The Amazing Race - Season 21 Premiere - Recap

By Melissa Wang ·

Welcome to the first episode of The Amazing Race's 21st season! The 11 teams begin their 12-leg, 9-country journey at the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, CA. The season's big twist? For the first time in Amazing Race history, contestants have the chance to double their money! If a team wins the first and last legs of the race, then they will win $2 million! Commence freak-out by contestants.

The show is coming off its 38472837th Emmy win for Best Reality-Competition Show, which is 38472837 more awards than any series from The Bachelor franchise will ever win. I'm happy to recap The Amazing Race, which in my mind is the best reality competition show out there, for you all each Sunday night.

Let's welcome the contestants, shall we?
  • Trey and Lexi, dating football player and cheerleader
  • Natalie and Nadiya, Sri Lankan identical twins. It may take me a while to be able to tell them apart… They are so feisty.
  • James and Abba, lawyer and rock star. Those two professions seem to go hand-in-hand. Wow, they both have long hair. Much longer than mine.
  • Josh and Brent, the Beekman Boys! They're holding hands as they walk around the farm and cuddle with baby goats. Aww! They're cute.
  • Amy and Daniel, dating on and off for 10 years. She has prosthetic legs! She won 3 World Cup snowboarding gold medals! What an inspiration; good for her.
  • Caitlin and Brittany, best friends and athletes in college. Very blonde.
  • Rob and Sheila, engaged lumberjacks.
  • Gary and Will, best friends, substitute teachers, and TAR superfans. They've been BFFs for 35 years! Gary is 6-foot-6 and 5-foot-1. They look so endearing standing next to each other.
  • Abbie and Ryan, dating divorcees
  • Jaymes and James, Chippendales. Wow, they are both very jacked. Anyways, where was I...
  • Rob and Kelley, married monster truckers from Boston, (YEAH GO MASSHOLES!)…. Georgia. Oh.

Ready, set, RACE!

Phil bids the contestants farewell. Good luck, travel safe, don't get mugged, don't contract chronic diarrhea… GO!

AND THEY'RE OFF! The first task is to rappel off a bridge! Josh and Brent are the first to reach the bottom. Make your way to Shanghai, China! Yay, I love when they go to China. (Which is pretty much every other season.) The first seven teams go on a flight that lands in Shanghai an hour and 15 minutes before the second flight.

Teams on the first flight: Chippendales, James and Abba, Caitlin and Brittany, Amy and Daniel, Abbie and Ryan, Natalie and Nadiya, Rob and Kelley

Teams on the second flight: Josh and Brent (They let Rob and Kelley get in front of them in line, so now they’re at a disadvantage), Gary and Will, Trey and Lexi, Rob and Sheila

Roadblock

Teams will now make their way to the Yuanshen Sports Center Stadium. “Who’s ready to get paddled?” One team member must win a single point against a Chinese youth table tennis national champion, an adorable 10-year-old girl.

The players are thinking this’ll be a piece of cake. “Take down these little Chinese kids!!!” one of the Chippendouches hollers. Chill out, dude. As the contestants lose point after point, the girl downgrades her paddle to a variety of household items: a clipboard (the paper side, mind you), a frying pan, a tambourine, a metal pencil box, and finally the yellow Amazing Race clue envelope. YOU GO GIRL.

Nadiya is flipping out. “Natalie what is wrong with youuuu RELAX!!!!” she whines. Meanwhile, I’m laughing my head off and the kids walking past in the hallway probably think I’m crazy.

Abbie finishes first, followed by Rocker James, ChippenJames, Caitlin, and Daniel.

Roadblock #2

Teams will now make their way to a restaurant. “Who wants to go tubing?” Ooh! Pick me! I love snow tubing in the hot Chinese summer. The teammate who didn’t complete the first roadblock must eat a traditional Chinese dessert. Mooncakes? (Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all!) Bubble tea? Nope, they must use chopsticks and not their hands to eat frog fallopian tubes out of a papaya. Not sure I would call that traditional…

Abba finishes first, followed by Ryan in second.  Now the four teams from the second flight arrive! They’re way behind.

ChippenJaymes absolutely devours the fallopian tubes and slurps them off of the table. Hmm, that sentence sure sounds weird out of context. For everyone’s sake, I put less explicit detail into that sentence than I could have. He finishes third; Amy and Brittany leave in fourth and fifth.

“Suck it up! Suck it up!” Natalie hollers. I see what you did there, Natalie. “Twinnie! Twinnie!” she screams. She gets all of the restaurant diners to get up and dance along with her.

Boston (,Georgia) Rob breaks the #1 rule of The Amazing Race: read the damn rules. He picks up the papaya and sips it, and we’re treated to an unflattering shot of jellyfish-like fallopian tubes gurgling out of his mouth. When he finishes, he doesn’t receive the next clue… and has to eat yet ANOTHER serving because he broke the rules. I’m laughing my head off.

Back at the stadium, Gary wins his point, and Josh wins his point to bring up the rear.

Next Stop

Teams must now proceed to a place called the Bund, a boardwalk overlooking the river, to find a woman using an abacus. Several gems from this proceeding:
  • “We’re searching for a lady using an abacus… why isn’t she using a calculator?” – Ryan
  • Phil, why are you wearing a cowboy hat?
  • “Hmm… a-BAS-cus?” – Sheila
  • “Oh my god HELL NO they’ve caught up with us” – one of the twins. Can’t tell them apart, but they’re both hilarious and incredibly sassy.

Pitstop

Teams must now proceed to the pitstop at Bund Observatory, overlooking the Shanghai skyline. Amy and Daniel reach the abacus-ed lady first and make their way to the pitstop. Abbie and Ryan ask them if they found the lady, and Amy tells them the direction of where she is. Abbie and Ryan find the lady, and Amy, the double amputee, loses steam as she tries to run to the pitstop. Abbie and Ryan surpass them, apologizing to them that it’s for $2 million, and reach the pitstop in first place. Amy, who is now crying, and her partner Daniel arrive there in second.

Brent finally finishes eating the fallopian tubes after some teams have already arrived at the pitstop, but they make up for serious lost time and finish in 7th overall.

The Chippendales derp their way around the boardwalk and are the last team to find the abacus-ed lady. Rob and Sheila find the clue right before them, and it’s a footrace to the finish. “Let’s get the Chippendales out!” Gary says at the pitstop map. And the 10th team to arrive is… the Chippendales. Ugh. By a 15-second margin, Rob and Sheila, you are eliminated from the Amazing Race.

Here’s the final order of finish:
  1. Abbie and Ryan
  2. Amy and Daniel
  3. Caitlin and Brittany
  4. Natalie and Nadiya
  5. Rob and Kelley
  6. James and Abba
  7. Josh and Brent! Yay!
  8. Gary and Will
  9. Trey and Lexi
  10. James and Jaymes
  11. Rob and Sheila
Who are you rooting for so far? Who are you rooting against so far? Let me know in comments! Thanks for reading, and tune into CBS next Sunday at 8 p.m. to watch the second episode.

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