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I'd argue if we are solely looking at performances on this race to date, I think Nicole/Victor are overall stronger than Leo/Jamal. But that is me 100% discounting their previous race experience. Just in the sense that I think Leo/Jamal have had higher highs (winning legs), but also IMO lower lows. Yes, Nicole/Victor were saved by an elimination leg once but most of their other finishes have been pretty decent and Leo/Jamal seem more likely to make bigger screw ups on tasks where it doesn't seem like they should screw up. I know I said this in the other thread, but the majority of the issues Nicole/Victor have is if she's not physically able to keep up with some of the other racers (like in foot race type of thing) or navigational. They definitely have had some navigational trouble. That said Leo/Jamal have major navigational troubles on top of seemingly being careless reading clues/following directions at times. One thing I'll say for Nicole/Victor this race, no matter where they finish, is they haven't made a lot of dumb racing mistakes during the actual racing part. You can argue they made dumb moves socially, but task wise they didn't struggle much. They read their clues, followed directions and did what they needed to do.

I think they are naturally at a disadvantage not being a true Race team. The Survivor/BB/AR teams all seemed to want their reality show to win, so I think with them being the only non-Race team left, there is this sort of unspoken knowledge that the Amazing Racers left would prefer Vic/Nicole out and have an all AR finals. I don't know that that means the other teams don't like them necessarily. The other thing I'd say is I think Nicole has issues when she is tired and anxious and worn out. I get it. It's the reason why I could never do this show because I'm a hot mess. Big Brother is stressful, but it's a different kind of stressful and where you are mostly sitting around a comfy house all day. So I think maybe she has less control over her emotions here and is a bit more on edge. Which is not me calling her a hysterical woman or anything, but it's easier to be a bit melodramatic and all of that when you are also hot, physically spent and exhausted. Obviously Victor made a mis-step since Leo/Jamal seemed to take their u-turn vote so personally, but the other few little dust-ups seem to be mostly Nicole. I also don't think they are hated in the sense that somebody confirmed to them that they should u-turn Team Fun as they were on the way to the u-turn board, which while having a second team u-turned benefits everyone to a degree, if people really wanted them out that bad they could have just let them figure it out for themselves. Also post race they seem fine with everyone. Or fine enough with their fellow racers agreeing to come on their podcast and be good sports. The only people I think they have legitimately bad blood with are the Reillys, who not so coincidentally are the only eliminated racers who haven't done their podcast. They seem to be fine with Leo/Jamal and Becca/Floyd in the real world. They were hanging out with Leo in NY at the start of the season.

Yes, I think that was a good assumption and probably one they would have come to on their own anyway. But somebody did tell them to u-turn Team Fun. I'm just still not entirely clear on which team told them that. They also admitted that while they survived of course, in hindsight it was very dumb to break away from the pack they were with to do the other detour. Because obviously if they had stayed with the pack, they would have had an easier time finding the cow detour and it would have limited any possibility of getting lost and of course Victor probably could have hoisted the cow no issue if he wasn't already exhausted at the point they had to do that detour. Plus they could have potentially made it to the u-turn board at the same time as Leo/Jamal. I didn't get to listen to what Becca had to say yet, so am curious about that. Floyd also said that Becca did check the eggs quickly before leaving, but clearly not quite carefully enough.

I'm listening to Nicole/Victor's podcast. They have Team Fun on this week, unsurprisingly, but not at the same time. At least to the point I'm at, Nic/Vic mentioned that they ran most of this leg by themselves without seeing other teams. But it sounds like somebody warned them they got u-turned when they passed them on the bikes and said team told them to u-turn Team Fun. Which I couldn't understand who they were talking about, but I assumed it has to be Leo/Jamal because how would C/C or T/K know that Vic/Nicole got u-turned. They would have assumed it was likely, but they didn't know for sure. If somebody else listened to the podcast, maybe you can understand it better than I did. But sounds like SOMEONE gave them the heads up to u-turn Team Fun, but Victor/Nicole didn't of course know 100% that Team Fun was behind them. They just had to take someone's word for it. Sidenote: Literally the only eliminated racers they haven't had on their podcast this season were the Reilly sisters so I'm going to assume there is still no love lost there. Despite any minor dust-ups, they have had both Team Fun and 1/2 of Leo/Jamal so far. I don't think they had Rupert/Laura, but I don't think that was out of any dislike. Additional sidetone: Vic/Nicole were lost for about an hour and half on the bike trying to find the second detour, so that explains why Victor was so exhausted.

