S32.E03: We're Makin' Big Moves

[SVNBob]

7 hours ago, Balmafula said:

On the contrary, they had to return to the market due to forgetting a pair of gloves ("luvas" in Portuguese). 

I forgot about that.  That does mean that none of the teams got through the market madness and to the Detour without some sort of error.  Some just fucked up more than others, and those two teams ended up in last and Philimination.

[QuantumMechanic]

So I noticed that the U-turn was after the Detour (where god intended it to be).  When did they move it back to after the Detour again?  For quite some time it was before the Detour which I always thought was ridiculous.  You should have to earn making the U-turn by finishing the Detour.

[weightyghost]

19 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Eh, they weren't that strong, because it was the second leg in a row where they came in at the back of the pack; they only just barely survived the first leg of the race. 

Thus the issue with the Harvard Nerds mentality - they keep spouting get rid of the strong like we did last week while not realizing there are a number of ways to be strong. Yah, brute strength can help when you need to drag something up a mountain, but not when you need to shop for items in another language, figure out how to cook, eat a bug, read a clue properly, etc. "Get out a strong team" is a strategy that can be played out midway through the race once you realize who is strong. 

Re: the clue - I'm pretty sure it said "keep your items with you until you need them". So while it didn't explicitly state 'those items you literally just had in your hands', I think it was clear enough that, if actually read and focused on, would make sense but if skimmed, would not. 

[Eolivet]

On 10/30/2020 at 10:40 AM, blackwing said:

If these 5 are supposed to be the strongest teams based on finish order during that one leg, why would you want to make an alliance with the other strong teams?  If anything, you would want to ally with the weak teams to try and push out another stronger one.

Thank goodness somebody else said it. I found it bizarre that in one breath, they said "we want to knock out the strong teams" and in the next breath, made an alliance with all of them.

Pray somebody takes out the dude bros. Look how they corrected their error with minimal impact. Don't let their beards fool you, they will smoke every other team if given the chance, and I've seen this movie too many times. I need a different ending.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Eolivet

[Balmafula]

11 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

So I noticed that the U-turn was after the Detour (where god intended it to be).  When did they move it back to after the Detour again?  For quite some time it was before the Detour which I always thought was ridiculous.  You should have to earn making the U-turn by finishing the Detour.

During last season's final U-Turn in the Netherlands. 

[lisette]

On 10/28/2020 at 9:27 PM, Lantern7 said:

I’m thinking maybe I watched a different episode, because I didn’t like Will & James getting snippy over Leo & Alana. Full disclosure: I identify with the latter, so they have to REALLY upset me. It’s just there the sharing of information last leg led to the elimination of Olympians. Where’s the problem? If you’re in the final leg, wouldn’t you want to be with teams that aren’t peak athletes? Or wouldn’t you want Rob & Amber to be eliminated, so that you wouldn’t have to worry about their “stans” tackling you near the finish line?

I’m probably overthinking it, and I think that last analogy was over the top. I just don’t feel Leo/Alana as the bad (or annoying) guys. Alana says they’re not going to bring it up with Will & James. Translation: we’ll be having at least five minutes of sniping next week.

More lack of clue-reading is distressing. On the plus side, the Detour looked great. And one advantage of doing those near folks that seldom see outsiders is that they probably won’t laugh if you screw up.

Does anyone miss the airport drama? And the sponsor was wedged in there, which . . . bleh. I’ll still take it, though.

I'm with you on this about Will and James targeting Leo and Alaina. I didn't see why they held it against them for helping the blondes..I think they were just salty because they didn't tell THEM about the horns having to be hooked up. Their reasoning about eliminating strong teams was pathetic...I mean, shouldn't they want strong teams eliminated as well? They were just mad that they missed that on the clue and no one "clued" them in.

[blackwing]

9 minutes ago, lisette said:

I'm with you on this about Will and James targeting Leo and Alaina. I didn't see why they held it against them for helping the blondes..I think they were just salty because they didn't tell THEM about the horns having to be hooked up. Their reasoning about eliminating strong teams was pathetic...I mean, shouldn't they want strong teams eliminated as well? They were just mad that they missed that on the clue and no one "clued" them in.

I thought Will and James finished the truck task before Leo and Alana, and were gone?  So they wouldn't have even seen Leo and Alana telling the blonde sisters about the horn.

