The Amazing Race 5, Episode 11 MVPs and LVPs: Yield This!

From the very first episode of this season of The Amazing Race, we knew there would be the possibility of a new twist – the Yield. If racers wanted to, they could choose a team behind them to Yield. The Yielded team would then be forced to cool their heels until the time in an hourglass ran out. Weeks went by, and no one used the Yield. Chip and Kim even considered using it on the twins last week, opted not to, and regretted it when they found out their position wasn’t as good as they thought it was. But this week, a team finally Yielded another. That move – and its results – determined the First Class and Cargo Class awards this week.

Chip and Kim are no strangers to the First Class award, and they add yet another one to their mantel this week. They started out the race determined to improve their position, kicking themselves for not using the Yield when it might have really helped. Chip said, “Forget friends. You can have friends later.” And he’s right – the name of the game isn’t The Amazing Nice Couple - it’s The Amazing Race. But the great thing about Chip and Kim is that even when they’re being their most ruthless, they’re still pretty nice. They didn’t Yield Colin and Christie because they had some grudge against them – they Yielded them because they’re the strongest racers in the competition. In a way, Colin and Christie should have been flattered to have been singled out.

Several of my fellow writers have criticized Chip and Kim for being the ones to use the Yield – not because it’s somehow “wrong” to Yield someone, but because one of the other teams – Brandon and Nicole or Karen and Linda – probably would have done the dirty work for them. They’d have gotten the same results, but they wouldn’t have had to face the other team’s wrath. But I respect Chip and Kim for stepping up, doing what had to be done, and owning the responsibility for it. They weren’t sneaky and underhanded about slowing Colin and Christie down. They were direct.

No team is perfect, though, and I would like to call out some non –First Class behavior on Chip’s part. He showed a real tendency this time around to underestimate Karen and Linda. In the first challenge, he said he’d guarantee neither of the women would be able to climb the ladder and walk across the girder. It was a scary challenge for sure (Chip himself had a hard time with it), but Karen and Linda have more than proven that they don’t scare easily and that they’ll pull through when it counts. Then, in the jeepnee decorating task, Karen and Linda pulled ahead and Chip remarked that they lost to a couple of women. Is that really such a bad thing? They lost to a couple of women who have been smart, capable, and have worked hard, and who are the highest placing all female team in the history of The Amazing Race. Karen and Linda have more than earned the respect that Chip did not show them with those two remarks.

Just as Chipand Kim have a passel of First Class awards, Colin and Christie are able to add yet another Cargo Class award to their vast collection. Really, any fan of reality TV should have known that Colin and Christie would come in last this leg of the race because of the careless way that they tempted the Foreshadowing Gods at the beginning of the race. They were confident in their abilities to the point of cockiness, saying they were the best. Colin even said, “We could be finished with our leg by the time everyone gets in!” Was it any wonder they missed their connecting flight after tempting fate that way?

And, given what good racers, they claimed to be, they really should have expected to be Yielded at one time or another. Like I said, in a way, it was flattering. The two of them sure didn’t see it that way, though – they were furious that Chip and Kim had the nerve to Yield them. Did Colin and Christie really believe that the other teams would just see their superior racing ability and be happy to come in somewhere behind them? Did they really think the other players wouldn’t try to win? And it’s not like Chip and Kim cheated, lied, or did anything questionable to slow the couple down. They used a device that was within the rules of the game. It’s just like being mad if you’re playing Monopoly and have to pay the $200 to get out of jail. Colin also called Chip and Kim “backstabbers” for Yielding them. Again, they used a device that was part of the game, and they even had to include their smiling picture on the Yield sign so Colin and Christie would know who used the Yield. If anything, they stabbed them in the front, not in the back.

After the sands ran out, Colin and Christie proved once again that they don’t exactly handle stress well. They bickered throughout the jeepnee task. Once their vehicle was ready, Christie told the driver to just run over any pedestrians that happened to get in their way. And it’s hard to say whose behavior in the ox task was more shameful – Christie for not participating at all in a challenge that’s always designed for two people – or Colin for having a complete meltdown and declaring that his ox was broken. They were an absolute disaster, and their behavior was Cargo Class all the way.

Just as Chip showed he wasn’t perfect, Christie showed she wasn’t totally imperfect. When the two of them were stuck waiting for t he hourglass to run out, Christie suggested that she and Colin watch how the other teams completed the jeepnee task. That was a good idea. If they couldn’t be racing, at least they were using their time productively. And indeed, they seemed to complete the task pretty quickly, so had they not been stuck with a defective ox, they might have been able to make up the time that they lost. That bit about the ox was what we call sarcasm, by the way.

We’ve got four teams and two hours of The Amazing Race left. I can’t wait to see who comes out on top, and who earns the final First and Cargo Class awards. See you then!

Betsy is the Associate Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached with any comments at betsyw42@hotmail.com.

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