S32.E12: Now It's About Winning

[cherrypj]

4 hours ago, mbluecpa said:

I knew it was over when the camera showed Chee’s baby on the table and the show didn’t cut to a commercial.

It's a running joke in this house: if they cut to commercial, everything will be just fine when the commercial ends.

[Roccos Brother]

I think "banning" alliances would be a huge mistake. At the end of the day, TAR is a reality show in that it's part competition and part social experiment/observation. Both of those aspects are what make it entertaining. Trying to institute more rules to narrow down the scope of interactions between teams would be a huge detriment and extremely short-sighted. The show is already a watered down version of what it used to be and placing more limitations to try to curb specific social behaviors would only decrease variety and spontaneity. I don't want to feel like I'm watching ninja warrior with a bigger budget.

I really wanted Hung and Chee to win, but oh well. At least we know they got the second place cash prize. Was anyone else moved by their early interview in the episode where they reflected on their relationship? I really thought they were being given a winner's edit for a moment there.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Roccos Brother

[Netfoot]

24 minutes ago, Roccos Brother said:

I think "banning" alliances would be a huge mistake. At the end of the day, TAR is a reality show in that it's part competition and part social experiment/observation. Both of those aspects are what make it entertaining. Trying to institute more rules to narrow down the scope of interactions between teams would be a huge detriment and extremely short-sighted.

I don't know if you're right.

For me, TAR has always been the standout Reality TV show because it was simply a race. You won or lost based upon your own merits and abilities, with an admitted healthy sprinkle of luck.

This made TAR stand head and shoulders above the other Reality Garbage shows, which are all about lying, sneaking, back-stabbing, and ganging up mean-girl style on someone you're afraid will turn out better at the game than you.

TAR is (was?) about your ability, not your popularity.

And as far as I'm concerned, that is what TAR should stick to (or return to). Becoming a cross between the crap that is Survivor and the crap that is Big Brother, will only make the show into something I and (I believe) many others won't be interested in watching any more.

 

[illdoc]

https://tvline.com/2020/12/17/the-amazing-race-winners-will-james-interview-season-32/

[Fukui San]

Just curious: What does King cake taste like? They look more like overgrown danish than traditional cakes to me. 

[Kel Varnsen]

3 hours ago, Roccos Brother said:

I think "banning" alliances would be a huge mistake. At the end of the day, TAR is a reality show in that it's part competition and part social experiment/observation. Both of those aspects are what make it entertaining. Trying to institute more rules to narrow down the scope of interactions between teams would be a huge detriment and extremely short-sighted. The show is already a watered down version of what it used to be and placing more limitations to try to curb specific social behaviors would only decrease variety and spontaneity. I don't want to feel like I'm watching ninja warrior with a bigger budget.

I am still not sure they even need to bother with outright banning. I mean I am not about to rewatch the entire season, but this episode is pretty good evidence that an alliance is not a good play for the majority of teams. The 2 losing teams helped Will and James get to a finale that was super easy and then lost to Will and James. I wonder how far W&J would have gotten had their been no alliance.

[Ziggy]

10 hours ago, hendersonrocks said:

I thought the clue said upfront that the six beignets would need to be eaten after finding the baby - am I misremembering that?

That's exactly what the clue said.  Could NOT believe he did that!

[Ziggy]

8 hours ago, ElleryAnne said:

Also, I don't like eat-stupid-amounts-of-this-food tasks.  I'm not entertained by watching people retch.  I'm not even entertained by watching them eat.  (And what would have happened if the members of a team were diabetic or something?  Too bad, so sad, two-hour penalty?)

I've often wondered along similar lines.  There was a detour (many moons ago) that involved drinking a shot.  My husband is an alcoholic, so there's no way he would have done that!  I don't think it was a situation where one teammate could have done both.  I don't suppose there's any chance they have a backup plan in case one of the teammates is a diabetic?  (or in my case, an alcoholic?)

[blackwing]

1 hour ago, illdoc said:

https://tvline.com/2020/12/17/the-amazing-race-winners-will-james-interview-season-32/

Interesting, Will and James say that before every leg started, they would go do research on computers in hotels or Internet cafes on where they were going.  This leads me to several questions.

1.  DeAngelo and Alex Rossi said that teams were often confined to hotel rooms, how then are Will and James allowed out before “every” leg.

