The Amazing Race > The Racers
TAR 23: Rowan Joseph & Shane Partlow "Best Friends-Actors"
Hooky:
Aww, shucks! It's sad that they got eliminated. However, there were so many opportunities they had to catch up that I almost don't feel nearly as bad for them. They could have gotten on the right bus, they could have picked the right shoe shine kit, and (generally) they could have just thought things through a little more carefully.
Still, I will miss them and the potentially fun humor they would have brought to the rest of the Race had they lasted longer. :(
georgiapeach:
Exclusive: Rowan Joseph and Shane Partlow talk 'The Amazing Race' (Part 1)
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 10/07/2013
The Amazing Race eliminated Rowan Joseph and Shane Partlow during Sunday night's second broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 23rd season.
The "Theater Performers" became the second team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's second Pit Stop at the Cascada De Las Animas -- a natural paradise in the Andes mountains -- in Santiago, Chile in last place.
In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Rowan and Shane talked about their The Amazing Race experience and early ouster from the competition.
Reality TV World: How far behind Nicole "Nicky" Getz and Kim DeJesus do you think you finally arrived at the Pit Stop? The show's editing made it look like it was a tight race to the finish between you guys and the two girls.
Shane Partlow: It was tight.
Rowan Joseph: It was pretty tight, yeah. It was pretty tight.
Shane Partlow: If our cab driver wouldn't have run out of gas...
Rowan Joseph: Yeah, it would've been a foot race then.
Reality TV World: So it was just a matter of minutes then, it sounds like.
Shane Partlow: We think so, yeah.
Reality TV World: When you guys arrived at the Pit Stop, were you certain you were in last place?
Rowan Joseph: Well we knew, I knew, we were in last place. And I guess they knew, but I definitely knew we were in last place because I was with Nicky the whole way and she had left just a couple of minutes before us.
But I saw her get her final notice and go, and then I was still putting my stuff completely together, and then I got the approval. But she definitely had a good, I'd say, three minutes. But it's hard with time, but I would say it's still probably about three or four minutes that she had ahead of us.
Shane Partlow: We were hoping that her cab could've gotten lost...
Rowan Joseph: Or maybe that they didn't get a cab as quickly. We didn't know when or where they got a cab. We got the cab pretty quickly...
Shane Partlow: But it was on empty. (Laughs) We were going to walk. We didn't care that we ran out of gas. We were going to get out there and walk. It was a 20-minute ride or something like that and we were halfway in.
Rowan Joseph: Oh yeah, it was a long ride.
Shane Partlow: Yeah.
Reality TV World: The look on both of your faces when you met The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan at the Pit Stop seemed to give away the fact you were anticipating or at least optimistic about a potential non-elimination leg. Is that accurate to say? What was going through your minds in that moment when Phil was welcoming you?
Shane Partlow: We, at that point, we were like, "If we are last, let's hope it is a non-elimination round." (Laughs) Where there's light, there's hope. That's what I always say.
Rowan Joseph: And it did say, that particular clue said, "may be eliminated," so we were really hoping that we would duck the bullet. We certainly had the -- and we were probably a little more optimistic because of the fact that we had that entire day.
I mean, we were constantly shot and getting back up, shot and getting up, shot and getting up. Sometimes it was a bullet, sometimes it was an arrow, once it was a cannonball...
Shane Partlow: But it didn't matter! We got back up. It's like the song ["Titanium"]. (Laughs)
Reality TV World: Your two fatal flaws in this leg of the Race were apparently the late bus ride you took into Santiago and Rowan, you having to do the Roadblock task again. Starting with the bus, there was clearly a misunderstanding about when a bus left the station and its arrival time. Would you attribute that to a language barrier, a mistake on the workers' part behind the ticket counter, or would you say you simply weren't listening as attentively as you could've been?
Rowan Joseph: No, it was definitely the worker behind the counter. And it wasn't even so much a language barrier because he spoke fairly good English. And I don't speak fluent Spanish, but I speak somewhat functional Spanish, which you could hear throughout the episode. So we were -- I was certainly clear, you know, that it was going to be a ride in cuatro ahora [four now] and he was clear.
And somehow, one of the things we learned several times, and that was another instance of it, that we forget -- first and foremost, we're performers so we're used of being on cameras, but when you turn a camera on someone else and they realize they're on-camera, it affects, I don't know, something in their brain.
It was definitely something -- the miscommunication was such that we repeated several times -- and we were very, very clear -- "It gets there. It arrives," you know what I mean? "In Santiago or here?" So, you know, we were very clear. He was very clear back...
Shane Partlow: And we didn't let the bus go until we were sure.
