On The Amazing Race 33, cheese, canyoning and commendable returns to Corsica – the blurry reality

There has been an impressive return to The Incredible Race 33 episode 6, and it also received the most attention in the edit and on the mat, but there was a second: Arun and Natalia went from last place, and 15 minutes behind everyone else, to fourth square.

Of course, it might not be as impressive as Ryan and Dusty going from last to third, then taking off their life jackets 🥵 in celebration.

But it was a significant comeback for a team that struggled most of the legs.

Phil Keoghan at the Fromagerie Fermière, site of one of the two Detour tasks on The Amazing Race 33 episode 6.
Phil Keoghan at the Fromagerie Fermière, site of one of the two Detour tasks in episode 6 of The Amazing Race 33. (Image via CBS)

It was a stage that involved no self-driving – perhaps an advantage for Arun and Natalia, a team that continually struggled to navigate and drive – but it also meant there was very little opportunities to advance. It was just a hint → Detour → Roadblock → Paddle → Pit Stop

The stage began with the teams boarding a charter plane – although, interestingly, it does not appear to be this charter plane, which had Fantastic race‘s logo on the side.

The “destination unknown”, as Phil Keoghan told the teams, was Corsica, and the teams started at an “ancient Roman bridge”, which did not appear to be adjacent to an airport, so they were flown there off field.

From the starting line, a group left every 15 minutes:

  1. Ryan and Dusty, Lulu and Lala
  2. Kim and Penn, Raquel and Cayla, Akbar and Sheri
  3. Arun and Natalia

That 15-minute penalty seemed to be Arun and Natalia’s only penalty for coming last in last week’s non-elimination round; there was no Speedbump task, or at least we didn’t see it, and I can’t imagine they would have had time to do anything else with their placement.

Next episode, there will only be two start times. Teams #1 and 2 are Kim and Penn, and Raquel and Cayla, while all other teams will start in the second group.

After the start, the teams were transported to the detour and the roadblock; the only transportation was a paddle upstream in a kayak to the pit stop. The vans and small Jeeps/golf cars appeared to be production vehicles, driven by masked people who spoke English, and were definitely not taxis.

Dusty and Ryan are struggling to make cheese and follow the instructions in Episode 6 of The Amazing Race 33.
Dusty and Ryan struggle to make cheese and follow instructions in Episode 6 of The Amazing Race 33. (Image via CBS)

The Detour locations were practically side by side, and that’s where Ryan and Dusty fell behind, not because they picked the wrong Detour, but because they weren’t following the directions as they were trying to make three cheese baskets.

Many teams opted for the cheese over the other task, saddled and driven a mule down a path, but the mules weren’t the problem on this option, it was their hitch. The distance seemed quite short, literally to the other Detour location.

Ryan and Dusty ended up doing both, giving up the cheese after about 40 minutes. This allowed all the other teams to pass them, but Ryan managed to pass Akbar during the Roadblock, a super fun “canyoning” task, which Phil described as having to “slide and slide down from it- and-a- half-mile river.

In the end, Sheri and Akbar were eliminated, and it was all on Akbar, whose slowness during the river challenge allowed Ryan to pass him. I wouldn’t normally notice it except even in this leg he scolded Sheri for being slow, but Sheri still overcame her fears multiple times and never got rid of them.

At least Akbar admitted that “it was me today, Phil.” Before the start of the round, he said, “for us the game plan is to be more in sync.” He was right: goodbye goodbye!

Here are a few other things that happened during the episode:

  • At the start of the stage, Penn said he “assessed” the other teams and determined that “Dusty and Ryan are physical specimens.” If only he had been at the Pit Stop during the striptease.
  • Kim provided the foreshadowing, “There’s no stopping Dusty and Ryan. Dusty and Ryan have to stop,” she said, and that’s exactly what (almost) happened.
  • Dusty shared this metaphor: “I should think the birds are chirping on the branches of the trees. What those birds don’t know is I’m a sneaky little tom, I’m gonna climb in there and eat all their little eggs and them. I don’t really understand what that refers to, but it scared me.
  • “Slow and steady,” Akbar said, as if slow had been his favorite speed the whole race. Then a few minutes later, he said to Sheri, “Come on! I walk because you are going slowly.
  • “She’s a new Kim,” Kim said. I thought old Kim was pretty awesome too, and I admit that Kim and Penn are a fun team to watch, and not just because they seem to have the best chance of beating Ryan and Dusty. Maybe I have low expectations for “internet personalities”, typed the much less famous internet personality.
  • Cayla and Raquel joined Kim and Penn with the mule because “four spirits are better than two,” they said. I would say during Fantastic race33 seasons, two mule spirits were often better than four team spirits.
  • Ryan and Dusty chose Detour cheese because Dusty was an experienced cheese maker, and Ryan said, “Basically, we have to trust Dusty’s instincts, because only he did.” But when Dusty wanted to switch tasks, Ryan decided Dusty’s instincts were faulty: “I feel like it’s smarter to stay.”
  • While riding his mule, Penn said, “our horse is slightly overtaking us.” Maybe because you called it a horse?
  • Raquel and Cayla named their mule with a portmanteau of their boyfriends’ names: “Coltony.”
  • If there was a moment that indicated how relatively tame this leg’s tasks were, it was Kim who identified a challenge: “Inflating a craft was a little daunting,” she said.
  • Lulu and Lala came in fifth and probably would have easily edged out Arun and Natalia if they hadn’t messed up and carried their backpacks to the river. “We should have read the clue,” said one. I need a clue to tell me the difference between them.
  • Dusty came into the pit stop grunting, which Phil described as “a lot of emotion there”, but there was something else they were more interested in displaying. As Raquel said, as Ryan and Dusty threw on their life jackets, “they want to flex their muscles.”

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