2.  How did they know where they were going? Don’t they usually find out where they are going after they open the clue at the start of the leg?   They check in to a pitstop, wait 12 hours, get the clue at the start of the leg, then find out what country they are headed to.  How did they do research “before” the start of the leg?  Are racers in fact told in advance where they are going?  I know in early seasons teams were able to tell where they might go based on what visas were applied for, but I would have thought producers would have hidden that information from racers by now.

3.  What about money?  Who pays for the Internet cafe charges?  Their own accumulated money?

4.  Would have been nice if we had actually seen this, if they were doing these extra things then it appears they were at least putting in a bit more effort than others.

26 minutes ago, Fukui San said:

Just curious: What does King cake taste like? They look more like overgrown danish than traditional cakes to me. 

I’ve only had it once, but I recall it having the consistency and taste of a very sweet cinnamon roll.

[SoTheresThat]

1 hour ago, Fukui San said:

Just curious: What does King cake taste like? They look more like overgrown danish than traditional cakes to me. 

Some of them are cinnamon roll like.  Others are more like a brioche bread.  They are not like traditional flour based cakes at all.  You can also get them filled with things like cream cheese, pecan praline, strawberry filling, apple cinnamon filling, etc.  Some have white sugar glaze icing, some have just granulated sugar sprinkled on.  There are many different types and most people have a definite favorite.

Most bakeries don't put the baby inside anymore.  I've heard it's a liability/insurance thing, I don't know if that's true though.  The tradition of the baby is that at an early Mardi Gras ball, the queen was picked by whoever got the piece of cake that contained the baby (or something of that sort).  Another tradition is that whoever gets the baby in their piece has to buy the next king cake for the office or party or whatever the occasion.

[Hera]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

Interesting, Will and James say that before every leg started, they would go do research on computers in hotels or Internet cafes on where they were going.  This leads me to several questions.

My guess is that they'd do it on the way to/at the airport, once they were out of their hotel rooms. Money hasn't been a factor on the race for years—in fact, I can't remember hearing anyone read, "You have $XXX for this leg of the race," at all this season. But anyway, internet cafés aren't expensive in absolute terms and there may have even been a few hotels that would have let them use their computers for free. I could definitely see how spending a few dollars each leg for an hour or two of internet time would be a good investment. And if you're one of the teams in front, it would help kill time before your flight.

[mtlchick]

1 hour ago, Hera said:

My guess is that they'd do it on the way to/at the airport, once they were out of their hotel rooms. Money hasn't been a factor on the race for years—in fact, I can't remember hearing anyone read, "You have $XXX for this leg of the race," at all this season. But anyway, internet cafés aren't expensive in absolute terms and there may have even been a few hotels that would have let them use their computers for free. I could definitely see how spending a few dollars each leg for an hour or two of internet time would be a good investment. And if you're one of the teams in front, it would help kill time before your flight.

Plus Internet cafes and business centres were more expensive in the early years of the race. Now it’s very common to access wifi for free or very cheap in airports and hotels.   I wonder if there were limits to that though. For example, printing out directions from the airport to the first task via google maps. 

[GenerationX]

Random thoughts on episode 12 "Mardi Gratis" or "The Big Easy":

• The roadblocks were far, far more road than block
• The globe slices, aside from needing to be randomly sized and smaller, also needed to have the Amazing Yellow Line
• The episode's entertainment value was purely in the visuals and work of the Amazing Cameramen

I enjoyed this season, as I have every season.  After the blondes ("We can't believe we're still in this!") lost a few episodes ago, I didn't have an underdog to root for, but I still found the show very entertaining.  Here's hoping we get a Season 33!

[Dobian]

7 hours ago, tinkerbell said:

Seriously.  Like someone said upthread, my only experience with beignets was at Port Orleans Resort in Disney World.  But damn! it's like scarfing down 3 donuts.   Makes me wonder if the task was to eat them without drinking any water - cause that might be hard.  

We've had the Beignets at Disneyland and yeah they are light as a feather and you can just gulp them down like powdered donuts.  My daughter and I couldn't get what the big deal was, we would have finished off a whole bag with now water in about two minutes.

[Vermicious Knid]

There was an observant Muslim team one season, but we never got to see how they would deal with non-Halal food challenges because they were eliminated first.

