with a phone who Googles the highlighted elements and then tells them where those streets are. When Jaime/Cara and Kent /Vxysin team up, Kent just knows what the elements are, though they don't know they are streets yet. Go Kent, impressive. I only know the really basic ones.

At some point, Margie loses a foot cover and Luke wants her to keep running, but she realizes they have to go back. Uh, duh. Don't incur a stupid penalty. After they get to the intersection, they are sent to Conjunction Junction Junction Mine, which is the pitstop.

Fotunately, Mel/Mik pick up Margie's foot cover and they trade the cover for information about where to go for the next clue. Good stuff.

Pitstop

The finishers are, in order: Zev/Justin, Globetrotters, Jet/Cord (wow), Kisha/Jen. Meanwhile, Mallory and Gary tell Christina/Ron that they know where the mine is, but C/R don't want to listen. Hmm. Wonder who is proven right? My money's on Mal/Gary.

The next finishers are Margie/Luke, Mel/Mike, Kent/Vyxsin, Jaime/Cara and then - Gary and Mallory. Oh, Ron and Christina - but it doesn't matter because they finish 10th. Bummer for Amanda/Kris.

I have to say, I find it really sucky they put in a forced U-turn for whichever team finished a task last. I never liked the U-turn aspect in the first place, but at least it has to be chosen by another team instead of automatically putting someone at a huge disadvantage. And on the first leg to boot.

What do you guys think? Questions for Kris/Amanda? Leave 'em in the comments, we're interviewing them Monday morning (Feb. 28).