S33.E03: Who Has This One in the Bag?

[Whimsy]

Quote

While racing through Scotland in February 2020, teams receive shocking and unprecedented news that leads to the suspension of the race.

Original air date 1/12/22 

[mojoween]

Crazy that the race suspended on February 28 when the US didn’t even think about any closures until March 11, when Rudy Goebert and Tom Hanks tested positive.  (Watching the ACC Tournament that night was SURREAL)

[Whimsy]

Just now, mojoween said:

Crazy that the race suspended on February 28 when the US didn’t even think about any closures until March 11, when Rudy Goebert and Tom Hanks tested positive.  (Watching the ACC Tournament that night was SURREAL)

Yeah, we went on a cruise on March 1st and I worked for a week after we got back before we closed down. 

[SnarkShark]

3 minutes ago, mojoween said:

Crazy that the race suspended on February 28 when the US didn’t even think about any closures until March 11, when Rudy Goebert and Tom Hanks tested positive.  (Watching the ACC Tournament that night was SURREAL)

In other words, they did the right thing before a country denying the severity of the threat from the virus at the time did. 

[Amy Beth]

4 minutes ago, mojoween said:

Crazy that the race suspended on February 28 when the US didn’t even think about any closures until March 11, when Rudy Goebert and Tom Hanks tested positive.  (Watching the ACC Tournament that night was SURREAL)

I remember how bad things were in Italy early on though. Parts of the country were in total lockdown.

[Riplet68]

Countries were shutting down (Italy, Korea) and travel was starting to be restricted by then)

looks like love island broke up and don’t come back..also didn’t see train Bros and the married couple?

 

[iMonrey]

Well I bet when they suspended the race it softened the blow for the eliminated teams. I couldn't tell who was missing in that last shot but I don't think Spencer and Anthony were there. I'm really disappointed if that's the case, I was really rooting for them.

I learned to drive on a stick shift and drove nothing but for more than 15 years, but that was a long time ago (I'm old). And if I got into a car today and the stick shift was on my left instead of on my right I'm pretty sure it would throw me. I wonder if the pedals are reversed too.

Bagpipes are like nails on a chalkboard to me, and I'm pretty sure they could induce a seizure in an epileptic. They must have been pretty easy to assemble though. Nobody was really stumped by them.

I would have done the song and dance detour because there really wasn't much of a dance, just stomping left and right. And at least the lyrics are in English. It looked pretty easy. I think the most time consuming part would have been changing into those costumes, although I noticed teams left still wearing them.

Switching detours is probably what did Arun and Natalia in. It also probably didn't help that English isn't Arun's first language, from what I can tell. They had a nice relationship, I wouldn't mind if they got to come back because of whoever couldn't return 19 months later.

I forgot there even was a Connie and Sam. They were sort of a non-entity this leg.

Kim and Penn are going to have to wait a long, long time for that trip for 2 from Travelosity. But I never get tired of Phil saying "spar." 

[xcrayon2215x]

The judge at the bagpipes seemed extremely forgiving. I like Ryan/Dusty and Anthony/Spencer. I am curious who will end up not returning and what teams they will bring back, I liked the statement from Phil. The switch from Arun/Natalia did them in for sure.

[toodywoody]

So who else is missing? I didn't see Taylor and his husband and the train attack guys. 

I was really worried that the ones that didn't return had something bad happen. I truly hope not

Edited January 13, 2022 by toodywoody

[Guest]

So one half of Taylor and Isaiah can sing...and the other half has enthusiasm 😆

Raquel and Cayla continue to have the best time ever.

Kim is definitely the rock of Kim/Penn.

The returning teams were pretty clearly visible at the end of the episode proper, so I guess it's not a spoiler:

The missing teams were Caro/Ray, Anthony/Spencer, Connie/Sam, and Taylor/Isaiah.

 

[Seelouis]

2 minutes ago, xcrayon2215x said:

The switch from Arun/Natalia did them in for sure.

If they had just turned the barrel on its side I think they could have gotten the top off. That’s how the other teams seemed to have done it. 

[toodywoody]

2 minutes ago, tracyscott76 said:

So one half of Taylor and Isaiah can sing...and the other half has enthusiasm 😆

Raquel and Cayla continue to have the best time ever.

