S32.E10: Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

[zoey1996]

Feel like I was on a roller coaster with this episode!  At the beginning of the leg, when W&J and possibly another team were talking about u-turning the NFL-team, I really wanted D&G to u-turn one of those teams.  D&G were first and able to u-turn E&A, so I was pleased at that.  While D was doing the tiles, I was beginning to think they deserved to come in last & be eliminated.  Then when A was hassling D, I switched back, and hoped E&A would be eliminated.  And they were!

Edited December 9, 2020 by zoey1996

[springbarb]

17 hours ago, sinycalone said:

I've forgotten:  were Hung/Chee and The BFS at the tile task when The Bros were still working on making the tiles?  And if they were, did the Bros tell them about the oiling step before leaving?

I can't remember the exact timeline, but Hung/Chee overlapped with the boyfriends, I think, and I had the same thought--but there wouldn't have been a way to give help without it being obvious.

[Chicago Redshirt]

One thing I wondered about: 

It seemed like in seasons past, teammates have been able to yell stuff that isn't telling them how to do the task so much but is helpful. Like something along the lines of "Just take your time! You've got this." 

It seems to me yelling "Go watch the demonstration all the way through" or "Are you sure you got all the steps to do this?" would have fallen in the generic sort of help that had been allowed in the past.

Am I wrong? If not, do you think they tightened up the rules, or was Gary too conservative? Seems to me like if he yelled it around time three or four of failure, they'd be ahead even after taking a penalty if there was one.

[Vanderboom]

I loved how excited Chee was about the Travelocity gnome. Truly adorable!

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

One thing I wondered about: 

It seemed like in seasons past, teammates have been able to yell stuff that isn't telling them how to do the task so much but is helpful. Like something along the lines of "Just take your time! You've got this." 

It seems to me yelling "Go watch the demonstration all the way through" or "Are you sure you got all the steps to do this?" would have fallen in the generic sort of help that had been allowed in the past.

Am I wrong? If not, do you think they tightened up the rules, or was Gary too conservative? Seems to me like if he yelled it around time three or four of failure, they'd be ahead even after taking a penalty if there was one.

I guess to the Race Powers That Be, giving advice or hints on the task is very different from "You can do it, babe!" type help. DeAngelo's need for speed ended up costing him more time, but it's easy for me to see that as a viewer 2 years later. 

Aparna's acting as if she and her brother were favorites for the win until Dastardly DeAngelo and his Friend Gary ruined the game with their spite. Also: why trash talk DeAngelo when Gary's right there? Gary's part of the u-turn, too, and he's extremely patient. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

7 minutes ago, Vanderboom said:

Aparna's acting as if she and her brother were favorites for the win until Dastardly DeAngelo and his Friend Gary ruined the game with their spite. Also: why trash talk DeAngelo when Gary's right there? Gary's part of the u-turn, too, and he's extremely patient. 

A couple reasons occur to me:

1) It could be the editing but D seems to be the brasher, more showboaty personality, whereas G seems pretty chill and likeable. In a vacuum, I know who I would pop off to.

2) There's the possibility, however small, that disrupting D's concentration enough means he's going to mess up enough for Eswar to get back in the mix. Trashing G doesn't have any strategic benefit.

3) G wasn't going to be as reactive since he was basically trying to nap against the backdrop of D's repeated failure. IIRC, she did try to trash-talk G also and he was like whatevs. Whereas D was not having it, which made A want to double and triple down. 

[ByaNose]

I saw Will & James latest recap video. Nothing really new to report except they were totally bummed when Gary & DeAngelo got to the U-Turn first. They also agreed that they should have U-Turned either Will & James or Hung & Chee. They said, as long as it wasn’t them they were fine with it. They are planning a group trip with fans in late 2021 in either Cambodia or Bali. I will have to pass on that. I’m beginning to think they win now. It’s not so much the meet & greet but all of their face time on the show. I’m guessing they are first, the brothers in second and Hung & Chee in third. At first, the brothers would win but while they’ve won a lot of legs they haven’t really gotten that much air time. Granted, they are more low key but if they didn’t have their beards they be rather ordinary. Of course, I could be totally wrong. While I can tell who gets eliminated from the show each week (the confessionals ruin everything) I have a horrible track record placing the Final 3 teams order. 

[blackwing]

20 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

One thing I wondered about: 

It seemed like in seasons past, teammates have been able to yell stuff that isn't telling them how to do the task so much but is helpful. Like something along the lines of "Just take your time! You've got this." 

It seems to me yelling "Go watch the demonstration all the way through" or "Are you sure you got all the steps to do this?" would have fallen in the generic sort of help that had been allowed in the past.

Am I wrong? If not, do you think they tightened up the rules, or was Gary too conservative? Seems to me like if he yelled it around time three or four of failure, they'd be ahead even after taking a penalty if there was one.

I am wondering the same.

On that one Roadblock from some seasons ago where the person had to recreate a fish drying station (?) and had a fish hung upside down, I think the partner actually said "your fish is upside down", right?  That incurred a penalty.
 

But I don't see much difference between "you can do it" and "are you doing everything the way the guy did it".  If Gary had yelled "you need to grease the pan" then obviously there would be a penalty.  But I don't see what is wrong with "are you doing everything the way the guy did it".  How much of a time penalty would that have incurred?  Gary noticed it right away, and apparently they were there for three hours, so if he had said that and then incurred a penalty of 30 minutes, they still would have come out ahead of where they actually did.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

If Gary had yelled "you need to grease the pan" then obviously there would be a penalty.  But I don't see what is wrong with "are you doing everything the way the guy did it".

I dunno...

