Matt & Ashley come in last after Matt fails miserably at the first roadblock, but it’s a NEL.
A few thoughts:
Man, we already knew Hayley was annoying, but even when she’s trying to be helpful she’s annoying. COME ON BLAIR! COME ON BLAIR! COME ON BLAIR! That’ll be the voice he hears in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
Disappointed (yet amused) that the lawyers were the ones who had the toughest time with the word puzzle challenge. That’s supposed to be up your alley, guys!
Big LOL at the women who got in the hot tub in their robes.
I kinda figured Matt’s not-all-that-smartness would rear its ugly head eventually. We finally get a task with the potential to be difficult and he fails miserably at it.
Laura and Tyler seem to be peaking at the right time and don’t really appear to have any weaknesses. Then again, the last team I picked out was the Olympians and they proceeded to dog their way to two last place finishes and an elimination.
Ugh, Hayley with the harping - but - she was right. This isn’t the first time Blair ignored her pointing out the right direction and I’d be just as frustrated with him as she is. My getting aggravated is much more amusing, though, as most of it would have to be bleeped.
I have to give Matt and Ashley credit, they stayed supportive and as upbeat as they could through all the frustration. They’re a cute couple and seems like they’ll have a good marriage, so good for them and I’m glad they’re still in the race.
I was wholly unable to figure out the word puzzle, but in fairness I just paused the DVR at the start of the challenge when they showed all clues, giving myself maybe 2 minutes before giving up.
The middle clue was easy and obviously Skating.
The first clue I had no idea. (That was a clever clue, I think.)
The third clue I had no idea, and wouldn’t have been able to make the leap from trying to identify the shape to trying to identify the medium that would make a shape like that. I’d consider that clue kind of weak.
What is it with TAR and improper headgear use? Last season we saw several racers wear their helmets backwards. Now we have Hayley and her amazing askew helmet.
I think Hayley’s helmet would have been best utilized if the strap went across the back of her head and the helmet went over her mouth
I like TAR and all, and have watched it from the beginning, but I am sure tired of all the non-elimination runs.
Dammit! Let people lose and leave and get the game over with. It isn’t as interesting as it was years ago, and it doesn’t need to be dragged out so long.
There’s been 11-13 episodes a year since the beginning. Doesn’t seem like there’s been any big swings in the number of teams either. Maybe they had less non-elimination in the past but I don’t see how that math would work. Maybe you’ve just changed, lol.
True, though I’d always like to know more about how that decision goes down. Hayley seems to have no problem speaking her mind, so why doesn’t she insist on going her way if she thinks she’s right? Is Blair really that stubborn, or is she just letting him make the decisions then haranguing him when they’re wrong? Because if she’s letting him make the choices she can’t really complain when they’re wrong.
I don’t think he was saying there was an actual rule change, just that the show is less interesting (as a whole) now and the non-elimination legs make it doubly less interesting.
COME ON BLAIR! COME ON BLAIR! COME ON BLAIR! was about as annoying as COME ON TWINNIE! COME ON TWINNIE! COME ON TWINNIE! from a few seasons back. Luckily there is just one of Hayley.
I understand Hayley’s frustration with being ignored, but my guess is that Blair just tunes her out after a while because she never ever shuts her yap.
What made Hayley even more annoying was she was right not because she was clever in some way that Blair(That’s his name right?) missed but because she only internalized the letter H and clung to it for dear life. It was a pure case of a broken clock through and through so her smugness really grated.
This annoys me every time I see it. Do people just not understand what bicycle helmets are? Having the helmet askew and loosely strapped is not going to protect your head.
Hayley didn’t know the right direction, since neither one of them at that point had a clue where they were supposed to go. But the worst part was her screeching at him to slow down so she could catch up to him on the bikes, and then once he did slow down, she screeched at him to hurry up.
With the Olympians gone, Matt and Ashley are my favorites now.
Finally, finally, there was an episode where the challenges were actually challenges. Though the teams were bunched on a single flight, no doubt due to the limits of flight options from Namibia, the finish order of the episode actually was based on competence, not just who got the first taxi out of the airport.
The wooden shoe challenge actually required skill at pattern and detail recognition, along with a bit of luck. But for it being a non-elimination leg, the one team’s failure to get it at all would have been determinative of the night. The bicycle navigation along the river was also a little dicey for some teams.
After that, the detour presented the classic choice between a task that largely just took time and a task that could could either be completed quickly or turn into a quagmire. Although the hot tubs challenge mostly just took the time to putter up the river and back down, it did have the rebus, which seemed easy to me by the time you got all the clues, but which bollixed up the lawyer team. The other leg was the surprisingly difficult shuffleboard game, which totally flummoxed the truck stop team. The guy from Anonymous Couple B seemed to have the touch of the game from the beginning, but even with just a few points left, the girl couldn’t complete the first game, though they completed the task on the second. Had they not screwed up the shoe matching so thoroughly, they likely would have been able to make up enough time to avoid coming in last.
Even now, with only five teams left, I still don’t even know who some of them are. The truck stoppers are obvious, and so are the androgynously-named, often-arguing doctor and nurse (Hailey and Blair, or vice versa, I never can remember). The guy lawyer is a total nebbish, but at least I recognize the team because she is such a harpy (and what the heck was the bathrobe in the hot tub all about). As for the other two teams, the only way I can differentiate between them is that one of them has a brunette for the female partner, and the other has a blonde.
I wonder why the showrunners have done such a poor job of choosing challenges this season. I hope they learn from this. Between the “dating” and the overly easy tasks it has been a terrible season.
The only memorable aspects of this season are cringeworthy: Harping Haley and the Dating Debacle.
Something must have gone horribly askew, that caused them to go from Europe to Namibia and then back to Europe. Just one more calamity on this trainwreck of a season.
I’ve seen every single season of TAR but refused to watch this one. The wife still watches it so I ended up watching the most recent episode. After 30 seconds of the blonde yammering on and on and on about some complaint I am thrilled that I chose not to watch. Not since Flo has there been a more annoying contestant.
