For the second episode in a row, public transportation led to the downfall of an The Amazing Race team.
On the heels of last week's taxi debacle that saw the elimination of Amy Purdy and Daniel Gale, best friends Caitlin King, 24, and Brittany Fletcher, 25, suffered a similar fate in this week's episode. The pair was in a dead heat with the team of Gary Wojnar and Will Chiola -- who had just been forced to do U-turn requiring them to spend precious time in another detour challenge -- when their Indonesian bedak driver took a wrong turn at a fork in the road, and they came in last place, resulting in their elimination. This came after they previously had language issues trying to pay another bedak driver.
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Throughout the episode, the teams were tasked with serving multiple trays of padang food at once without dropping them and choosing between having eggs cooked over a fire burning in a coconut on their head or wearing a 40-pound lion's head mask while performing ceremonial dance moves in a Javanese parade.
On Monday, Caitlin and Brittany talked to The Hollywood Reporter about their elimination, their close finish and their transportation woes.
The Hollywood Reporter: So did it all really come down to that one wrong turn?
Caitlin King: I think for us, there were a few things we made mistakes on.
Brittany Fletcher: What America didn't see was that when we left the detour, our driver took us straight to [the location of the mat they were supposed to finish the leg, where host Phil Keoghan was waiting], so we actually did not pass the U-turn. We showed up at the pit stop where Phil was and said we gotta go find the U-turn. ... So we got over there and saw the guy that had taken us to the pit stop previously and thought, this guy knows where to go. All of a sudden, we see Will and Gary, so we go past them and figure, there's no problem because he knew to stay to the right because he had just taken us there. ... The bottom line is, if he had just taken us on the same route as before [we wouldn't have been eliminated], but he completely took on us a different route.
THR: Did you know when you reached the mat where Phil was waiting that you were in last place?
Brittany: Yeah, we knew it was down to Will and Gary and especially when we were passing them that it was between us two. But we had enough confidence to pass them because the guy had just taken us there. I have no idea what he was doing.
Caitlin: At that point, we were just so mentally and physically drained and exhausted. We were obviously disappointed. We knew we were one of the strongest teams and we definitely could have gone farther. At the end of the day, we were just excited and fortunate to be on the show in the first place. We made great friends, and that's all that mattered.
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THR: You also had trouble with another bedak driver over money. [The two were seen getting extremely upset as they were unable to get an answer from him about how much money he was owed for the ride.] What happened there?
Brittany: Basically, [the editing] made it seem like I was just yelling at the guy, but we had been standing there for 15 minutes, and we had passed the monster truckers [Rob French and Kelley Carrington-French] and obviously we saw Will and Gary get out and they had already started the challenge. And we were standing there and the driver was not telling us how much to pay, and we didn't want to pay the wrong amount, but it was ridiculous for all the teams to pass us. Everyone [other bedak drivers were also standing there] was yelling out different amounts. It was frustrating. It made it seem like I just blew upon the guy, but we had been standing there for 15 minutes.
Caitlin: We were trying to negotiate with him, and obviously it was not going anywhere. It's not fair for anyone to judge what we were going through at that point; it was the head of the moment.
Brittany: He just stared at us, gave us a hand gesture or something. At one point he said it was free. We're like, what? It's not free; tell us how much we owe you. I don't know how everybody else had it so easy. Our driver stared at us for 15 minutes, literally.
THR: How hard was it to carry all those plates of food without dropping them?
Brittany: I was so proud of myself.
Caitlin: Brittany did awesome.
Brittany: I've never served before.
Caitlin: You couldn't even tell, but she did it quick -- in and out of there in five minutes.
Brittany: It was hard, definitely challenging. But I knew for us to get ahead, I had to knock it out quick; I had to step it up and do what I needed to do.
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THR: What about the task involving the lion's masks? Was that as hard as it looked?
Caitlin: The thing with that was, you could only see a centimeter in front of you. And the mask weighed so much; you were holding it up with your teeth. At the same time, Brittany was behind me and I didn't know what she was doing. Every time I turned around with the mask on, it almost fell off, and if it fell off you had to start over.
Brittany: It was probably a mile that the parade went on.
THR: Do you have any particular team you are rooting for?
Caitlin: I think we made really good friends with a lot of them ... we're rooting for everybody.
THR: Why did you try out for the show?
Brittany: Basically, this and going on The Price Is Right are two things I always wanted to accomplish. For Amazing Race, I knew there was nobody else I wanted to partner up with than Caitlin. I knew we were going to be able to count on one another in the difficult time. I went after it and it was one of the things I knew I would not stop until I got on the show. It was on my bucket list, and at the same time, we are huge fans.
