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You do know that Paul was cast with Josh as one of the teams for this season. Thank goodness they got kicked off before the Race started for at least one or more of the rumored reasons. As bad as it was with Rachel/Sister it would be even worse -- far worse -- if Paul the Hateful Bully had been on as well.

C & C won one leg. And, of course, WOW on how they handled the U-Turn both in running a perfect leg and in not getting bent out of shape by the votes. But I agree entirely that Tyler & Korey are being ignored by the other teams. They should have been the number one target at the vote given their performance. They are both strong teams but I guess Colin being one of the top legendary TAR figures of all time causes the teams to focus on him and Christie and allows T & K to slip through the cracks. And I fear T & K are getting the winners' edit too being a C & C fan as I am. No I am not spoiled. Just their edit to me constantly showcases everything as super positive about working like a team and being in love and being winners etc. C & C's edit is more their redemptive arc as the calm and nice guy newly minted Zen masters of TAR. Meanwhile what is it with the Afganibles? They did well the other two times on the Race and started out strong the first two legs here. Then all of a sudden it is like at least one very major mistake each leg leaving them scrambling. At least Leo was excited to meet Pablo the Cat's long lost Swiss cousin this leg. And Team Fun needs to piggyback off of C & C when it comes to navigation and without them couldn't find the parking lot. We also saw Victor & Nicole, Duck Lips and Brett & Chris all get lost last leg and the Afganibles get lost this leg. This is Switzerland, not a country that has a non-Roman alphabet signage on the roads and where most people would speak a little English it being a major tourist area where they were these two legs. No stick shifts, no rotaries, no crazy traffic even and still they all seem to struggle. (Again it points to Tyler & Korey and Colin & Christie being the top two Race teams). Also NEVER do this vote thing again ... EVER. The ends never justify the means even if this end was finally getting Rachel out. And it just allows her to claim that if it was an even playing field without the U-Turn she would still be racing. Though hypocrite that I am ... since they were forced to vote, I am grateful to both Colin & Christie and Brett & Jeff for making the right choice for us viewers.

The couldn't drift into any danger. It is a professional (and commercial) set-up made to give the effect of being scary but really isn't. Also TAR has always been a safety first production company. And it didn't look as scary as TAR1's bungee/swing where they dropped off what looked like a very bare bones wooden platform instead of this slick looking commercial operation and they tested that one out too. If you mean which village were they in for most of the leg that would be Grindelwald. They were there in Season 3 with Flo needing her backpack carried for her of course when those Racers had to run the same amount of distance. For more on the village itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindelwald

Well since we now know all the endless footage from this last episode was meant just to set-up and explain this vote on the coming episode I don't think it will come down to C&C, Chris & Bret or the Afganibles since all the drama was on Rachel/Sister and Victor & Nicole with a little on Team Fun. (I say "endless" because they could have told the story a lot quicker with a tighter edit but it went on and on like forever with constant repeats et al. I thought the endless nature of this storyline was weird at the time). Add in the point Phil made at the mat about Rachel being only tied at being the all time most legs run winner and she would hold the record alone if she gets through the next one and the edit this past episode seems to say Rachel is toast this coming episode to me. (Worst case for most of us, she is U-Turned and "heroically" fights through to survive and take the record despite all odds. Please, race gods, not this ending). But either way I say she gets U-Turned. At least I hope so. Please do NOT U-Turn C&C. Colin has been such a nice boy so far he deserves to escape this U-Turn as the BB teams hopefully devour each other. Which also explains the editing all season about the BB teams all supposedly allied with each other etc etc just for these moment.