And Parade has interviews with all three final teams:

Will and James

Hung and Chee

Riley and Maddison

 

[SVNBob]

On 12/16/2020 at 11:17 PM, Lantern7 said:

But this is TAR. We had exciting locations. We had two great new formats in Mega Leg and City Sprint. We didn't have the damn Face-to-Face. And we had Phil. The guy who can dance n Bourbon Street. The man who could run in high heels. The hardest-working mofo in reality TV. Yeah, the latest Survivor was great, but it was preceded by some schmuck who got voted out winning $1 million, followed by an asshole bad-touching others and making every week A Very Special Episode.

At least we'll have Tough as Nails. And maybe we'll get a new season sooner rather than later.

TAR will survive and adapt, as it always has.  And Phil is a big part of that.  Although I'm glad he's also got a show he can host while TAR sits on the shelves.  And I think there was a promo for TAN2 during the finale that said there was a premiere scheduled for sometime in February.

 

23 hours ago, Fukui San said:

As reality show contestants, Will and James brought in gameplay elements I didn't enjoy and which detracted from the season.

As human beings, I don't find them particularly objectionable compared to some of the more troublesome racers in the show's history.

Damning with faint praise, but accurate. 

As people, they're fine.  The fact that all the cast from the season seems to be friends two years later speaks to that.  And I do wish them a long and happy marriage. 

But as Racers...take your tactics and stay the hell away from future Races.

21 hours ago, mojoween said:

There was just something about Will that had an underlying mean-spiritedness I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Probably the cheekbones.   Between the edge on those and his eyerolls, he embodied a very campy villain.

17 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

The highlight of the episode for me was the obvious bitterness of Riley and Maddison.  Sure they had bad taxi luck, but the blonde sisters had bad taxi luck on every leg (it seemed to me).  I think what really bothered them (based on nothing but my opinion) was that their gleeful, and at times spiteful, participation in their alliance came back to bite them.  I wonder if they considered at all that if they had honored their super secret alliance with the NFLers that they might have won. 

As has been said ever since the early annals of TAR, Kab Karma is a real thing.  The Beards getting bad cab luck in the final leg was indeed karmic backlash for breaking their first alliance at the last minute.

 

[Brynnjk]

I'm very happy the Boyfriends won.  I've seen every season and listening to Flo moan & whine and want to quit (during a season when there was a Get the Twins alliance), remembering the Mary & the Chos alliance, watching Eric & Danielle my least favorite team ever win the Allstar season, watching the horrible Big Brother teams on the race, remembering the nonstop shrieking of the Twinnies in their alliance - there have been alot of seasons worse than this.   TBH the Beards were far too confident that they were going to win and while Hung & Chee were nice, they didn't really move me.  I loved the Boyfriends passion for the race.  I loved their superfan status.  Did they make plans & mug for the camera at times?  Yes, but they watched past seasons, they prepared.  They practiced the bottle on their heads.  I liked them no matter what the prevailing attitude on this forum is.  And I just watched the D'Angelo podcast and could there be a more whiny loser?  Yes you had to stay in hotel rooms - it's a reality show.  There are factors involved in a reality show.  And even if you were upset at the end, you pouted and gave up & took a penalty instead of ending by trying.  So many teams worked hard even if they knew they were last.  Giving up just isn't a good look & being all pissy with Phil on the mat is just not cool.  

I do think the tasks were far too easy on the final leg.  Where was the big memory challenge?  TAR should take a page from TAR Canada a show that has super hard tasks that really push every team.  I wish there had been more self driving & less equalizer plane flights.  I wish we had more airport drama.  I'm not a Rob & Amber fan but I loved all the airport drama that season.  Yea, it does sometimes put some teams completely out of it but it's fun to watch all the drama!

It's going to be a long time before we get another TAR, if we even do, so I'm going to be supportive of my favorite reality competition show.  Alliances are always going to happen.  This one ended up dominating the season but Will & James made the right alliance and then won.  I'm happy for them.  Anyone who is a super fan and applied so many times deserves to win far more to me than someone who has the show handed to them for their fame in another field. 

As always YMMV and all opinions are worthy.  

 

 

 

[smartymarty]

Quote

It's a running joke in this house: if they cut to commercial, everything will be just fine when the commercial ends.

We announce "false tension."

I swear I thought the teams had to eat a dozen beignets.

 

Quote

 Like Will said, the ultimate goal was to form an alliance or pact with two teams who had similar approaches to the race — to compete hard and have fun while doing it — and we always felt that with Maddison and Riley, and Hung and Chee very early on.

