The Amazing Race 14 Insider, Episode 9: “I Don’t Really Wanna Fight No More…”

This Tina Turner classic really could be the theme for the videos this week. Further footage shows us more of “The Fight” at the Pit Stop, as well as calmer moments after the race. Make sure not to miss out on your last fix of Mark & Mike (right) moments as well! And, surprisingly, Elimination Station isn’t all about Preston & Jennifer’s drama! Woo hoo!

At the Pit Stop

After The Fight: Phil wonders what Tammy & Victor think about all the drama from the leg (note that Margie & Luke are not present as he talks to them). They admit they missed most of it since they didn’t even really see the other teams until the calligraphy Detour. Jen & Kisha pipe in and thank Tammy & Victor for being so helpful. Tammy returns the thanks for keeping her from falling a little while back. She also wisely notes that the race is winding down to the finish and everyone is tense and it’s understandable.

Phil bets that any little thing will set people off at this stage in the race. Victor comments that he has been preoccupied with how upset his mother and father will be with his lack of calligraphy skills. He didn’t notice anything else.

The video cuts to black for a few seconds and then it returns with Phil pointing out how beautiful the scenery is in China. Everyone agrees. Phil thinks it’s got to be strange you’re racing through such a beautiful place, but stressed out about racing, so you’re unable to take it in. Kisha admits to that, but Jen gives Kisha credit as Kisha is now paying more attention to the scenery without as much prompting from Jen.

The Experts’ Last Chat: Phil points out that everyone will remember Mark & Mike as the experts on everything. To prove this, Phil asks if they’ve flown a plane. Mike has flown a small one. Have they had to do anything with hairdressing? Their dad has been a hairdresser for 25 years. Could they tile the bathroom floor? Not a problem, Mike responds. What about a rash on Phil’s leg? Mike would know what to do. The only thing they can’t do? Mark tells Phil he can’t play bridge.

Mark & Mike explain they have all this knowledge because their dad involved them in lots of different things. Their subsequent life experiences have stuck with them over the years. Phil jokes with them that the other teams comment about this expertise all the time. Mark confesses that they haven’t won The Amazing Race, though.

The brothers say there were a lot of great moments on the race, including becoming new experts on rickshaws. The experience of going to Switzerland and Cheese Hill still lingers with them. The train ride through Switzerland really was a huge memory for Mike, as was the James Bond bungee jump. It was also the first time he went fishing using a fish, and Mark reminds him about also getting sat on by an elephant.

Phil wants to know who they would like to see win the race. Mark believes that Margie & Luke have raced with as much passion as anyone and will win it. The obstacles they’ve dealt with in their lives have made them stronger and will help them win.

Dancing Queens: Jaime tells Phil that China is much nicer than she had expected it to be. She had expected rural villages and mad markets, so the reality was a surprise. Phil’s gaze lingers on her. It looks like he’s wondering just how little Jaime knows about the rest of the world.

After nine legs, Phil asks what they have to improve on or if it’s all downhill from here. Cara & Jaime both think they need to smartly strategize when confronted with the unknown. As long as they continue to give 100 percent at the challenges, along with having a little bit of luck, they’ll have a good result.

Speaking of challenges, Phil wants to see what they learned at the dancing Detour. Since he knows his audience, Cara & Jaime quickly get into dancing mode and perform their newly-learned number. While it starts out a little stiff, they settle into a nice rhythm and look comfortable doing the dance.

After the Race

Not Much Fun: Luke is signing that he thinks Jen is afraid of Margie & Luke because of all the legs they’ve won. As for Jen & Kisha, he signs something, ending with him holding his nose and making a raspberry noise. Margie sighs and tells us we probably understood that without her having to translate. Luke continues that Jen & Kisha have been up and down the entire race, while they’ve been consistent.

Margie thinks she’s there to meet the people and have an experience, which earns a grunt from Luke. He is focused while here in order to show what deaf people can do. He wants to win too and have great experiences. Margie acknowledges they both enjoy the lighter side of things and that’s what they’ve mostly had on the race, but today was not like that. It wasn’t a great experience and it was sad. Luke signs that China is very beautiful and that they’re happy to be here.

Well, at least they weren’t still totally riled up about everything and seem to be calm about the incident.

The Laugh Heard Round the World: In this clip, Kisha recalls how Margie got upset at them when Luke was signing his side of the story. Kisha’s coping mechanism is to laugh and that tendency even earned her the nickname, “Dr. Giggles” (as you may recall from the first or second episode’s Insider video, “Dr. Giggles”). Kisha insists that Margie misinterpreted Kisha’s laugh, since it was not intended as anything besides tension laughter.

Jen wishes that Margie would understand that they are very sensitive to Luke’s disability, which he’s lived with his entire life. Jen can see how Margie might think that Kisha’s laughter was malicious, as it’s probably happened before, but in this instance, that wasn’t the case. She thinks Margie blew it out of proportion and that all laughter isn’t hostile towards Luke.

