vousviou

For me, teams like Brendan and Rachel were far worse than teams that barely know one another. I think what has caused some problems in the presentation of this season is that it's hard to get a sense of how teams been adjusting -- there just haven't been many times when you've seen teams putting their heads together between legs and planning how to improve next time. I realize it's hard to squeeze in those kinds of scenes and still show the race, but the talking head sequences where they say some bland bits about needing to communicate don't convey a lot -- it would be more interesting to see them in the middle of real conversations instead.

In my experience there are two types of attorneys. The first go straight from college to law school. They have no real world experience and go straight to working in a law firm. The second type takes time between college and law school and works for at least a few years, possibly attending law school at night. The second type is often decent, but avoid like the plague the ones who only know the law and other lawyers.

I wonder whether there will be blowback from other teams for Tara and Joey for not U Turning V and A. I can't remember if they were a part of the earlier negotiations to gang up or not. They obviously were not eager to jump in the middle, and in theory that could have screwed up the plan. It would be great if other teams realized it doesn't help them to make it easier for rival teams to coast to the final.

I think that's completely right. I would also assume that regular teams (if they're smart) would have a little time before the race to work out some ways of making decisions. Obviously a lot of teams in the past haven't figured this out, but at least some of them seem to have talked through how to navigate when driving, how to decide to split up challenges, and so forth. None of these current teams have had that luxury. I like that show has given glimpses of Ashton and Vanck talking through how they handled the previous leg -- I think it shows how they've managed to keep functioning despite a major mismatch. I wish there was more shown of that with other teams, because it would give a sense of how they're coping (or not, as the case may be), and that's a crucial difference between this season and most of the others.

I think you're right that there was something in the timing due to a "management" issue. In the US, at least, skydiving is well regulated, and you can't just go up and jump. There are mandatory training requirements, and the show most likely skipped that. Also, there are rules as far as wind speed and visibility, so that you can't jump unless conditions are right. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a longer than expected period of waiting for the right conditions, or possibly just some minor equipment issue that had to be resolved and it took longer than planned. Whatever happened (and maybe it was just poor design) they seemed perfectly happy coming in third in exchange for the skydiving, and I think I might even agree with them.

The U Turn didn't pay off, but it was a smart move. This round showed a strong team getting knocked out by a U Turn, so in theory it could have been the boys instead. And since the boys are likely to be jerks for as long as they're in the race, you may as well go after them. The problem with trash talking in a competition like this is that the boys are putting a bigger target on themselves. I think people already realize they're serious competition, and now they're making it even more likely to be messed up by another team. It's a long way to go and all it takes is for someone to give them bad directions at the right time and they're out. If they're going to do it, they'd be much better off waiting for a more strategic time late in the race. Things like cutting the line for a ferry that everyone will be riding just makes no sense -- you antagonize other racers but get no advantage.

I lean toward the explanation that the vendors gave high prices on the expectation that there would be haggling, but I admit I don't have anything to back it up. The closest I can come is the guy who gave money back when (I forget) said she was charged too much, and he knew the price he had charged was really high. It's also possible, though, that he figured it would be smart not to appear like a jerk when he had a TV camera pointed at him and the amount of money for a few bananas or whatever was pretty small. It occurred to me that this challenge must have been especially difficult because they were visiting so many vendors and that means there are ton of potential releases that had to be signed.

Amazing Race to hold auditions in Florida: http://www.clickorlando.com/entertainment/the-amazing-race-holds-auditions-in-kissimmee There is a casting call scheduled in Kissimmee on June 24. Also, there was a casting call February 11 in Santa Clara, CA http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/The-Amazing-Race-to-hold-open-casting-call-in-10886997.php and the CBS website listed an audition in Ontario CA last month. That obviously doesn't mean there's a commmitment for another season, and all of the applications could go into the round file any time, but at a minimum it means they haven't shut down just yet.

One of the things I like about this show is that there are times when it makes sense to trust another team, times when it doesn't make sense, and times when it could go either way. You'll have times when two teams will be toward the back of the pack and another team is behind them -- if they work together, they'll both avoid finishing last. A trickier situation is if two teams are at the back of the pack and don't know if anyone is behind them. If they work together, and they're tied for last at that point, they're risking everything on the final sprint. But if one team stabs the other in the back but both still make the next round, then the backstabbers may suffer blowback. And then there are times when teams inexplicably help out strong frontrunning rivals. It's interesting watching how different teams try to sort out their options. I'm always amazed how many teams don't ask for a minute by themselves to decide what to do instead of just answering on the spot.

