Hera

I like to imagine all the other characters crowding around to see who would come out as the more dominant one, but instead Mrs Kim and Trix end up becoming instant friends and teaming up to criticize all the now-terrified onlookers.

I was surprised that Rod, Danny, and Vinny all did the roadblock this episode. It didn't seem like the welding task was physically taxing, nor did it seem like the people who had done it before had a massive advantage over the ones who hadn't. This seemed like a good one to hand off to the partner who is less athletic and generally less confident at doing tasks. I've always kind of liked them. Leticia has a low-key personality that nicely complements her husband's boundless enthusiasm. They appear to work together well and even like each other. Mind you, she said they've been together 13 years—couples who have been together that long (and aren't using the race as therapy) generally don't take the stress of the race out on each other. I'm with everyone who hopes that Amber and Vinny go their separate ways. I'm inclined to agree that he is the more competent racer, but I also think he sucks as a person and the way he positions himself as her mentor/coach/whatever really grosses me out. I find couples with that dynamic inherently uncomfortable to watch or be around. Partners should see each other as equals, not improvement projects.

Same. That one definitely sounded more fun to me than the meat one, so I was a little disappointed no one chose it. I guess it must have sounded like it would take way more time. Comments like that are why I'm going to miss Shelisa for the remainder of the race. She said what I was thinking. I agree with @Netfoot that there was almost certainly only one way those pieces could have fit together to form a circuit, so after the first trip around the track, everyone should have realized they didn't need to memorize the route, but use that time to think about the pieces and how they might fit together. I think this leg showed the benefit of this strategy already. Angie was seemed pretty ready to give up on that rally roadblock. If they hadn't built up so much good will with Amber—to the point where Amber was unwilling to leave the roadblock without helping Angie (and Leticia, but she seemed more adamant about helping Angie), then Angie and Danny may well have had to take the four hour penalty and have been eliminated. I didn't like that the alliance was able to box the firefighters and the girlfriends out of the meat detour, but that was more of an issue with how the task was constructed. However, in general, I don't mind alliances on The Amazing Race that much. I was less against the Mine Five than a lot of people. At least on this season, I can see how it benefits these particular teams to work together. Though if I were Danny and Angie, I'd be looking to drop Amber and Vinny soon, since they have the potential to run a couple of strong legs and leave the others in the dust. With the Mine Five, there were a couple of teams who would have been contenders to win even without the alliance, and so the result was that everyone ensured the survival of their strongest competition.

Same. He stressed me out even when he was saying supportive things to Amber. It just never seemed sincere to me—it was like he was making a concerted effort for the cameras. But then again, what do I know? After all, the world is bigger than your evil thoughts.

I was thinking this too, minus the love. For both teams, I had the feeling of wanting to like them, but being unable to. For Charla and Myrna, it was more a sense that I wouldn't get on with them if I ever actually met them. For Karishma and Kishori, I dislike how they seem to rely on other teams for help. The way they went up to Derek and Shelisa for help on the cooking task gave me flashbacks to James in Season 32 (the one with the much-hated Mine 5 alliance). I have a low tolerance for people who want help with something when they've barely taken any steps to figure it out on their own. Amber and Vinny were uncomfortable to watch. All the weaponized therapy speech: "I need you to X." "Well I need you to Y." Contrast that to Derek and Shelisa's snapping at each other, which doesn't have the same effect on me because 1) I find some of it genuinely funny and 2) it's pretty clear through it all that they do genuinely like each other.

My first impression is that this is a season where the field of competition is pretty weak. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a bad season, but it doesn't seem like anyone really crushed that leg, though the first two teams to the mat did well. It'll be interesting if this ends up being a season where there isn't a small group of teams who absolutely dominate the competition. I don't think we've had that in a while.

I came here to say the same thing. Any of the three teams could have won it. Rob and Corey might have been in it if they had been better about getting directions (and—let's face it—if Rob had completed the trapeze task a bit faster). Joel and Garrett could have won it if they had spotted their error on the kayak task sooner. John and Greg were a very strong team and deserved their win, but it was absolutely not a foregone conclusion for much of the leg. Count me among those who wished that the final task had been a bit more difficult. Lugging kayaks isn't riveting as a viewer, even if it does exhaust the teams. But the other tasks, plus the fact that it was a scramble rather than a pre-determined sequence made for an enjoyable leg nonetheless. Though, as others have noted, because the scramble tasks were set up in a straight line, pretty much everyone was going to end up doing Grunge second. I think part of Rob and Corey's strategy in choosing the order they did was to try to avoid the other teams at tasks. It's not a bad idea if you're worried about having to take turns or getting psyched out. And if John and Greg are your competition, getting psyched out is a legitimate concern, especially if you're at something physical like the trapeze task. It's always hard when you have a consistent front-running team like John and Greg on a season. If they win, it's anticlimactic, but if they lose, it potentially feels like the winners are somehow undeserving or won based on luck (either their good luck or the front-runners' bad luck). But that nitpick aside, this was an excellent season.

