The Amazing Race season 31 episode 9 review: Detour drama
Early on in the episode, we saw a choice made by Victor & Nicole arguably save their lives in the race. Because they were able to get on board a flight to Croatia because of a standby gambit, they were able to go from guaranteed last to having a good chance at first place. Only Tyler & Korey and Chris & Bret starting off the leg in a better place!
Ironically, it was soon after this that Chris & Bret made their obvious bad choice — picking a Detour that involved finding coins in the water over one that involved memorizing a poem while jumping up and down in the middle of the water. The snorkeling search task was significantly harder and because of that, they went from being obvious favorites to a team in enormous peril.
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Where things got a little bit crazier is seeing the Roadblock, given that it involved having to find Roman-inspired soldiers in what amounted to a military shell game. This was the hardest leg of the whole season in terms of the tasks and we loved every second of it. It even makes up for having to watch the Roaming Gnome deliver bread. (Why do we give this show a pass for its rampant product placement? Your guess is as good as ours at this point.)
Because no part of this leg was easy, it was theoretically possible for the teams that arrived on the later flight — Colin & Christie, Team Fun, and Leo & Jamal — to make up a lot of headway if they could conquer some of the tasks.
The actual finish line
The team in first place here was — again — Tyler & Korey. These two have done such a good job at just keeping their heads down and making some great decisions. They didn’t necessarily do any task incredibly well, but because they didn’t completely screw anything up, they gave themselves a lot of leeway. Nicole & Victor were right behind them in second.
There was a lot of drama near the end of the leg, given that Chris & Bret had switched Detours and were still trying to finish at the same time that Colin & Christie came back to collect their gnome that they originally left behind. Leo & Jamal and Colin & Christie finished the Roadblock together, and that gave the two of them the option to beat Chris & Bret … who may be a part of the bigger collapses in the history of the show.
CarterMatt Verdict
Like we said, this was the best leg of the season in terms of packing in a lot of content and some significant challenges. The biggest problem with the leg was that there wasn’t too much of a farewell montage to Chris & Bret — but we don’t need too much of one. They’re good friends and judging from the end of what we saw tonight, the bromance is still going strong and will continue to do so.
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What did you think about The Amazing Race season 31 episode 9? Be sure to share right now in the comments. (Photo: CBS.)