The Amazing Race 12: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Episode 6 – Consistent Ugliness
by David Bloomberg
-- 12/12/2007
There wasn’t a whole lot of Goodness to go around in the sixth episode, but at least there is one consistent focus for this column. Unfortunately, that consistency happens to be quite Ugly. Any guesses on who it is? Oh, you already know.
Quite frankly, I didn’t see a whole lot of Good in this episode. But I managed to stretch the definition a bit and came up with these:
The best thing we saw in this episode was the way Ron & Christina are interacting. Christina is continuing to gently point out to Ron when he’s acting unacceptably. For a change, we’re actually seeing a relationship improve during the race. And their ability to get along better was reflected in them getting first place in this leg!
The other Good item we saw was the way Kynt & Vyxsin (mainly Kynt) worked with the travel agent. He prodded and questioned, taking all the right paths to make sure they were on the right flight, even getting a flight that left slightly later so they would have more time to make it to the gate.
The Bad
There was a lot more Bad in this episode than Good, though:
To begin with, there was the show spending 15 minutes of airtime following the racers messing around in the airport. Bo-ring. The end result was that Azaria & Hendekea missed a flight because they had to get economy class and got business class by mistake – but we could have gotten to that point in much less time. And even after all that time, we couldn’t even really tell who messed up – the team or the travel agent. Azaria did ask for Economy tickets, but the agent apparently gave him Business Class. Was it Azaria's fault for not being more emphatic and checking? Or the travel agent for ignoring him? If the producers were going to spend a quarter of the show in the airport, at least that could have been made clearer!
Which leads directly to our next item – Azaria & Hendekea being knocked out. They were a smart and likable team and it was really just one mistake (which we’re not even sure was their own) that caused their loss. That sucks.
Then there was the taxi driver who wouldn’t take Jen & Nate because they were a bit wet. Not that I’m a fan of the fighting couple (see below), but come on, that was just ridiculous.
No matter how ridiculous it was, though, it didn’t excuse Jen & Nate for breaking the rules of the race by taking illegal transportation. They were lucky they were so far ahead that it really didn’t matter in terms of this leg. But, as usual, Jen was horribly upset, even knowing they had been in second and likely had plenty of time to redo it.
The Ugly
Out of force of habit, I have to once again mention Jen & Nate. I know I just mentioned them above, but Jen’s behavior continues to make me just want to shut my eyes and mute my television set. The two of them fought in the boat, Jen freaked out over the taxi as if it were the end of the world, and she complained throughout. This makes the third week in a row that they have appeared in this category – and I only started writing this column four weeks ago!
So it seems we’ve devoted almost half this article to Nate & Jen (in part because the producers devoted a quarter of the show to the airport). Frankly, I’m getting tired of them. Correction – I’m already beyond tired of them. I really want them to go home. But we’ll have to wait a while – there’s no episode this Sunday, and I suspect the next one we do see will be a non-elimination leg. The most I can hope for is that they’re gone at the next opportunity.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Amazing Race 12 articles:
And also check out 