Kim is definitely the rock of Kim/Penn.

The returning teams were pretty clearly visible at the end of the episode proper, so I guess it's not a spoiler:

The missing teams were Caro/Ray, Anthony/Spencer, Connie/Sam, and Taylor/Isaiah.

 

That's who I thought were missing.  Are they bringing back the two eliminated teams?

[Ananayel]

This is the first episode I've actually watched in a long time. I got tired of the stunt casting and ridiculous twists. But this felt like old school Race, and I was interested in seeing how they'd handle the suspension. I liked most everybody, and it's sad some teams couldn't make it back. Perhaps they can return on a future season once things get back to more of normal.

I did want to see Scotland, but I'm not a Penn Holderness fan. He's local to me, and was a local tv news anchor for a bit. I've always found him to be somewhat insufferable. 

[Starchild]

1 minute ago, toodywoody said:

That's who I thought were missing.  Are they bringing back the two eliminated teams?

I read in some pre-season article that 7 teams came back from the suspension, so that makes sense.

(9 - 4 + 2 = 7)

[Guest]

1 minute ago, toodywoody said:

That's who I thought were missing.  Are they bringing back the two eliminated teams?

That wasn't addressed in the episode itself, so I'll throw up some spoiler tags (no elimination info or anything):

Spoiler

The preview didn't show who was coming back, but Phil said something about "since not everyone could return, here are some familiar faces" and the teams made "ah ha" faces. So my guess is Michael/Moe and Arun/Natalia are back in.

 

[Cotypubby]

Not gonna lie, when that NINETEEN MONTHS LATER card came up on screen I had tears. 😭

[North of Eden]

Got to lead with when I saw missing teams at the end of the episode my first thought was why couldn't the husband and wife You-Tubers be among them? They are the only team I actively dislike this year and it can be summoned up in a two second clip when they entered the bag pipe place...the husband was prancing and dancing just entering through the door. I have ZERO love for reality show contestants that find it necessary to be in the ON posistion 24/7

Anyway I hope we get eliminated teams as replacements and not trotting out someone like Margie and Luke (but I would take Mark and Bopper in a heartbeat...it really sucked what happened to them when they tried to come back last time)

Tonight's episode...Start the countdown to the LOVE ISLAND couples implosion...the bickering in the cab told me they weren't long for romance.

Akbar is so joyless that I really, really wanted the father and daughter to make it but alas it was not helping the other team it was an ill advised Bald Snark. With that said as much as I like them when the father was in tears I was like...stope crying and raaaaaaaaaaace!

Feel like we've seen bag pipe assembly before but I could be misremembering it. There have been a lot of seasons.

Stick shift novices are ALWAYS fun  and I say that as someone who burned up the clutch on my '88 Turismo Duster because I wasn't the greatest at it either.

Brunette Flight attendant sure is easy on the eyes. Seems like as the FA I have ever had on a flight are so long in the tooth that they  probably flew with the Wright Brothers.

I'm sure Cape Cod is lovely but that seems like a chintzy prize for the first prize of the season.

Wow that Kilt place was so run down it made a NYC tenament look like the Ritz Carleton.

Edited January 13, 2022 by North of Eden

[Netfoot]

16 minutes ago, xcrayon2215x said:

The switch from Arun/Natalia did them in for sure.

They were hammering the hoops down onto the barrel, rather than up off of the barrel. They were never going to succeed like that. And honestly, they displayed some pretty awful navigation skills during the episode. So, while I didn't want them to go, they really did deserve the last place.

[knitorpurl]

Noticed they had switched out the boys at for kilt song as it went on. And the two that were there for the last try for Natalia and Arun looked they were over it. Poor kids. I still have "Donald, where's your trooosers" stuck in my head!

Looking forward to next week and seeing how the time away impacts everyone's race techniques. And any noticeable changes to the structure of the race itself.

 

[bearcatfan]

I did a little Facebook stalking and Connie is holding a very new baby in the family Christmas photo. I’m guessing they didn’t return because she was very pregnant. 

[ProfCrash]

A word of warning, Penn is just on, it’s who he is. Kim is an introvert who is pretty chill. They balance each other out. Ying and Yang. It isn’t an act, if that helps. I laughed at his interview about his song issue. Kim just said ok and guided him off the stage. 

