Going to Sean Penn and Going Bananas - Until a Lost Passport

What a way to go! Totally a bummer that Zev & Justin get knocked out for losing Zev’s passport. And after coming in first for the leg! I was really liking this team a lot, and I like them even more now after seeing their reaction (not complaining, no blaming each other) and realizing what good friends they are - and what friendship is all about. Damn shame! Another shame is missing the alleged masturbating monkey - I haven’t deleted the TiVo version yet, gonna have to go back and look for that one. I have a feeling that some editor on the show may get canned for that one!

The teams leave the Pit Stop with the instruction to fly to Phnom Pen, Cambodia. I was amazed at how many of them couldn’t pronounce it (but then, they are a bunch of young’uns). Zev cracked me up calling it “Sean Penn Cambodia.” When they got there they had to find the Foreign Correspondent’s Club and find the “assignment editor” and ask him in a whisper “what their next assignment is.” All very intriguing, no? (No. Cute, but no intrigue).

As the teams get to the airport, they find out that only one airline, Vietnamese Air, flies to Cambodia, and the next flight is at 12:25 p.m., so they’re all looking at a night’s sleep in the airport. Lance & Keri (Lance says they’re getting married after the Race, and they’re good because “the Amazing Race is like 5 years of marriage stress”) and Zev & Justin are the last two teams to get to the airport and find out the flight is full, so they have to book tickets on the 2:15 flight. Both teams get on the waiting list for the first flight, and after a little sweating, they find out they will get on the first flight after all. Lance sees the teams boarding the plane and yells “no cheap wins, bitches!” I’m sure that really endeared him to the other teams.

Zev & Justin get lucky with a great cab driver, Terry, who tells them he’ll stick around with them for as long as they need him. Zev tells him “don’t leave us or I’ll tell your mother” which cracks Terry up. He seemed to be a really nice, good-natured guy and really helped Zev & Justin a lot. Getting to the Foreign Correspondent’s Club, the teams saw two guys looking very shady, reading newspapers and hiding their faces, and those were the “assignment editors.” They walked up and quietly asked for their next assignments, and got a folded-up newspaper with a manila folder in it. (Canaan had major trouble with this challenge because he kept asking for his “next task” instead of “next assignment.”) The folder had a photo of Jackie Kennedy Onassis in a motorcade with the President of Cambodia, and the teams had to find “the same picture in a hotel that has a suite named after the famous woman. Teams needed to figure out that their next destination was the Hotel Le Royal where they had to find the picture of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on her only official visit to Cambodia in 1967.” I was absolutely flabbergasted that only two teams knew who Jackie Kennedy was (Gary & Matt and Zev & Justin - and isn’t Zev supposed to be mentally handicapped?) Obviously their history classes were lacking or they cut class a lot! Flight Time said she was a Cambodian queen, while Mika & Canaan decided that she was either a Queen or a Cambodian dignitary (“she looks to be of Cambodian descent.” Idiots!) Lucky for them, their cab drivers knew who she was and where they needed to go.

The clue at the hotel was a Detour - Cover or Wrap. “In Cover, teams had to find a helmet stand and choose four motorcycle helmets. Then, using only their powers of persuasion, the teams had to sell the four helmets, for ten dollars, to a family of four consisting of two adults and two children. Once the teams returned the money to the helmet shop owner, they would receive their next clue. In Wrap, teams had to find the Russian Market and locate stalls 980 and 981 where the shopkeeper would hand over an intricately patterned silk sca rf. Then, the teams had to search the confusing corridors of the market for a woman wearing an identical scarf. When they correctly matched the two scarves, the shopkeeper would hand them their next clue.”

