No thread yet, eh?
I will say, the son in the Father/Son team does look like he’s hoping for a mercy elimination soon. Even though his dad is all, “We’ll keep going until we can’t”, the look on the son’s face is really…unenthusiastic.
Also did not realize that one of the country girls is John Wayne’s granddaughter.
No thread yet?
I’m impressed with the father and the son continuing to race with a torn achilles and calf muscle, but they should not have used their Express Pass. Fishing is one of the few tasks they’re likely to get in which being lame is not an obstacle. Even if it took a bit longer, they were in no danger of coming in last at that point. The chances of getting to a task that the dad is not going to be able to do are pretty high.
I have to say, I like the hockey players and I don’t hate the country singers, the roller bladers, or those other girls. The teams I’m actively cheering against are the prickly pharmacist diva and her closeted husband, and the guy who looks like Anthony Michael Hall circa 1987.
Also - any obstacle course that involves squeezing through a net of molasses and then crawling through chicken feathers to a water tube slide is awesome.
Bah! Mods, please merge this with the thread that started while I was writing it. 
I may be mistaken, but I didn’t pick up that her granddad was THE John Wayne, just A John Wayne.
Nope, he’s THE John Wayne, accoring to Entertainment Weekly.
I stand corrected.
Yeah, I kept trying to get in here and edit to add that I didn’t mean to sound smug or snippy—I’m doing a very bad job of posting here while also doing something at work and I didn’t give enough time to my post. 
Finally, a task where BOTH team members have to drive stick. And on the wrong side of the car too!
After 20-25 minutes into the episode, we were still dealing with airport drama and whatnot, I knew it would be a To Be Continued leg. The egg-carrying roadblock was pretty entertaining though.
The Alabama couple have powered through the tasks so far, but they really messed up the airport strategy this time. They were lucky to have the post-flight bunching. That kind of mistake could easily screw them completely some time.
It must have been warmer than it looked during the egg-carrying obstacle course. It looked like the water must have been frigid but I didn’t hear any of the contestants complaining about it. I think that challenge would have been fun as hell.
I thought it was “fun” up until the “manure pit”, though maybe that wasn’t an actual “manure pit”.
Cute dog at the end too. #TeamTim!
I can’t imagine it was a manure pit as a lot of them went under. Dirty water sure, but not manure.
This leg was a pretty good one. Glad they are starting to do more interesting challenges now. I wonder how long the father son team have now.
I don’t have the episode to go back and check, but in at least one shot it looked like the ‘manure pit’ was just a small pool that was part of a much larger body of water. If so it probably wasn’t a repository for actual manure unless they dump manure into their beautiful lakes in NZ.
The dogs seemed pointless in this challenge.
Agreed.
“Prickly” is putting it far, far, far too mildly. In the car challenge, she showed that she is just an awful, terrible, no good person. Wow! I also had to laugh when she said that she has her doctorate in pharmacy so she’s, like, never wrong. My brother is a PharmD, as is another colleague of mine. I’m sure they would have cringed with embarrassment watching someone say something so stupid.
I also had no idea what the one blond haired “sniveling” guy thought he was doing to the hockey players when they were buying their tickets. He seemed to think he was going to slow them down in some meaningful way, but he just ended up looking like a complete dork.
The father of the father and son team is really challenging my perceptions of myself. I like to think I’m empathetic. I also have no problem with guys crying. I also can take his perspective a bit and understand how someone might feel after having survived the threat of cancer both to oneself and one’s child, who wants to go on a great adventure with his son, and who is again challenged by an injury that calls up a sense of being fragile and vulnerable.
But my initial reaction to the clips they’ve been showing of the guy is “Jesus, stop weeping!”
I kind of missed what happened here. Did they go to the wrong counter?
Sniveling moron was under the impression that there was only pair of tickets left for the flight and that by “distracting” the hockey dude, they’d get the tickets and the hockey guys wouldn’t.
I don’t think they went to any counter, they had some sort of a “book by phone” kiosk that got them on the last flight. I don’t know if there were seats still left on any of the earlier flights by then. Their quip “I don’t know why nobody else used this option” just as their flight time was splashed on the screen was great.