I cannot remember if the Olympian ladies or Jerry and Frank overheard Leo and Alana, or if they just saw the blondes hooking up the horn.  But the blondes would be really stupid to tell everyone that they got help, why share that information with others?  But somehow, Will and James learned that Leo and Alana helped the blondes, and somehow, they must have learned that as Alana said, it was to try and knock out a physically stronger team.  Not sure why teams are blabbing so much, but I guess it might have just come up in natural conversation.

I think it's kind of ironic that Will and James were irritated that Leo and Alana helped another team to get rid of a physically stronger team, and then they decide that they too must get help from other teams to try and knock out the remaining teams.  It truly does say "we don't like that another team helped somebody else, but if someone had helped us, we wouldn't have had an issue with teams helping each other".

[lisette]

1 minute ago, blackwing said:

I thought Will and James finished the truck task before Leo and Alana, and were gone?  So they wouldn't have even seen Leo and Alana telling the blonde sisters about the horn.

.

Oh, Ok...I thought W&J were still there, trying to figure out what they were doing wrong. I thought that was how they know L&A had helped the blondes. I need to look at that again.

[Quilt Fairy]

So, presumably Will & James (I'm going to start calling them Will & Grace, too, I think) have now wasted their U-turn, right?  It's one per team per race, correct?  So they only have their yield to delay another team.  I hope they waste that, too.  Just sayin'. 

It's interesting that teams are even talking about an alliance when, IIRC, the original "back of the pack" alliance is the reason that they started isolating the teams at pit stops instead of allowing them to mingle.  

I've already lost track of Leg 1, but this leg we get a Detour but no Roadblock, and last week we got a Roadblock but no Detour.  Could one have been edited out?  Anyhow, I'm looking forward to a leg with one of each, as God intended.  

Making the teams get their own clue with the blowgun would have made for an awesome task.  Wasted opportunity there. 

[AZChristian]

44 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Making the teams get their own clue with the blowgun would have made for an awesome task.  Wasted opportunity there. 

Except some of those folks would still have been in South America . . . tying for last place.

[Ducky]

On 10/29/2020 at 10:33 AM, Pepper Mostly said:

 Hung also moved in for a hug and was rebuffed.

Didn't she ask for permission though before being rebuffed?  I didn't hear (or see via closed captions) anyone else ask.

As for my thoughts...

* Sad to see Frank and Jerry go- they were good guys but yes had a lot of trouble that caused them to get eliminated.  One of the very few teams who gracefully accepted that too.  Will miss them (and the Olympians- I know a lot of people here didn't care for them but I liked them and had hoped they could overcome the last place deal 😞 ).

* Not liking Leo and Alana much.  Alana pretty high and mighty but then falls apart when they're U-Turn... which IS part of the race (whether it was a "Stupid" u-turn or not).  Not sure how much more I can take of their arrogance regarding their Masters & education.

* Will and James.. they're okay but they do need to tone down and step back a bit.   Jury still out for me.

* Love the NFL guys DeAngelo and Gary.  I love how they interact with each other- that's what long term friendship is like- ribbing and teasing.. along with being supportive.

* Not feeling it for Michelle/Victoria and Hayley/Kaylyn.  Facepalmed when M/V wandered all over creation looking for the clue... not sure how they could have missed it.  H/K.. I think their U-Turn was kind of silly/wasted too... "We owe it to Leo and Alana...." Not a real good reason in my book.

* Riley/Maddison (aka Beard Bros)... Neither here nor there.  Very competent racers so far. (and I have never seen Madison spelled that way... I wonder how many times in his life he's had to spell that out and/or get paperwork with it spelled wrong lol).

* Eswar/Arpana the Engineering bro/sis- they're competent- kind of doing the best they can but not really standing out.. yet.  I like them though- mostly calm no blowups that I know of... yet.

Hmm I'm missing a team... Oh, Hung & Chee.  Love them- They're the dark horse in a way- they don't seem particularly strong (physically) but seem to do well in racing if their placements are any indication.  They're going to go far.

Marketplace was a hot mess- crowded confusing and noisy (I'd have been a quivering mess- apart from the language issue, I wouldn't be able to hear anything anyway), Blow gun was cool but sad to not see the racers themselves do it.  I seem to recall in the distant past racers did do a blow gun task?  Really curious if there was a Roadblock.. drat.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Ducky
Adding thoughts on racers and ep

[30 Helens]

On 10/29/2020 at 1:43 PM, AZChristian said:

1.  I noticed in one scene there were two children of similar age and visible body features - a boy and a girl, both with their lower half covered and no signs of puberty.  They still blurred out the little girl's chest.