All the teams except Lance & Keri decided to do Wrap (which I thought was a much better idea). Zev & Justin’s cab driver got them to the Russian Market quickly and Justin told him “you’re the smartest man in Cambodia! I’m going to name one of my children after you.” Obviously this impressed Terry so much that he helped them find the market stall and stayed with them to find the woman with the matching scarf. Brian & Ericka and Matt & Gary got behind after their taxi drivers took them to the wrong place. Lance & Keri managed to sell their helmets, which surprised me (hey, $10 in Cambodia must be a fortune!) but they still were at the back of the pack. Flight Time & Big Easy, wearing their Globetrotter jerseys, find two girls from Pennsylvania in the Russian Market who help them find the stalls and the woman with the matching scarf.

The next clue tells the teams to go on foot to Wat Tuol Tom Pong and look for the clue box. Zev & Justin run behind their cab driver who leads them straight to it. That clue was a Roadblock - “Who wants to monkey around?” “In Cambodia, monkeys are so revered that the royal family employs a royal monkey master who trains dancers to behave like monkeys. In this Roadblock, one team member had to put on a monkey mask and tail and complete three monkey maneuvers, as demonstrated by their monkey master. If they could keep up their simian act during the maneuvers, the monkey master would hand them their next clue.” I’m looking forward to this one (and hoping it doesn’t involve throwing poop)!

Zev decides to try it, and has to put on the monkey mask and tail. He’s doing great until he has to climb across a log (about 4 inches off the ground) on his feet and hands. He’s having problems with balance, and gets ticked at Justin who is shouting encouragement to him, telling Justin to shut up. Zev ended up rolling off the log onto the mat, panting that he just had no energy left, and felt like he was having a panic attack. That allowed Sam & Dan to breeze through and pass them. Somehow Zev mustered the energy to finish correctly and they took off after Sam & Dan to the Pit Stop.

Sam & Dan had a very slow ride to the Pit Stop and with Zev & Justin’s super cabbie, they got to the Mat in first place. Sam & Dan actually thought they made it first and were really bummed when Phil told them they were second. After Flight Time & Big Easy made the Mat in third, we see Zev & Justin looking through their things for their passports, saying they couldn’t find them. They go back to Phil and tell him, and Phil tells them to dump their backpacks. Phil spotted a passport and it was Justin’s but Zev’s was nowhere to be found. Phil tells them they cannot continue on the Race without their travel documents, and if they could find Zev’s passport and get back before the last team checked in, they would not be eliminated. They called Terry the cabbie to retrace their steps and hoped they’d be able to find it. As time wore on and they couldn’t find it, Justin mentioned that he’d “let Zev down” and Zev told him no way, it was a freak happening and it was no one’s fault. Zev then blamed himself: “We finished first and now it looks like we’re gonna be last because I lost a little piece of paper. We would’ve won the whole thing too.” Tell you the truth, they could have. They seemed to really have a good rhythm going and were very level headed compared to some other teams (Lance bigmouth egomaniac and Keri please-don’t-talk come to mind).

Lance showed us how utterly goofy he is yet again as he performed a roundhouse kick before he stepped on the Mat. Phil looked afraid - let’s see, Lance challenged Phil to a fight and now is showing off his karate mo ves - maybe next time instead of a cute little local lady, they should have a couple of goons with Phil at the Mat to protect him from Lance. Especially if they come in last and Phil has to eliminate them!

Maria & Tiffanyshowing up technically in last place, were told by Phil that they were in last, but they would not be eliminated because of one other team’s problem with travel documents. Getting lucky once with a non-elimination round and now this, they said “I wish we had this much luck with poker because we’d be zillionaires.”

So here are the standings after this leg of the Race:
1 - Sam & Dan
2 - Flight Time & Big Easy
3 - Brian & Ericka
4 - Gary & Matt
5 - Meghan & Cheyne
6 - Lance & Keri
7 - Mika & Canaan
8 - Maria & Tiffany
9 - Zev & Justin - from worst, to first, to worst and eliminated

So another team gets first place. They all seem to get lucky at different times - who will keep the luck and win the Race? Tune in next week!