It looked like the Alabama couple saw a long line (not, apparently, at the ticket counter), and asked other people to let them cut in line “because we’re in a race.” Then they asked the agent at the counter if that’s where they could buy tickets, and she referred them to a phone kiosk where they got the latest flight. There were teams that left the mat after them and managed to get on earlier flights by, you know, going to the counter where you buy tickets.
But the best part was them congratulating themselves for avoiding the long line and wondering where all the other teams were.
They were at Mount Hutt Station, which appears to be a large farm dedicated to livestock. And if I learned anything from watching “Dirty Jobs”, any body of water on a livestock farm quickly becomes a manure pit.
A TBC leg! I love these, and wish that all legs would be like this.
Taxi Assessment:
Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained - or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
Matthew and Daniel and Idries and Jamil - (already eliminated)
Flat Tire - or, not likely to get anywhere soon.
David and Connor (Father & son) (holding steady) - Yes, they came in first place this week, but Dad’s on crutches - crutches! - and they’re clearly playing for the short term, not to win the thing. They’ll have an advantage since they’re starting out next week in first place, and the secind half of hte TBC legs are usually (always?) in the same country, without airport bunching, But as soon as they fly comewhere, David and Connor will be last out of the airport, and they’ll be very lucky if they’re not eliminated right away.
Stopping for Gas - or, not broken-down, exactly, but not a good sign.
Chuck and Wynona (Married Alabamans) (holding steady) - I’m always pleased when one of the teams has pertinent real-life experience on one of the tasks, and this episode it was Chuck and fishing. Still, though, I note that Chuck’s done all the Roadblocks, save the one in the first episode that he couldn’t do, and Wynona’s done just about nothing. The Race is structured so that one teammember can’t completely carry the load, and pretty soon Wynona will have to do something.
Max and Katie (Douchy newlyweds) (holding steady) - Oh boy these two deserve each other. Now, on the one hand they had to do the driving Detour a bunch of times, and Katie kept sniping at Max (in a way tha I found amusing, but isn’t exactly condusive to teamwork). On the other hand, though, Max kind of ignored her, and they kept plugging away at it until they finished the task. So… although they’re both kind of annoying douches, neither seems to realize that the other is, in fact, an annoying douche. If that makes sense.
“Rapido! Por Favor?” - or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
Caroline and Jen (Blonde bandmembers) (holding steady) - Not much screen time for Caroline and Jen, save working in the John Wayne reference. And,say, did you know Caroline is descended from Dan’l Boone (not kidding)? I wonder when the producers will work that in?
Pamela and Winnie (Asian women) (holding steady) - Pam and Winnie get lost again. It doesn’t seem to have hurt them badly, though, since they (seem to have) wound up in the top half of the competition.
In the Passing Lane - or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Joey and Meghan (YouTube hosts) (up from “Rapido!”) - Joey and Meghan are still surpassing my expectations, and by quite a bit. I am mildly amused that, apparently, there are tasks on the Race for which intensive video game playing really is good preparation. Joey and Meghan have a great attitude, which counts for something in a long race, and seem to be more skilled than I gave then credit for.
Mona and Beth (Brunette derby girls) (holding steady) - Mona and Beth were kind of quiet this episode, but they did smash through the Racing detour. I’m still bullish on this team.
John and Jessica (Dating surfer couple) (holding steady) - So John and Jessica did the same calculation that I suggested last week, and handed the Express Pass over to David and Connor. Since they came to the same conclusion I did, they are by definition smart and strategic, which should bode well for them. Plus, remember, they still have their own Express Pass, which counts for a lot. John seems to be in love withhis own cleverness to an unwarranted extent, but I’m not sure that will actually hurt them.
Anthony and Bates (Hockey brothers) (holding steady) - I’m not sure I like to see Anthony and Bates trailing along behind other teams instead of navigating for themselves. Still, they’re smart and motivated, and probably the best of the lot.
Cruisin’ with Earl - or, drivin’ on the shoulder, takin’ shortcuts, and generally kickin’ butt.
No one yet.