The "Brothers/Cowboys" team of Jet McCoy and Cord McCoy lived to ride another day despite a last-place finish during Sunday night's broadcast of The Amazing Race's seventh sixteenth-season episode.

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"I think that the odds are definitely against us," Cord said after discovering that The Amazing Race's mistake-filled seventh leg was a non-elimination leg and they had managed to avoid elimination.

"But champions aren't necessarily the people who ride the most bulls," Jet added.  "They're the people who can get bucked off and still pick themselves back up and get on another one.  That's just what we do, so we hit bottom and there's only one place to go and that's up."

Instead of being eliminated, Jet and Cord will get to continue in the Race's eighth leg but will have to overcome a Speed Bump, a special task that only they will have to complete.

The Amazing Race's seventh sixteenth-season episode began with the six remaining teams leaving the Race's sixth Pit Stop in the Champagne region in northeast France.

Since they had been the first team to arrive at the Pit Stop, "Detectives" Louis Stravato and Michael Naylor were the first team to depart at 12:35AM.

They were followed by "Dating Couple" Carol Rosenfeld and Brandy Snow at 1:28AM, "Father/Daughter" Steve Smith and Allie Smith at 1:57AM, Jet and Cord at 2:36AM, "Brothers" Dan Pious and Jordan Pious at 3:36AM, and "Dating Models" Caite Upton and Brent Horne at 4:36AM.

Upon opening their departure clues, the teams were instructed to fly to the island of Mahe in the Seychelles, an island chain in the Indian Ocean.  After landing they would have to make their way "on foot" to the "marked kiosk and take a number."

However due to the remote location, all six teams would be flying on the same flight. 

"This stinks," Michael said after learning the teams would all be traveling together and his team would be losing the lead they had maintained through the Race's last three legs.

While several of the teams recognized the "take a number" instruction probably meant it would be important to arrive at the kiosk as soon as possible and did their best to get seats near the airplane's exits, others did not.

"There's a restaurant, ya'll want to eat first and then we'll make it through the check-in?" Jet and his brother asked Louis and Michael after they arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

"Yeah," Louis and Michael replied.

"That may have been a tactical error on our part not sitting closer to the front of the plane," Brandy told Carol after she realized the pair had just accepted the check-in clerk's initial seat assignments.

Once they landed in Mahe and arrived at the kiosk, the teams learned that they would be taking helicopters to the island of La Digue, with the first three teams leaving immediately and the other three teams departing an hour later after the three available helicopters returned.

Caite and Brent, Steve and Allie, and Dan and Jordan were the teams on the first three helicopters, leaving Louis and Michael, Carol and Brandy, and Jet and Cord to wait an hour.

"It was hard to sit there and wait for the helicopters.  The three strongest teams were in fourth, fifth and sixth place," Carol lamented afterwards. 

"I think Brent and Caite got lucky today," she added about the Race's perpetual also-rans.

Meanwhile, Caite began boasting about her team's fortune.

"This is awesome, we're gonna get so far ahead of the last couple teams.  I just want to get the mean lesbians out," she told Brent as they flew to the island.

After landing on La Digue, the teams received clues which told them it was time to complete one of two Detour tasks: "Turtle Toddle" or "Ox Trot."

"Turtle Toddle" required the teams to pick a 500-pound tortoise and use a single banana to lure it across a marked lawn.  After getting their tortoise to cross the lawn, each team member would then have to grab a bunch of bananas and carry them a mile and a half to a fruit merchant who would give them their next clue.

"Ox Trot" required the teams to load an entire pile of coconuts into a cart without losing any of them.  Once they were ready, an ox handler would attach an oxen to the cart and the team would then have to guide the ox a mile and a half to a fruit merchant who would give them their next clue.

Brent and Caite were the first team to arrive at the Detour and selected "Ox Trot."  Steve and Allie followed in second place and selected "Turtle Toddle."

"I've never met an ox that I could trust and turtles are cool," Steve joked.

Dan and Jordan then arrived third and also picked "Ox Trot."

Brent and Caite managed to load their cart and begin the trip to the fruit merchant shortly after Steve and Allie had finished carefully selecting an active tortoise, however they failed to notice that one of their coconuts had bounced out of the cart during their loading and left without it.

Meanwhile, Steve and Allie quickly guided their tortoise across the lawn as Allie held the banana just outside the animal's reach throughout the walk.

"They've already finished the turtle thing!" Brent told Caite as the couple watched Steve and Allie pass them with their banana bunches as they struggled to get their ox to move down the road.