Rowan Joseph: Right, until we were absolutely sure. Because we even said, "Are you sure? Certain?" Absolutely sure. So it was one of those, and then it was nice in terms of his boss who came after the woman, who you sort of saw in the corner, she overheard all of this and I think she realized what had happened. Because we then went, "Well, wait a minute. You just sunk us."
It was, I mean, literally, we were being told, "Yes, yes, yes."
"Well are you sure?"
"Absolutely certain, cuatro ahora, si."
Everything was absolutely certain and so we let the bus go, and then literally when we came back for the tickets, that's when he said, "It will be here..." And I was like, "Wait a minute, what? Huh?" Wait."
So what she did, clearly what they did, is there really wasn't another bus scheduled for four hours. They pulled another bus off of the road, and that's how we ended up getting on another bus within an hour, and it didn't make as many stops because we were about 15 minutes behind the other teams when we did arrive in Santiago.
Shane Partlow: And it was a much more comfortable bus and we got front seats! We had a great view. (Laughs) We always try to find the positive even when we're down. We kept our heads up.
Reality TV World: So since you two actually arrived in Santiago really only 20 minutes behind all the teams who came in on the bus you had missed. Putting into perspective how the rest of that leg finished up for you guys, do you think that 20 minute-gap still ultimately cost you the Race or would you attribute it more to the Roadblock?
Rowan Joseph: Yes, I cost us the Race. I cost us the Race by not going to the designated shoe-sign stand.
Reality TV World: I wanted to ask you about that Rowan, when did you first figure out the guy who's shoeshine stand you borrowed and used wasn't an official part of the Race? Did you have any inkling things weren't right before you brought your stand to the storage room?
Rowan Joseph: No! Because he was wonderfully gracious and kind. The clue said you have to watch a demonstration and then you have to find a customer yourself, you have to do the shoeshine, it has to be approved by the gentleman -- you know, that it was okay -- the customer has to pay you the 500 pesos, you have to give the 500 pesos to the operator and then put all of the kit together.
I did all of that with his blessing. So, you know, he was extremely kind and it was (laughs) extremely unfortunate that he was extremely kind. So he didn't make me go to the next gentleman.
He was the shoeshine person I came to and he gave me the demonstration and all of the things that were required went exactly as they were. And even loading everything up, he was kind of -- I was like, "I need to pack all of this up," and he was like, "Okay." I mean, God bless him! (Laughs)
Reality TV World: Looking back on it now, do you have any idea why the shoeshine guy went along with your request to use his shoeshine cart and materials? It must've seemed weird to the shoeshine guy that a stranger approached him asking to use his stuff, especially since he couldn't speak English to communicate with you directly.
Rowan Joseph: I think again, the one thing -- I mean, we watch the show and we're fans. The one thing we didn't factor in, again, I think it's when a camera is on someone who isn't used to being on-camera. The crew is there. You forget it has an affect on their thinking. I think he was just thinking, "Alright, I'm on TV!"
And it was funny because you'd get in a cab, and that part we learned early on, that no matter what cab driver you asked, no matter where you were going, it could've been Timbuktu. They knew exactly where it was, because they wanted you in their cab, I guess, with the camera!
And they'd always pick up their cell phone and call someone. And you'd think, "Oh great, they're calling for directions." And then you realize, no, they're calling their wife to tell them they're on-camera and they're going to be on TV. So that's a lot, I think, of what happened, the gentleman was like, "Oh, I'm on TV! American television!" And he just went along with it.
And that just never crossed my mind until after the fact. I went, "Yeah, okay, I think" -- because he was very nice about it. I mean, he really was considering I was walking off with his livelihood. He was quite amendable to it.
Reality TV World: Did you actually have an easy time finding a cart that was truly part of the Race or did you wander around looking for awhile after the incident?
Rowan Joseph: No, truthfully after that happened, I went to another one and I finally found the one. And then the way it was set up -- the clue didn't read that way -- there was one place where you went for a demonstration and then you went over to a separate cart to do the shoeshine.
So when I was getting the demonstration, I then did everything the same. "Alright, I'll do it." And then the guy wouldn't give me the stuff. And I was like, "Okay, wait a minute. I just did it," and then he just kind of tilted his head truthfully.
He gave me a little bit of a hint, because he tilted his head and I looked over and I went, "Okay, there's another shoeshine stand and there's a guy sitting there waiting for a shine. I guess I go over there." So I went over there, and that happened to be the right one.
Reality TV World: Any idea how much time you wasted having to do that Roadblock all over again?
Rowan Joseph: Enough that it cost us the leg, that's for sure.