From the Will and James interview. Isn't that the approach every team would have?

Edited December 18, 2020 by smartymarty

[illdoc]

7 minutes ago, smartymarty said:

I swear I thought the teams had to eat a dozen beignets.

That's because it was phrased as "eat a half a dozen" as opposed to "eat six". If you weren't paying close enough attention, you could miss the "half a" part.

[Netfoot]

12 hours ago, Ziggy said:

There was a detour (many moons ago) that involved drinking a shot.

Not too many episodes seasons ago one racer was a vegetarian. Or was it both members of the team? When faced with a plate of boiled camel-features (or what ever it was) they had to decide. Say no and take the penalty, or eat the meat.

The BQ's were tasked with eating 24" of kielbasa. The had a bucket next to the table in case.

Quite a while back racers had to eat a bucket of soup. One accidentally vomited... into his bucket. They still had to finish the bowl of vomity soup. While the violins played. 

That is the nature of the game. Haven't touched a drop of alcohol in 29 years. Still, I'd snap the shot if required to. But offer me a plate of ocras, and I'm taking the penalty.

You pay your penny and you take your chance.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Netfoot

[Kel Varnsen]

1 minute ago, Netfoot said:

Not too many episodes seasons ago one racer was a vegetarian. Or was it both members of the team? When faced with a plate of boiled camel-features (or what ever it was) they had to decide. Say no and take the penalty, or eat the meat.

The BQ's were tasked with eating 24" of kielbasa. The had a bucket next to the table in case.

Quite a while back racers had to eat a bucket of soup. One accidentally vomited... into his bucket. They still had to finish the bowl of vomity soup. While the violins played. 

That is the nature of the game. Haven't touched a drop of alcohol in 29 years. Still, I'd snap the shot if required to. But offer me a plate of ocras, and I'm taking the penalty.

You pay your penny and you take your chance.

I imagine they make you sign all kinds of waivers saying you understand that you may be asked to do all kinds of things you may not be comfortable with. There was also a season where that Miss Teen USA contestant was on (the don't have maps one) and they were in I think Germany and there was a beer drinking challenge. She wasn't legal drinking age in the US, but was in Germany, and I think she made her partner drink all the beer.

[Ziggy]

9 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Not too many episodes seasons ago one racer was a vegetarian. Or was it both members of the team? When faced with a plate of boiled camel-features (or what ever it was) they had to decide. Say no and take the penalty, or eat the meat.

The BQ's were tasked with eating 24" of kielbasa. The had a bucket next to the table in case.

Quite a while back racers had to eat a bucket of soup. One accidentally vomited... into his bucket. They still had to finish the bowl of vomity soup. While the violins played. 

That is the nature of the game. Haven't touched a drop of alcohol in 29 years. Still, I'd snap the shot if required to. But offer me a plate of ocras, and I'm taking the penalty.

You pay your penny and you take your chance.

I think that's one of the reasons I'll never be on the show 🙂

But, seriously, I think that's exactly how it works.  You have to decide ahead of time what you are willing to do and how you are going to deal with it if you find yourself in the wrong situation.  It sucks, but you signed up willingly!

[Tango64]

12 hours ago, Ziggy said:

That's exactly what the clue said.  Could NOT believe he did that!

I think he did it for the campy playing to the camera. "Look at me, I'm so bad eating this cake..." True to form.

[Cotypubby]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

Quite a while back racers had to eat a bucket of soup. One accidentally vomited... into his bucket. They still had to finish the bowl of vomity soup. While the violins played. 

😲🤢 I’m so glad I don’t remember that! I think in that case I’d have to take the penalty. 

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, Tango64 said:

I think he did it for the campy playing to the camera. "Look at me, I'm so bad eating this cake..." True to form.

Followed by "Oh my Gaaaad! So much inhuman hardship and torment! I am being forced so cruelly to eat a fucking beignet!"

Edited December 18, 2020 by Netfoot

[leighdear]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

 She wasn't legal drinking age in the US, but was in Germany, and I think she made her partner drink all the beer.