Yeah, their cocky talking head at the end of the episode seemed like a shift from the way they've been edited previously. But they're not wrong; they are the ones to beat. Yeah, although there's an argument that if Steve had done more of the earlier roadblocks, they might not have made it as far as they did. I laughed at Corey asking who wanted to teach him at the Riverdance roadblock and both the female instructors' hands shot up. I also laughed at the crowd at the pub booing people who messed up their quotes. That said, only Riverdance and self-navigation shook up the order. The swimming, hurling, and recitation were all first in, first out and quick enough that teams basically didn't see each other while they were doing the task, which is a little disappointing. I wonder how far apart the teams were in arriving on the mat.

This is where I land as well. Plus, the more you dither about whether or not to use it, the less advantage you get from using it. Like others pointed out, this task seemed similar to the lotus one, so I don't blame anyone for assuming it was going to be judged equally harshly. And skipping the roadblock here means that they'll have a choice about who does the final roadblock, assuming that Corey does the next one. Anna Leigh was probably at an advantage in that she hadn't done the lotus task, and so she didn't have any preconceived notions about how harsh the judging would be. I give her a ton of credit for finishing quickly enough that she and her dad were able to catch and pass the team who were allowed to skip the task entirely. I'm floored that neither she nor her dad seemed to know the difference between a subway and a bus, but I guess if you're used to driving everywhere (and I suspect they both are), all public transport may seem like the same thing to you. I suspect that both Rob/Corey and Steve/Anna Leigh are making unforced errors due to Killer Fatigue and the inability to get a comfortable lead on the other teams, leading to panicked rather than reasoned decision-making. This is a very evenly matched final four—well, three of the teams are evenly matched; I would give Greg/John the edge over everyone else, though not by enough that I think they're absolute shoo-ins to win.

I laughed at Chelsea's comment on the mat about how her kids were going to love watching the race, and the minute they see John/Greg and Corey/Rob, they'll know her team didn't win. I wouldn't want to go up against John/Greg or Corey/Rob because both teams have the deadly combination of being athletic and being smart (Corey and Rob's unforced error on this leg notwithstanding). There are some seasons where people can win by racing smarter than everyone, but this isn't one of them. I wanted to say that Todd/Ashlie are the weakest team left, but actually, their finishes look better than those of Joel/Garrett. I think the reason I don't rate them is because we haven't seen them be really good at anything. It also seems like she doesn't like him very much, which makes them kind of a bummer to watch. Joel and Garrett will sometimes power through a challenge on the strength of one or both of them having had some relevant experience, and they always seem to be having a good time doing it. The teams are due for an equalizer soon, so I don't think the finishes this leg are going to matter a whole lot going forward. It sounds like Corey and Rob have to use their Express Pass on the next leg if they're going to use it at all. It'll be interesting, because while I'm sure they're hungry for a first place finish, they also seem to be all about enjoying the experiences the race provides. If you use an Express Pass (and especially if you use it before starting a task), you necessarily have to give up one of the experiences the race provides. But maybe the next leg will have an obviously frustrating task that's a no-brainer to skip.

This is what I thought. They kept talking about their "eight hour head start" and I think even if it had worked out, they maybe would have gotten one or two hours ahead at most. It's not nothing, but it's not the eight hour leg up they were hoping for. The reaction to Steve and Anna Leigh from the other racers suggested to me that they're a well-liked team. As for Morgan and Lena, I both felt sorry for Lena when Morgan was yelling at her for falling down on the skiing task ("LENA! What are you doing?" Er… she didn't fall on purpose, so calm down), but I also found the reveal that Lena "has been skiing [her] whole life" very funny—though not skiing for over a decade is a rock solid excuse for being bad at that task, in my book. Yeah, their navigation issues are sending them spiraling. I was going to blame the U-Turn (and that may well have started them on this frazzled path), but there have been enough equalizers that that can't be a factor anymore. I think this is simply a team that can't handle the stress of racing at the back, which is where they end up thanks to their poor navigation skills. This makes them rush to try to make up time and so they think through what they're trying to do, which leads to unforced errors like trying for the Express Pass, even though it made no sense to do so. Finally, well done to Ashlie for understanding the hay task (she mentioned that judge was going to want to see that they used all the hay) and for disproving Robbin's prediction that she'd make her team switch tasks because it was hard work and Robbin wasn't sure Ashlie had it in her. It's particularly funny in retrospect because it seemed like Robbin and Chelsea ended up being one of the slowest teams to complete that task. I don't think their strategy of trying to grind through physical tasks is a good one on a season that's so stacked with athletic men.

