I said to my husband that if there’s one thing I have learned about this race, it’s that always BOTH team members should read the clue. Preferably out loud to each other. The worst thing about that whole situation was seeing Don get mad at Nick for not reading it all the way, and how bad Nick obviously felt about it. If you both read the clue, it’s harder to screw it up, and if it does get screwed up, you don’t have a situation where one person is at fault for it.
:smack:
Whoops, I learned at TWoP that my list was inaccurate. Rachel did the fitting rocks into the wall task, so that means she did 6 of the 11 tasks. Not too shabby. 
I was very pleased with the outcome. I was moved by the quiet conversation that TK and Rachel had before the final roadblock. She said “I can do it…” and the look she gave him simply said “trust me”.
I also was moved by the simple joy TK showed when Rachel was the first to finish the final roadbock…and by the way he turned around and bounced backwards to look at her as they approached the finish line. He wanted to make sure they were completely sharing the moment that was going to change their lives.
They were a calm and grounded couple who obviously love each other. It was gratifying to see them win.
Slacker, the bottom of this page has a mouseover section which nicely captures the roadblocks…the answer to which you’ve already found…
I’m pretty sure I saw Jen hug Nick at the end of the race amid the general celebration.
If its a “race around the world” and they started in Los Angeles, wouldn’t they have to end it in LA?
What is the purpose of sequestering eliminated contestants? Unless they are sequestered until the final episode is aired to prevent them from spilling the beans. You’d have to sequester all of them including the winners for that to make sense. And for how long? Who knows how much time passes between the taping of the final episode and the actual air date of that episode.
For one thing, sequestration keeps them all available for the Finish Line cheerleading section, without somebody or other wandering back to their life and not being able to make it. They’ve usually agreed to be available for the duration of the race, so keeping them all in one place is a practical idea.
Also, there is a spoiler danger in sending people back home when they’re eliminated. Their family and friends know where they’ve gone and why, usually. If they’re back from The Amazing Race after a week, it’s pretty obvious that they haven’t won.
Okay, so they are only sequestered until the final day of taping. After that, it’s up to them to keep quiet about the outcome.
Yep. They’re not sequestered so much so that they don’t deliberately spoil…that’s a contract issue. They can lose their stipend for doing that. My speculation is that their presence at home is itself a spoiler, unless they’re one of the final five or final four. TAR usually takes around a month to film. If they’re back any significant amount of time prior to that, it’s pretty obvious they’re not the winners.
I think it was Ron who said another mangled phrase. Something along the lines of “You’re the last person I would ever want to do this with.”
Clearly he meant “…the only person…”!
I’m glad that TK and Rachel won, though I too, would have been happy (or at least not upset) if any of the others did. They all ran pretty good races!
I thought it was pretty cool of Ron being the calm one after the final task. (the puzzle) Clearly Chris was upset, but he seemed encouraging.
Sorry. I was a bit distracted. Yay TK and Rachel though. My whole family was happy for them.
I got so pissed when he said that. I have no idea what he meant by it. Of course, I hated him and wanted him to die for most of the show. At the end I was torn, because I might have wanted her to win, but I didn’t want him to win, because he’s a pompous ass who treats his daughter like shit and doesn’t deserve her. But I was quite happy with TK and Rachel winning–they’re the team I was rooting for for most of the race. I think they’d be cool people to know in real life.
The moral of the Amazing Race story…
For the best shot at winning, it helps to be a hippy.