"This is what I was afraid of," he added as the couple began to argue about the best way to guide the ox.  "Man that turtle ate quick.  That pisses me off!"

However things didn't go perfect for Steve and Allie, as they forgot their backpacks at Detour location when they left with their banana bunches.

"We forgot our bags," Allie said after she and her dad had completed the Detour and boarded a boat to St. Pierre Island after receiving their next clue. 

"Are you kidding me?  Holy crap. I can't do that.  I really want my backpack back," she continued.

Given they still had their passports and money with them, Steve let Allie decide if they should return to the Detour location for their backpacks, but she ultimately decided they were better off attempting to race the remainder of the Race without them.

"It's just clothes, you look good," Steve urged Allie, who was still covered in mashed bananas from the Detour task.

"I just really hope this is right but I trust you... it's make us faster, that's for sure," Allie replied.

"I had put makeup on every day, and my brush -- it will just strip me down and I'll be raw," Allie laughed afterwards.

Louis and Michael were the fourth team to arrive at the Detour and also selected "Ox Trot."  Carol and Brandy then arrived in fifth place and initially selected "Turtle Toddle" but switched to the ox cart task after deciding they had picked a bad tortoise and feeding him most of their banana just to move him a few feet down the lawn.  Jet and Cord arrived last and also picked "Ox Trot."

Meanwhile, Dan and Jordan -- who did make a point to check the area around their cart for any bounced coconuts before leaving -- also passed Brent and Caite on the road to the Fruit merchant and became the second team to successfully complete the Detour.

"Noooo," Caite shouted as the brothers passed.

"I'm so furious right now, we have the slowest ox out here," Brent vented.

But things took another turn for the worse for Brent and Caite when they finally reached the merchant behind Dan and Jordan and he told them the coconuts they had brought "were not enough."

"What are you talking about, we did the whole pile?" Caite snapped.

"We did the entire pile.  That's crap!" Brent shouted.  "How is theirs more than ours?"

"It's the same amount!  They're all the same!" Caite shouted.

"I quit then!" Brent said. "I'm not riding it back.  I quit!  I  quit... whatever."

"I'm not driving this thing two miles back. I don't care," he added.
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However after cooling off, Brent eventually had a change of heart.

"Let's go, get on.  I guess one fell out, I want to see if I can look for it," Brent urged Caite as they re-boarded their cart and headed back to the Detour location.

"I don't even want to play anymore.  This is so stupid!" Caite replied.

"This is so unfair!" she added as she began to cry.

"Don't worry about it," Brent urged.

Steve and Allie's boat was the first to arrive at a marker off the shore of St. Pierre Island. 

Once they were there, their captain gave then their next clue, which informed them one member of each team would have to complete a Roadblock task that required them to dive down to a submerged box that contained seven bottles and untie one of them and return it to their team's boat. 

After a team had retrieved a bottle, their captain would then take them toward a beach, where they would have to swim ashore and then assemble a small map inside the bottle to determine the path to the Pit Stop.

Steve chose to do the Roadblock task for his team and quickly swam dove the 10-12 feet distance to the anchored box and retrieved a bottle.

"My dad's a great swimmer, when he goes to the gym he'll swim for like an hour," Allie gushed.

Dan and Jordan then arrived at the Roadblock in second place.  Jordan did the task for his team but struggled slightly and needed several dives to retrieve the bottle, which he dropped onto the ocean floor after freeing it on his second attempt.

"Good job bro!" Dan told Jordan after initially mocking his performance.

Meanwhile back on the island of La Digue, Louis and Michael managed to fill their cart and headed to the merchant before Brent and Caite returned to the site.

"Why are the kids coming this way?" Michael asked as he and Louis passed the couple on their way to the merchant.

"They didn't find it," Louis suggested.

"Did you guys find it?" Michael asked.

"Yeah, we found it.  They told us we didn't have enough," Caite replied.

"Maybe they dropped a few, hopefully.  Because we cleared our entire pile.  Hopefully we didn't make the same mistake," Michael said after the couple had passed.

Once they arrived back at the Detour site, a monitor immediately pointed their stray coconut out to Brent and Caite.

"Oh, he's standing next to it.  Oh my god.  wow, this is ridiculous," Brent vented as he grabbed the coconut.

"This is so unfair," Caite said again. 

"There we go, that's all of our freaking coconuts," she added as the pair began their ride back to the merchant as Jet and Cord continued loading their cart and Carol and Brandy arrived from the "Turtle Toddle" task.

