Kanaloa

Damn, the Express Pass nullified before the very leg it would've been of most use * - kudos to S/K for hanging in there! * This season being a shortened eleven-episode race, alas. (EP expiration date usually on the 8th leg of 12 excepting last year for whatever reason.)

Boo to zero new countries, which once seemed a temporary setback between Seasons 21 and 24 corrected by the latest four. (Like, should've gone to Nairobi + Mombasa and Torshavn instead!)

Double-record time: first North American TAR season with three F/F teams in the Final 5, one of whom is also the only EP winner ever to have successfully avoided its use!

Seeing as Big Brother 19 will air exclusively on CBS All-Access, TAR 29 should as well.

Almost: season 2 had two (outmoded billboards in Winnipeg and nude posing in Montreal), and season 1's was unaired (Mountie driving in Regina). Speaking of which, I wonder if there might be zero this year: I concur - she is way more like Nurse Hayley, the basic blonde b-word with Dr. Blair: one-dimensional (Flo was mostly kind to other teams and locals, whereas Stuntcast Teacher's and Blind Dater's entire edits revolve around their teammate), try-hard (nothing more than female Joey Graceffas), and with a marginal online fanbase (the likes of which got butthurt when Crayley lost the race to the team that had been dragging her for filth since around the halfway point).

Their names were Kym and Alli and they were like a platonic version of Laura and Jackie (the interracial lesbian hipster-spouses) from Season 2 back in 2014.

A bittersweet yield once more: bravo to the lady athletes for their first/overdue win, even as K-squared met their tragic fate once this episode became an unprecedented non-premiere, non-finale double-RB leg (the first in TARCAN history).

RIP, Sheila ~

Darn, an all-female team eventually had to bite the dust, but the other four comprising the entire top half of the leg rankings sure makes up for it!

Thirteen Twelve ladies, three two gents, and a harpy with her boytoy = one of the finest Final 8's in a long while! (Record number of penalties assessed in one episode, eh?)

The EP in the alpha-females' possession and English-speaking TAR's "first-ever second episode NEL"? Let's see if the stuntcasts can reach the Hockey Olympians' record (not).

A fifth of the cast taking penalties in the premiere and that stuntcast winning the leg? Yuck - at least the sob story got the boot!