Read more at http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/exclusive-rowan-joseph-and-shane-partlow-talk-the-amazing-race-%28part-1%29--15377.php#im3s2yqVK431uhm1.99
Exclusive: Rowan Joseph and Shane Partlow talk 'The Amazing Race' (Part 2
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 10/08/2013
The Amazing Race eliminated Rowan Joseph and Shane Partlow during Sunday night's second broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 23rd season.
The "Theater Performers" became the second team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's second Pit Stop at the Cascada De Las Animas -- a natural paradise in the Andes mountains -- in Santiago, Chile in last place.
In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Rowan and Shane talked about their The Amazing Race experience and early ouster from the competition.
Reality TV World: Rowan, that shoeshine Roadblock clearly took you awhile to complete since you basically had to do it twice. Could you elaborate on what you thought your chances were of surviving at that point?
Rowan Joseph: When I first started, [Timothy Sweeney] was finished, but [Marie "Reebs" Mazzocchi] and [Kim DeJesus] were both still in it. Kim couldn't find one of the pieces of her kit. She never found it. I mean, she actually never ended up finding it. Well, she did -- she bought it, so she found it in that sense.
So, I knew that we were in it until the very end, but if I had gone to the correct place to begin with, we definitely would have survived that leg.
Reality TV World: Going back to the Detour task, what made you guys decide to do the mining one over the pool-floating task? Looking back on how that worked out, do you think you made the right choice?
Shane Partlow: We definitely made the right choice. I remember at the beginning, when me and Rowan were talking about it, he was saying, "What do you want to do?" And I decided, but Rowan would say, "Well, it's salt. I'll float, I'll float, I'll float." And I was like, "Oh, I don't know. We're going to get in that water and everything and God only knows." Mining just seemed right.
Rowan Joseph: Also, we learned early on, whenever you can do something that's objective and not subjective, it's a much better situation. Meaning, there wasn't a judgement on it. You either did it or you didn't do it. But we're floating and they could decide if you're floating or not.
I mean, I don't speak perfect Spanish, but I certainly speak functional-enough Spanish to say, "Charge the ship, men!" -- Which I did. And I said it three times the same way, but it wasn't until the third time that it rang correct in the ears of the person. So I was like, "Okay, we don't ever want to be in a situation where we're not in control over whether we succeed or not."
So any time -- we decided from that point forward that any time we came to a task, if it was a matter of doing something that completed and you did it without someone judging no matter how hard it was, that's what we were going to do. So I'd say it was in our hands more than the hands of, you know, someone else.
Reality TV World: How long do you think it took you to finish the "Mining" Detour task?
Rowan Joseph: 15 minutes maybe, maybe 20. I'm trying to remember, because I just remember it was...
Shane Partlow: Not as quick as the bearded guys [Brandon Squyres and Adam Switzer], because those guys, they got lucky. They got a rock that just split. But the NFL guys [Chester Pitts II and Ephraim Salaam] and us, literally, our rocks were crumbs. I mean, they would pulverized by the time we were done. (Laughs) It was literally a stack of pebbles when we found [the clue]. It was amazing.
Reality TV World: It looked like you guys got lost in your cab going to the start of that Detour task at Irlanda 3. What ended up happening there and how long were you driving around looking for that destination?
Shane Partlow: Long time!
Rowan Joseph: A long, long time. We were actually, ironically -- I think I'm correct in this -- we were the last team off of the ship somehow or another, because as they said, just the way the wind was blowing and they didn't hear me say the clue or whatever it was. We were the last ones off the ship.
But we were the first ones in the cab and on our way. We would've been at the task if the gentleman knew where he was going, as he said he did. We stopped at a school, thinking, "Oh, this is great! It's a school. Someone here will speak English." We looked on the Internet at the school. We couldn't find it. We stopped at some kind of a public office...
Shane Partlow: And a cement place.
Rowan Joseph: We stopped at a government office, and then finally, we found a student who spoke English similar to the gentleman at the bus station, who knew where it was and gave us the directions. And then, even then, the cab driver got in and he ended up stopping at the salt mines' offices before we went to the salt mines just to double check where we were going. So, ugh.
Shane Partlow: Even going into the salt mines, all we saw were trucks going up there. And I was like, "I don't know if this is right or not!"
Rowan Joseph: Yeah, we finally saw another cab and we knew we were right at that point. But the bad news was, the cab was going away from the site instead of to it. So we knew, "Okay, they're done and we're just getting there."
Reality TV World: It's obvious that most teams disliked Tim and Marie, who unfortunately were carrying that extra Express Pass around to give out. Rowan, you were shown calling Marie "the devil" in Spanish. What exactly happened that made you form that opinion of her, and did you mean what you said or were you just airing out some frustrations at that point in the Race?