I understand why the blurring, but I found it annoying. Of all ages. I feel like the people who edit this show would also put black bars over the photos in National Geographic. 

On 10/30/2020 at 12:09 AM, BK1978 said:

Last week I was going to come on here and say, "Well I was wrong about all the teams that I said I disliked as nobody really did anything."  Well this week I am glad I did not post this because to quote Cody from Big Brother, "I'm still feeling some type of way., when it come to pretty much the same people.

OK, if you’re going to start quoting Cody now, you may need to look into some therapy. And I say this with love. 😉

On 10/30/2020 at 9:10 AM, amazingracefan said:

Early seasons definitely had more interaction between teams and downtime things and flights themselves were part of the race.  Because there is none of that now it's hard for me to really have much of an opinion on teams.  

Absolutely. In older seasons, by this point in the race I would have some definite favorites and some teams I could not stand. Now, there’s that married couple that seems pretty cool, the generic blonde women, the bitchy boyfriends who need to calm the fuck down, um.. the guys with beards, a couple that fancies themselves as chic geeks or something, and I don’t know any of their names and I don’t really care about any of them.

On 10/30/2020 at 5:07 PM, TVbitch said:

Every time Phil says "Hung and Chee", I hear "tongue in cheek". Every time. 

Ah, that’s the cool married couple! Yes, I do know their names. But when Phil says it, what I hear is “Tom and Chee” (from Shark Tank.) Or sometimes Ham and Chee, if I’m hungry.

[Quilt Fairy]

Just FYI, I was checking my DVR for next week and we're getting 2 episodes back to back on Wednesday! 

[Fake Jan Brady]

2 hours ago, Ducky said:

* Riley/Maddison (aka Beard Bros)... Neither here nor there.  Very competent racers so far. (and I have never seen Madison spelled that way... I wonder how many times in his life he's had to spell that out and/or get paperwork with it spelled wrong lol).

More confusingly, to me those are girl's names.

[Netfoot]

10 hours ago, Ducky said:

H/K.. I think their U-Turn was kind of silly/wasted too... "We owe it to Leo and Alana...." Not a real good reason in my book.

I'll agree that given how far back Frank and Jerry were, the U-Turning of them was probably not necessary. Probably. But did H/K know how far back they were? Did we know for sure that Leo and Alana would not melt down completely on task #2, requiring even more time to complete it?

I think Hayley & Kaylyn came along, saw that Leo and Alana had been U-Turned, remembered that L&A had helped them in the previous leg, and chose to return the favour by using the U-Turn. Their choice of Frank and Jerry was absolutely correct, in that how ever late they were, U-Turning them made them later, and increased the size of Leo and Alana's breathing space. Which was the whole point.

In the long run, it seems that F&J were doomed even without being U-Turned, and L&A would have been safe in any case. But Hayley & Kaylyn could not have known that for sure, at the time they had to make the decision about using the U-Turn. They legitimately U-Turned to return a favour, they U-Turned the right team, and their objective was achieved. If in hindsight it appears that it may not have been necessary, (and we will never know for sure) then no harm was done. 

[tinkerbell]

17 hours ago, Ducky said:

Not liking Leo and Alana much.  Alana pretty high and mighty but then falls apart when they're U-Turn... which IS part of the race (whether it was a "Stupid" u-turn or not).  Not sure how much more I can take of their arrogance regarding their Masters & education.

I have to agree.  I'd love it if someone from another team heard them brag, and replied that they also had a master's degree.  Because it IS possible. 

I have a master's degree. It rarely comes up in conversation, its part of the credentialing for my job. But in my personal or professional life, if I ever mentioned it the way Alana does, it would be in a completely facetious, self-deprecating way. 

 

 

[springbarb]

On 10/31/2020 at 5:23 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

So, presumably Will & James (I'm going to start calling them Will & Grace, too, I think) have now wasted their U-turn, right?  It's one per team per race, correct?  So they only have their yield to delay another team.  I hope they waste that, too.  Just sayin'.

I'm pretty sure they said there were only two U-Turns in the whole race, so I don't really look on it as wasting it. They have no way of knowing what position they'll be in when the next one pops up--if they're even still in the race.

The Beards are growing on me, unexpectedly.

Edited November 1, 2020 by springbarb
Specifying the number would help.

[Ilovepie]

On 10/28/2020 at 6:27 PM, Lantern7 said:

Does anyone miss the airport drama? And the sponsor was wedged in there, which . . . bleh. I’ll still take it, though.

