J-Man

It's certainly a far cry from his role as the only male Derry Girl.

I'm trying to imagine how the twins would've done on the rebus puzzle ...

That's how it works in many smaller cities in the US (and even some larger ones.) The mayor position often rotates among the council members, but there's no direct election of the mayor by the public.

From the first post in this thread. Why are there references to Colombia and Argentina? That certainly didn't happen in this leg.

My DVR went to black for several minutes and I missed out on the siblings' final attempts at turning their car around. Were they finally successful, or did someone have to come bail them out?

Just watched S8E1 - what happened to Tosh's husband and baby? They weren't mentioned at all. Jamie Sives looks so much better with shorter hair.

Did Matty's showstopper cake have cut-up pieces of brownie in the filling or in the cake itself? It sounded very interesting. Has a recipe been released?

Weirdest takeaway from the final: Amos's partner is named ANDY?

Maybe I misheard, but I thought John specifically said that he'd never worked as a server but that he was really enjoying the "hospitality aspect" of the task. If the three-team bunch hadn't got misdirected at the end, it's likely the brothers would have come in first yet again, since they were first among the bunch to arrive at the mat.

There was no opening skit on this week's episode. Was that due to Allison's absence? I noticed she did a lot of the voiceovers, but presumably those are added in afterwards.

I think there were at least FOUR references to IKEA in this episode. Deliberately included as a teaser for the next destination?

As mentioned several times upthread, Yugoslavia was never part of the Soviet bloc.

No, Paul -- you haven't made "millions" of sausage rolls.

Yugoslavia, while a communist country, was not part of the Soviet bloc, nor under the control of the Soviet Union. When Slovenia gained independence in 1991, it was from the former Yugoslavia (and its remnants.)

He said he works for Google.

I noticed the "4711" logo on a building in the very first shot of Phil in Germany, and there was another one later on when they were in Cologne. So I wondered how or if that was going to factor into one of the tasks. Some people are contrasting the parent-child relationships of Rob-Corey vs. Steve-Anna Leigh. I would also like to point out how different the sibling relationship that Morgan-Lena have vs. Greg-John. And I really enjoyed how much Greg and John seemed to have fun this episode. They, along with Rob and Corey and The Facial Hair Duo seem to "get" what TAR is all about. Ashlie and Todd are close behind, but the other two teams can leave anytime.

So PBS felt the need to blur out the apparently "adult" humor on the whisky bottle's label. Does anyone know what it said?

The choice of the peacock for the block-stamping task was said to arise from its status as India's national bird -- but you have to think that someone at CBS found stamping red 'Xs' over NBC's corporate symbol too clever to pass up.

So does flour.

Does anyone else find it strange that a death in an indoor aquarium would be assigned to the Marine Homicide Unit? Seems like they're REALLY stretching.

I couldn't figure out what this was about until I watched episode 3. The broken bowl didn't happen on Biscuit Week.

I've never had a custard cream, but based on the description, it seems like the American equivalent would be a Vienna Finger. Mother's Cookies used to have something similar called English Tea Cookies.

It was Loretta's bus ticket from St. Louis to New York. The actor who plays Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) is the only one other than the three stars who is credited in the opening sequence. The only exception is when there's a "special guest star" like Streep or Rudd. Everyone else, including all the other regulars and other guest stars like Jesse Williams are in the closing credits.

"It's just like making crepes!" I love how quirky Joel Pierre and Garrett are. Fixed it for you. A Vietnamese super-sized bahn mi burrito?

Is there going to be an Express Pass on every episode? And if so, is there a limit to how many Express Passes one team can accumulate?