I think stick shift drama is slowly going to become a thing of the past (at least in European legs). The EU voted to ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines by 2035. Electric cars, which don't need a manual transmission, are going to become way more common. Totally agree. I actually felt sorry for Anna Leigh. I know her personality has been a bit divisive on this forum, and while she's not my favorite racer, I think she's fine and her dad presumably knew that she was high-strung when he signed up to race for her. I appreciate that she seems up for anything and pulls her weight. I'm not sure the same can be said for her dad, who really sucked at two of the three roadblocks he's done so far and is apparently useless when they're driving themselves places. If their positions were reversed, and Anna Leigh basically said, "I will not be able to contribute to us getting to where we need to go," I don't believe he'd have been as understanding about it as he seemed to expect her to be. Speaking of navigation, while I generally sympathize with Lena over Morgan, I have to say that I felt for Morgan a little bit in this episode. Your life as a navigator is so much harder if the driver doesn't follow your instructions. Someone upthread suggested that Morgan could have tapped Lena on the shoulder to indicate which way to turn, which is an elegant solution that I never would have thought of. And apparently, neither did Morgan or Lena. This is what I thought of too when Chelsea announced her strategy. I don't really have a problem with converting a mental/concentration task into a physical one (or the reverse), if it's possible. It's not like she got out of there faster than Corey or Morgan because of it—although if she had, that might be an argument for her being especially smart to do it that way.

@Browncoat, according to Wikipedia, it was Season 31, Leg 8. I misremembered—there were actually two team U-Turned: the ones who received the most and the second most votes from the other teams.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, add learning to balance things on your head to the list of skills that you should master before going on the show, along with driving a manual transmission, learning to swim, and reading to map. Needing to balance things on your head doesn't happen as often as the other stuff, but it comes up surprisingly often and it's not a skill that will ever hurt a team to have mastered. This was a good leg for Andrea and Malaina—particularly Andrea. She managed to get through the roadblock relatively quickly and she spotted some of the details in the dress up detour quickly as well. This team has been improving pretty steadily, but I suspect they won't be U-Turn targets, which is right where I'd want to be at this point in the race. I didn't have much sympathy for Morgan in this instance. She was hovering over Lena as she sewed. Either offer to take over the sewing (since Morgan's puppet was already finished) or let Lena get on with it. The puppets were small enough that unless you were working together on them in a thoughtful and deliberate way (like Joel and Garrett did), grabbing the one your partner was working on or learning in to supervise your partner's technique like that was bound to end in tears. I remember this too, though the one I remember wasn't anonymous. Basically, before the start of the leg, all the teams all stood a row and Phil went down the line asking each team to vote for another team to receive the U-Turn. The one with the most votes was the one who got U-Turned. I assume this is the same, except that it's anonymous, so they won't do it in front of each other and the team who is ultimately U-Turned may not know from the outset of the leg that they're the ones who "won" the vote.

Based on the descriptions of the tasks, I definitely thought that delivery the mattresses sounded like the faster choice, but watching it unfold, it seemed like the fish stand was generally faster. I think if you could manage the mattresses in just two trips, then they might have been roughly even, but only Liam and Yeremi pulled that off, which says a lot about how hard it must have been: you needed the fitness of two young men who were recently in the military. I normally feel like the needle-in-the-haystack tasks would be the end of me on the race, but at least racers could be methodical about this one, unlike the one a couple seasons ago, where they had to turn over stones and had to put them back where they found them, unmarked. While some teams definitely caught a lucky break (which always happens on this type of task), I feel like the people who lost a lot of time on this one were probably not very strategic in how they searched. Morgan noted with some frustration that Lena kept returning to places she had already been. It seemed like the first five teams were all on top of each other at the mat, so I'm guessing they will all start the next leg within a few minutes of one another. I was surprised at how much I was rooting for Liam and Yeremi to survive. I'm glad they have a bit of a buffer between themselves and last place. They're not my favorite team (that's probably Rob and Corey), but they seem to have good attitudes. I hope Liam forgives himself for his past behavior towards his brother. As someone who went on a similar journey with my sister, all I can say is that sibling relationships can be really tough, especially before you both have developed an adult perspective.