I couldn’t believe it when Bret got to the top, didn’t notice all the Clues stuck up there. I know he’s a Survivor veteran, not TAR, but you’d think he’d have watched a few episodes to see how the show works. Pride of the Boston PD there.
Tip of the hat to the Reilly sisters. Man I hate them, and was gleefully anticipating how badly Rachel would crash and burn without Brendan to carry her, but credit where it’s due: they’re racing well so far.
This was quite the bunching episode, with teams 3 through like 8 showing up within minutes of each other. That’s especially noteworthy since two of those teams got U-Turned and still made it there pretty close to the main group. The last team was eliminated by virtue of total ineptitude again, now two weeks in a row.
Survivor is definitely going to be the first show gone, I think. The evil girls are a decent team, but they’re making active enemies, which never helps. The two gay cops (or whatever) have been terrible so far, and Rupert is now gone. Any other Survivor teams still on the race?
Compare to the Big Brother teams, where Victor and Nicole are looking suprisingly strong, the Reilly sisters are racing well, and even Janelle and Britney have been in the top half the whole way. If/when show teams gravitate to each other to work together against the rival shows, the BB teams would/will be in a much stronger position than the Survivor teams. (And the Survivor teams just got stronger by losing Rupert.)
EDIT: I just noticed that the it’s largely TAR guys vs BB and Survivor women. What’s up with that?
Both U-Turned teams are my favorites so I’m glad they both survived. I’m a little disappointed that Team Fun basically got suckered into U-Turning Tyler and Korey.
Leo and Jamal are playing a little too hard this early and I think it’s going to blow up in their faces later when no one will work with them. Is it really worth burning bridges this early on just for a first place prize?
So far this season has been good. The Afganimals are playing hard. I actually kind of like Colin and Christie. I still don’t like Becca though, something about her rubs me the wrong way. She seems to be smiles all the time no matter what, and the people I’ve known like that are always nasty people underneath everything. The way she was on the elephant kind of seemed she was like that.
I have no idea who the BB and Survivor stars are, I don’t watch those shows. I think the TAR racers will have a big advantage in this series, wouldn’t be surprised if all the other groups are out first, or close to it.
What do you mean by “suckered”? That they had to U-turn someone, or they stupidly picked Tyler & Korey because others told them too? The ideal strategy once they had been U-turned would have been to U-turn a terrible team, like Bret & Chris or Rupert & Laura.
And haven’t the Afghanimals always played like this though? They’re confident enough in their own skills that they don’t care if no one will work with them. Note that it’s not other veteran TAR teams they’re pissing off also.
Yes, that they picked Tyler and Korey just because they were told they were strong racers. They should have picked a weaker team
Agreed. TAR is not about being manipulative and fucking people over. There’s no voting anyone off the planet, it’s just “can you do it or not?” While there are certain built-in (and not) ways to mess with other teams, it still primarily boils down to beating challenges quickly and even more importantly, having a good sense of direction and the ability to read a map and follow directions. The TAR veterans know all of this and are prepared for it and the others are going to struggle.
Language skills can be extremely useful, obviously, but it’s usually not the game-winning skill some racers think it is.
So were the first 2 teams just lucky to get the best-behaved elephants? It seemed that they had no problem getting them to go where they wanted to, while the later arriving teams couldn’t get their elephants to go anywhere at all.
Ok, thank you for clarifying. I was worried you were one of those TAR “purists” who thinks U-turning anyone is against the spirit of the game, even if you’re in imminent danger of being eliminated yourself.
Do you only get 1 U-Turn per season? If so, that was a bad strategy to waste them this early for both teams.
According to the TAR wiki, it used to be you could only use the U-Turn once per season, but starting in season 29 that restriction was removed.
This is my first time watching this show-Are they allowed to use a translating device?
Nope. They’re basically not allowed to bring anything with them besides clothes. No language books, no electronics, no maps, no guidebooks, not even a camera, and definitely not a cell phone. They are allowed to borrow a cell phone from a local if they can. Otherwise any electronics or other stuff is provided to them by the show as is called for by the particular challenge.
ETA: they’re given cash at the beginning of most race legs, and if they choose they are permitted to use their money to buy a local map or guidebook, but the amount of money they are given is generally carefully calculated for what the producers think will be necessary to complete the challenges, like paying for cab fare, so spending it on other things is a huge gamble.
They never have. They can’t use any sort of smart phone, though they can ask bystanders to use one for them. They can buy things (like maps) to help during the race, but they’re given a fairly small set amount of cash for each leg, and that’s the only medium of exchange they can use - teams have been penalized for trading personal belongings for rides in the past. I don’t know if a standalone translation device is specifically banned, or just that no team has ever thought it would be cost effective - looking online dedicated translation devices seem kind of pricey (over $100, I’m sure it’s more in airport stores).
ETA: Racers have been observed on flights finding someone who speaks both English and the language of their destination, and practicing useful phrases with them.
No one ever has (outside of the excellent ‘find a nice native who speaks some english’ strategy) so I expect not.
I also don’t think they can use GPS. Which would be really handy, wouldn’t it? I remember one team in South America did something like drive north on a highway for three hours when they should have been going south.
In fact, I don’t think they’re even allowed cell phones of their own, though again, they frequently get other people to look things up for them.
They’re also not allowed to barter with personal items for services, but they are permitted to sell personal items for cash. They are permitted to sell or barter any items they purchased with cash in the course of the race.
They can sell personal items for cash? How is that substantially different than bartering personal items for services? Do you have an example of this occurring?
The thing I remember was when Mark & Michael used personal items to settle 2 taxi bills, and wound up with 4 hours of penalty time at the mat.
Were the personal items brought with them, or acquired during the race?
Yeah, selling possessions you’d brought along would be a HUGE flaw. I’d start out loaded down with ‘charm’ bracelets full of silver and gold ‘lucky coins.’
In contrast, I don’t see the problem with selling things you bought during the race with the provided money. If you ‘wasted’ some of your precious taxi money buying, say, a carved wooden elephant in Laos, and later sold it in Bulgaria to pay taxi fare there – how is that really different from simply saving money you didn’t need to spend on this leg and using it on that leg instead? And that’s allowed, I’ve never heard anything along the lines of “Here’s how much money you get for this leg, and if you don’t spend it we’ll take it away from you.”
Not that I remember specifically, but there’s a lot of episodes. I got info from this wiki: Rules and Penalties | The Amazing Race Wiki | Fandom
I don’t know where they get all of their info, as not all of that is cited, but I doubt someone just made that up out of nowhere and it seems to follow with the other rules regarding money.
Brought with them. A flashlight, compass, some other stuff. Here’s the video.