I thought the bagpipe task was really easy. There were instructions for assembling the pipes and they had to play through the one song. 

The barrel task looked pretty straight forward but took some muscle and knowledge of physics. 

The driving was hard to watch and they put them on a highway, yikes. I thought that Love Island dude was smart to pull over and cool off. That showed some maturity.

The shut down was sad to watch. Bummed to see not everyone came back. It looks like Love Island and 15:17 are not back. 

[chaifan]

6 minutes ago, bearcatfan said:

I did a little Facebook stalking and Connie is holding a very new baby in the family Christmas photo. I’m guessing they didn’t return because she was very pregnant. 

If that's correct, then I'm giving myself a little pat on the back.  Last week I posted in the Speculation thread that I could see Caro & Ray breaking up and not returning, and also said I could see a team not returning due to pregnancy.  (Although I thought we would have heard something by now about that.)  As for Anthony/Spencer & Taylor/Isaiah not returning, that's a mystery.   Those are two teams that I think would have made the earth move to get back to TAR. 

I wonder if there were two teams each with one partner that couldn't return, if they would have allowed a blended team back.  Let's hope we never find out the answer to that question! 

[Starchild]

36 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

Wow that Kilt place was so run down it made a NYC tenament look like the Ritz Carleton.

It's probably like at least 400 years old or something.

[Lantern7]

I know that I'm a voice of pessimism on this forum. I know it's annoying. I feel that TAR has been given the short end of the stick by CBS for the past few years. The pandemic might have been the end of TAR, and I wouldn't have been shocked. Even with the adjustments made after the nineteen-month break, I'm thinking things will be dicey.

That said, watching Phil break the news to the Racers warmed my heart. The man is class. He gave them the news, tried to put a positive spin on it, and I'm betting the teams had a little hope the race would continue. Now . . . .imagine Jeff Probst in Phil's place. He would have made it mostly about himself, he would have needled the racers, and maybe try to jump in the lapse of the alpha dudes in the cast. I feel Phil wants TAR to continue. Even with Tough as Nails finding a niche as CBS's blue-collar reality competition program, TAR would still be an ongoing thing for him.

Sorry for the rambling.

I feel worst for Arun. I'd like to know how long "Donald Where's Your Troosers?" was stuck in his head. I bet it's still in there. It's a catchy tune, but he and Natalia went out on that Detour. It might have been easier just to cope with the cooping then perform a Bald Snark and swap tasks.

Idea to start a season: have teams drive two miles with a stick shift. Any team that can't do that after, say, thirty minutes is immediately eliminated. You gotta know how to swim, you gotta read the clue, and you gotta be prepared for manual transmission. I think Akbar took so long to drive, you could see more hairs on his hair turn white.

Bagpipe construction? Kinky! You could have Racers trying to march and play, but assembling the instruments was an inspired choice.

I think the judges went easy near the end of the kilt song-and-dance. "All right, you have it! Actually, you don't . . . but if we keep going, the lads would have to be paid time-and-a-half minimum, and we mustn't have that!"

[North of Eden]

4 minutes ago, Starchild said:

It's probably like at least 400 years old or something.

And looks every one of them too. Quite a dive.

[SnarkShark]

56 minutes ago, tracyscott76 said:

Kim is definitely the rock of Kim/Penn.

She's smart, calm and seems competent at most things.

He seems like a basket case. 

[North of Eden]

2 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

I know that I'm a voice of pessimism on this forum. I know it's annoying. I feel that TAR has been given the short end of the stick by CBS for the past few years.

The past few years?! Almost from the get go! To wit there has never once been a reunion show following the finale and some seasons cried out for them. Then there was the constantly shifting time slots at one point even being sent to (and this is a family show mind you) 10PM to die on a Tuesday night when it pulled a Tanya Roberts and wasn't dead  yet and showed signs of life. Then there was holding it until such shows as VIVA LAUGHLIN flopped and they had to plug the schedule...and let's not forget that Sunday slot with football delays and pre-emptions and now the icing on the cake pre-covid was cutting it down to one cycle a year while golden children SUVIVOR and BIG BROTHER get multiple cycles, celebrity spin off and all access special seasons. Yeah to sum it up TAR has always been the red headed step-child.