What I liked about this challenge was that it was more than just rappelling or ziplining or bungee jumping, and contestants actually had to do something reasonably challenging while they were up there. Too often it's just a chance to show off some scenery and there's no opportunity for lead changes as long as nobody completely freaks out. This one, though, actually affected the order of the finish.

The comments of others about Phil's reaction leads me to agree that he was wildly overreacting. However, I will say that when a guy is genuinely feeling that kind of pain, it's crippling. He didn't seem to be working very hard to get the harness adjusted when he had the chance, though, so I wouldn't be suprised if there was another issue he was hiding, such as fear of heights. I agree that the elbow looked bad. If it's broken or dislocated, she's not going to finish the race.

I don't think it was their intention, but it's not a bad strategy to make a fairly low risk offer early on. You get a sense of what their motivations are and you get a sense of how strategic they are. The boys broke their word, and now the word is probably out to other teams that they're not trustworthy and also not particularly clever. Again, I don't think it was A and V's intention, but they've actually come out ahead.

And birds fly into them all the time too. They're usually designed to withstand a whole lot, both because you don't want people in the building breaking through and you don't want people on the ground to be hit by anything coming out of the building. Also, there's a lot of stress generated by high rises as buildings move in the wind and any ground movement, and you don't want windows shattering easily.

Was it clear why so many teams picked Scoot instead of Shoot? The bows turned out to be tricky, but based on how Becca and Floyd seemed to do fine, Shoot didn't seem that hard, and I'd think it would be more appealing to some of the less hardcore athletes.

I haven't been to Panama but I've been to Costa Rica, and from this description, it sounds like the driving challenges are pretty similar: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/americas-central-america/topics/i-survived-driving-in-panama-city-here-s-how You have to be very assertive to get where you want, and a brief hesitation can get you stuck on the wrong road with no clear idea how to get back. I'm guessing that's what happened to the losing team -- unlike the one team (I forget which one) who pulled a U-Turn in the middle of traffic despite getting a lot of angry honking in response. I suspect I'd struggle driving in a situation like that and you need a navigator who can think several moves ahead too.

Thanks, it's great getting a better sense of how this stuff works behind the scenes. I've read a number of interviews with character actors on avclub.com and they often describe two situations. One is after initially being approached for a job, they spend years in back and forth before it is shot, and the other is the complete opposite -- they meet the director/producer/casting person and after maybe five minutes of talking get hired. I get the sense casting can be either agonizingly slow while waiting for other pieces to fall into place, or scarily fast because you're trying to fill out a cast before shooting begins. I'm sort of surprised more networks (at least the smaller ones) don't follow the Always Sunny model of hiring a group that will do the acting, writing and producing altogether -- it reduces the number of pieces that have to be assembled. But then you also have to find people who can do all three successfully, like McElhenney, Day and Howerton, and I realize that's pretty rare.

That's all really interesting. How does it work when a show is in development? Do actors have to sign an exclusive contract early on? My understanding is that a show might be stuck in development for quite a while after casting for a pilot is done -- are actors locked up until a network makes a final decision? Or do they have freedom until the network decides to buy the show? I'd think networks would want to avoid contract negotiations once they decide to take a show and risk giving actors too much leverage and go through recasting, but actors would be reluctant to sign anything unless they knew a pilot had a good chance of being picked up. Maybe I'm overthinking this, and it all varies from show to show.