If, by airport drama, you mean jockeying for best fights, then yes. If you mean standing around making annoying alliances that ruin the spirit of the game, then no. I really HATE the alliances!

And can someone please explain why the hell they are staggering start times to go to the airport only to be put on ONE FLIGHT?!! In this case, the first place team is actually penalized by having to get up three hours earlier than the last place team for exactly zero advantage! If they are going to put them on the same flight then stagger their time out of the airport once they get where they are going! 
This really, really bugs me. This is why I miss them booking their own flights. These newer seasons are just not as compelling to me without the flights, the self navigation and driving and all the fake alliance drama. I miss the old format....

[SomeTameGazelle]

48 minutes ago, springbarb said:

I'm pretty sure they said there were only two U-Turns in the whole race, so I don't really look on it as wasting it. They have no way of knowing what position they'll be in when the next one pops up--if they're even still in the race.

But if they need it to avoid elimination then they will have wasted it -- this time they were in first place and they didn't materially improve their own position. About the only thing that their U-turn achieved was it provoked the blonde sisters to use their U-turn as well to protect Leo and Alana, and of course it made Leo and Alana hostile toward them. If Leo and Alana U-turn them in the future and they can't protect themselves by U-turning another team they will presumably regret it.

I found it very stressful watching so many teams leave behind their purchases, including Will and James who seemed to keep having to go back for specific items they had missed.

 

[Mrs. P.]

Every time I see Leo, I'm struck by how much he looks like Stephen Fishbach from Survivor.

[chaifan]

17 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

But if they need it to avoid elimination then they will have wasted it -- this time they were in first place and they didn't materially improve their own position. About the only thing that their U-turn achieved was it provoked the blonde sisters to use their U-turn as well to protect Leo and Alana, and of course it made Leo and Alana hostile toward them. If Leo and Alana U-turn them in the future and they can't protect themselves by U-turning another team they will presumably regret it.

I think using the U-turn to save yourself is the #1 best use of it.  You're in 2nd to last place (or in the back of the pack), U-turn a team behind you to ensure you aren't last.  I can see strategy in using it to try and eliminate a "strong" team, but you need to be pretty damn sure that that team is already at the back of the pack and using the U-turn is almost a 100% guarantee of their elimination.  Will and James had no strategy in this.  First, Leo and Alana are no more of a threat than any other team.  Second, Will & James had no idea where they were in the pack, so they were somewhat blindly using the U-turn. 

The sisters at least had a strategy - they helped a team who had helped them previously.  And they used it on a team that they knew were already behind Leo & Alana.  Is that the best strategy?  Eh, that's up for debate.  But it in no way hurts them, except for burning their U-turn for possible future use. 

As it turns out Jerry & Frank would have been U-turned by Leo and Alana, even if the sisters hadn't already done it.  So either way, they were sunk.

 

[MartyQui]

20 hours ago, Ilovepie said:

And can someone please explain why the hell they are staggering start times to go to the airport only to be put on ONE FLIGHT?!! In this case, the first place team is actually penalized by having to get up three hours earlier than the last place team for exactly zero advantage! If they are going to put them on the same flight then stagger their time out of the airport once they get where they are going! 

I agree about the staggered departure times...they do seem like they punish the first place team.  Love the idea of staggering them out of the airport!

[proserpina65]

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2020 at 9:11 AM, weightyghost said:

Thus the issue with the Harvard Nerds mentality - they keep spouting get rid of the strong like we did last week while not realizing there are a number of ways to be strong. Yah, brute strength can help when you need to drag something up a mountain, but not when you need to shop for items in another language, figure out how to cook, eat a bug, read a clue properly, etc. "Get out a strong team" is a strategy that can be played out midway through the race once you realize who is strong. 

Re: the clue - I'm pretty sure it said "keep your items with you until you need them". So while it didn't explicitly state 'those items you literally just had in your hands', I think it was clear enough that, if actually read and focused on, would make sense but if skimmed, would not. 

Will & James claimed they were trying to eliminate Alana & Leo for that reason, too.  It just doesn't strike me that A&L targeted anyone specifically when helping the blondes, whereas W&J definitely targeted A&L for whatever lame reason.  W&J wasted their U-Turn by using it way too early for a completely un-strategic reason.

On ‎11‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 12:55 AM, 30 Helens said:

I understand why the blurring, but I found it annoying. Of all ages. I feel like the people who edit this show would also put black bars over the photos in National Geographic.

