In the end, it came down to Ericka’s Achilles heel.
Counting.
I’m sorta glad they weren’t still in it. It would seem a little unfair to have a task that was a specialty of only one team, especially in the final leg.
That said, Meghan and Cheyne kicked ass; last ones to the final task, and the first ones to finish it. That’s mighty fine racing there. The brothers seemed to be counting every chip. Guys, you only need to count one stack and make the others the same size.
Then you won’t appreciate this observation. The Globies had Big Easy do the Kafka Roadblock so Flight Time would be available for the memory challenge on the final leg. And there wasn’t one. And they might have breezed through the bungee task.
Did they actually barge in on someone’s wedding? And how can you receive an Amazing Race clue from Elvis and not put on your best sneer and say “thank you, thank you very much”?
Was anyone else suspicious about the start times for this leg? It’s usually a twelve (or thirty-six) hour break between legs. M & C started about 11:00, which sounds about right. But Brian & Ericka started last at about 3:00. It was light when they finished the previous leg; no way that was 3:00 a.m.
There were no really loathsome teams. I didn’t like Brian and Erika (and hated them getting so far on pure luck) and the Brothers grated on my nerves, but that said, none of them rose to a “Ron & Christina” or the “Faux Hippies”, or the closeted gay guy and Pink* level of visciral hatred.
For once…maybe the first time ever…every task was designed so effort paid off. There were no stupid “Wait in lines for the next team to go” tasks, there were no “Be ballast-sit in a car/centerfuge/rollercoaster and be gravity’s bitch!” tasks (well, the rappelling, sort-of, but the brother proved that by rappelling rather than being lowered down, you can make up time), and it really didn’t come down to a taxi ride for possibly the first time ever.
There were no obvious cheats from the producers–like the magic plane that “just happened” to turn around and taxi BACK to the runway to make sure that it wasn’t a one-team race to the finish line. Or the “The only team that can win the race is the one that gossips the most about the other teams” challenge that was designed for one team in particular.
The product placement, though still kind of obtrusive (gotta love the “beauty shots” of the various casinos) at least felt…natural, rather than "Use this NOKIA PHONE! to LOG ON TO AOL! to find the e-mail from the TRAVELOCITY ROAMING GNOME who will tell you the location of the next clue. Or the “Here’s a NOKIA PHONE to call your loved one with! Use this KODAK DIGITAL CAMERA to take a snapshot of your face during this emotional moment” stunt.
Seriously…for me, this may have been the best last leg they’ve ever done.
*I can’t remember his name. He was on like season 8 as a pair of surfer beach bums who constantly talked about how much they liked girls “boobies”. Remember the early eps of South Park where Mr Garrison was pretending to be straight “I LIKE POONTANG! And POUNDING VAG!”? He was a well-adjusted model of comfort with his own sexuality compared to them. For TAR-All Stars, he hooked up with some chick off the same season and used her to pretend he was straight. I’ve never seen a less convincing performance. When Rob (of Rob and Amber) comments on how weirdly inappropriately he talked to his “girlfriend” (and her “boobies”, you know you have a problem
I noticed that they did not say “since Meghan and Cheyne arrived at 11:10 pm they will start at 11:10 am.” They simply said something like “Meghan and Cheyne finished first and will start at 11:10 am.” I think that usually means they did not have the standard 12-hour stop.
Also, why did the first two teams not know who the third place team was until they arrived at the airport?
They’ve been sequestering them at Pit Stops. There have been a few tiny indications that teams didn’t know something that happened on the last leg before the start of the new one, but this was the first big acknowledgment of that. There have been a few interviews linked to in previous threads where teams mention it.
I was surprised and quite glad that there wasn’t one of those name-all-of-the-places-you’ve-been challenges at the end. I watched every episode, I don’t need a recap. Maybe it’s because this race was short compared to most (save the horrendous family edition).
Yes, but M & C must have gone pretty late into the night on the previous leg if their lead was only four hours.
I suspect the Amazing Producers looked at the flight schedules and then set the start time so that all the teams would have to be on the same flight. I know it makes for a more exciting finish, but it doesn’t seem right for them to tweak the rules as they go.
