vousviou

I'm just thankful it wasn't Kid Rock. As far as Motown, Barry Gordy left for LA over 40 years ago, so going with Jack White's not so bad from that perspective. They could have done something with Techno music, but that might have been too far out there for the audience.

I agree the final legs were very demanding -- I think they were the best designed final two that I've seen since I started watching about seven seasons ago. None of them seemed to be slam dunks that a team could complete just by showing up and powering through. The lead changes weren't random luck, either, except for the brief lead T&K got when C&C's cabbie went wandering, and even that might have been the result of them rushing out of the cab at the start without making sure he was clear on where to pick them up. I'm not surprised Leo and Jamal came in third -- they have always had a tendency to get sloppy and jump to conclusions without completely understanding a task. I think they knew this, but couldn't quite get past it in the pressure of competition. I agree that the race was a lot better than I expected. I don't know BB and Survivor at all, and I expected their teams to be much more like the Reilly sisters, but almost all of them were much less drama.

There's a little bit of an irony of C&C beating T&K -- if Korey hadn't given Christie so much help decoding the message, it's possible C&C would have been knocked out in the second to last leg. And then in a final I think T&K would have had a bit more of an advantage against Victor and Nicole. I can't say for sure, though -- it's always possible V&N would have aced the drum test and won easily.

The Heidelburg Project is being dismantled, supposedly for some new phase, although I'm not sure what it is. I wouldn't be surprised if that has something to do with it -- the long gap between filming and broadcast might mean that there are things said about it that would be confusing to the audience. It definitely would have been less interesting TV if the challenge had been to fill out a college application by photoshopping your own heads on to actual rowers....

I've done a lot of sweep rowing and the couple of times I've done sculling it's really, really hard to learn. Imagine trying to learn to ride a bike without ever having been on one before. C&C figured out the only way to get through it -- one person just sits there to stabilize the shell, and the other one hammers it. Quite frankly, I'm not sure any other team could have pulled it off.

The fortune cookie detour had a feature that I wish was in place for the crab detour and a lot of others in many previous legs through the years. Each team member was forced to do an equal share of the challenge. If that had been in place for the frog catching, I would guess Jessica would still be there in the swamp. Likewise, you could easily change the Prague lecture to require each teammate to be responsible for remembering what one of the lecturers had said, on the Dubai wood hauling challenge you could require each teammate to carry an equal amount of wood, either by carrying logs as a team or by contributing an equal weight individually. As things stand, I feel like there have been too many times where one teammate just goes through the motions while the other does the work.

I think Conor was heavy on the self deprecation, but I don't think they were actually dim -- he managed to figure out the trick of the Chinese restaurant quickly after the initial bit of confusion, and I seem to recall other times they were good at methodically solving problems. I got the sense that there was a lot of disorientation in San Francisco, and I suspect the long flight and the time change was throwing people for a loop -- people jumping in the kayaks without fully understanding the clues and realizing they needed to know the number of homers is another example. I wish the rules in this instance had specifically ruled out spectator help so that teams that jumped into their kayaks had to go back to the start and find the inscription with the answer that was shown earlier. It would have really put a premium on reading the clue.

http://amazingrace.wikia.com has he breakdown at 6-3 for Cody, with Jessica doing them in the 2nd, 3rd and 6th leg. If that is right, I don't like it. Every other team had even or almost even splits.

I wonder if it is foreshadowing of an upcoming problem, such as bad blisters or the shoes falling apart at a bad time.

It's not just the couples - Father and Son Dave and Connor had Dave not only constantly whining, he somehow got away with doing a bunch fewer Roadblocks than his son. One thing I wish the Race did more often was Detours where each teammate had to do an equal amount of work as the other. For instance, in the Bahrain wood hauling, force each one to put 150 pounds of wood on the scale instead of 300 between them, or in the frog catching force each to put 10 frogs into the basket. Sometimes Detours are well designed to require true teamwork, such as the Zimbabwe song and dance, but too often they let teams get by with one teammate as a free rider, and often it would only take a minor adjustment to even things up.

That is a good point about the twins. Most firefighters have to be certified as paramedics, which requires a lot of studying, and they have to be able to diagnose and treat anything from broken bones to epileptic seizures to drug ODs. They also have to be able to identify and handle all kinds of chemical incidents - it's not an easy job. Alex seems a lot more locked down and focused than Conor, which might have something to do with his winning the Indy 500. That quality makes him less interesting on TV, of course.

