Sukhi Just Earned My Respect

I just finished watching this week's episode of The Amazing Race Canada.

You know how they always ask you who your favourite team is? Who you're rooting for?

I never really know until close to the end, but I do usually know who I'm not rooting for. Not who I'm hoping will be eliminated (because hoping someone gets eliminated would be mean), just who I'm not necessarily hoping will win.

I wasn't rooting for Sukhi and Jinder. At all. They've been the team that can't seem to figure out how to do anything on their own. They get excitable and panicky and spacey (they are the team that stood in front of a clue box several times and couldn't see the forest for the trees) and no other team will help them. They've been seen as the weakest link. Even I thought that they'd flake out before the end of the race.

Oh, how wrong we've all been!

Spoiler alerts ahead.

Take last week. A challenging roadblock (bicycle biathalon) had teammates cycling a kilometre before having 5 rounds to make 5 shots with a rifle. Don't get all five? Take another bike ride to get another 5 rounds.

All the other teams had to go around at least once more; some of them completed their exercise quota for the month, including the dude who is a hunter.

Sukhi and Jinder show up (after struggling with harnessing dogs in the previous task and after having to complete their speed bump for coming in last in the previous week's non-elimination round), and does her bike ride, and then proceeds to boost everyone's confidence by walking up to the shooting range, saying, "I've never held a gun before."

Boom. Ting! Boom. Ting! Boom. Ting! Boom. Ting! Boom. Ting!

That's right. Five shots. Done.

Fast forward to this week's episode, and we see Sukhi and Jinder rock a currency-flag matching task, and then choose a hockey task over a perogy-making task. Sukhi can't skate. Never has. Jinder doesn't look much better on skates, and no, they don't beat the girls (but other teams do!), but they do finish in time to catch up and move up the ladder.

I'm thinking that they are finally proving why they travel so well together, and maybe the other teams shouldn't dismiss them quite so readily.

I may even start to root for them.