That was Mallory, Miss Kentucky.  And yep, her dad Gary was perfectly happy to swill the beer!   *LOL*

Those were actually very large beignets, with a lot of dry powdered sugar coating them.  But yeah, Will shouldn't have filled up on cake.  That was stupid. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by leighdear

[Twopper]

12 hours ago, Dobian said:

We've had the Beignets at Disneyland and yeah they are light as a feather and you can just gulp them down like powdered donuts.  My daughter and I couldn't get what the big deal was, we would have finished off a whole bag with now water in about two minutes.

I think the Disney ones are a tad airier, and I am not sure that they are the same size as the ones from Cafe du Monde.  I am not sure where in the Quarter the King cake place was so I don't know how far it was from Cafe du Monde.  Unless the beignets arrived piping hot and they ate them immediately, they might have trouble eating  room temp beignets especially if one has been licking king cake off his fingers. 

[bankerchick]

The important thing the powers that be need to take away from this race is that only the racers think the most important thing is winning.  The fans at home, the viewers who watch the show and allow it to make the money that pays for the race, want to see exciting locations, interesting racers (not characters trying to get an acting gig) and tasks that challenge the racers, either physically or mentally.  Having fully half of the cast form an alliance that lasts through almost the whole race takes most of that away, as there are racers who would probably still be rappelling down the side of a building trying to unscramble 'sauerkraut' if one member of the alliance didn't think it was her job to sacrifice her own position in order to make sure all 5 teams had the answer.

Incredibly bad season.  Imagine how it could have been, watching racers travel the world and marvel at the sites and sounds, something we have been unable to do ourselves for so long.

[illdoc]

I think that the race intro says "teams of two race around..." and due to the alliance, it was more like "teams of two and one of 6 (or 10 when it was still the Whine 5) race around..." and that is the problem. It's one thing when two people/teams say on a challenge "let's work together to find all the whatever---you look left and we'll look right", because once that's done, the "alliance" is over. In this case, it wasn't really "working together to solve a challenge", which is a temporary alliance. It was "working together just to make it to the end and screw over other teams", which left a sour taste behind and has now contaminated the race for the future unless something is done to "curtail" alliances (ie banning or adding time penalties).

[Kel Varnsen]

34 minutes ago, bankerchick said:

The important thing the powers that be need to take away from this race is that only the racers think the most important thing is winning.

The funny thing is, it was the Bros and Hung and Chee who figured out the flag challenge last episode. If they hadn't shared their answer or if they had told Gary and D'Angelo I think their chances of winning go up a lot.

[displayname]

I wanted Chee to win, but not because of anything related to racing, since I got bored of the season a bit back.

[preeya]

19 hours ago, Fukui San said:

Just curious: What does King cake taste like? They look more like overgrown danish than traditional cakes to me. 

Check this out:  https://randazzokingcake.com/cake-order-faq

[sinycalone]

Regarding W/J's using the internet to research their next destination:  I would imagine just about all teams do just that.  In fact, it's probably so commonplace, they don't bother to include it in the episodes these days.

[iMonrey]

I agree the music memory challenge from last week would have been a more suitable final challenge in this last leg. However, I'm not sure we would have gotten a different outcome. It was Will and James, and Hung and Chee, who figured out they were doing it wrong. The beard bros might never have figured it out if they hadn't been told the flags go in the order they were visited rather than played. And it appeared that Will and James and Hung and Chee figured that out roughly at the same time. Given how far ahead Will and James were, with the other variables maintained, Will and James would probably still have won.

I would have preferred another team win but they deserved the win on merit regardless of how I feel about them personally.

Quote

The only possibility was at the king cake task and 'needle in a haystack' tasks don't really depend on skill as much as luck.

It appeared Will had the edge for this one too. He knew exactly what he was looking for and had a better method of searching. Chee and Maddison might have thought what they were looking for was bigger, and they were both just squeezing the cakes with their fists, so it was much easier to miss such a tiny object than it was for Will.

I enjoyed the season overall in terms of challenges and casting. I seriously doubt we will get another. That CBS sat on this for 2 years even before the pandemic doesn't bode well for its future. They could have burned it off as a summer show in 2019 and they still sat on it.

Edited December 19, 2020 by iMonrey

[Door County Cherry]

5 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The funny thing is, it was the Bros and Hung and Chee who figured out the flag challenge last episode.

I remember it like @iMonrey in that it was Will and James and Hung and Chee who figured out they were doing the clue wrong.

It was the Beard Bros who presented first with that shared knowledge. 