The difference is one group are regular people applying to be on a show they love wanting the experience of traveling the world and having a chance to win a million dollars besides. The thrill of being on national TV is there too but that 15 minutes of fame alone doesn't make them into fame whores which is more a career thing. The other group -- aka mactors and such -- usually have agents and look to get on any reality show to gain exposure for their "careers" or, as Rachel termed it, "brand" hoping to make a career out of being on reality and game shows and secretly hoping to be discovered by Hollywood even. If a regular team gets called back for another season I don't think that automatically makes them into fame whores. I think it was because they made a mark one way or other on the first race. Now if said regular people do change and get into the whole agents and celebrity thing and go to all the reality show events and lobby to get back on said show or others then they have crossed over into mactor territory. Mactors = models or actor wannabes who seek reality shows to further their careers. Someone like Rachel didn't start out as a mactor that I know of. But she became a reality fame whore once she was on one season which is basically trying to make a living by appearing on these shows and game shows and stuff as at least a semi-career.

That was me but I only mentioned Brett's for the record. Because to be fair, Chris had a sanely sized one. Brett's could hold about 4 of Chris' inside it.

Ditto a thousand times over. I want an AMAZING race. Not just another stupid reality show. Not that I don't guilty pleasure Survivor all the time and even an occasionally BB season. But TAR is -- or should be -- a whole different type of show. A show you can be proud to recommend to your friends who hate reality shows.

Well actually no. A sniper is a stationary soldier usually hiding in the bushes or on roof tops for hours stock still. What Colin was play acting was what a typical infantry soldier is suppose to do when disembarking a helicopter in a hot LZ taking fire. Roll to keep on the move while exiting making a harder target to hit. Then up aiming at the tree line covering the soldiers following you out. Standard practice since Vietnam. I'm loving New Colin. He has already won this season via his redemption story arc. Could you imagine Old Colin holding a kumbaya circle with Charla & Mirna? Loving the zen. Especially contrasted with Rachel's eye roll not wanting to be part of the circle because she wanted to stay pissed. Good times. Ian not caring that Teri's pants were falling off, haha. Opposite Brothers screaming "goats" as they took the shortcut. TAR3 rocked! And Brett, guess who also had to get their pack carried for them running through Grindelwald? That be THE Flo herself. Though even Flo did NOT have such a humongous backpack. I haven't seen one that size since the first season when the Racers had no idea they would be running around constantly with said object on their backs. Why the record-setting backpack, Brett? Were you carrying the entire allotment of doughnuts for the Boston PD for the year with you? So ironic Rachel was actually telling at least some of the truth when she tried to warn Victor as in Team Fun did actually mention Victor as a target for a U-Turn. But Rachel leaving out a few side details about personal motivation was what started the whole mess. Not a barefaced lie but truth with personal motives behind it. But honestly both Rachel and Victor looked like idiots yelling and whining throughout the otherwise beautifully scenic and breathtaking episode. Weird the Afganibles took the physically slower task. The other would be right up their gung ho alley. Second time they did this kind of choice given they skipped the round boats in Vietnam too. They need to start choosing the more adrenaline fueled choices instead of the token old team choices. Loved LawyerCop and Rachel/Sister both being lost and trying to follow each other. I could actually understand the conundrum they were in at that point thinking they were the last two teams and what the hell are we suppose to do we don't want to lose the other car but we are totally clueless. See, producers, the fun you can have if you let these people out loose in the world on their own for a few minutes ... FINALLY. (Though I would have loved if those vehicles would have been stick. TAR is really getting soft).

Yeah the airport drama was always some of my favorite most scenes. And now they seldom go more than a few miles away from the airport they fly both into and out of. No more grand scramble of buses they had to figure out themselves for 12 to 24 hour awesome drives into rural areas and secondary cities. The show has sadly lost it's mojo and is a shell of what it used to be. And seeing Colin & Christie again just brings those memories of Classic TAR back 10 fold this season. Like I miss some of the landmark locations they used to go to. C & C went to the Great Pyramid (and crawled around inside it too) and the Sphinx where the mat was and the Temple of Luxor in Egypt and the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Now we get an inflated climb/slide in Tokyo and virtual reality in Dubai both of which could just as easily have happened on a Hollywood back lot. And last time C & C were in Dubai they had the choice of sky diving or driving around in the desert getting stuck in the sand. Now we have a 5 minute tea with multi-millionaires instead for their token desert stand-up. Yes it is still a good entertainment show but it has just become one of many reality shows filled with artificial gimmicks when it used to be a cut above such stuff on the whole. The feel of a grand journey of a lifetime and the "amazing" part of The Amazing Race are gone and have been for some time.

