They may not have known that, though. And they seemed pretty hopeless at paddling that dugout canoe. If there’s a task you really can’t do, no sense wasting time if you know you’re going to use the Express Pass anyway. And even though they didn’t win the leg, they were first to the U-Turn so nobody could use it against them. Someone might have U-Turned them to force them to use the Express Pass.
Were the canoes really that hard to steer? I’ve paddled a regular canoe and it wasn’t that hard. I was surprised how much trouble some teams were having.
And the previews reminded me of a good line from last week. “There’s no snow in Africa.”
Laurence’s insistence that they simply had *to *U-turn someone gave me the very bad feeling that if he found himself in possession a gun he would feel like he had to use it at some point.
Was GayBro’s admission a surprise to anyone? I think the third time he was onscreen in episode one I said “gay” and my wife said “yep”. And I really hope Sis just got a bad edit and wasn’t standing around with her thumb up her ass for as long as it appeared. But I doubt it.
I swear, Cindy’s face at the mat when Phil said they came in 2nd was a look of pure disgust and disappointment. Snap out of it, girl. You lost a footrace to two Olympic athletes. If Bill & Cathy had beaten them, well, OK. You can be hatin’. But you came in 2nd by about five seconds, maybe less. Lighten up.
Laurence is not just a dick, he’s a stupid dick. “Let’s U-Turn the team that we just passed that’s in front of us!” Dumbass.
To be fair to Laurence (who doesn’t deserve it) most groups left the beach to find the Jamaica Shop. He didn’t know that Marcus and Amani had already found the shop and had taken the lead.
The ones who had no problem got a rhythm going. The ones who did have problems worked against each other (Laurence and Zac) or seemed to put the person who had no clue what to do in the back (everyone else having trouble?) which makes it practically impossible to paddle straight IME. If only one person really knows what they are doing, put them in the back and they can do most of the work.
I thought that the producers arranged it so you couldn’t U_Turn a team ahead of you. Rarely would you know who was ahead or behind you so TAR helps you out.
My one defense of the sister not just immediately heading back to the clue would be if she wasn’t confident she could get back to where she dropped off the fish on her own (since she’d no longer have the name written down with her). Or if the drop off point was really far away from the bus station and so she thought it might actually work to her advantage to see if another team would come by.
In Season 12, Kynt and Vyxsin used their U-turn on a team that was ahead of them, so clearly the producers are not giving any hints about the team order at the U-turn box. In the “Unfinished Business” season they played it smart and U-turned the team that was physically arriving at the U-turn rather than risking being wrong about where the Globetrotters were.
That’s part of the challenge of the U-turn – knowing where you are in the pack and who best to trip up with that race tool.
The Double U-turn is a big improvement over the (regular) U-turn, but I also dislike it’s being at the end of the leg. At that point it virtually assures an elimination; there should be at least some chance to catch back up.
I’m still liking the snowboarders and the old couple quite a bit. Happily, there is no one I actively dislike left in the race except for Laurence (although Cindy has irritating moments).
Libya (until recently) would have been a breeze, though.
So Cindy & Ernie used the Express Pass primarily to try for a first place finish (no I doubt they thought they were in danger) and then don’t U-Turn their closest competition for the same?
It did seem like there could have been a shot at catching up if someone got u-turned since it was a lengthy walk to the finish, but on the other hand this was one task where the easy one really was fairly easy and the hard one was really hard. I doubt anyone but Marcus could have done well carrying people.
This probably isn’t what you mean, but I noticed that some teams had red Xs over their picture, and at first thought that meant the producers were checking off teams that had already gone through. A quick rewind showed it was just the teams who’d been eliminated from the game.
Did we really need the Double U-Turn sign with four touch screens on it; what was wrong with the old one with the photographs? In a place where people use dugout canoes and carry passengers on their shoulders from boat to shore, it seemed a little conspicuous.
How big is that lake to have boats carrying cargo and passengers; it wouldn’t be easier to just go around?
I wonder if that dirt road was really the best way to get to the Pit Stop. The previous task was on the beach, and the hotel was too. We only saw the first two teams on the road. They asked their cab drivers for directions, so of course they’re going to tell them how to drive there. Maybe the other teams just figured out to walk along the beach.
Is anyone else jonesing for a Rickshaw Assessment?