I was sort of surprised Dennis didn't have a vasectomy. It doesn't seem like him to trust women, although I guess I could see him have some reasons for not wanting to, or being in denial that he'd ever end up a father. I'm sad that the Old... Man seems to be back on the street. I sort of wished he was still sleeping with Dee and/or Mac and Dennis. If the show continues, I can see a lot of humor in the long running Charlie/Waitress relationship flipping. Although the more realistic one is that she hates him even more than she ever did before. Mac's character seems like it would continue pretty much the same. He never had any solid relationships with women, and I can imagine men finding him just as shallow and dumpable. I'm actually glad with the end of Maureen Ponderosa -- I thought her character got too far over the top. There was a hint last season that Frank had a terminal condition, but that never came up again. I sort of expected he'd be the first character to go. If Charlie and Waitress somehow stay together, then it would be interesting to see where he'd go to live, although in real life you'd think he would stay in the apartment and the couple would find a better/safer place to live. Maybe they could sleep with Dee in the king sized bed? The Gang Tends Bar stands out that way. Even though he was hiding the reason he wanted everyone to work hard at their jobs, the hidden reason turned out not to be some scam or psychopathic drive, just that he wanted to be remembered. That pretty much makes it clear why Brian Jr. saying goodbye hit him so hard.

I could believe that if Cricket had never met the Gang and stayed a priest, he might well have ended up a bitter alcoholic stealing the wine for communion and getting shuffled from parish to parish because he was hitting on every skinny blond high school girl in his congregation who wore some kind of brace or other medical contraption...

I sort of thought the whole thing was going to turn out to be a dream and Belle was a part of that, but I guess they did that in the first episode of the season. I'd disagree that this redeems the gang. I think you might justify the horrible way they treat Gail the Snail, but Cricket's downward spiral is pretty much due to their awfulness, from the way Dee tricked him into quitting the priesthood to the way he got hooked on coke. Granted, he'd be miserable as a priest but at least he'd be unscarred and out of the rain. Cricket is a reminder that it's never a good idea to get too warm and fuzzy about the Gang, even when they give someone a rocket launcher for his birthday....

I agree that the broken normality was really well done. Paddy's is a supporting character in the show just as much as humans like Cricket and Artemis, and I'm glad they let it (him?) show off its disgusting filthy side from time to time. I'm also glad they revisited one the eternal issues of the show, which is how do they stay in business if they're always disappearing to the Jersey Shore or trying to break Wade Boggs's record. It's nice to see a reminder from time to time that it's just a book cooking front for Frank's other operations. I also thought the actors did a great job shifting gears between piggish egotism and semi-human versions of emotion. I agree with Dennis's insistence that he has feelings -- he does. They're twisted and unappealing and mostly buried, but they're there.

When I read the summary, I was afraid it was going to be as weak as last season's Dee Made a Smut Film. This episode was idiotic, but it was hilarious. I've said how I wished this season had more episodes where the gang didn't really do anything except create mayhem and wallow in their awfulness, and this one fit the bill. It had one of those insane, illogical conversations I love in this show, when Dennis and Charlie were pointing out how terrible each others lives were, and then suddenly Dennis comes to the conclusion that he should be a stripper. I'm struggling to decide whether Dee was more awful to the Soldier Stripper or to Cricket when she convinced him to leave the priesthood and then told him she wouldn't go out with him. And Frank and Dee crossing a line that made even Dennis and Mac embarrassed in the PTSD support group was a great scene.

It was brought up last season, and Dee said the librarian was 50 and she looked like Rick Moranis. I wasn't sure if Charlie and Dennis were consciously or not referring to Mac and his sad failure to ever play catch with a father figure. It's a hilarious part of Mac's character regardless, and I'm so glad they brought back Mac's Dad, who is as scary as anyone on Breaking Bad ever was.

It was a funny gag but it had to end some time, and they did a really job of it, and everyone agreeing they were still going to hate him was a nice touch.

I also thought it was really funny, and the bit at the end where they decided to give Mac one day of thinking he was rich was oddly touching, in the way they gave Charlie a denim chicken and a new rat bashing stick in Charlie Kelly King of the Rats. It's nothing that would pass for true generosity among normal people, but in their world it's about as good as it gets. It's very similar to The Gang Gets Analyzed, which I liked a little better than this, but this was still a very strong episode with great bits by all five characters. I was also expecting them to bail out on one swear word, similar to the way Arrested Development once had Tobias say "You are such a c....ountry music fan!" but they went there, with the freedom of being on cable. My one small quibble with this season is they've only had one show so far consisting of nothing but the gang being imbeciles (The Gang Goes to a Waterpark). I love the Three Stooges side to the gang and would like to see more of it, but so far this season has been really strong with several really funny episodes (including this one) and no weak ones.