The Amazing Race 31 episode 2 video: The journey to Laos
Come tomorrow night on CBS, The Amazing Race 31 episode 2 will be bringing teams to Laos, which is going to prove to be an exciting place just because we don’t think it has been completely ruined by appearing a hundred times on this franchise already. It still feels reasonably fresh, and there’s going to be some room to explore some cool stuff there.
For starters, we’re getting a real daytime leg! Also, we’re going to see some real, tangible strategy go down among various racers taking part in the episode. There’s a Double U-Turn that is coming at some point in this episode, which basically means an excuse to target some early threats. If you’re Leo & Jamal, you probably should go ahead and be prepared for your name to pop up there. The same could go for Rachel & Elissa given Rachel’s extensive reality TV history, or even a team like Victor & Nicole who have a somewhat healthy mix of brains and brawn.
If we were racing this season, though, we’d probably be hesitant about U-Turning a team now given that you don’t want to make many enemies this early in the season, as it could come back to bite you. Our feeling is that unless you’re in real danger or you sense an opportunity to get out a real threat, we’d be somewhat cagey about going through with it. (We personally don’t like the change where you can use the U-Turn more than once a season, largely since that added a little bit more strategy about when you can and cannot use it.)
New Amazing Race video! – Check out some more thoughts about episode 2 and what you can expect to see below! For more insight, subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for more updates.
So what else is coming in Laos? For starters, you can see in the sneak peek below that there’s a possible Survivor alliance in the works between Chris & Bret and then Rupert & Laura, but we gotta say that our hopes for Rupert & Laura as major contenders this season are rather slim. They got lost around Japan for the better part of this past episode, and we thought that they’d be able to conquer that part of the race and struggle more with the physical parts. That’s turned out to not be the case so much.
Meanwhile, you’re also going to have a chance to pause briefly on this upcoming episode for a moment of religious meditation prior to one of the tasks starting off. That may not be a moment of extremely significant consequence, but it does give you a sense that there is a big equalizer coming up! In past seasons, we’d bemoan this sort of thing as interrupting the flow of the game; however, we also had early seasons where there were people a SIGNIFCANT stretch of time ahead of everyone else. It’s harder to create a good show if someone is a significant period of time ahead of some of the other teams.
What do you think is coming up on The Amazing Race 31 episode 2 when it airs on CBS Wednesday night? Be sure to sound off now in the comments! (Photo: CBS.)