I'm pretty sure they covered them all. Off the top of my head I can remember seven -- What was the year Copernicus's theory was published, what is the law regarding the disappearance of a distant object, how far did Cop say the Sun was, what did he say was the second farthest planet, how far away can you see a lighthouse, something something, and is the Earth round or flat?

I was hoping they had to take a beer bath before getting the next clue. I'm glad the exam made sure people had to say the earth is round. I just wish Cedric and Shawn could have answered that to show there are round earth NBA players, unlike Kyrie Irving. I'm really pleased by the amount of self navigation on foot that there has been this season. Between this leg and Tangiers, there have been some sections that have really challenged racers, and I vastly prefer that to taxi rides. Even self driving can lack some self-determination, since being in the wrong lane in traffic and missing an exit can sometimes really throw a team for a loop. This is the least annoying group of racers in a long time. I'm not fans of all of them, but nobody seems like a whiny mess. Maybe just a bit whiny. Even the Big Brother duo lacks the preening you get from a lot of reality TV types, and while they're probably the most scheming of anyone on the show, they're barely scheming at all.

It drives me crazy too, but younger relatives I know shrug it off like it's nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if it mellows out as gamers get older and you start seeing champions who rise above it, but right now it's a major part of it.

In gaming, it's a very, very broad spectrum. It includes whining and moaning about the lights, the softness of your chair, the speed of the connection, you name it.

It's pretty clear that Tara psyched herself out, which is never a good approach -- no matter what it is, just treat it like a puzzle that can be solved.

Talking trash is a huge part of gaming, though. http://compete.kotaku.com/tekken-7-competitor-trash-talks-his-way-to-tournament-v-1794429167

I got the impression that by that point he was already suffering from heat exhaustion. One of the dangers of it is that it messes with your ability to think clearly, which is one of the reasons why people die -- they don't recognize how thirsty they are and how much they need to ease up.

Tara mentioned at the start how she and Joey were sick (especially Joey). He almost passed out at the mat on the first leg, and you could see him shaking in one of the cab rides. I'm amazed he was able to finish the bike delivery in that state. I hope that everyone was getting water supplied to them throughout -- you could imagine someone dying from a miscalculation if racers were expected to pack and carry water they needed from the beginning.

I suspect what we're seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. I wouldn't be surprised if her promise not to U-Turn Liz and Michael was just one of a million times she's been pulling stunts on people. Although at this point you have to assume the worst of her.

The self navigation really made the leg -- I wish that any leg which had straightforward tasks would include self driving in challenging situations to force teams to earn their victory. I'm curious if any of the confusion on the road was due to Greek road signs. When I was there, some had place names in both Roman and Greek alphabets (I noticed one sign in this episode was that way) but many used only the Greek. I found the Greek-only signs to be really hard to handle when you only have a few seconds to read it before you've passed it.

It's worth pointing out that those soldiers are elites in the Greek army, similar to the way the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington Cemetery are among the most respected soldiers in the US Army. They are completely dedicated to their job -- Wikipedia notes: "In January 2010, a makeshift bomb was placed 20 meters from where the Evzones guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, at Syntagma Square. Although the police informed the Evzones of the imminent threat, the Guards refused to leave their posts and remained on guard while the bomb exploded."

I was there in the dead of winter and it was dry, but I've read it can flood any time, and it was definitely a risk to have a leg there. Maybe they had some other backup plan for high water? At any rate, what struck me was how uncrowded it was. San Marco was very empty. I have to think they filmed very early in the day to beat the crowds, or else that luggage hauling would have been impossible.

Sorry, I should have known better than to make such a blanket statement... I'm catching up on Better Call Saul and I can't help but be reminded of the categories I've invented when I see the difference between Jimmy/Saul and the blue blood big firm lawyers. No question who you would rather have a drink with. To be fair, considering what Saul did in Breaking Bad, I can see why it might be a bad idea to hang out with him for very long.

I don't know if it's being telegraphed or not, but there's a hint that some of the weaker teams will target London and Logan next time. Which is probably a dumb move since they're looking to be only middling competitors, and at this point if you're a weaker team hoping to squeak through into the finals, you're probably better aiming at knocking off the boys, Team Fun or Joey and Tara. I don't get the sense that the weaker teams are very good at this kind of strategic thinking, though.