‘The Amazing Race 28’ episode 9 review: Did the ghost of the Express Pass haunt Brodie & Kurt?

On Friday night’s new episode of “The Amazing Race,” we may have had a curious case of an Express Pass being mentioned more times than any other episode without one actually being in play. You see, Brodie & Kurt used it last week in Dubai rather than solving the puzzle, and most of the other team members were baffled as to why they did not use it.

Thanks to the guys’ decision last week, we saw them in danger for really the first time this whole season. They already made some stumbles early in the leg thanks in part to not reading their clue, and then they ran into another potential mistake that they may have made beforehand this season: Kurt doing so many Roadblocks. Brodie probably could have done the salt-based one, which would’ve given Kurt a chance to do the second, which he may have been more equipped to handle.

In the end, though, can you really blame Kurt & Brodie for Roadblock choices at least in this leg? That’s mostly a game of chance.  It was this sort of thing that did actually doom the team that finished directly behind them in Zach & Rachel, who finished last because she did the first Roadblock, which was extremely demanding and really not well-suited for her. Still, how could they have predicted this based on the evidence? There really was not that much there.

Overall, this was an insanely entertaining end of the episode, mostly because of how close a finish it was, and also how much Kurt & Brodie squabbled on the way to the Pit Stop. It was still a fun sort of fighting, rather than the angry kind that we got from Dana & Matt last week. Indonesia proved to be a really entertaining location, given that we got snakes, culturally-relevant tasks, and also the burden of dealing with a super-hot climate. Also, we have an underdog team still in the race, since Sheri & Cole were super-impressive this week in finishing a speed bump and not even being in danger at the end. Also, kudos to Tyler & Korey for being back on top! Grade: B+.

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