Welcome to Helsinki, Finland. Known for its lush countryside, rich culture, and….aw, screw it. Here’s why Finland is by far the coolest destination the Race has ever seen:
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Its president, Tarja Halonen, looks like Conan O’Brien. Conan even visited the country and had a sit-down with her.
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Helsinki is the home of Artur Surov.
Finland was…hmm, how do I phrase this without ruining the end of this recap? Okay, let’s try this: Finland was yet another destination…in a racearoundtheworld. Last week, we learned that alliances are incredibly stupid, as evidenced by the fact that the Intersection, a new twist in the Race, forced WinWin to work with the Beauty Queens after the rest of the six pack arrived at the Intersection and teamed up before they got there. The result? WinWin finished fourth, after the Barbies and the Slow Forward teams, while the six pack lost two members. David and Mary, sorry, but you could only be non-eliminated so many times.
Teams raced to Finland from Madagascar, and you’ll have to forgive me if I can’t leave the place without making a single reference…or at least letting Family Guy do it for me. Somewhat NSFW, in case you were wondering; Canadian broadcasts don’t bleep everything out. Teams are provided with plane tickets to Finland that will make them wait 19 hours before taking off, but are not required to use them. One by one, teams switch their tickets for a soon-departing flight. Lynn and Karlyn arrive just as the plane is boarding, and we are taken to commercial unsure if they’ll be allowed on the flight. Anyone who has ever watched the show before knows they will, and so the tension is only in the minds of the producers.
On the taxi ride from the airport to their first Helsinki destination, Tyler and James and Dustin and Kandice interview how much they want the other team out of the game (each thinks the other is too strong). LynLyn, meanwhile, interview that they find it unfair that Dustin and Kandice are getting by on their looks. Last time I checked, though, Dustin and Kandice weren’t in any ill-advised alliances that continually put them at the back of the pack. But that’s just one man’s opinion.
At a coffee house, teams get messages from home that show support and point them to what will be their Detour clue. LynLyn get particularly choked up about out, while everyone else finds it a nice boost of morale. LynLyn are so upset, in fact, that they decide to cut in line at the taxi stand outside the shop, jumping in front of WinWin and a dozen civilians in the process. So combining efforts with other contestants in a pointless airport strategy is evil, but forcibly pushing innocent bystanders out of the way is just fine. A nice sense of entitlement you’ve built for yourself, LynLyn.
The Detour is a choice between two muddy obstacle courses, and nothing much exciting happens except for the fact that Rob and Kimberly are just a bit too slow to catch the train from the Detour to what will be the Roadblock, and you get to see Rob have a mini-meltdown that’s almost adorable in how girly it is.
The Roadblock is a Disney-like ride into a limestone mine (poor David would have been awesome at this) followed by a bike ride to an area in the mine where teams pick up a chunk of stone and bring it back to their partner before cracking it open for a clue. It’s rather uneventful, and there’s no movie at the end of the ride (just like Norway in Disney World), so there’s not much to report. The process is repeated an hour later when WinWin, LynLyn, and RobKim show up.
The only people you need to pay attention to after the Roadblock are Tyler and James, because they find out once they get to their next destination – the Olympic stadium in Finland – that it’s not the pit stop. Instead, each team member must repel face-first down a section of the stadium, only to get a clue that…they’re still racing. It wasn’t even a fake mat non-pit stop; that’s how far away you could see it coming.
So, to recap the recap: Helsinki is awesome, this leg is not. And it’s only half over. Jeez. See you at the mat, if we ever find it.
I actually thought this leg of the race was at least somewhat exciting. When in the hell are they going to get to the really hard tasks??!!!