He was? They both looked bigger than the Gaghan kids. Oh, well, Carissa’ll understand Phil meant to comfort a crying kid, that’s all.
That would save some air time, too - like the 10 minutes at the start of every freakin’ episode about the morning after a Tribal Council.
I disagree. Every elderly couple to be on the race has said they’re doing it to show what they’re made of. G&M set the bar high, and are probably proud of themselves.
Back to the present…
As for the Gaghan elimination, I must speak to this:
How classy is Phil in handling a little girl who he’s just had to make hold back the tears on international television? The man’s a gem. And little Carissa’s determination to show she’s a big girl who can take what’s thrown at her was the essence of heartbreak. So much more endearing than if she’d (understandably) just started bawling. I’m misty right now just thinking about it. And yes, there are adults who could learn a thing or two from her about dealing with disappointment with dignity. I need a Kleenex…
OK, I’m back.
My sympathy for the Weavers evaporated in this episode. Buncha miserable sh*ts. Still, calling the Paolos “The Cleavers” made me LMAO.
Speaking of Paolos, didja see Papa Paolo whooping like a Linz when he found out he was the biggest banana man? They’re starting to grow on me.
The Paolos, that is not the bananas.
…Aaaaaaand I’ll just leave that one lie right there before it gets any worse, thank you.
There was a minor mini-meltdown in the Godlewski van this ep, but the mondo breakdown by the Weaver Mom, while her kids stand transfixed in paralyzing flashbacks of her reaction when Dad was killed, is going to come in the next episode, or the one after that, at the latest. You really shouldn’t try to put too many demands on yourself when in mourning. It’s probably going to seem like poetic justice, at first, but the look of sheer pain in the kids’ eyes are going to make us all feel really bad for thinking so.
Speaking of which, my carefully-calculated predictions? Not even close, although I’ve noticed that they are more predictive of the middle of the leg than the final. Gotta look into that…
The little hissy-fit by one of the Weaver daughters (the blonde one - don’t know their names) when they were at Talledega seemed at bit over-the-top and calculated to me. They read the clue about going out on the track and “doing a lap” and the one daughter looked at the camera and shrieked, “No! Mommy, we can’t!” and turned away as if to walk out. It seemed liked she’d been waiting for a moment just like that, sort of like she’s a Drama Queen and pulls this crap every time she can.
I have no way of knowing how she actually feels, of course, and I know everyone handles grief in their own way, but that incident just screamed, “DRAMA QUEEN! LOOK AT ME!” to me.
What I took from that whole scene was that Mom sets the emotional tone for her kids’ reactions to the tragedy. I mean how bad is it, to have Dad killed by the thing he loves best in the world? They needed to follow Mom’s lead because their own coping skills have been swamped.
She’s clearly shown herself to be a person who deals only in absolutes, so once Dad is killed: RACE TRACKS ARE BAD!! WE SHALL NEVER SET FOOT ON ANOTHER ONE!! HELP US, OH LORD!!
So, when they see a race track, the kids are programmed to overreact. Just then, Mama Weaver comes out of her private little victim world to realize that this was a very important “hurdle” moment for her family, and pulled them through. Her best moment in the race, so far.
Hey, I’m glad mi famiglia di Paolo is getting some love now, even if grudgingly. My favorite line, I think uttered by them: “I’m coming!” “Yeah, so is Christmas.”
And their reward was totally cool. Man, I’d love a Segway.
In a way I’m glad the Gaghans got eliminated. It’s not that I didn’t like them or the kids didn’t provide enough “aw, aren’t they sooooo cute?” moments. But if they had won, I think I’d have felt it was somehow unfair to the other teams, composed of adults and teenagers who had to all contribute either to the benefit or detriment of the team, whereas the Gaghans were really just a two-person team with two non-contributing kids along for the ride.
It’s possible that it was a production retake. Sometimes, in reality shows, if producers aren’t satisfied for whatever reason — say, the camera was down for a battery change, or the lighting was bad, or the reaction was too bland — they will have the contestants do it over. So long as it doesn’t affect the outcome of the game, of course.
While I’m here, what I like least about Amazing Race in general is the bottlenecks that are sometimes just ridiculous. What’s the point in having people leave on three separate busses a half-hour apart if they’re headed straight to a park that doesn’t open for another nine hours after the last bus arrives?
to build suspense.
I think Phil said to Carissa, “you’re the youngest person to get this far on the show”, which when you think of it, is pretty obvious.
Note to self, when bending over on national tv and showing my ass, make sure my thong is not pulled up halfway up my back for the whole nation to see…oh wait, I’m a guy…whew!
I just saw the morning show, and they had the Gaghans on. They showed the end of course, and Wee Carissa blinking back the tears, wiping her frowny face trying to not cry. She said she was sad because she wanted to continue on. I was half laughing, half crying…
Tammy rambled on about the bean, Billy said he loved the Huntsville NASA thing. Then while they were showing them in the jeep in the mud, she asked Carissa what she took away from the show–Carissa was silent. Then she reworded it to ask if she learned anything from being on the show with her family. She said “ummm, not really.” Every time they zoomed in on her, she smiled, she musta known it was on her.
I said the first week it’s harder watching families get the boot instead of dating models or whatever, last night sucked. Even when the Weavers get the boot I’ll probably be sad. Oh well.
