Something weird was going on time-wise. Brian and Ericka had one more trip to make after delivering their 19th glass of beer, and it was still dark out. Commercial. Then we see the ‘Trotters’ penalty time end and it’s light, and then we see B & E complete their task. So it was dark when they had one more trip to make, and light when they finished it? Something’s fishy.
Oh, and Ericka? “I can’t do this, and I’m not willing to try!” Well, that just about says it all. You suck. Go home.
Heh. A fair point, and I’m doing this after a decent night’s sleep. Although I think I would have noticed the double-N before submitting. Also, it took me about three minutes to generate that list; I’m fairly certain I could have done better given another three hours and fifty-seven minutes.
Another thing I thought of: What’s the penalty for collaborating with your teammate on the Roadblock? If it’s anything under four hours, getting Flight Time’s input might have been a better option.
The Globetrotters alienated the gay brothers in a previous episode with the manufacturered “elbow” accusation. Had they played nice, they might have gotten more cooperation this episode.
I think the cacaphony of phones and the big angry red stamper affected Big Easy more than he let on, making this one of the best designed tasks ever.
I would much rather see a seemingly simple task (when watching from the armchair) cause failure than 8 hours of hay unrolling causing elimination due to poor luck. The girl who failed to do the water slide was more interesting than the two girls who were eliminated for not having male upper body strength (and who didn’t quit). Although I wonder if they were allowed to ask someone else to swing the hammer?
I wondered about that, too.
In addition, I have another question: Can teammates switch places on the Roadblock? If one gets started and just can’t finish, can they come out and have the other one do it? Or do the rules say, once you’ve started, you must finish?
I can imagine Big Easy coming outside and telling Flight Time that he took the four hour penalty because he couldn’t unscramble the letters, and FT looking at BE’s notes and going “dude- you mean ‘FRANZ’?”
The teammate who begins the Roadblock has to finish it. I’m wondering, too, if coming outside to talk to Flight Time maybe FORCED them to take the penalty, since you can’t really consult with your teammate on a Roadblock. Possibly had him take a look at the letters and the producers told them that’s cheating and it was take the penalty or be automatically disqualified for it?
Not only that, but you only have a vague clue to go on, like “who’s ready to get dirty”, before deciding who has to take it.
There’s definitely some communication allowed. During the counting bells Roadblock a few legs ago, Ericka came down to whine to Brian before going back into the tower to try again, and there was no penalty.
Once you decide to take the four-hour penalty, I’m sure you’re stuck with it. Otherwise Big Easy would have kept trying. There’d be everything to gain if he figured it out, nothing to lose if he didn’t.
Up until the past 2-3 weeks I wanted anyone but Blandly Blonde to win, but at this point, I could not stand it if anyone else won. They are clearly the superior team, and really have been the entire race. They deserve the win, and the only reason I’ll be watching next week is to see how fast Mrs. S. and I would be able to make it through the Vegas challenges, since we know the city decently. It also appears that the pit stop may be at the chapel we were married at.
Big Easy was not the man for this task, it was evidenced earlier that he was just not a puzzle doing person. Even not having a clue about the word, the first instinct should have been to put the vowel in the middle and work around it. And I am wondering if they were forced to quit on this task because he came out and possibly shared info with Flight regarding the puzzle. Anyway, I love that they did not meltdown like the clever bros. and the zebras would have if forced to sit there. They also showed tremendous grace at the mat.
The freezing challenge, detour, whatever was one of very few low points this season, it had no point at all, and tarnished an otherwise great TAR stop in Prague. We have decided that it is a must visit city, just gorgeous all around.
Right, but that wasn’t a Roadblock where it was really possible to share information about the task itself…she couldn’t bring the bells down to him to count. With this one, though, I have to wonder if maybe Big Easy thought “I’m at the end of my rope here…at worst, we’ll get a penalty if I ask Flight Time for his opinion on these letters. At best, we’ll finally get out of here. Either way, if I don’t go talk to him, I’m never leaving this room.” And at that point, when BE showed his clue slip with the letters on it to FT, the producers said, “Take the penalty or go to the Pit Stop now as disqualified.” At that point, it makes sense to take the penalty, because it’s entirely possible that another team has completely cocked up the whole thing somewhere along the line.