With a three or four hour lead, you probably don’t see the other teams at a Pit Stop. Meghan & Cheyne and Sam & Dan probably checked in at the Mat, got cleaned up, had some food and went to bed while Brian and Ericka were still schlepping beers from one side of Prague to the other. Then the leading teams were on their way while Brian and Ericka were still asleep.
Going to the Venetian and thinking about going to Bellagio did not show a lot of grey matter. If you don’t know, ask someone, and if they don’t know, ask someone else. Don’t wander aimlessly in a cab going from casino to casino.
One mistake in the entire race doesn’t allow us to call them stupid and dumb. If they lost the final leg due to that one error we might have reason to do so but they ran a good race. They are not dumb. They were the strongest team and most deserving of the million dollars compared to harpy and husband and gay bros.
They weren’t all frantic for their apparent error of casino location and counted the chips fast and accurate whilst coming third to the bunch up challenge. How fucking hard is it to count poker chips? seriously do they not watch the countless hours of poker on TV? stack them up, count the stack and fucking add. There’s no advantage for the poker player girls. It’s fucking simple counting and adding. No difficulty at all. The poker player girls might have an advantage in knowing the values from heart but it takes 1second to read the values of the chips on the chips.
I was SO HAPPY the blondies won. I was excited that harpy lost it at circus challenge too. She hasn’t even been on a swing to my knowledge. Everytime I saw her get thrown into the air she didn’t use her legs as momentum one single time. I loved seeing her berate her hubby to switch only to realize that she couldn’t even give enough power to propel him any near the bouquet.
Gay bros however gave me a scare, i thought they were gonna win with the edit of the blondies getting out of their cab and searching on foot for a bit. I was at the edge of my seat just watching who would have left their cab. Seeing the blue shirt made me all giddy inside.
brian suggested “monte carlo”, harpy said just go there. And you see her look all pissed off when hubby was talking about how hard the challenge was on their bodies. I love how terrible an edit she got. I hope her family realizes what an awesome guy brian is and finally get over their “racism”.
I always thought the casino in Monte Carlo was just “The Casino”…but Wikipedia says its official name is Monte Carlo Casino. Ignorance defeated! Cyborg Wayne Newton was pretty convincing too…
As far as editing making Ericka look bad, I am not so sure; they cant “edit” in her tantrums, her lack of trying (remember the hookah challenge where she just flat gave up) and her abuse directed both at her husband and the drunken youngsters of Prague.
In other words, I am afraid (for Brian) that she is actually as big of a bitch as she looked.
yea, the word “Edit” i used was more for what the producers planned on putting in the show. You can’t “edit” the terrible abuse and general bitchiness she displayed. It was nice to see them finish last in the final leg. They didn’t deserve to be in the final leg at all. They never won a leg of the race in the whole race and they were usually saved from elimination from circumstances they didn’t control.
By the way, I’m probably the most vocal hater of Ericka on this forum board. I just keep that a bit bottled up because it might come out as some form of racism in people’s perspectives. I think I was the one person in the thread for the hookah challenge that called her a worthless bitch for not helping brian at all, just sitting there doing shit and saying the hookahs were correct but in fact all she had to do was look at the premade hookahs once over and try to determine the error. But no, she bitched and whined telling the judges, nay, demanding to them that the hookahs were correct when in fact they weren’t.
I even defended my hatred towards her to another poster who thought we were giving her a negative spin. Like we call the gay bros. annoying but we call her a bitch. Perhaps it’s because I have a brother and if he annoyed me or I annoyed him we would grate each other but we live and let live. If i had a wife that berated me and needed cheering up for not being able to count bells and walk steps I wouldn’t take too kindly. I guess the relationship of husband and wife in my view should be more of a loving patience between both people, brothers however get as much rope as they possibly can get because they didn’t choose to be together.
I wouldn’t have guessed Monte Carlo, wouldn’t have guessed Wayne Newton, and what’s left of his original face after all that apparent botox would have made me think “impersonator” of somebody anyway.
Erica was horrible of course, but Dan’s emotional spinouts were just about as bad. He looked like more of a hindrance than anything during the chip counting.