I give the Costa Rican greeter a B- for enthusiasm, but an A+ for being a cutie.
Maybe on some reality shows, but not TAR. At least, according to the producers and the contestants, everything is done on the fly, first take, that’s it. Sometimes the camera guy will step outside the vehicle for a shot of the taxi door slamming, or the SUV pulling away, but not actual “game moments” per se. (The sole exception to this is the very start of the Race, where Phil does his “The world is waiting…GO!” speech several times in order to film it from multiple angles.)
I mean, think about it…can you imagine the producers saying, “Oops, sorry Jonathan, we didn’t get that shove of your wife in focus. Can you try it again and this time, try and knock her off balance a bit?”
I meant, small consolation relative to winning a million dollars. I really liked Team Weeble (NOT to be confused with this season’s Team Weevil) and I think they did a helluva job. So please do not misunderstand. (I really do have a terrible case of foot in mouth disease this week, don’t I?)
I don’t get it. If you have two members who are consuming resources and not returning any contributions to the effort, isn’t that automatically a huge disadvantage to that team? It would almost be like having to haul around an extra 200 pounds in your backpacks. The work that four adults on every other team would be doing would be concentrated into two people, who would have the added burden of having to deal with two young children and all the potential travel hell that entails. For every easy Amish buggy haul you have at least one hard log sawing.
Otto, you’re probably right. Since they didn’t win, it’s hard to say they actually did have an advantage.
I’d have to analyze each and every challenge to see whether the producers were giving them an advantage or not. It just seemed to me the kids were old enough to not be a burden, yet young enough to not contribute to some of the problems you get when trying to do things by committee, which the other teams have to deal with.
Four pairs of relatively strong arms are better than two, but two brains figuring out the most efficient way to do something is often better than four.
There has really only been one challenge that favored the Gaghans at all: the Amish buggies. And that was as much because Bill & Tammy are marathon runners as because the kids are small. Maybe the mud buggies worked to their favor, but it’s really hard to say – the Weavers and the Aiellos had trouble with that Detour option, but I don’t know whether the difference in the teams’ weights was the problem. For the most part, the kids haven’t been able to do a whole lot that their parents could.
And as for the “committee” issue – I think it’s really only the Linzes that decides as a group who’s going to do what. Maybe the Bransens, too, but I think the oldest daughter runs the show over there. Ma Weaver chooses for her team, the oldest Godlewski (Sharon?) seems to decide for her team, and either DJ Paolo or Papa Paolo decides for that team (but never together). The (other) really collaborative teams – the Gaghans and the Aiellos – have been eliminated at this point.
That’s what I think is the biggest disappointment in the Race so far, the lack of tasks where having kids is actually advantage. I was hoping to see tasks like crawling through tight spaces, stuff like that. The producers made such a big deal of the kid element this season, but so far it looks like they haven’t really taken advantage of it. (Of course there might be more kid-friendly tasks down the road…but with all the ankle biters now eliminated, it’s a moot point.)
Looking for the red coffee bean was a perfect kid task.
I claim awesome points because I own the same shirt that Phil was wearing all episode. The best part? It’s from Banana Republic…
Sad as I am to see Team Gaghan go, they just weren’t smart enough to continue. They were one of the few teams to grab a cab at a hotel, but then wandered around forever looking for Public Parking Adrian.
Team Paolo actually is growing on me-- but that may only be because this is the first episode where Papa Paolo had a presence, and a formidable one at that. I still can’t tell the Linzes, the Godlewskis and the Bransens apart, which is pretty sad, I know, but everyone on those teams except for Mr. Bransen seems so vapid. And given the choice between Paolos and Weavers, I have to choose bickering over righteous indignation. Hell, people like the Weavers are why people hate Christians.
Do you really think it would have been a good idea to let wee Carissa Gaghan dive face-first into 800 lbs of unfiltered caffeine? 
I actually think this was a task more suited to Tammy or Bill than one of the kids, because it required a good deal of patience (like the haybale task). Kids + Killer Fatigue = KAOS, and the Gaghan kids in particular are a bit more spirited than most. If wee Carissa had done that task, she might have uttered the worst curse word in the history of the Race. I totally would not put it past her.
The Gaghans’ problem here was, as someone else already pointed out, Tammy did this task all wrong: she should have been combing through the pile from the ground up. If I didn’t know better, I might have guessed that she was just too pooped to pant at that point, and she just petered out. (Tee hee! Alliteration!)
FWIW, after somebody told Tammy to get down on her hands and knees to look for the bean at the end of the task, I thought I heard her say “I’ll try it again”. I assumed that she had already tried it and went back to the other tack.
Also, Rolly was the one calling the other contestants “retards”. I don’t want him freed.
Except that it doesn’t. There’s more suspense about what happens to the unknown guy on Kirk’s away team than there is about this. Every time they’re told to go to some national park, or monument, or museum, or zoo, you already know that they’re all going to cluster right there.
I guess you could say that there’s suspense in the sense of knowing that no one will ever jump out to a lead of any significance. But in an actual race, people do. Maybe they should call it Amazing Worldwide Obstacle Course.
Actually, I can. 
Having seen the Big Brother live feeds, I wouldn’t put anything past reality show producers. But if they say they don’t do it, then I believe them.
Well, that’s your own fault.