18 hours ago, Dobian said:

We've had the Beignets at Disneyland and yeah they are light as a feather and you can just gulp them down like powdered donuts.  My daughter and I couldn't get what the big deal was, we would have finished off a whole bag with now water in about two minutes.

I hate powdered sugar and so that challenge made me cringe. 

[SoTheresThat]

9 hours ago, Twopper said:

I think the Disney ones are a tad airier, and I am not sure that they are the same size as the ones from Cafe du Monde.  I am not sure where in the Quarter the King cake place was so I don't know how far it was from Cafe du Monde.  Unless the beignets arrived piping hot and they ate them immediately, they might have trouble eating  room temp beignets especially if one has been licking king cake off his fingers. 

The beignets weren't from Cafe du Monde.  The challenge was at a place called Cafe Beignet, which I've heard has really good beignets.  Even so, it's still possible they had been sitting around and gotten cold.

[toodywoody]

22 hours ago, Dobian said:

We've had the Beignets at Disneyland and yeah they are light as a feather and you can just gulp them down like powdered donuts.  My daughter and I couldn't get what the big deal was, we would have finished off a whole bag with now water in about two minutes.

Me too. I didn't get what his big deal was since he loves cake, he should have been able to eat three. It would have been more fun if they each had to eat 6 each. That would have slowed them down.

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

Final legs are almost always a disappointing series of first-in, first-out challenges in deserted venues. At least they tried to make this one Mardi Gras fun. I wonder if the secret to getting the correct beads faster during the parade task was to shout "Throw me something, mister!" Which none of the teams did. I would have liked to see them have to find a series of famous graves in one of the city’s historic cemeteries, outrun a streetcar over a mile stretch, or do something at the Audubon Zoo or Aquarium of the Americas. Maybe even a poignant, symbolic task in memory of Katrina. 

I thought it was poetic that the season began with a Carnival in Trinidad and ended with a Carnival in New Orleans, and had carnival themes throughout the season (such as the circus in Colombia and the carnival games in France).

When Phil emphasized how many thousands of objects were in the Mardi Gras World warehouse, I thought the final task was going to involve hunting down an item to represent each leg of the race. A combination of memory challenge and needle in the haystack. But alas, it was just going around the corner and pulling out a trunk full of globe strips.

I refuse to believe any contestant is ever truly happy to be standing on the sideline as the winners make their final dash to the Amazing Bathmat. But this was possibly the most pissed-off looking, tense-smiling, fake-clapping group of eliminated teams I’ve ever seen at the finish line.

[watch2much]

per one of the producers about alliances:  “I’m going to be really honest with you,” Doganieri told me. “I think we’re going to have to put a rule on that in the future.”

[iMonrey]

Yes I think the alliance is one of the reasons CBS didn't want to air this one, knowing how pissed people would be about it. But I also think they sort of assumed Gary and DeAngelo would be fan favorites and that people would be particularly pissed they were shut out of the final because of the alliance. Now, I liked Gary and DeAngelo until the penultimate leg when DeAngelo really showed his ass. Too damn bad they got screwed by the very alliance they benefited from up until that point. And too damn bad the Super Duper Secret Final 2 deal they had with the Beard Bros fell thru. You don't stand there and say you wish you'd never done the race and that you could have just paid for the trip yourself. Then do that you jerk, and give someone else a chance to win a million bucks.

The alliance didn't ruin the season for me. What's ruined the show is the watering down of challenge difficulties over the past several years, and the generic casting of photogenic dating couples and interchangeable swimsuit models. It used to be a much harder race and a much more interesting one. So in those two respects I thought this season was an improvement.

[driver18]

I'm sure this is going to be filled with a lot of griping, but I liked the final three teams.  I was happy with Will and James winning. Frankly I don't get why there is so much dislike of these 2. Will and James were nice overall to the other teams. They were nice and friendly to the locals. They were enthusiastic about everything going on around them. They handled the tasks even the difficult ones for the most part with grace and understanding. They enjoyed being on the race. And, they raced well. Yes, they asked for help, but so did a lot of the other teams at times. They are worthy winners.

[sinycalone]

And they are going to organize a race of their own...per their Twitter account.  Now isn't that a surprise?  Not.  They were auditioning the entire time on TAR 32 for their futures in reality tv.

