Last week I asked that the race leave South America and I got my wish…sort of. I added the caveat that I prefer Leg 4 not bring us back to Europe where it seems recent editions of the Race have spent plenty of time. Certainly Europe is gorgeous (as Jeff said about Hamburg at the Pit Stop “you have a wonderful city, it is beautiful.”) and there are plenty of interesting places to go, but it just doesn’t have the exotic allure of less traveled places such as Africa, Asia and South America.
Nevertheless, fun to see the teams head somewhere different. I always love when plane flights are in an episode because they’re dynamic situations that allow for the racers to make up or lose ground on their competition. Although Jet and Cord’s advantage for finishing first last leg is wiped out by the twelve hour delay before any flight to Germany departs because of flight scarcity, the teams get rearranged.

Louie and Michael, who had the great line about South America, “this continent has not been good to us,” answer the bell on last week’s question (Can Louie and Michael get out of their own way to move up?) and rocket to the head of the race with Jet and Cord. Much like the last leg was tailor made for Jet and Cord, this one was tailor made for Louie and Michael and they took advantage. How awesome was it to watch Michael inhale the sauerkraut and then have Louie down the huge boot of beer? One of my pre-race favorites, it was good to see them work well together and get ahead.
With Jet and Cord, I’ve repeatedly asked if anyone can stop them and the answer still is no. Yes, I realize they slipped to fourth place this week, but that was because of some wrong decisions they made, not anyone else’s doing. Going from the intersection to the statue, they left even with Louie and Michael, but took the metro instead of a cab and teams caught up to them. For travel to the soccer portion of the detour, they chose a cab when the metro was faster. If Jet and Cord switch their decisions, they’re still easily into second place.
My man crush on Jet and Cord continues to grow every week. Michael and the bungee jump staff try to warn Jet that his hat is going to fall off on the bungee jump, but he calmly replies “no it won’t. “ While bouncing around after their jump, Michael exclaims “your hat didn’t fall off!” and Jet coolly answers “a cowboy’s hat never comes off!” At the bar later in the episode, Jet and Cord are able to laugh with the locals who get a kick out of how much they don’t like beer. It’s not often that you see people who are very comfortable about their identity, but not pretentious about it. These guys are a lot of fun to root for.
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