Well, it’s been a long year since our last episode of The Amazing Race, but it is finally time for a TAR 33 Recap! Production for this season had to shut down in February 2020 due to COVID-19. And the shutdown lasted a full 18 months. So we will have to see how that effected filming. Sadly, it will be airing at the same time as RHOC. Tonight’s episode is going to be two hours, so I am going to need some coffee. Especially, because I have to feed y’all the RHOC recap first.
The episode starts with Phil telling us about the extensive shutdown. The shutdown will come after the third leg. It was a year and a half later in August of 2021 when they were able to travel again. I’m sure that was a headache to go from cold weather filming to returning in the middle of the summer. For the first time ever, the teams are given the GO from Phil via cellphone and they all leave for London from their houses. This season there is an actual set of identical female twins, two flight attendants who look like twins to me but are not and a pair of brothers who also look like twins. I’m confused already.
TEAM HEROES!
Oh wow, Anthony and Spencer were two of the heroes on the Thalys train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris. A terrorist with a machine gun began his attack. Sadler, Skarlatos, and Stone were made Knights of the Legion of Honour (chevaliers de la Légion d’honneur) on 24 August by French president François Hollande. In the United States, Anthony was also awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Valor. Spencer was awarded the Airman’s Medal and the Purple Heart. He was also meritoriously promoted two grades on 1 November to Staff Sergeant.
They also received the Civic Medal 1st class from the Prime Minister of Belgium. Also they were naturalized as French citizens in an honorary ceremony. The two were both 23 at the time traveling with another friend and hero, Alek. In 2018, the event was dramatized in the film The 15:17 to Paris, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos playing themselves. True heroes!
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This is super exciting already! Rachel and Cayla are flight attendants. They are going to know how to navigate airports. Ryan and Dusty are childhood friends of 24 years. Ryan was wrongfully arrested for murder when he was 19. He did not know the deceased person and was never at the scene of the crime. He thought they would figure it out. But, apparently it took them 10 YEARS. There are some tough dudes with interesting stories this season.
London Calling
The teams all take the same flight to London, so I guess they were sequestered in the hotel. Aron and Natalie are superfans and a father daughter team originally from India but now thriving in Detroit. At Trafalgar Square, they have to have to get their clues from a living phone booth. Rachel and Cayla Team Flight attendants are the first to the clue box. There seems to be multiple “living phone booths” walking around and each one on has two clues. Team Heroes are 5th place, and due to a poor taxi choice, Married couple Connie and Sam are a distant last place. They are sweet people. He’s a football coach. They have two bio daughters and a kid Sam brought home from high school that they raised as their own.
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Off we all to to Buckingham Palace on foot. For our first DETOUR, Artist Den or Digiben. Connie and Sam still haven’t found the let first clue. Team Twins can’t find their detour. Things are already falling apart. The flight attendants don’t know what a bobby is. The father daughter team is already bickering. The daughter can’t keep up. She has a huge backpack. Connie and Sam are really bad at this so far. How do you confuse Westminster Abbey for Big Ben? The father on the father daughter team is an asshole. Why doesn’t he take his daughter’s giant backpack? Taylor and Isaiah are newlyweds (two guys). They work well together. A lot of people are hungup on the artwork detour though.
The First Pitstop
Ryan and Dusty (best friends) are the first to complete the detour and are off to the first pitstop, the Natural History Museum. Team Flight attendants are in second place. The art detour is really hard. The people who did the scavenger hunt are doing much better. How do these people not know who Boris Johnson is? This is really embarrassing. Let’s hope it doesn’t air in other countries. The daughter on the father daughter team can’t pronounce ‘nosh’. Good grief. Team Heroes are the first to arrive at the pitstop. They will have plenty of time to catch their breath, the others are far behind.
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Ryan and Dusty are second. The flight attendants are third. Father/Daughter were 6th. CONNIE AND SAM WERE 7th! YAY! Team Gay Couple are Team 8! Oh no! Team Singing Cops got a bad taxi! The twins were Team Ten. The Singing Cops were eliminated.
