That was painful to watch. Less Amazing Race, more like Survivor (not that I watch Survivor, but I hear talk of alliances).
StG
I was hoping the sisters could pull it off. They usually did well on tasks but just couldn’t catch a break. Especially with everyone else against them. They had such a great attitude and really seemed to enjoy the time they had. I was sorry to see them go.
I don’t have a favorite team but I hope the boyfriends are eliminated next. They just seem mean-spirited and I can see them trying to screw over the rest of the “alliance” as soon as they get a chance.
Will and James: Gary and DeAngelo never contribute to the alliance!!
Will or James: How do you do the turban roadblock???
Gary and Eswar explain.
Me: Will and James, shut up.
Loved that long-suffering look on that Swiggy guy.
They really did have a great attitude. It was hilarious when Phil says something like “the Mine Five got you” and the sisters were like “omg, they have a name??:”
Agreed. The sisters weren’t great Racers, they survived two non-elimination legs, and they U-Turned Leo and Alana, but they did have a great attitude and didn’t deserve to be ganged up on like they were. The strange things is, they might have survived the leg if their taxi to the food delivery hadn’t gotten so lost. Hung & Chee tried the video game task a dozen times, switched to the food delivery, and still got started before Haylynn and Kaley arrived.
Yeah, I don’t think the sisters would’ve caught up even if they hadn’t been yielded.
But having two yields on one leg was a mistake. Especially since the second yield came so close to the end with no chance to make up time. I wonder if this was originally planned as two legs and then they combined them.
The weird thing is, wasn’t this just a pre-announced “the race is still going! Here’s your next clue”?
Yeah, this was pretty much the same as any other “Keep Racing” legs. The only twist was that there was also a Yield on each leg, which they also pre-announced.
Maybe Phil had another engagement so they decided to skip that bit. Lol. Having it all announced really changed the dynamics, istm.
Aparna was certainly angry that the Football Players used the perfectly legal move of employing the Roadblock. I thought it actually made strategic sense to Roadblock one of the teams they perceive as weaker, since a strong team might power through both tasks faster. For the Beardies to chose to block anyone else from using the roadblock helps keep the appearance and psychological benefits of the mini-team of the Five together, not burning any bridges.
I was actually liking the siblings, but at this point, I wouldn’t be upset at any team that wins.
StG
Aparna was perfectly willing to use the U-Turn on another team, but when used on her she gets all indignant and bitter about it. Yelling “Fuck you!” to the team who did exactly what she said she’d do to another team earlier this same episode is not a good look. I hope she realizes she acted like a toddler and is embarrassed about her behavior.
On the one hand - yeah.
On the other, the football players failed to notice that there’s still an alliance and they aren’t in it. Which means had they u-turned any other team, there would be two teams doing both detours and they’d have two teams significantly behind them and be in a much better space than they were. And they screwed the one team that might have given them a break. (The brother/sister team was going to get U-turned no matter what - it was just a question of whether or not they’d be alone in that.)
I don’t like any of the teams left… if there were a way for them all to lose, I’d be ok with that.
The problem is they didn’t know if Will/James or Hung/Chee had been by yet so they couldn’t risk U-Turning them. They should’ve U-Turned the Beards, but psychologically that’s hard to do with them right there. And a Redditor brought up the fact that they we’re behind beardies the whole way to the U-Turn, so they were probably planning on U-Turning Brother/Sister the whole time. They didn’t stop to think about it when they got there first.
I wish they put some restrictions in place to stop burning a U-Turn. The whole point behind the double U-Turn was that a single U-Turn was pretty much a guaranteed knock-out. The double U-Turn has just become a single U-Turn again.
That sucked.
On the one hand, that was a really cool final task. On the other - the stupid alliance just sucked the air out of the room. It was interesting hearing someone say at the end that they didn’t enjoy the race.
I wish the final city was a place with better public transportation so that teams had to rely on bus/subway/foot/etc. and taxi luck didn’t determine the winner. I’m pretty sure that New Orleans is just going to be who has the best cab driver.
Yup. The alliance has made this season one of the worst ever. (The family one is still #1 IMO.) You could even tell Phil was fed up with it. It will be sad if this is the season that ends the show for good. 
They were apparently a few episodes into filming the next season when they had to shut down due to Covid-19. So at least they weren’t originally planning on ending it this season.
But yeah, the alliance really made the season dull at times.
Gary and D’Angelo were so close to winning. The only one they couldn’t figure out was France. Gary said on Twitter that he did that roadblock so fast he didn’t even notice the music.
I think it would’ve been the ultimate redemption for this season if they had figured it out after the alliance agreed to work together, forcing them to turn on each other.
According to rumor, TAR was supposed to go to Australia (or New Zealand) but something happened that forced them to cancel that leg and so they went to Manila instead. It was probably no coincidence that TAR Israel was also running in Manila at the same time.
Despite the jury-rigged nature of the leg, I thought the tasks were extremely well designed. The entire leg took place in a relatively small area in the actual City of Manila rather than any of the other cities that comprise Metro Manila (although Marikina was featured in the form of their shoes). We got to see some aspects of the city that haven’t been seen in previous seasons of the race. The leg began and ended at the monument to Lapu-Lapu (the chieftain who killed Magellan in 1521) which was placed there in 2004. Then we saw Binondo, which is the world’s oldest Chinatown established in 1594. Interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new.
Of course the whole leg got ruined by that damned alliance.
Also, top comment on Reddit was “Gary for Survivor” which I totally agree with. We’ve had plenty of Survivors on Amazing Race, have we had any go the other way?
The Twinnies were in one season, I think it was called “Blood vs Water”.