It’s Race day, sports fans! Ladies and gentlemen, start your airplane reservations!
This week is a trip to Romania, and a task involving gymnastics. I expect the cheerleaders (Jaime & Cara) and the stuntmen (Mark & Michael) to do well. No idea, though, on who’s going to crash and burn.
For discussion, until the episode airs: Will Christie & Jodi continue to channel Dan & Andrew’s luck of the incompetent? Will they get their act together? Or will they finally cash out?
I’ll say it’ll either be the blondes or the redheads, but really, it’s still too early to tell. I’m hoping that Mel and Mike can hang in there as well as the older couple.
I seem to recall that the redheads are the cheerleaders – and pro level cheerleading is a close sibling to gymnastics.
The redheaded cheerleaders have some basic competence that the blond flight attendants lack. Not that I expect the cheerleaders to make it to the final three, I just don’t see them as obvious losers this early in the race.
First of all, Tammy knows what TAR route markers look like. She did the task back in Switzerland to walk down the mountain (instead of paragliding), and those route markers are standard. If I were Victor, I’d have deferred to her just because of that. Bigbrotherism is a terrible disorder…
WARNING: EAST COAST RESULTS START HERE
Wow, was Tammy & Victor (nearly) the most epic meltdown in race history? They started with a huge lead (first-to-last at the start was something like 4 hours), and they were lucky to survive this leg.
I wrote down the start times for this leg, as last leg ran long and appeared to be very stretched out.
10:13 AM
12:01
12:12
12:30
12:53
1:17
1:51
2:00
2:42
And once again, we have a demonstration of a highly useful racing guideline: Do not change planes more times than any other team.
So is Assholeism.
And if you have to reach a connecting flight, and the first flight is delayed, Bail Out! Too bad, it seemed like they were a good team. Just goes to show that one mistake can cost you. Sure loved the producers trying to make us think they might have a chance between the loss of the fanny pack and the Victor meltdown. I knew they were dead in the water when they didn’t show what time the flight arrived.
On the other hand, hooray for Mike and Mel! I hope they can keep it up. And of 8 teams, there’s only one couple left. I think that’s a first.
So, what did happen to the team which finished last?
I missed the first 15 minutes, so I gather something went horribly wrong for a team which looked pretty good. As for Tammy and Victor, I’d say they dodged a silver bullet!
They took a flight connecting via Amsterdam, instead of a (later) nonstop flight, and missed the connection.
Regarding those start times, was that an eighteen hour pitstop? The show is being shot in late September-October based on the foliage so there’s no way that a team arrived at 10:13pm and had it be daylight. And it was dark by the time the last teams arrived. I wonder if they were having trouble with the hours for that roadblock.
Yeah, Victor and Tammy are solidly doomed. He’s got too much of an ego to listen to her and he isn’t even really competent. They go on the pile with the flight attendants as teams that probably won’t last another two legs.
I have to confess, the vampire detour sounded a lot faster to me as well even with the heavy coffin haul. I guess the fact that everything was right there and help from the locals made moving the camp much easier.
It just occurred to me that Phil would have had to race the racers on this leg. That may account for the odd pitstop timing. He had to get to go from the pitstop to the roadblock to shoot that sequence, then from there to the detours and pitstop and its likely he would have had to use the same transportation unless they chartered a plane for him (not impossible).
I’m already tired of Phil’s comments about the deaf contestant. Tonight, something about him “exceeding all expectations.” This, an some comments from previous episodes, make it sound like the producers don’t believe the deaf are very capable people. I don’t see why the success of a deaf contestant is such an unexpected thing. Unless the challenge involves music or sound identification, I don’t see that being hearing-impaired is that big of a disadvantage in this game. If I were a deaf person, I think I’d be a little put off by how much emphasis the show is placing on this contestant’s success.
We had a similar WTF moment when we realized the planes got into Bucharest at midnight or later. So…how often are single-digit-aged kids practicing gymnastics at midnight or later, even in a former Warsaw Bloc nation?
Inevitable nitpick: Communist Bloc or Warsaw Pact; choose one.
mmmm, tasty nits!
I knew it didn’t QUITE sound right…
I wonder why Brad & Victoria had to do the detour instead of getting a mercy clue. Surely all the other teams had checked in by then.
Rather than the mercy clue, the crew had fun with them by filling the frames with about 10 liters of leftover blood. At least that what it looked like when they finished the detour.
Dammit, I was really pulling for Brad & Victoria–in addtion to being 100% non-annoying, he was the only one who said what I’d been saying throughout the race “Pardon me boy, is this the Transylvania Station?”
I am, in fact, going to go to hell. When the short guy (who could, no doubt, kick my ass) got into the leotard, all I could do is think of the “Oompa-Loompa” song. I’m not proud of this, but since they’re now the team I’m rooting for, I figure I might get a few years off my purgatory sentence.
The Asian sister is a smart lady-- “Ok–WHEN will we have gone far enough?”
The obsessive-compulsive Asian brother though, not as much. “Baaaawhaaaa! No < sniffle > I’m not < sob > upset.” :rolleyes: Or the “I don’t care if it KILLS me!” Dude, Norma Desmond wasn’t this much of a drama queen.
Gypsy/Rom music, assuming this was typical (and actually, I don’t think it was–it didn’t sound like the few other samples I’ve heard before), sucks donkey balls. Hello? Free People? Melodies are your friend. While we’re at it, Phil–bad form. Asking the teams to clean up trash (and yes, random chunks of automobiles and broken tires are trash) isn’t nice to describe as “Helping the gypsies move their homes to the new campsite.” Presumably they’re not living in a 2 x 3 foot section of car.
I wasn’t impressed with this leg…it just seemed…I dunno. Kinda blah.
The teams had to take the train from Salzburg to Munich, and then fly to Bucharest. Phil could have just gone direct, and then an earlier train or a car to Transylvania.
When the teams were going to Munich, some of them got help to call ahead and reserve flights, but it sounded like a close call to get from the train station to the airport. Then they just did an edit and everyone was there. I wonder how they managed that? (And I’ve been there, so I kinda wanted to see it.)