I too hate those Survivor style "challenges" right before the end. I'm surprised we haven't had one yet involving untying lots of ropes to bags of puzzle pieces then assembling the puzzle while standing on a balance beam bare footed yet. And I agree Phil is really REALLY awkward calling them. But the LAST person on earth to take lessons from is Probst. Best way to make Phil less awkward calling head-to-heads? Abolish the damn, stupid, artificial, boring things forever!

Given what has happen to more and more women in this country having scary moments with male taxi drivers and now especially with Uber drivers that might be a nice option here too.

Yep you got it. We all knew they were going to win that leg as soon as they said they wanted to win that leg to represent gays. If they didn't win that leg we wouldn't have seen these set-up clips. Didn't notice that one and miss almost all but I did see cameramen twice in Brazil in Season 2. Once at the Cristo Redentor statue in the background probably filming another team and later two of them when getting out of vehicles at Iguazu Falls. They do a remarkable job of hiding them on the whole though. People tend to forget there is a two man crew with each team except at some more stationary RBs and Detours where "area" camera work is set up in advance instead. Props to all the tech crews on TAR. That are he best. Just posting this so the answer below can be repeated because it deserves to be repeated a thousand times over (thanks, Chaifan): There are bigots in every religion on earth and among atheists and agnostics as well. But the majority of people in all these groups don't go around hating everyone different then them. That was totally a dead giveaway it was a non elim leg. I wish the editors would cut this tell out since they do it every damn time. Every time a team trailing is hopeful they can catch up or even mentions it could be a non-elim; they are eliminated. Every time a team (or member thereof) boo-hoos and weeps about how the race is everything to them and they are now doomed; it is a non-elim. What is wrong with visiting a mosque? So we can't see a "minority" religious site in a country all of a sudden? And the point is Tyler & Whats-His-Name won the leg there in a country that had been featured on the news constantly about trying to turn back the clock to dangerous levels of intolerance. It was a sweet teaching point and wasn't anti-Ugandan since the point was made clear that the people were friendly and welcoming. And there is a big BIG difference between respect for a culture and bigotry. Also someone above said they shouldn't visit mosques unless they visit churches and cathedrals. Hello, they have. Countless times on countless seasons. Also see reference to the Cristo Redentor statue above. They even had Christian religious greeters too. The Ethiopian "elder" (don't remember what his title was) on TAR6 and the Russian Orthodox priest on TAR5. Has absolutely nothing to do about gender. With a few exceptions, I don't like most BB contestants. Too much familiarity 24/7 over a couple of months on that show ends up showing all their warts and making me dislike at least 75% of their casts. The Afghanibles I like because it is all tongue and cheek silliness they are having fun with; not because they are male. If Rachel could just have fun and laugh at herself like the Afghanibles I would like her better but she is a pure A1 drama queen as far as I'm concerned and takes herself seriously. The Afghanibles have never ever taken themselves seriously a day in their TAR lives. That is a super BIG difference for me. That and Pablo the Cat of course.