Jaime & Cara’s Take on Tammy & Victor: Cara recognizes that brothers and sisters have a special dynamic with peculiar extremes in each case. But from what she’s seen, it looks like Tammy & Victor have a very strong relationship. Jaime has overheard from others that there was tension between them, but she hasn’t seen it for herself, so she’s reluctant to buy into hearsay.

Illustrating her point on what she is willing to believe or not without proof, Jaime brings up Mark & Mike. She’s not even sure if they were still on the leg as she hadn’t seen them at all this leg or even after the last leg. The only suggestion she got that they were still around was seeing the Speed Bump with their picture on it. At that point, she saw it for herself, so then she believed they were real.

Raised Expectations: Because they were racing in China and they are Chinese, Victor admits to feeling a sense of heightened expectations. If they didn’t speak Chinese well or perform above average, he was afraid of embarrassing his parents. Yet he is happy with their performance and believes he represented Chinese Americans well.

Tammy feels responsibility in representing Chinese Americans in China as gracious and respectful of their Chinese heritage. Victor takes pride in that he and Tammy were raised with a strong Chinese background, unlike many American-born Chinese Americans who don’t speak the language and are completely removed from the culture. Their strong ability to communicate in China makes him very proud.

Mark & Michael Say Farewell: For Mark, the race wasn’t easy. The environment, the different cultures, the people all had to be handled with a grain of salt. You just had to accept the differences and embrace them and move on. He also learned not to take things for granted, especially in his home life in the U.S. Mark also wants to see many of the people and things he saw on the race again.

Mike looks back on the race and knows that six months from now, he’ll remember it mostly for the chance to do this with his brother. He’ll also remember all the places and the teams they raced with. The Amazing Race was not only a race, but an experience.

Extra Race Footage

Sisters Squabble: Outside a gate house, Kisha tells Jen she’s not sure that they should let their cab go. Kisha doesn’t see any other cabs around, but Jen isn’t having any of it. Kisha continues to argue her point, while Jen doesn’t think there will be a problem finding a cab on a busy main street. Kisha gets a bit upset that Jen keeps saying, “I don’t think so,” which is driving Kisha crazy.

Enjoying the View: As Mike & Mark are riding along on a Chinese highway, they comment admiringly on the dramatic mountainous landscape they’re driving through. They see little mountains that look like volcanoes or the mountain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Jaime’s Disappointment: In a Thai cab, Jaime & Cara are a bit sad that they’re headed to China and not another warm, tropical destination. Cara also is stressed it’s going to be a destination where the language barrier will not be easily broken. Yet she is still excited that she gets to go there, as she has always wanted to visit China. Jaime flat out admits she wanted to go to someplace awesome like Australia. For some reason, Jaime is not letting her desire for Australia go while Cara tries to convince her that China will probably be awesome too. Jaime’s Australian dreams have been crushed by The Amazing Race producers.

Elimination Station

Mark & Mike Eliminated: Thai Time! The group is already heading to a tour truck, so I guess there’s no setup for Preston & Jennifer drama this episode. Brad tells us they’re headed to Samui Safari Park where Victoria excitedly states they’re going to ride elephants. (Sweet!) First up are Linda & Steve and while on the elephant, Linda worries they might be hurting it. Steve is up near the elephant’s head “driving” it, where he is afraid he’s going to push on its brains and make it mad. Wow. Steve realizes that he had no control over the elephant, so “driving” is not really the accurate term for what he was doing.

Over on Preston & Jennifer’s elephant, Jennifer is driving while Preston is on the mounted seat. It’s as it should be, Preston humorously remarks. Brad & Victoria shared the seat on their elephant. For Victoria it was a wonderful experience to be so close to such a gracious animal.

At the Crocodile Park section of the park, a trainer with a voice like a vocoder has an elephant say good morning to everyone. It’s a combined grunt and shake from the elephant, followed by the elephant walking along on his hind legs for the audience. Next we see the elephant on a stool spinning a hula hoop on his trunk. A final, somewhat sad shot is of the elephant chained to a post with Victoria looking sadly upon it.

Back at the house, the entire group is seated around an indoor table with a nice old-school Razr phone placed on it. It seems we’ve reached the time when there’s not enough time to get the teams back to Elimination Station before they all leave for the final destination. Speculation as to who it will be turns to the Redheads, as usual. No one really likes Jaime – and Cara is the collateral damage.

The phone rings and everyone hears Mike & Mar’s voices. We can see Mark & Mike sitting in China near the Pit Stop. Jodi asks where they are and Mike & Mark fill everyone in on where they are and the numerous penalties they had to deal with. Amanda wonders how the other teams still in it are doing and Mike reports that they’re all within minutes of each other and it’s a very close race. Jodi wonders if there’s anybody they don’t want to win now and, for Mark, it’s an easy answer – Cara & Jaime. Everyone gets a good laugh out of that and agrees with the sentiment. Mark & Mike end the call after that.

Everyone believes that it sounds like Margie & Luke have this in the bag. Individually, Preston & Jennifer reveal they want Jen & Kisha to win. Brad & Victoria want Margie & Luke to win. Everyone is excited to see who will win it all. It sounds like they’re all going to be leaving for “End City” soon.