Rowan Joseph: I mean, Marie's okay. Really, the Afghanimals were the only ones that we didn't end up speaking to and who we had no respect for at all. But Marie and Tim, she's a tough competitor. I mean, I have a feeling "diablo" will stick with her for the rest of the season, (laughs) and there's a little merit to that.
But, you know, at least she doesn't pretend to be one thing and she's another, which is really what the Afghanimals do. We don't like them at all candidly. But Marie, ask Marie, take her or leave her -- she doesn't care. So, you know, better the devil you know than the one you don't.
Reality TV World: Could you elaborate on why you have no respect for the Afghanimals -- "Cousins" Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran? Did you talk to them much?
Rowan Joseph: We did, but they were not -- that's the only team that, for us anyway, swore at us and just...
Shane Partlow: Made promises.
Rowan Joseph: Yeah, made promises -- a Muslim oath -- and then they'd completely break it. They were not -- they're completely 180-degrees opposite of us and anyone else that we encountered on the Race.
We are not fans of theirs at all. They lied to us blatantly to our face and they lied by taking what we considered to be "a special oath." They cheated us on money, they told us to go f-ck ourselves, they just made it clear that they didn't care about anything or anyone.
And that went for, not just us, but for all the teams -- except for the two girls [Allison "Ally" Mello and Ashley Covert], but it was clear what their intentions were there too.
So they were just -- and it was unfortunate, because [Ephraim] is a Muslim as well, and he pulled him aside and said, "You might want to consider..." they don't show any of that obviously, but everything that we value means nothing to them. So therefore, they mean nothing to us.
Reality TV World: As I'm sure you probably watched last night's episode, do you think Tim and Marie will follow through with the plan to eventually give [Nicole "Nicky" Getz] and Kim their extra Express Pass. And if so, do you think that would be a smart move on their part or no?
Rowan Joseph: I just think they're going to -- as anyone with that Express Pass -- use it as power as long as they can.
Shane Partlow: Yeah, I don't know.
Reality TV World: When it got down to just you two and Nicky and Kim at the end of the leg, did you ever worry Tim and Marie might give their Express Pass to the girls then, to basically allow them to jump ahead of you guys and ensure their safety?
Shane Partlow: I don't really remember if they had any -- I don't remember them. I didn't think...
Rowan Joseph: It didn't cross our minds, I don't think at that point.
Shane Partlow: I didn't really think they were tight at that point.
Rowan Joseph: And I knew Marie. I felt I knew her well enough to know she was not going to give that away until she absolutely had to give it away. It was too much leverage, so giving it away in the second leg, I don't think would've been a smart move. And Marie is a very smart woman -- a very smart woman.
Reality TV World: Who did you see as being your biggest competition in the Race and why? Who do you think has what it takes to win?
Rowan Joseph: The nice part is that we really felt that the teams, despite the fact we were a 103-year-old team, (laughs) we really felt like all of the teams were competitive -- even ourselves, especially because of the way the Race works.
I mean, anything can happen, like, you could get in the wrong cab. So there wasn't any one dominant team, like the "Hockey Brothers" [Bates Battaglia and Anthony Battaglia] last year.
As far as the team we would've liked, you know, to have hung out with more and spent more time with, there were several of them. As far as winning, there are several that kind of -- our favorite team was definitely [Nicole Jasper and Travis Jasper]. I mean, we really, as far as emotionally, we really liked them.
The team we became the most friendly with, and we're still very, very close with, were Chester and [Ephraim]. They're good buddies. You really do become friends with people who you would normally never even meet, probably, in life. But this situation, it really does bond you. We're close with all of the teams, but especially with Chester and E.
Shane Partlow: We had a bond from the very beginning with Chester and E., right when we first met them.
Rowan Joseph: Yes, they're great guys. E., I mean, wow, what a great, great, great man all the way around in every way.
Read more at http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/exclusive-rowan-joseph-and-shane-partlow-talk-the-amazing-race-(part-2)-15385.php#5gjYDshh7u0r0GtW.99
georgiapeach:
Very, very interesting interview!
stekay:
I've just read the bit in bold for now, but that was very, very, revealing.
Vitoko:
That was an interesting thing to read but I hate how Rowan keeps blaming everyone else for his lack of spanish (his functional spanish is way off) or his mistake with the shoshine person (22 seasons before, same colored route markers, your mistake)... I guess that is the way he lived the race but I saw something totally different on TV and I was paying close attention to their interactions with the locals...
Looks like Leo&Jamal speech on playing everyone else is real... interesting... quite interesting.
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