I think the cheese guy was actually enjoying seeing them getting grossed out. At one point he joked about how the maggots jump around in your stomach.
Phil said something to Arun and Natalia at the mat about how he was trying to remember if there was another team that had gotten so many second chances. I’m sure Arun and Natalia are unique in that they got an additional second chance by being brought back after being eliminated. (There are usually only two NELs per race, right?) But if I remember my TAR history correctly, the Beekman team (the goat farmers) won it all after being saved by two NELs and also lots of help from other teams.
Reviewing the race summary for S21, it looks like Josh and Brent were saved by an NEL only once (fifth leg). But after that, they were the second-to-last team in every remaining leg until they came in first in the final.
Josh and Brent were also saved by another team losing their passport and a strategic use of a u-turn to screw another team. So, yes, “second to last” but also very close to outright last.
I love that they won though.
I think what irks me about Arun and Natalia is that they are getting their second and third and fourth chances so early in the race. Usually the NEL are deeper in the race and the weaker teams get eliminated before the NEL comes into play. But with Arun and Natalia they got eliminated second*! and production is forced to put NEL’s early in the restart too.
The skill level spread on these teams is pretty severe, which I think is making the race boring. At least they are showing us pretty places, which is mostly why I watch anyway. Now we want to go to Corsica.
LuLu and LaLa got the benefit of a “continue racing” which is essentially a NEL.
Which is really for the best. For the past few years any airport drama has been manufactured and just lead to “All teams are now on the same flight.” I’d be fine if they keep the current format going forward.
Agreed - I prefer “get everyone to the next location then have a staggered start” over the “staggered start and then bunch up at the airport”.
This was the second leg where the twins had food issues. I have to wonder what they normally eat.
Also, how do you accidentally wind up at the mat midway through the leg? It’s not like it was in a place that they would have randomly just stumbled across it.
I seem to remember it happening at least once before. If the pit stop is, say, 1/4 mile from the final task, it’s pretty easy for a team to get that far off track.
Looks like there was a good amount of back tracking on the route, so I could see them aimlessly driving along the water and end up finding the pitstop: https://goo.gl/maps/L17mxSgczf6F2jgx7
I like the not obvious clue at the food truck. I wonder how long it took each team to actually figure it out. The saint roadblock was pretty good, and the priest was too. Was there a detour, or was the grape leaf rolling it?
I’m getting a funny feeling that Arun and Natalia would have trouble navigating across an empty room.
It was 2 Roadblocks, no detour. I guess that in the pandemic they’re having issues figuring out tasks, and roadblocks are easier since you cut down one task. The priest was great too “Do not talk to the priest.” “Why are you in such a hurry?”.
The tasks were pretty dull - one heartbreaking (but very simple) roadblock, followed by a pretty trivial looking Detour. It was pretty clear it was a non-elim, when Phil didn’t tell the first 3 teams “You’re guaranteed a spot in the final leg”.
Diogenes the Cynic in his pithos was pretty cool though.
I can’t tell if it’s bad navigation skills or they just aren’t communicating very well. It seems like at one point in last night’s leg she kept telling him to go straight when it seemed the only choices were left and right, then after he asked her “left or right?” half a dozen times she finally said left. Later she kept telling him to go right and he kept asking “left or right?” like he wasn’t even listening to what she was saying.
The sequence where Kim was describing what the Amazing Editors do when a contestant misses the target…while they did exactly that…was absolutely brilliant.