Yes, I think going to the detour she was. I just think having shorter legs it was harder for her and one can argue whether or not it was dumb for her not to on the way back. On the one had it exhausted Victor, perhaps prematurely not knowing they were going to have to do the other half of the detour. On the other hand they transported their eggs to the market in one piece on the first try, which Team Fun didn't do.

I don't have enough Amazing Race knowledge of every season to compare between previous seasons, but it's interesting in the sense that even the people that remain that we consider less up to certain physical tasks, like Nicole, aren't really unfit. Yes, she's not suited to certain things and doesn't have the upper body strength (see pole vault), but she's still generally fit enough to run a race that involves a lot of physical activity and well, a lot of running. Also the whole bike thing, at least before Victor told her not to pedal because of the eggs, I do think it was harder for her because of her height. Also in retrospect, it's probably better that Chris/Bret went out when they did because I expect they might have had a lot of issues with this leg. Bret especially. There was a lot of running an biking and they definitely did not excel at the former.

This is mostly where I'm at and even if I want to give Becca the benefit of the doubt that she was being deadpan in that moment, as a fellow sarcastic and deadpan person, one of the biggest lessons I've learned in life so far is knowing when to shut it off. I'm sure that is harder in the high stress situation of the race, but a lot of people don't get it and won't take it as deadpan/sarcasm and I would think you would want to particularly be careful of that when a guest in another country and trying to be respectful of cultural differences and such. Also I'd argue if she meant it as deadpan, it didn't necessarily sound deadpan to me. But obviously we all interpret things differently. I do think Becca was mad at herself and that comment was really the only time she rubbed me the wrong way in this leg, but it's just going back to what I've said in previous threads that Becca strikes me as having a streak of mean in her when things don't go her way. And that's fine I guess if you own it and realize those things about yourself, but she also plays up her I'm so light hearteded and fun persona at the same time.

It's a fan belief as well, which I've seen expressed here more than once. How only Amazing Race teams should win because the show is better than the other lowly reality shows. Also in general, not directed at you, but once again I don't think Nicole is even remotely dumb. Annoying, often. Whiny, yes. Can't keep up in some of the more physical tasks, sure. But nothing about her not being able to pedal the bike or not doing it makes her dumb. In general, one thing I think Nicole does well is read the clues thoroughly. Stupid and obvious as it seems, Nicole seems fairly detail oriented and makes sure they read all the directions and hence they have not made a lot of stupid mistakes over misread clues or not following directions. Mistakes that I've seen other teams make more than once. Their issues tend to be more if 1) Nicole can't quite keep up at something or pull her own weight physically or 2) Navigational.

Nicole annoys me somewhat, but I don't have a problem with Victor. I was going to be annoyed if she made him run up the steps after he pulled most of the weight both pedaling and hoisting that cow when he was clearly exhausted. Becca is okay I guess, but she shows her true colors here and there, but their big stupid mistake was not checking the eggs. I can't imagine jumping with eggs of all things and not stopping to check they were all in one piece. I also don't have this thing about only true Amazing Race teams can win, which seems to be a thing. I'm not rooting for Nicole/Victor to win, but this whole only Race teams can make it to the end mentality is stupid. If you outlast race teams, you deserve to be there. I understand Big Brother isn't seen as a classy substantive show, and it isn't, but I still don't really understand people on one reality show acting like they are so much better or classier than people on another reality show. At the end of the day it's still all reality tv where you're trying to win money.

I spent much of this episode laughing at the ineptitude of Leo/Jamal. I don't begrudge them using the u-turn and voting for Nicole/Victor. It's F5, they voted for them previously and etc. But maybe don't be such cocky bastards about it crowing about how you're going to win the leg only to royally screw up and almost get passed up by the u-turned teams. Mind you I have no idea what the final times were and how far Leo/Jamal finished before Nicole/Victor. I was going to laugh for days if they got passed up. But I guess they proved they needed to u-turn teams cause if they hadn't they would have been in big trouble. Other than that, I'm fine with it. The Top 2 teams finished in the first two spots. Leo/Jamal I would have been fine with going home, but I'm not too upset about Team Fun. Could have done without Becca, even jokingly telling the local that she wanted to throw the eggs in their face. I get she was frustrated and it was partially a joke, but still not cool.