No one was in danger. Please. The production company arranges things with governments before going into countries. The majority of countries have what most Americans would consider backwards laws regarding gays, minorities and even women. This is a race around the world and not a "we only visit perfect countries" race. You see the good, the bad and the ugly. From poor townships in South Africa to women being treated badly in India (a country I love, btw) to countless countries with anti-gay laws including Russia say. Also already mentioned, Singapore and the UAE as well as tons of other countries. And it wasn't too many decades ago you could include the US in that category and some states may still have anti-gay laws on the book. What TAR did was showcase the problem in Uganda and showed gays winning the leg there. And it is a TV series that is seen in most countries in Africa (and everywhere else) so it actually made a positive, helpful contribution, however minor, to the problem. People there who never knowingly met a gay person before but only hear them demonized see something different on their screens now and it starts them thinking. You have to talk and even show to open channels and minds if you want change. Not shun. And I agree with Tyler & Whoever (never remember his name) that there are plenty of loving people everywhere. I hate when everyone in a country -- or here in some states -- are labeled "bigoted" due to the powers in charge and the certain segment of the population that follow them. That is also a bigot's prospective to judge by the over all perception of a group and not the individual.

Yeah I hate reading about all the hate for her. And kudos for the actor quitting the show because she did NOT like what they were doing to the character of Ziva. Also do NOT read this because it is definitely a spoiler spoiler unless, you know, you like spoilers.

Then your problem is with Laurie Metcalf because there is no way that this show's powers that be didn't try to get her back in one form or the other for either the finale or a separate episode near the finale like the actress who played Leonard's mother. You can't force someone to come back if they choose not to because of other commitments or any other reason they may have.

ZIVA!!! Best ending ever!!!!! Couldn't stand NCIS without her and heard about a story line so came in on the second half with the hidden cottage thing. Then back to boring episodes. Then tonight the final payoff!

But the whole point of the Young Sheldon voiceover at the end of the episode with the montage of his "core" future friends showing what they were doing at the very same moment he is sitting there in the chair alone and upset is that he would NOT end up alone after all because his adult family in waiting was already in place in the world living their lives too. He just didn't know it yet. I agree with the first poster that a separate Mary episode would have been nice. Or if the actress could not take part in anything then a phone conversation seen/heard only from Sheldon's end a la Bob Newart's old method could have been a nice cameo instead. But I think the "core" should only have been there at the ceremony for their stand-up moments. It was like a formal curtain call in the theatre and I think that it was meant as such and they got it right who should be there for that moment. The core "family."

I think I remember one time where Sheldon came over when Bernadette was alone for some reason and spread out that gigantic World War I strategy dice game complete with weather factor booklets etc all over her floor. (Or was it WWII North Africa Campaign instead, I forget).

Yes thank you for this post. The Frasier ending was the worst for a comedy show ever. (I never saw meeting your mother one and have no idea what you guys are talking about there though it sounds bad). When you have an ending like Frasier's, it ruins re-watches in syndication so much. Especially the Frasier, Niles and Martin moments of becoming a family together again ones. Writers like that don't seem to "get" how this effects re-watching shows. They just seem hell bent on showing off what they think are big artsy moves just to jump the shark instead. Same for Battlestar Galactica which was brilliant the first two years until the show runner self-destructed it the last two and the ending with Apollo the Luddite makes re-watching the series totally impossible for me. The prelude (Mini-Series pilot) is the only thing I can sit through now. The rest of the cast needs to expand themselves as actors at this point whether they wanted to or not and it was time the show folded it's tent. Good for Jim Parsons. Exactly. If they split up the gang just to throw grenades for the hell of it and call attention to some writer's artsy fartsy big ego trip (looking at you Battlestar Galactica's show runner and chief writer, Ronald Moore) I would never be able to watch the show in syndication again. Now I can as long as I live. So thank you so much, Big Bang Theory writers. Props to you all!

In the post-show special with the actors that played Penny and Leonard giving the back stage tour etc, they showed a small, postage stamp sized fake magnet on the frig on the main apt set. It was a small picture of this actress who was the voice of Howard's mother that they had made and put up there just days after they heard about her death. She has been, via that tribute, "on set" for the rest of the show's run they said.