[30 Helens]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

I learned to drive on a stick shift and drove nothing but for more than 15 years, but that was a long time ago (I'm old). And if I got into a car today and the stick shift was on my left instead of on my right I'm pretty sure it would throw me. 

I also drove nothing but a stick for 20 years, and I’m sure I would have problems with left-handed shifting— paradoxically because the shift pattern is the same. I would expect 1st gear to be closest to me, and to move outward as I shifted up. That’s not the case in Europe (of course, because then they’d have to manufacture mirrored transmissions.) But as always on this show, the grinding gears made me cringe.

58 minutes ago, Seelouis said:

If they had just turned the barrel on its side I think they could have gotten the top off. That’s how the other teams seemed to have done it. 

I don’t know what they thought they were doing. Hammering something tighter rarely works to loosen it up.

7 minutes ago, chaifan said:

If that's correct, then I'm giving myself a little pat on the back.  Last week I posted in the Speculation thread that I could see Caro & Ray breaking up and not returning, and also said I could see a team not returning due to pregnancy.  (Although I thought we would have heard something by now about that.)  As for Anthony/Spencer & Taylor/Isaiah not returning, that's a mystery.   Those are two teams that I think would have made the earth move to get back to TAR. 

Yeah, based on their interactions, a Caro/Ray breakup would hardly be a shocker. (And probably a very healthy decision.) If baby news is true, then good for that team. As for the others… I hope it was just a personal decision not to travel and not some Covid-related tragedy. That would be horrible.

And yes, as speculated, I hope the eliminated teams at least get a second chance. I liked both of them, so it would be good to see more of them.

Since the episode ended, I’ve been annoying various members of my household by singing “<Insert Name here>, where’s your trooosers?” It’s going to be a long week. (For them.)

[toodywoody]

25 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

The past few years?! Almost from the get go! To wit there has never once been a reunion show following the finale and some seasons cried out for them. Then there was the constantly shifting time slots at one point even being sent to (and this is a family show mind you) 10PM to die on a Tuesday night when it pulled a Tanya Roberts and wasn't dead  yet and showed signs of life. Then there was holding it until such shows as VIVA LAUGHLIN flopped and they had to plug the schedule...and let's not forget that Sunday slot with football delays and pre-emptions and now the icing on the cake pre-covid was cutting it down to one cycle a year while golden children SUVIVOR and BIG BROTHER get multiple cycles, celebrity spin off and all access special seasons. Yeah to sum it up TAR has always been the red headed step-child.

All of this. And here TAR was winning awards and they still kicked it to one cycle and moved it all around. Their best reality show and it's always had to live in both thir shadows. I haven't watched BB or Survivor in years because it gets old watching alliances and people being shocked being double crossed.  I have always liked TAR better because it isn't about that and about how well you and your partner navigate around the world. 

[Lantern7]

56 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

The past few years?! Almost from the get go! To wit there has never once been a reunion show following the finale and some seasons cried out for them. Then there was the constantly shifting time slots at one point even being sent to (and this is a family show mind you) 10PM to die on a Tuesday night when it pulled a Tanya Roberts and wasn't dead  yet and showed signs of life. Then there was holding it until such shows as VIVA LAUGHLIN flopped and they had to plug the schedule...and let's not forget that Sunday slot with football delays and pre-emptions and now the icing on the cake pre-covid was cutting it down to one cycle a year while golden children SUVIVOR and BIG BROTHER get multiple cycles, celebrity spin off and all access special seasons. Yeah to sum it up TAR has always been the red headed step-child.

 

26 minutes ago, toodywoody said:

All of this. And here TAR was winning awards and they still kicked it to one cycle and moved it all around. Their best reality show and it's always had to live in both thir shadows. I haven't watched BB or Survivor in years because it gets old watching alliances and people being shocked being double crossed.  I have always liked TAR better because it isn't about that and about how well you and your partner navigate around the world. 

I was trying not to go too hard into the "CBS Doesn't Respect TAR" skid because I tend to do that too often. It just stinks that the pandemic was probably the absolute worst thing that could've happened* mid-season. The other reality shows retooled and came back, including Survivor and Big Brother. Meanwhile, the Racers wound up coming back nineteen months after Phil shut things down . . .  and even then, some teams didn't return.

