I remember them standing on the side of the road begging for someone to stop and give them directions. They maybe should have done it sooner but they eventually did try.
What was up with the crew on the roof seemingly putting away the giant banner that had part of the clue on it? It looked like they were going to pack it up and then maybe changed their minds?
The reason that I thought it was a good decision for Cathi & Bill is because they had no idea how hard the jumping rabbits would be or how long it was going to take them.
Had the rabbit task been one of those detours that just take huge amounts of time, at least one other team would have to spend that same amount of time and Cathi & Bill would have at least seen them and possibly been head to head with them.
Cindy & Ernie used it to be first on a leg they knew they would already be safe on. And while a trip to Fiji is pretty cool, it would have been better strategically to use it on the snowboarders to help wear them out or possibly kick them out. Using the U-Turn on Bill & Cathi was very short term thinking.
The only excuse for not using it on the snowboarders would have been if they didn’t know the boys were still behind them. Did they leave the dancing task before the boys arrived? Even so, they were pretty confident (rightly) that they were in first place, so U-turning a conventionally weaker team instead of the team who has proven to be the biggest race threat was dumb.
Cindy is a perfectionist. In realityland, the only leg on which a first-place finish really means anything is the last one. But Cindy can’t stand to take less than a first-place finish on any leg. Anything less than First is the same as Last, minus the Philimination.
It’s almost entirely on Cindy that they make these short-sighted moves that may guarantee them a first-place finish on any given leg, because she MUST finish First or she’s failed miserably. I’d actually place bets on that if I had any money. If First-Place gave them anything but a relatively inexpensive (when compared to $1 million, anyway) prize and the earliest start time on the next leg (which is almost always made moot by an Hours of Operation or an airport bottleneck), she might be objectively justified in doing the things she’s doing. But it doesn’t. Even way back at the beginning of the race, you have to keep in mind that there’s only one leg where First is a must.
I was waiting for someone to mention how good eatin them there wabbits wouldaben.
Some incredibly stupid decisions were made by teams that didn’t get eliminated. But, they survived.
You just know, at the end, Granny is gonna hamstring one of the snowboarders. Now THAT’S good TV!
I noticed this last night, and just rechecked on TIVO and it was true. When Jeremy and Sandy were in the car after going the wrong direction, and Jeremy was doing his passive-aggressive mumbling under his breath, and Sandy was doing her pursed-lip quiet funk she goes into at times, she was wearing bright red lipstick to highlight her pout-face. Either that, or it was added in editing. She did not have it on at the next task or at the mat.
There’s something about Sandy that just isn’t right. I thought that being a divorcee in her early 30’s with a boob job and dating a sketchy guy, that she was just a floozie, so I looked her up on Google. Turns out she was a scholarship soccer goalie at U of San Francisco, graduated in Nursing Summa Cum Laude, got her Masters and Nurse Practitioner certification, and now works at a cosmetic surgery center (hence the boob job.) She is definitely a high achiever, but there is still something creepily off about her. Those two strike me as a match made in hell.
I absolutely agree that Bill & Cathi made the best decision for the U-Turn. But I think Cindy & Ernie made the best decision as well, for the same reason.
You’re assuming Cindy & Ernie knew where they were in the race. AFAIK, the producers give the racers no information before, during, or after a leg apart from “You are team Number X!” All they knew for certain was that Cathi & Bill were still at the butter task, that Zac & Laurence had been at the dancing task when they left, that they hadn’t seen the snowboarders and Jeremy & Sandy since the steeple, and that Marcus & Amani were probably way behind them.
I think assuming you’re in or near first is without hard evidence is always a bad idea. How did they know that the weren’t way ahead, or that Z&L hadn’t finished the dancing right after they left and passed them at the rabbit task? The safest thing to do is U-Turn a team that you’re most certain is behind you to guarantee you won’t get eliminated.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no. If you stop at a house or gas station or someplace like that, you actually have to GET directions from someone. If you just kind of stop by the side of the road and uselessly gesture to passing cars, you will almost never have to actually ask someone for directions, as almost no one is going to just stop on the highway to give them to you.
I like Marcus and Amani, but they’re not the best racers ever or anything. And Marcus’s inability to get over his dislike for asking directions is not helping them.
I think the reason Marcus’s rabbit did so well, is because all his jumping and yelling, was scaring the poor bunny to death.
I like Amani, but Marcus is annoying. I also hate how he mentions football in every single episode.
Bill and Cathi are awesome! They zipped up the tower steps, while Laurence, (who is at least 15 yrs. younger), looked like he was going into cardiac arrest.
As noted in Ernie’s sequence before the dance, they all were required to put makeup on. I suppose it may speak to her LACK of skeeziness that she took it off for the next challenge. That said, they are not a good team.
Also, I just wanted to mention how Amani positively GLOWED during the dancing challenge. She looked beautiful. I wish Marcus had told her so rather than just give her a high ten.
She did look lovely. I felt like we got a glimpse of the woman Marcus must have fallen in love with—she looked almost shy. Cathi looked pretty lovely, too.
Has anyone else noticed that weird little side jump that Cindy sometimes does? It annoys me for some reason. I thought of it when someone wrote “choreographically challenged” above.
Also Cindy is so dumb (and bitter). The first place slot wasn’t “stolen” from you, you lost it. And wasting your only(?) u-turn for a first place win rather than using it to knock someone out is a waste. What a sourpuss.
Despite the villain edit a few episodes back, the snowboarder-hippies have a total sense of joy. I’m really rooting for them.
I like Bill and Cathy as well–I place a lot of stock in just enjoying the race. I also like that other than an offhanded comment (“bastards”) and the teasing at the end, they were grown-ups. Compared to Laurence, they were totally classy.
The sour dating couple is equally annoying.
Marcus isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, is he? His wife is smart, classy and pretty, and he’s doing dick stunts like “I won’t ask for directions because I want to be in control?” What?
I think Lawrence is annoying but I don’t have the total hatred that other seem to. He’s a dick, but it’s a fairly mild dickery. It only seems bad this season because it’s such a likable season over-all. There’s no obvious, mustache-twirling villain. And he went out with class which counts a lot for me.
And what kind of mutant bunnies were those? They had to be like 20, 30 lbs! Lots of good eatin’ on one o’ them.