"It's Brent and Caite," Carol said as the women watched the couple leave.

"They probably messed up somewhere," Brandy said.

"It's like 'Duh!'" Carol replied.

Jet and Cord then finished loading their cart and left in fifth place but despite checking beforehand, still also left without discovering one of their coconuts had also bounced out while they were loading the cart.

They were followed by Carol and Brandy who, even though they also checked around their cart, failed to notice that one of their loaded coconuts -- which they subsequently ran right over as they left -- had bounced out and rolled in front of one of their cart's wheels.

In the meantime, Steve and Allie's boat reached its drop-off location and the two swam ashore.  Once on the beach, they quickly assembled their map and raced down a path to the Pit Stop. 

"We have no backpacks [but] we have our passports, we have our money," Steve told The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan as he checked them in -- presumably aware that the pair would have been facing potential elimination if they had arrived without the passports that would enable them to continue to the Race's next location.

Dan and Jordan then arrived at the Pit Stop in second place.

Back on La Digue, Louis and Michael reached the merchant and discovered, much to their relief, that they hadn't made any mistakes during the Detour task.

Brent and Caite then arrived next and finally received their next clue from the merchant.

Jet and Cord followed fifth but discovered they had also missed a coconut and needed to return to the Detour location and retrieve it.

"We loaded the whole pile," Cord said.

"Are you serious," Jet asked.

"Yeah, you didn't load all the coconuts," the merchant insisted.

"Let's go back," Cord said.

"That's BS," Jet said.

Carol and Brandy then passed Jet and Cord on their own way to the merchant, giving them hope that they had managed to climb out of last place.

"I hate to say it, but that bodes well for us," Carol said.

But once they got to the merchant, Carol and Brandy discovered that they had also missed a coconut.

"You didn't load all the coconuts," the merchant said.

"Yes we did," Brandy insisted.

"Are you kidding me?" Carol added.  "We loaded the entire pile!"

"Yeah, I'm sure," he replied when Brandy asked whether he was sure.

"We have to go back... we're done, we're done!" Carol said.

Jet and Cord then found their coconut and returned to the merchant in fifth place. 

"I would have paid you to have picked up the one that we apparently left behind," Carol joked to Jet and Cord as the teams passed each other on the road for a second time.

After completing their own trip back, Carol and Brandy also found their missing coconut -- which Carol blamed on a bad throw from Brandy -- and returned to the merchant in sixth place.

Although they left the Detour after Louis and Michael, Brent and Caite managed to arrive at the Roadblock in third place.  Once there, Brent completed the task without issue.  Louis and Michael then arrived next and Michael easily completed the Roadblock but Louis accidentally smashed the bottle after they had loaded it into their boat.

Both teams then arrived offshore and swam to the beach.  Since they had arrived on the beach first and already completed assembling their map, Brent and Louis decided to share it with Louis and Michael.

"We don't want them kicked out, we want some other teams kicked out," Brent explained after the teams arrived at the Pit Stop and third and fourth place respectively.

After being checked in, both teams told Phil they would like to see Carol and Brandy eliminated next.

"They've got chips on their shoulders, they're negative people.  Negative people bring negative waves," Michael said.

"We kinda want them gone too," Caite said. 

"They're like , 'Oh, I'm surprised you're on this race without your little tiara.'  I'm like, 'Dude, I've only been in like a couple of pageants, don't talk to me that way, you don't know me.'  And all I have been is nice to them, they just keep being mean to me," she continued.  "I would like them to be out because they're just so rude, they don't deserve  to be here."

"From what I heard, it's pretty anonymous amongst the teams," Brent added.

"Unanimous?" Michael asked.

"Unanimous," Brent laughed.

Jet and Cord were the fifth team to complete the Roadblock and reach the Pit Stop, however they arrived without their bottle, which they had left on their boat.

"You will need to retrieve the bottle and then remove what is inside the bottle and bring the contents to shore before I can check you in," Phil told the cowboys after they admitted that had just "jogged" around the beach until the Pit Stop location caught their eye.

Carol and Brandy then arrived offshore about halfway through Jet and Cord's 300-yard swim back to their boat, resulting in a fifth-place scramble that the women won.

However once they arrived at the Pit Stop, Phil told Jet and Cord that their last-place finish hadn't eliminated them.

"You're not eliminated.  This is a non-elimination leg.  You're still in the Race but you cut it pretty close," Phil said as he explained the cowboys will have to do the Speed Bump task during the next leg.
About The Author: Steven Rogers

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