‘The Amazing Race 21’ preview: Someone receives bad news from home

It’s not very often that you see something that is new on a show after watching it for 21 seasons, but it’s possible that we could be seeing that on Sunday night’s all-new episode of “The Amazing Race.”

So what happens? Basically, rocker / lawyer team James & Abba are going to be confronted with some sort of bad news from home, and you have to wonder whether or not it is something that could be devastating enough to force them to leave the race early and come home. We don’t remember any situation in past seasons where a racer has had a chance to communicate with some sort of family member on-camera save for a reward, and this suggests to us that it has to be some pretty bad news. If they do leave, they would be the first time to leave for these sort of personal reasons. We know that there have been people who have quit in the past, but those are usually for more race-related reasons including injury, exhaustion, or just being too far behind to really merit going forward. (Feel free to correct us if we’re wrong here.)

If these two do go home, it almost makes the rest of the episode a moot point; however, we will be once again in Bangladesh this week, and there will be one of the most grueling tasks we have seen yet involving what appears to be carrying enormous pieces of bamboo. Dhaka is a hot, crowded, and incredibly humid city, and sooner or later we do have a feeling that this will end up taking its toll on everyone. The Chippendales Jymes & James seem to be especially struggling, and this makes sense given that they likely need more water than everyone else to compensate for their large size.

Do you think we could see someone leave the race early this week?