Yeah, while I hate to speculate about or accuse someone of something as serious as domestic assault, especially on the sole basis of a TV show, if I found out that Nick was indeed physically violent with Vicki (or anyone else he gets pissed off at) it wouldn’t be the most shocking thing that I ever heard…
My memory is the same as twickster’s – they had to eat anything they touched that wasn’t fake. Otherwise your’re right, it would have been trivially easy.
Phil’s exact words (from the cbs website video) “Any real food the teams pick up, they must eat.”
I did enjoy the replay of Claire’s watermelon incident though.
Watching it a bit though, I don’t see any racers poking - they’re just looking very very closely at the food. So the rules they were given were probably more stringent.
Nick was certainly douchey in this episode, but I didn’t see the restaurant that way at all. Quite the opposite, in fact; I saw him as supportive and concerned, eventually suggesting that maybe they should quit because Vicky killing herself on that challenge was ridiculous.
EDIT: Also contributing to his episode-long tantrum was the pretty obvious fact that he mentally checked out while riding the half-hour-later ferry. He was ready to quit from then on. I’m actually a little impressed he held out to 4am.
Nat said in the cab they had to eat anything they touched. There are usually many more rules that the racers see that we do not.
Here’s how football delays work: (Note that this never applies to the Western time zone, obviously. Only Eastern and Central time zones ever get football delays.)
Most games are played at 1pm Eastern. CBS and Fox trade off “double-header” games, which go out to the whole country and don’t start until 4:15pm. So half the time TAR will be delayed when CBS has the double-header.
There are a few other games that kick off at 4:05pm Eastern due to time zones. Tailgating is a big part of the NFL experience, and asking fans to show up at 6am for a 10am kickoff in the Western time zone isn’t realistic, so all Western time zone games kick off at 4:05 Eastern. These games are only broadcast to the home markets.
This week happened to be a Fox double-header, so most of the country got to see Eagles @ Bears. The handful of West Coast games also played late were:
Miami @ Oakland (CBS)
Kansas City @ Seattle (CBS)
St Louis @ Denver (Fox)
If you are in what the NFL considers the home market for Miami or Kansas City, you got a delayed TAR. (Oakland and Seattle, in the Western time zone, are immune.) Everyone else got it on time. The OP is in Nebraska, and as shown by the orange part of this map that puts him in the home market for Kansas City. Thus the delay.
Next week looks like another Fox double-header (Probably Atlanta @ Tampa Bay, but maybe Dallas @ Indianapolis) so everyone should see TAR on time. The only late game on CBS is Oakland @ San Diego, and since the home markets for both of them are in the Western time zone nobody will get delayed.
The following two weeks are both CBS double-headers, so TAR will be delayed for everyone in the Eastern and Central time zones.
Thanks for the clarification, Ellis Dee!
I really think that Team Tattoopid has a lot of the hallmarks of an abusive relationship – the aggression followed by apologies, plus the fact that Vickie is apparently responsible for calming him down and it’s her fault if he screams at her because she’s not doing a good enough job of that.
I’d assume that they screened the teams for an actual history of physical abuse in casting, but it seems like this relationship could be headed that way.
I was thinking the same thing as jacquilynne and Velma- if it’s not already an abusive relationship, it sure has all the hallmarks of one. He seems sincere in his tearful apologies, and probably is. But he also unreasonably angry at times and tends to blame it all on her. But shutting down on the harbor task was mainly the exhaustion talking, I’m guessing. Still a dick move though.
I understand the danger inherent in commenting about a person you only see in an edited TV show, but…I’m going to do it anyhow. I’m sure he is sincere in his apologies. That’s actually pretty common in abusive people, be they male, female, parents, SOs. Contrition followed by a promise to change. 
I get a really bad vibe from him. I also feel a little sickened by the fact that the editors and/or producers may be exploiting that to get an audience reaction. I don’t know. It just feels like seeing your sibling and their spouse have a big fight—uncomfortable amount of personal information.
That’s the vibe I got from watching Vicki while they were on the boat. It seemed she was in that very uncomfortable place between placating him, finishing the task, and knowing there was a camera recording the whole thing.
I dunno. I’m not exactly advocating giving Nick a pass for being a dick, but I can see how he may have under-estimated the amount of stress he’d be under during the race, and over-estimated his ability to cope with it. He did make a comment about the race just not being fun anymore, and that kind of rang true. A game or a sport is supposed to be fun; at what point do you decide that it just isn’t worth it anymore, and the damage you’re doing to yourself or your relationship isn’t worth the promised reward?
There’s a difference between saying “Look honey, this race is making me so stressed that I’m being an asshole–a total abusive douche–towards you. A million dollars isn’t worth that to me. I really want to quit. I know that’ll disappoint you, but it’s better than the horrible way I’ve been treating you and everyone else.”
and
“You’ve gotten teh asthma so you can piss me off. Watching you puke is hard on me, I wanna quit! Now I’m all tired from watching you do all the work and I wanna quit moooore. You’re dumb to keep trying. You’re dumb to work. Work is for suckers. I’m tiiiiiired and craaaanky. Pay attention to me. I wanna quit so I don’t have to watch you do stuff.”
hehheh, no doubt. Though I still take issue with characterizing Nick being unwilling to watch Vicky repeatedly gorge herself until puking as anything other than a point in his favor. That he would rather quit the race than watch her suffer/abuse her body doesn’t make him abusive or a bad guy.
The rest of the second paragraph is spot on, though. I particularly like: “I’m tiiiiiired and craaaanky. Pay attention to me.” hehheh.
Would it be worth it to take a little vial of ipecac syrup on the Race? I mean, if you’re gonna hurl anyway, might as well get it over with. If that’s the fastest way to complete a task (eat, puke, repeat as necessary), then so be it.
Or does ipecac mess you up enough that you don’t feel like eating for a while?
Doesn’t sound like a good idea:
Sounds perfect for this use. If bulimics use it, it works well. All the side effects are for prolonged use, which is not this case. May as well say you shouldn’t do it because puking rots your teeth.
And all the “doesn’t help with poison” stuff doesn’t matter, as the intended use would be that of a bulimic, not someone who was poisoned.
According to the map for this weekend’s game, there are pockets on the East coast and in the midwest that will have a late game on CBS and so should expect delays. If you live in a red part on the first map, you’ll get delays. Otherwise you should expect TAR to be on time. (Most people.)
The red parts are much of Wisconsin and Michigan, the NY-NJ-CT tri-state area, the greater New Orleans area, Augusta GA, and much of Virginia.
I haven’t a clue why these areas will get an Oakland-San Diego game, but hey, whaddya gonna do.
(After a little poking around, it appears that Augusta GA gets the late CBS game because that CBS affiliate is airing the annual Columbia County (GA) Christmas Parade instead of an early game. hehheh.)
When my dog ate mouse poison (not much, but I wanted to be sure), I made her drink peroxide. Everything she ate was up before it went down. She wasn’t happy, but didn’t seem the least bit ill from it, minus the vomitting.
StG
New York, Green Bay, and Detroit are playing 1pm home games, so their local CBS affiliates are contractually prohibited from showing a 1pm game. Washington and New Orleans are on the road at 1pm, and presumably their local CBS affiliates have no interest in airing a game no one will watch since the home team is on the other channel.