If my race partner said "Are you doing everything the way the guy did it?" I would immediately translate that in my mind into "You aren't doing everything the way the guy did it, dummy!" which would prompt me to drop what ever I was doing and watch the demo again. Which, let's not deny, would be the exact intent of such a comment.

So, I'm going to have to side with the idea that this would be helping, as opposed to something like "You can do it!" which I would classify as encouraging.

[lilysmom]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

I am wondering the same.

On that one Roadblock from some seasons ago where the person had to recreate a fish drying station (?) and had a fish hung upside down, I think the partner actually said "your fish is upside down", right?  That incurred a penalty.
 

But I don't see much difference between "you can do it" and "are you doing everything the way the guy did it".  If Gary had yelled "you need to grease the pan" then obviously there would be a penalty.  But I don't see what is wrong with "are you doing everything the way the guy did it".  How much of a time penalty would that have incurred?  Gary noticed it right away, and apparently they were there for three hours, so if he had said that and then incurred a penalty of 30 minutes, they still would have come out ahead of where they actually did.

So, they give penalties for a partner offering help, but throughout this whole race, the alliance gave each other help and advice and sometimes actual answers and nothing happened!

[Netfoot]

2 minutes ago, lilysmom said:

So, they give penalties for a partner offering help, but throughout this whole race, the alliance gave each other help and advice and sometimes actual answers and nothing happened!

I see where you're coming from, but a Roadblockj specifically requires one team member do the challenge without any help from the other. It does beg the question: Would it have been OK if a member of another team had given help? I suspect, given the deluge of Alliance Assistance we've witnessed, that this would have been fine. Which doesn't make sense, but there you go...

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

I see where you're coming from, but a Roadblockj specifically requires one team member do the challenge without any help from the other. It does beg the question: Would it have been OK if a member of another team had given help? I suspect, given the deluge of Alliance Assistance we've witnessed, that this would have been fine. Which doesn't make sense, but there you go...

The Alliance has given help throughout the season on Roadblocks -- Sauerkraut, the matching of avatars to people in India, and the measure your place settings precisely task are some examples off the top of my head. As far as we're shown, that's perfectly OK. (I suppose there could have been penalties that weren't shown because they didn't affect placement.)

[dgpolo]

2 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The Alliance has given help throughout the season on Roadblocks -- Sauerkraut, the matching of avatars to people in India, and the measure your place settings precisely task are some examples off the top of my head. As far as we're shown, that's perfectly OK. (I suppose there could have been penalties that weren't shown because they didn't affect placement.)

The participating team members can help each other, or they may ask locals for help (unless specifically told not to), the non-participating member cannot help.

[Netfoot]

2 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The Alliance has given help throughout the season on Roadblocks -- Sauerkraut, the matching of avatars to people in India, and the measure your place settings precisely task are some examples off the top of my head. As far as we're shown, that's perfectly OK.

As far as I know, there is no actual rule against helping another team. But in the case of a Roadblock, one team member must complete the task without help from their teammate. So, I would assume that you could call suggestions to another team, but not to your own teammate.

One wonders what would have happened if Gary had loudly said "Hey Eswar! Don't forget to grease the plate!" I think he would have been penalized for it, as he should be. But it's an interesting idea to contemplate...

[biakbiak]

21 hours ago, ByaNose said:

They also agreed that they should have U-Turned either Will & James or Hung & Chee.

Sure they said that because then they most likely would have been out of the race which is what they wanted. The problem with uturning H/C or W/J is that G/D had no way of knowing for absolute certainty that those two teams were behind them which they knew was the case for the siblings.

Edited December 9, 2020 by biakbiak

[Bill1978]

Well that was a tense episode, something that has been lacking a lot this season. Now that the Mine Five have to turn on each other we finally have a race and strategy. I admit I was disspointed that G&D decided to U Turn E&A I was more annoyed that The Beards burnt their U Turn which I think contributed to Aparna's frustration. And I didn't mind her badmouthing G&D.  What was she supposed to do just smile and be happy about it? Does it paint her in a good light? No but she is human after all and really it only one terrible moment for her on the race. I;m sure she would be watching herslf and thinking wow I was a douche.

You know who isn't sitting back thinking they look like a douche? Will & James. They are gonna win this thing aren't they? It's amazing how in 3 episodes they've fallen right off my 'I don't care if then win' list. And The Beards are on the edge falling off the list, only because whenever they talk about the alliance  they annoy me. Everything else I am fine with. Actually even G&D began to annoy me this episode with their cocky attitude towards some stuff.

I guess than means the only team I would be happy 100% with at the moment with is Hung & Chee. But I am definitely on the board the Anyone but W&J train at this stage.

I loved travelling around the floating city in Cambodia and see the put stop temple. If anyone wants to see more of Cambodia and the places they visited I highly recommend the Netflix series Travel With My Fathers featuring Jack Whitehall. I was kinda hoping they were going to have to play football (soccer) on a floating field because of that show.

[BluBarbi98]

On 12/4/2020 at 9:52 AM, valen said:

Lord. That interview is awkward. She's still so angry. She wants to blame Gary and DeAngelo for everything - even talking up the alliance. The brothers and the boyfriends talked about the alliance AT LEAST as much as Gary and DeAngelo. 

Actually, it seems like she only wanted to blame DeAngelo which sits really wrong with me. The beards blocked them from having a chance to save themselves and after reading that interview I don't think she focused nearly as much on that. 

I understand that she was angry, I would be too in that moment, but her anger was only directed at 1 person when there were 3 others who contributed to her team's downfall. While I wish Gary and DeAngelo had chosen one of the other teams in the secret alliance, after that roadblock I was glad that Aparna was eliminated and I had liked her and Eshwer up until this episode. 

Edited January 24, 2021 by BluBarbi98