The Second Leg
This episode is exhausting to recap. I don’t know who anyone is. It is very fast pasted. It’s hard to figure out the challenges. Things change on a dime. I’ve spent like three hours on the first hour. While most people can’t get a cab, the Father/Daughter team (Akbar and Sheridan) get one right away. Dad seems to realize they have to work as a team and he can’t just run off and leave her, or yell at her. Ryan and Dusty ( Team Gay Marriage) are the first to get to the first roadblock of the leg once again. On person has to ride an underground mail delivery train and search through mounds of mail to find the next clue.
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I’m going to mostly try to watch this challenge instead of missing it all by typing. Team Heroes got the clue right away and they head off to Leicester Square in Theater City to choose a detour. Team Flight Attendants blew right through this challenge. Penn finds the clue but isn’t sure it’s the clue. He says it can’t be that easy. Oh, Penn. There is another moron down (Ray from Team Love Island) there with him who also has his clue. How do you not know what an Amazing Race clue looks like?
Detour
The detour is a choice of a dart game where they both have to hit a bullseye in the same round. That a no for me dawg. The other one is a cake decorating challenge. They have to decorate two flags that are part of the EU. Oh Lord. They don’t even know what Big Ben looks like. The two morons finally get on the train after three other teams find the clue. The twins are the last to arrive at the roadblock. Everyone else is off to the detour. The flight attendants go for the cakes and know their flags. Or at least England and France. Oh England was already out of the EU at this point. Tricky!
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Ryan and Dusty are once again in the lead and are the first to head to the pitstop. The Love Island girl with the dumb boyfriend at least knows France and Germany’s flags. How do you not study flags before going on this show. The FINAL challenge almost always has to do with flags. Ryan and Dusty (Team Wrongfully Convicted) wins the leg and Phil doesn’t tell them about winning a trip? Hmmm. Will they push on straight through to leg three? Team Heroes is in fifth place. Some of the taxis really suck. Team Flight Attendant is in 6th place at the pitstop. Oh no, the twins are in last place. But there are five teams in cabs enroute to the pitstop. I think Team Gay Marriage is the on in the bad cab. The twins are last. But they are still racing. It’s a non-elimination.
They are off to Scotland. It’s time for the driving a car with manual transmission part of the race. Again, why does no one learn this in advance? This was a GREAT double episode. But actually trying to recap it, was hard. It will get easier as I learn the names and more teams go home.
Damn! I forgot this was on. I love this show.
Even though I’m a faithful Survivor watcher and used to be a BB superfan, I have never watched this show. I think it was because I was already over the contestants who used to be on after their season of the aforementioned shows. Your recap has me intrigued. I think I’m going to watch it on demand and give it a shot because my old shows (Bravo) are just not doing it for me anymore. Thanks for the detailed recap, TT.
I’m in a labyrinth of grief that you aren’t covering Meaghan King. I mean WTF. How does she have time for all of this?
A save on the second episode????
Not so much a save. The first place team did not win a prize and the last place did not go home. It’s more of a double leg for leg two and three.
And IJC you will love this show.
I finally watched it yesterday and I’m in! I’m watching the 15:17 To Paris again bc I forgot about it, lol. Might have to binge previous seasons of TAR. Any suggestions on which seasons? I mean, I could probably binge them all but I have too many other shows right now, so any recommendations appreciated!
I LOVE this show and didn’t realize the premier was last night until the last 10 minutes.I will catch it on demand and I’m happy you’re recapping it!
What channel is this on? What network? I set the dvr to tape but it is not showing any shows available.
CBS, Wednesdays at 8pm,
Thank you for recapping this. My favorite competition show, closely followed by SURVIVOR of course. Im afraid the ‘baby blue’ team (tee shirt color) is already getting on my nerves~they’re the parent team. They certainly like themselves a lot.
Team “kind of old people” with the guy who literally doesn’t know a clue when he is holding it in his hand?
Exactly.
Oh no! The Holderness family is hilarious on YouTube! My kids and I love their songs and parodies! If you have a moment you should watch a song or two of theirs and see if it changes your mind. Penn is a really good singer.
And for crying out loud, do some cardio before going on the Race! I love what Team ExBasketball is doing with the school in Jersey, but I can’t believe the wife is in such bad shape.
Yes, even if this wasn’t THE 33rd season and you had never had access to the show, you would think one might physically train in many ways. So far the physical challenge has been quite small, a bit of running rather than dangling off a tall building and swinging back and forth to find clues. This is a strange cast.