The Amazing Race is on schedule tonight. Will anything useful happen tonight?
I was just about to start this thread. Glad you beat me to it. For the benefit of those who are just “tuning in,” links to the last two weeks’ threads: Ep. 1 Ep. 2
Also, would you mind if I reported your post to the Mods, to change the title from “TAR” to “The Amazing Race,” so I can find it next week? Not a big deal, but “TAR” tends to bomb out of searches because it isn’t long a enough term.
Yes, I would mind. The episode title quote is too long; when I first tried making the thread, the last word got dropped due to field length.
OK, no problem. Thanks! (The episode titles have been very long lately; wonder why?)
Huzzah! I finally remembered the damn show was on!
So wait, Dave is afraid of fish? Wasn’t Mary afraid of fish last year?
And honestly, who’s afraid of flounder? I mean, yeah, sharks and stingrays and fish that can actually hurt you, but flounder?
Maybe because the racers talk too much?
HOORAY! I don’t need to listen to that grating voice anymore!
Have I mentioned that she sounds like my mother-in-law?
She does. Accent, attitude and all.
Favorite moment of episode–when Charla? (she’s the little one, right?) got to hug the greeter who was the same height.
Almost favorite moments
[spoiler]when Charla/Mirna realized they didn’t have their car keys.
When it was discovered that Team Guido didn’t read all of the clue in the bottom of the fishtanks
When someone said “Rob is not God”
When the Beauty Queens were sent back to get their missing clue–We didn’t have to do a detour, but still made it in fourth place
[/spoiler]
I was kind of bemused by the fish challenge. Not sure how well I’d have dealt with fish flapping in my face. But there were several teams–Eric and Danielle in particular-- where I wasn’t sure how or why they picked the person they did to do the challenge.
I’m amazed at how many of these people are afraid of fish. I mean, they jump out of planes and wrestle crocodiles, but they’re afraid of fish?
As for the title, I think they should have used “Rob isn’t Jesus.”
I was miffed by Mary’s comment – something to the effect of her not being an adventurous person. Excuse me, but you’ve done this race before, you KNOW what it’s all about! So I’m not sorry to see her go.
Interesting that no team chose the rock climb. Is there any commentary on why that happened?
Can I just be the first to note that we got a nice long bit of shirtless Oswald tonight? If being very, very happy to see shirtless Oswald is wrong, I don’t wanna be right…
Yay! Thank God I don’t have to listen to Mary berating her husband for any more episodes. I was really worried when the BQs skipped the clue box that they were the ones that would go home tonight. They are usually smarter than that, but it was a stupid navigational error that eliminated them in their first TAR. It’s a good thing the clue they skipped wasn’t far from the pit stop.
And I’m glad Charla & Mirna are still around, for the entertainment value they provide by driving the other teams NUTS. They would drive me nuts, too.
I, too, was surprised by the fear of fish many of the contestants seemed to have.
Especially this bunch, oh my lands.
This was a great episode. Very exciting, and a lot of stuff you don’t usually see all happening in the same leg: airport intrigue, bad navigation, misread puzzle clues, missed clue boxes, hysterics, screaming, orders to use one’s boobs as a tool for completing a task that didn’t involve collecting money, and possible death! Awesome!
If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that either these teams were new to the Race, or the Producers have been listening to us whine for the last few seasons about how easy things have been, and they’re actually making the Race harder (or, at least, returning things to The Way They Were).
My random observations, for whatever they may be worth (not too much, usually):
[ul]
[li]“I could care less” is a personal pet peeve / nitpick of mine. It drives me bonkers when people say this when what they really mean is “I couldn’t care less.” There is a difference, and if people would just think about what they’re saying for a second, they would sound a lot less like dumb bo-hunks. Rob is smarter than that and I expect better of him, although I don’t know why, because he’s always been this way.[/li][li]Before this episode, I didn’t much care for Teri and Ian, and I’m still not nuts about him or his doofy hats, but she just gained about eleventy thousand points for saying that “it was kind of cool to fall out of the boat.” I think she might be kind of a badass.[/li][li]Not everyone likes David and Mary, and I can totally understand why, but I am still impressed with the way they can reflect on their Race experiences and acknowledge that they are who they are and neither of them is going to change, and that this is not the be-all and end-all of their lives. It’s just an experience that they shared.[/li][li]Eric is still a tool. “Quit being a baby” is not a particularly good motivational expression, especially not when you’re talking to someone with whom you expect to be “snuggling” later. Whether or not Danielle overreacted, I cannot say – I don’t know how grave her fear of flounder was before the Race – but I don’t think she would have been out of line if she had smacked him upside the head.[/li][/ul]
Reading everyone else’s comments: When did anyone say “Rob isn’t Jesus”? Who said it? I missed that bit! 
Although the Editors were making it clear how they feel about him this episode, I think, insofar as we saw more than usual of him obsessing about where everyone else was and how they were doing, and also more than usual of Amber telling him to quit worrying about everyone else and just raaaaaaace. I am always loathe to admit it, but they’re good Racers – I just wonder how much longer they can keep it up when it looks like Rob is actually getting worried about protecting his “repuation.” Could it be that being The Robfather is becoming too much of a burden for him?
I think it was one of the Guidos that said it when they saw Rob and Amber go off to the left when they should have gone right toward the fishery.
I’ll have to rewatch. That’s worth seeing again (for the first time).
Also: with all the hours that have been devoted to everything that Rob & Amber have done, why haven’t they shown the time they went whitewater rafting and Amber “almost died”? (Come on, you know it’s on tape somewhere, since they obviously don’t do anything without a camera crew around.) I don’t actually wish ill upon her – I just wish they would go away – but since they’re not going anywhere any time soon … schadenfreude and all that, you know?
All too true. Back when begging was allowed for teams that were short on cash (usually due to the previous NEL penalty), the task of begging for money was usually given to the team member with more copious boobage. (Cleavage? Bustage? Mammary prominence? Tottering tots?) So as annoying as the comment (Eric’s?) was, I agree it’s an interesting change of pace to see generous teats being put to a more immediately practical use.
(One exception was when Peter had Sarah perform on her trick leg to raise cash. At least he didn’t make her flaunt her chest.)
Score another point for annoying editing. The editors seemed to be trying to fake the viewers out about David & Mary’s chances of hanging on for another day, just so they can create 5 seconds of dramatic tension at the end of the episode.
Wikipedia’s leader board reports that David & Mary finished 9th in all episodes to date. I’m incredibly thankful that this leg was not a NEL; they’ve survived in the past based on too much luck.
It was nice to see Mary and David go out in large part because she decided to be a harpy right when he was suggesting they may have missed the turn.
Of all the intersections in all the towns in all of Chile, and Team Guido just happens to pull up behind Charla & Mirna! It would have been great for them to go out because Joe completely spaced on the clue. They should have had some kind of penalty for impeding Eric and Danielle, even if it was for only a few seconds.
Making Dustin and Kandice go back to retrieve their clue rather than wait 30 minutes was an interesting twist.
This season appears to be Rob and Amber, and maybe Uchenna and Joyce, versus a bunch of second-raters.
Has a team ever gotten 3 first place finishes in a row, espeically the first three legs of the race, when there are many teams in the running?