The thing that I keep coming back to is that Ray & Yolanda are apparently gaining strength as the race goes on, and there’s that luck factor that simply cannot be discounted. In the last couple of legs, they’ve caught lots of lucky breaks – you could say it’s because they made decisions, but sometimes it’s just sheer random luck, like who gets the faster cabbie. And their performance is on an upswing, which is always important at the end of the race.
The negative side of that, of course, is that Ray has now used up all his roadblocks, so Yolanda has to do any remaining. And since they’re up against two all-male teams, that could be a problem – or not, since the girl is amazingly strong.
IIRC RaYo were only about 4 or 5 minutes ahead of the other teams.
You got it, Otto. The best strategy for the yield is to use it on either the strongest team or the last team. Since the Hippies didn’t know which order E/J and RaYo were in, and how far behind they were, then they should’ve used it on E/J as they are the strongest team. The Hippies still would’ve been first to the skydive, and MoJo still would’ve had to wait as the Roadblock was done in order of arrival.
I keep hoping that some day we’ll see a team actually use the Yield strategically instead of emotionally. Or they could do away with the Yield all together and add another Fast Forward.
I think Yolanda can totally take either of the Hippies. Maybe both at the same time.
I don’t think they have the Chip Rule this time. I don’t recall Phil mentioning it at any of the Road Blocks, and he usually gives out every rule, every time.
I’ve been wondering about that. If it’s true, too bad. I like the Chip rule. And since I’m talking about rule changes: get rid of the yield and the NEL muggings, and add more Fast Forwards!
SO glad to see MoJo gone. Would like to see R&Y win it all, but I suspect it will be E&J (who, incidentally, have been less annoying the last few weeks). Any of them could pull it off, though.
Otto fielded this one for me. The only other things I would have added are that (1) I did say “arguably,” and (2) that I personally think it is a bad idea, strategy-wise, to use any of the available Race tools out of spite. It wasn’t necessarily a bad call to use the Yield; I just don’t think they thought it all the way through. They never really considered using it on the most threatening team, just on the one that they didn’t like at the moment. Which didn’t get them the result they expected, obviously. Plus, it somehow seems unsportsmanlike, to me, and anathema to the whole “free-wheelin’-hippie-American-Bedouin” vibe that BJ & Tyler purport to have going on. But I think they’re big poseurs, anyway.
And I was just thinking about the Chip Memorial Roadblock Rule … what happened with that? That was one of the rule changes that actually made some sense to me.
But think back to the circumstances of that particular leg. BJ & the Bear were first at the Yiels and MoJo were RIGHT ON THEIR TAIL, just steps behind. So, in that instance, MoJo WAS the most threatening team. I think it’s OK that spite entered into it, but it was a calculated decision and their poor showing at the end was because of another bad choice.
Apparently it was mentioned in one of the videos on the CBS website that it is indeed still in effect. Presumably that’s a permanent rule change now. And I always heard it referred to as the Bowling Moms rule, since they were the ones who lost out by virtue of sharing roadblocks equally while racing against three teams where the woman did exactly one and the man the other eleven.
No they weren’t. In a four team race with two of the teams out of sight, the team that’s in second place by steps isn’t a threat to the team that’s in first. Finishing 1-2 or 2-1 makes no difference on this leg, except for who gets the leg-winner prize (and if they’re concerned about that at this point they’re kinda idiots). Even if they never watched the show before, they should know from their own racing experience that a few minutes’ head start out of the Pit Stop never makes a difference. Yielding MoJo was a ridiculously bad decision, and would have been so whether it was done for reasons of strategy or reasons of spite. That it was done out of spite just throws the stupidity of it into that much sharper relief and has the added bonus for me of showing up the hippies to be big ol’ hypocrites. They’re all about the peace, love and understanding, right up until they think it’s in their interest not to be.
Except who knows how it would have played out if they’d done that. The detour choice was between a sure thing (hiking one mile) and a carpshoot[sup]*[/sup] (finding the aborigine and playing the digeridoo). As it was, the fratboys took the sure thing. If they’d been yielded, their only chance to make up time would have been to take the crapshoot detour and hope they get lucky. Monica and Joseph proved you could do that and get to the mat dead even. I don’t know if it would have made much difference.
I thought it was interesting that Mojo and the hippies were nose-to-tail driving to the yield, and the hippies won the footrace; then the exact same thing happened at the pit stop and they lost.
I caught this typo on preview, but I like it so I’m leaving it in.
Well of course we can’t know if Gonad would have made a different Detour choice if they’d been Yielded. My WAG is that they still would’ve gone for Wet on the theory that it was quicker and physical, similar to their theory for doing it originally, but I could certainly be wrong. All things being equal, though, tack a half-hour onto either YoRay or Gonad’s race times as they were run and one or the other of them gets mugged instead of the hippies.
Regardless of the actual outcome or the theoretical outcome, I still believe that Hippie made an extremely poor choice and that their motive for the choice really put the lie to their self-presentation.
Because BJ decided to cutesy-pie his way to the mat, taking the “short cut” over the rocks. If he’d just run right to the mat like everyone else did he’d have edged out Monica.
The Yield doesn’t bother me - no one uses it right, but that’s not a problem inherent in the Yield, but with the players. But the muggings are horrible - at least this time, they were begging from people who were in first class on an airplane and people with truly disposable income. Not nearly as bothersome as it could be. But yes, they need to do something else - make both people do the roadblock and/or make them do both detour challenges. A real penalty.
BTW, the fratboys have grown on me since the beginning of the race - I still like them less than the other two, but they’re very much less obnoxious now. (Especially compared to the horror that was MoJo)
Woo Hoo! The Hippies pull it off! the win, I mean. I still like them, although I have no problem with ray/Yo winning either. That’s just a lot of damn bugs to eat.
I really despise the hippies. Whenoneof them said, “nice guys finish last” I chucked my TV out the window. Luckily I had the spare one right there and didn’tmiss a thing.
Nice guys? You meanlike nice guys who try to sabotage someone’s relationship? That’s nice.
This Travelocity stuff is getting annoying. I would have liked to have seen one racer, after opening the Travelocity envelope, say “Christ! I am SICK of these f—ing gnomes!” and tear the card right in half. I wonder what Phil would do if that happened.
For all we know, someone has done that … but of course we at home aren’t going to see that part, through the Awesome Power of Editing. It would have been cool to see, though.
I suspect Phil would give them a stern talking-to concerning Our Responsibilities to Our Advertisers, then they’d reshoot the scene with a duplicate card (and Phil looking daggers at them from offscreen.) Heh.
And I think you’re stretching like my old high school football jacket. “Put the lie to their self-presentation”? People are a little more complex than you might think, apparently. People can be maredly more kind, compassionate and tolerant of others than the norm, yet also may be annoyed by and try to ding a competitor in a race when it isn’t the best choice strategically. It doesn’t mean that their whole being is some kind of facade any more than your occasional speeding makes you a hardened criminal. It wasn’t like they threatened MoJo with violence, like Jo did in return.
Oh what-EVER. From the start, Hippie has presented themselves as these happy-go-lucky la la la peace and love groovetastics. Yet they pretty consistently act in ways that show that up to be a pose.