Disappointing? No way. This was the best ending of any series ever. No sudden radical changes for anyone other than poor Penny getting pregnant, the one downer on an otherwise perfect finale. No splitting up everyone and sending them to the four corners of the earth for the hell of it. No jumping the shark to "top this" stupid ending. Rather an ending where major things happened (pregnancy, a Nobel Prize, Sheldon growing a bit) but also the core remains strong. No grenades thrown for shallow shock factors. The message at the end is that friendship abides. Sheldon was the cornerstone that made this series great. It was fitting he took center stage at the end and Jim Parsons delivered big time. Changing Sheldon a little is fine. Changing him too much is giving into boring, goose-stepping middle class crap about no one allowed to be "quirky" or different and everyone having to conform to living a middle class life of judging others and making up rules to conform to etc. And quirky is indeed a good word to use with him. Non-judgemental. Some people remain individuals who bongo drum to their own steps. The fictional character of Sheldon Cooper is one of the finest in TV history and I shall miss him greatly. PS: Penny has no last name. The writers never gave her one. They said that when the cast was on Colbert tonight when Stephen read a question from a fan asking just that. The actress said she was worried things would get jinxed it they suddenly added a last name and was fine with just Penny and liked it that way. Kind of like "Cher" having a one name character she said and laughed.

I went with pirate to 70's lounge lizard but yeah you were closer. Actually I think Rob and Sandra returning look like a breath of fresh air after this season. And I like Rob's snark and love Sandra and her winning twice so I'm okay with those two living on Isle of Giant Idol Heads formerly called Isle of Totally Failed Concept ... err ... Extinction. This season was so bad that Probst was trying desperately to "save it" on the live show by endlessly calling it a great social experiment and using filler crap here (and in the episode) about how Extinction Isle changes lives forever. It sure changed mine as regards to liking Survivor going directly from the Nick/Christian season to this train wreck. That along with the Un-Epic Interview About Joe's "Unbalanced" Hair and Probst stealing my dirty old gray sweatshirt from my laundry basket made this the worst live show ever. (Gimme me back my sweatshirt, Probst. I actually wear these things in real life. Not prance around in them on national TV).

That is a horrid look for Joe. He went from pirate to sleazy looking lounge lizard.

I kind of half paid attention after my guy, Rick, lost the stupid fire challenge. Hope he comes back as a returning player when they do the next returning player season. And given this was Season 38: The One We Will Always Try And Forget; that means a big even number ending in a zero season is soon upon us in Season 40 which you know they will try and make a big deal of so I bet (not spoiled at all) they will make that into some sort of returnee thing. Rick and David were the only two players I rooted for. The only small redemption to this shitty season was if Rick had won. Of the three remaining, Chris was the best of the lot. I mean he did in three days more than Tag-A-Long Gavin and Just There Julie did in 39 days. So I'm okay with Chris wining among those three. And no asterisk in his win. E-Island sounded far worse than the Isle of Gaming and Steak Dinners Every Other Day. He won his way back fair and square and came, saw and conquered. PS: Has any player manage to fool TWO idiots with two fake idols at one tribal? Kudos for Rick giving me that one hilarious segment.

Since this happened during the episode and not at the reunion I guess I'll put this here: Live TV does it again. Worst interview in Survivor history between Probst and Joe. Probst: Have we seen the last of you on Survivor? (Me: I hope). Joe: Yeah I need to rest now. ... Oh wait are you asking me to ... I mean sure, it is for all the kids in America who look upon me as their hero. (Me: What the hell???). Probst: I have this theory that you probably lost because your hair "unbalances" you. (Me: Well that theory is right up there with ancient aliens inventing the wheel for mankind). Joe: I'd never cut ... Oh wait are you saying if I cut my hair I can come back? Want to do it right now, Jeff? (Me: Way to see a mactor squirm). Probst: Ah no ... we need to go to commercial break, ah, back to the island, anything ... save me from my most embarrassing minute on a live show. (Me: Too late Probst, this one goes online forever).