Of course, once they reached a clue box and got the “Go to the Pit Stop” instruction instead of a clue, it was obvious that that hadn’t happened. But they couldn’t know that at the time.
Huh. Maybe so. It seems like the producers would have shown the Globetrotters agonizing over the decision to take the penalty, if indeed they were mulling that decision rather than having it thrust upon them. Dramatic tension, don’t’cha know.
Yes, but I’m assuming there was some point where the Globetrotters had to decide that taking the four-hour penalty was preferable to having Big Easy continue to plug away at the Roadblock. Meaning they thought Big Easy would have taken more than four hours to finish. Answering the question, “how much of this task can be accomplished in exactly four hours?” is crucial to deciding on taking the penalty or not.
I’m trying to remember the promos for this past episode. Wasn’t it something about “which team will run afoul of the local laws?” with shots of the broken golem and the red-X stamping and so forth?
Okay, no one expects the promo monkeys to be completely honest, but this ‘coming crisis’ looked completely made up out of absolutely nothing.
The promos said something along the lines of a team taking a penalty, but then they showed each time doing something wrong including the glasses being dropped and the form being stamped. I am sure they were hoping the form stamping with official looking guys gave us the idea that some sort of legal trouble had occured. All along I was hoping that since they teased it in the promo there was going to be some last second miracle. But no.
Also - ARE YOU KIDDING ME! No way does taking the penalty make sense at that point. They quit. Which is a shame, cause those two would have been a hoot in Vegas.
When I heard the instructions I knew it would take them a long time. From U Fleku (a German style beer hall established in 1499), “across the Old Town Square” to some bar (I’d google map it if I could remember the name of the bar). Not only is it a fair distance, it is very easy to get disoriented in the twisty streets in that part of old Prague. I’m pretty good directionally and I got turned around a couple times trying to find U Fleku.
From Google maps, U Fleku is about 1,000 meters (on streets, not as the crow flies) south of the Town Square. The destination bar is likely on Parizska street which runs north of the Town Square, so maybe another 200-300 meters?
So let’s say just under a mile. At two miles an hour it’d take them an hour for each round trip. If they kept with seven glasses a trip that’d take them four trips – four hours. They’d do the carrying task slower, but the return would be faster. Maybe they finished in three hours?
I was just in Prague this past June and it is spectacular. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Yeah, I’ve wandered around there a little bit, too. Filming was apparently in late-July/early August, so it would have been light fairly early. Still seemed like they were pretty slow on the task.
Much about Amazing Race strategy remains shrouded in mystery; for example, if and when to buy a map. Give me a map for this task and I could have kicked ass.
It was three trips by my count. They tried fifteen glasses on the first trip, and finished with seven. Twelve on the second trip, until one was liberated by a passerby. Twelve on the last trip, and if they had any brains they’d have taken a spare.
I hate Dan. Seriously, if you’re going to do anything to win then try to win. Either help or totally screw over the other team. Giving just the first letter is a stupid move. It still leaves you looking like an ass, and doesn’t maximize the time between teams. Still, the GTs should not have quit.
I do love Brian, even though that wasn’t real absinthe they had them drink (wrong color and no apparent hallucinogenic properties). I didn’t like it as a speed bump, though. What if one of the racers was a recovering alcoholic? Kudos for Brian for downing it and then getting the puzzle. He obviously worked systematically.
I’m still supporting Meghan and Cheyne. They are awesome racers who seem to know how to deal with each others’ meltdowns. They’re also fairly smart. Lying the Golem down was a good move, as was using a mneumonic for the letters, although I would have tried to make a sentence. Overall, though, they deserve to win for having totally outraced every other team. They always seem to be first out of the airports, too. I’ve been wondering how they do it.
There was definitely something going on there. If you notice, when they arrived at the Pit Stop, Phil said “You’re the third team to arrive,” and then paused. I expected him to say they forgot part of a clue and had to go back and redo something, but then they were suddenly cheering about being team 3, though we never actually saw Phil announce them as “Team number three.” I wonder if the weird time issues were because they did a part of the beer task wrong and had to go back and finish it correctly, but because of the Globetrotters penalty it didn’t have any effect on their place in the race and so wasn’t shown on TV?