[Brookside]

On 12/17/2020 at 1:55 PM, tinkerbell said:

 

Seriously.  Like someone said upthread, my only experience with beignets was at Port Orleans Resort in Disney World.  But damn! it's like scarfing down 3 donuts.   Makes me wonder if the task was to eat them without drinking any water - cause that might be hard.  

Am I the only person who would have trouble eating more than half a doughnut?

[Netfoot]

3 hours ago, Brookside said:

Am I the only person who would have trouble eating more than half a doughnut?

Maybe. 

I'm pretty sure I could have eaten that whole stack of King cakes, if they's given me a big cuppa coffee to go with them...

[Brynnjk]

19 hours ago, iMonrey said:

What's ruined the show is the watering down of challenge difficulties over the past several years, and the generic casting of photogenic dating couples and interchangeable swimsuit models. It used to be a much harder race and a much more interesting one.

Oh I agree 100%.  Make them drive more, make the challenges difficult.  It's one reason I love Canada's TAR so much more.  Their challenges are so difficult & exciting.  And TAR used to be that way too but for awhile now it's been jump in a cab & do something easy.  Which is boring to watch.  I miss the airport drama too.  It was always so exciting and could change things up so much. 

[Brynnjk]

18 hours ago, driver18 said:

I'm sure this is going to be filled with a lot of griping, but I liked the final three teams.  I was happy with Will and James winning. Frankly I don't get why there is so much dislike of these 2. Will and James were nice overall to the other teams. They were nice and friendly to the locals. They were enthusiastic about everything going on around them. They handled the tasks even the difficult ones for the most part with grace and understanding. They enjoyed being on the race. And, they raced well. Yes, they asked for help, but so did a lot of the other teams at times. They are worthy winners.

I agree.  I rewatched it and they were always so sweet & thankful to everyone in the various countries.  They enjoyed themselves and were so thrilled to be there.   I simply do not get the hate for them on this forum at all.  And I watched numerous other teams ask for help along the way.  And H&C & the Beard Bros were very vocal against the Football players so I simply do not get it.  So yea for another team enjoying Will & James.  Except for thinking the final leg was far too easy - I love the memory challenges - I was very happy!  

[chaifan]

On 12/19/2020 at 5:00 PM, sinycalone said:

And they are going to organize a race of their own...per their Twitter account.  Now isn't that a surprise?  Not.  They were auditioning the entire time on TAR 32 for their futures in reality tv.

Shocked.  I'm just shocked.  (Someone really needs to come up with a sarcasm emoji or font.)

There already is a business doing a race - Competitours.  https://www.competitours.com/

Tyler (or was it BJ?) competed in one of their first races - at least 5 years ago. 

[Jobiska]

One of my favorite parts was when James was hugging Will at the finish line and thanking him for putting up with James' frustrating behaviors and Will kind of made an eyeroll face over his shoulder.  We all screamed with laughter at that.  

The tasks weren't that compelling, but they were all tolerable except for the beads one, because obviously the throwers were producer-placed, and therefore would have kept at the same rate and ratio whether or not the racers said "I need red!" or whatever.  So the only way someone would be slowed down would be what two teams (right?) did--not realize it had to also be just the large beads.  The people on the balconies could have been robots or a bead conveyor belt and it would have been the same.  For some reason that really irritated me--more that the racers were calling out to the throwers, wasting energy when it made not difference.  It wasn't that thrilling visually to make the spoonfed beads worthwhile.  

Sure were a lot of creepy images on the floats (in my opinion!)  

I'm with the minority that didn't mind the winners or any of the final three teams.  Were there others I might have preferred as final there?  Sure, but that's the way the race goes.  I've had faves win, I've had least faves win, but it's still my favorite show no matter what--maybe now rivaled by The Good Place, but that's done now and I can still hope that there will be more TAR someday.  

Is it verified that runners up get $50K?  that's what the 2nd place Big Brother winner gets; 2nd place Survivor gets $90K I think; but I don't think any teams other than the winners get prize money (I think they all get per diems or something like that).

[Stardancer Supreme]

16 hours ago, Brookside said:

Am I the only person who would have trouble eating more than half a doughnut?

I'm not a doughnut person at all; knowing that I would have to eat 3 of them after the task would have kept me from eating the King cake!  Most people have a sweets threshold and Will hit it before he found the baby.

[Brookside]

I'm glad the volleyball players didn't win because I was getting really skeeved out by their constant beard grooming with their fingers.