I think they are trying to get better celebs, but I think some people have been asking for new pros and even here there has been much discussion if a lot of the newer pros have the it factor or not. Especially on the male pro side. Also in my personal opinion only, I think a very good reason for hiring new pros is so they can diversify their pro pool a bit. I know I'm not the only one who is tired of not seeing a lot of diversity amongst the pros. Mind you we now have Keo and Brandon, but Keo has been barely hanging on to his pro spot for years. And diversity on the female side is Britt in troupe and Cheryl whenever she deems to make an appearance. And if there is any truth to ditching non ballroomers, there goes Britt Stewart anyway. I know it's been said on boards and such that it's hard to find non-white pros, but I don't buy that they aren't out there. I think it's more likely in the past the DWTS search pool is pulled from a few places and they don't try very hard beyond that.

It wasn't really meant to be a theory, just that I could in some ways see both sides of the argument and that it wasn't clear based on what we were shown. I do think however if Nicole had a problem with it, and I single her out only because we weren't shown Victor complaining about it, that she could have been more proactive about it.

The show has sidelined Emma before in a regular season. I think the show likes Emma and I know she's ballroom trained. I just don't think she's as high in the eyes of TPTB as the likes of most of the Utah girls and Sharna, etc. And if they truly do hire some new pros, it does mean some current pros are getting sidelined. The majority of our current pros are ballroom trained. The only pros who aren't are in the troupe, so unless they just overhaul the troupe and use that as a tryout, they can't bring on new pros without firing some ballroomers. Also yes, I did think that Mandy being out probably has the most direct effect on Jenna just since she's Mandy's pet and often assistant and the center of every Mandy number. Personally I'd prefer is there was no overall Mandy type and they just brought in different choreographers for the opening numbers, or let some of the current pros take turns choreographing. That way at least we won't get all of the numbers looking the same.

I don't really give much thought to Julianne and I'm still not sure if I think her blackface stunt was stupidity and ignorance on her end or an actual stunt, but the reason IMO Julianne still gets jobs (besides being white of course) is that she issued an actual apology. Whether one bought it or not or forgives her is another issue entirely, but she did apologize for the issue and admit some wrong doing. I'm not going to compare anything Val has done to blackface. He isn't that sort of ignorant and he hasn't done anything that I would expect to get him fired. He's the type to come off more casually racist in a way that most white people probably wouldn't ever notice since it usually comes in the form of microaggressions or feeling like he can say whatever he wants because he's down with the culture and hood. Also Val has never apologized a day in the life for anything he says (at least publicly). By the way funny aside on Val and his "hoodness". I remember once years ago he had gone to Oakland with Zendaya and her family for a few days, which is where she's from. It was awhile post DWTS and I think they were maybe rehearsing for one of those Sway shows, but she had a family something. And before anybody starts in on their weird relationship back in those days, her boyfriend was also on said trip. But poor hood Val was so out of his element in her world in Oakland. Like I remember him tweeting weird things about how scared he was or weird things that would happen. I think that was the moment Val realized his Brooklyn street cred wasn't what he thought it was.

More Info on S28 Potential Changes Some might be interested on the link above from Kristyn Burtt about the potential changes for the upcoming season. They claim, that will make many here, is they want to get back to the show's ballroom/latin routes and supposedly they held auditions in early May for new pro talent. While I'm all for new talent as we've discussed at length here, I'm just in wait and see mode in that I expect to hire new talent, I likely won't agree with the decisions re: the show in terms of which pros they keep and kick to the curb. I assume if they really want to focus on ballroomers, they will first ditch themselves of the Hayley's and Britt's who don't come from a ballroom background. Though of course the latter being one of only a few black pros, it's a bit more complicated than that. Especially since I don't expect to see Cheryl back this season so no Cheryl and no Britt in troupe makes for a very white pro roster. I know some people don't care about those things, but the lack of diversity also means that a large part of the audience don't get to see people that look like them (not talking to the celebs but the pros). I also expect they will somehow fire pros like Emma, who has been always on the outskirts for TPTB, and they will make like Val and Jenna the center of the show. Which, barf. Oh, the other good news is that Mandy Moor is gone! Though that is of her own choice, but if they show is going to go back to basics re: ballroom then getting rid of the non ballroom choreographer at the center of it is somewhat imperative.