I imagine it's the network requiring the blurring.

On ‎11‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 1:39 AM, Fake Jan Brady said:

More confusingly, to me those are girl's names.

Whereas to me they are male names.  That doesn't help me tell them apart, however.

 

[Hera]

Will and James are doing videos about each episode, and they explain their U-Turn in their episode 3 recap (click here if you want to go directly to the discussion of the U-Turn). Here's what I thought was interesting:

• The rule limiting teams to one U-Turn per race is no longer in effect, so they didn't have to worry about possibly wasting their only U-Turn.
• Jerry and Frank told Will and James what had happened at the truck decorating challenge, where Leo and Alana helped Kaylynn and Haley, and no one else, resulting in the Kellie and LaVonne's elimination.
• They didn't know they were first when they arrived at the U-Turn mat. They didn't know where the teams behind them were or how long the building task would take. When they left the cooking challenge the teams that were there were Leo/Alana, Kaylynn/Haley, and Hung/Chee, and James and Will were worried that what happened at the truck decorating challenge would repeat itself: Leo/Alana and Kaylynn/Haley would work together and get ahead of Hung/Chee. So they U-Turned Leo and Alana to make sure that Hung and Chee would be ahead of someone.
• They had other reasons to worry about Leo and Alana. Apparently Leo had tried to get people who were on the second flight to Tobago to work together in order to try to get ahead of a team that was on the first flight. And given that Nathan and Cody, who had been on the first flight, were eliminated, it seemed like their plan had worked, though it's unclear if this pseudo-alliance was ever really a thing.

Edited November 5, 2020 by Hera
Fixing a typo.

[lh25]

On 11/1/2020 at 2:19 PM, Ilovepie said:

If they are going to put them on the same flight then stagger their time out of the airport once they get where they are going! 

That's a great idea!

I'm personally over the alliances thing.  I don't really like them on Survivor where to me, they make a little more sense.  Even there though, people are like "It's day 2 and I'm not in an alliance.  I'm getting nervous".  

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

I'm just now catching up with posts, so I'll just ditto points other people have made. The silliness of making the first team leave earliest when everyone is on the same flight (let them sleep in and/or stagger departure times when they arrive at their destination). The shaky camerawork and wonky editing ... doesn't have that crisp HD feel of recent seasons. Leo & Alana helping out the blondes and not the black teams the previous leg being what put a target on their back; otherwise I doubt Will & James would have wasted a U-Turn on them.

Speaking of Leo & Alana, they were the one team I was rooting for coming into this race, because Leo went to my undergrad (never mentioned on the race, because grad school at HARVARD). I've had trouble warming up to them and am indifferent to how far they make it. The one major issue I had with this episode was the hut-building taskmaster telling them what they did wrong before Jerry & Frank arrived. It's one thing to get leeway when you're last and the producers just want the leg to end before a Philimination. But as long as there was still a competition, Leo & Alana should have had to figure out why their assembly of the roof was incorrect. If they took too long, maybe Jerry & Frank could have caught up.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Sheikh Yerbouti said:

Speaking of Leo & Alana, they were the one team I was rooting for coming into this race, because Leo went to my undergrad (never mentioned on the race, because grad school at HARVARD). I've had trouble warming up to them and am indifferent to how far they make it. The one major issue I had with this episode was the hut-building taskmaster telling them what they did wrong before Jerry & Frank arrived. It's one thing to get leeway when you're last and the producers just want the leg to end before a Philimination. But as long as there was still a competition, Leo & Alana should have had to figure out why their assembly of the roof was incorrect. If they took too long, maybe Jerry & Frank could have caught up.

The volleyball players were also told what they did wrong (something about tying up the center support pole) so that seemed to be standard on this particular task. In contrast, teams had to figure out what was wrong on the infamous truck task (or be told by other teams :P). Not sure how it's decided when the judges give the teams notes and when they don't. But on this task, at least, it was consistent across the teams.

[Katy M]

I'm catching up on this season.  I can't believe the amount of people who left their stuff behind.  Before I realized they were going to need their stuff for the next task, I was thinking they should have given the teams different items to buy.  Too easy to copy off your neighbor.  They should have thrown in one random item that was different for everyone.

And, why is it OK for Will and James to make an alliance, but Leo and Alana are the devil for giving the blondes help last week in order to get a stronger team eliminated?  That's actually smarter than what Will and james are doing, IMO.  Will and James are making an alliance to make sure they are racing against the strongest teams in the end.  That's idiotic.