*I mean this within reason. I can't be all, "But what if there's a sudden coup in a country where TAR is filming" or "What if the plane's engines just stopped" . . . or worst. Sad to say, "pandemic" is now more realistic a potential show-ending threat.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Lantern7

[gatopretoNYC]

My Scottish mother has never heard of this "famous" song. I will have to check with my family there and see if they know it.

I wish they had shown a little more of Glasgow.

[DB in CMH]

29 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

 

I was trying not to go too hard into the "CBS Doesn't Respect TAR" skid because I tend to do that too often. It just stinks that the pandemic was probably the absolute worst thing that could've happened* mid-season. The other reality shows retooled and came back, including Survivor and Big Brother. Meanwhile, the Racers wound up coming back nineteen months after Phil shut things down . . .  and even then, some teams didn't return.

*I mean this within reason. I can't be all, "But what if there's a sudden coup in a country where TAR is filming" or "What if the plane's engines just stopped" . . . or worst. Sad to say, "pandemic" is now more realistic a potential show-ending threat.

I assumed that when the Race originally shut down, that was it for the show. Especially given that they only filmed 3 episodes before everything went to hell. I think it showed a lot of faith on CBS's part to ramp production back up, 19 months later, and work within the parameters of the pandemic. There was even a commercial about casting tonight - I'm more optimistic for the future of the show than I've been in many seasons.

Edited January 13, 2022 by DB in CMH

[Tdoc72]

49 minutes ago, 30 Helens said:

 

Since the episode ended, I’ve been annoying various members of my household by singing “<Insert Name here>, where’s your trooosers?” It’s going to be a long week. (For them.)

I keep singing it to my cat (Phoebe, where’s your troosers?).  I am highly amused and she is not. 

[mertensia]

17 minutes ago, gatopretoNYC said:

My Scottish mother has never heard of this "famous" song. I will have to check with my family there and see if they know it.

I wish they had shown a little more of Glasgow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Where's_Your_Troosers%3F

 

Yeah, Arun and Natalia were so rattled they didn't seem to stop and look at what they had to do.

[Steph Sometimes]

I don't know why, but I teared up as soon as I saw the first title card at the end. After two years of this, I feel like I'm just numb to some things, just exhausted, but seeing all the racers together being told about what was going on. And then again, when they're back. I don't know, but I'm teary even now. 

I love Phil. Even when he's delivering bad news, there's just something so good about him.

If I'm still feeling sad about this after a while, I'll try to think about my troosers instead.

[GaT]

So they started filming on 2/22/20, & stopped because of the pandemic on 2/28/20? What happened? Did Phil finally watch the news during that week? "Hey guys, have you heard of this covid thing?" I mean seriously, they couldn't figure out they had a problem a week earlier & just stopped people from leaving their homes?

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 hours ago, SnarkShark said:

In other words, they did the right thing before a country denying the severity of the threat from the virus at the time did. 

I will give the producers credit that they are good people who would have done the right thing because it was the right thing. But I'm pretty confident by the time they suspended things it was apparent that logistically, they were not going to be able to continue right then and there with anything close to what was planned. Too many countries had probably either shut borders or discussed plans to do so.

When was part II of this season started? I'm guessing that even then it still might not have been "safe" to have people go to various countries maskless and talk to various strangers, as I presume they will be doing.

[freddi]

3 hours ago, Cotypubby said:

Not gonna lie, when that NINETEEN MONTHS LATER card came up on screen I had tears. 😭

For me, the tears started when I saw the card that said February 28, 2020.  I went back in my email to that date.  In this NW corner of the country, we knew already how bad it was.  There had already been deaths and 27 cases of COVID at a nursing home two miles from where I live.  Our university was already getting ready to shut down, and people were buying massive amounts of shelf-stable groceries.  We have not yet hit "NINETEEN MONTHS LATER" in terms of recovery.  

17 minutes ago, GaT said:

So they started filming on 2/22/20, & stopped because of the pandemic on 2/28/20? What happened? Did Phil finally watch the news during that week? "Hey guys, have you heard of this covid thing?" I mean seriously, they couldn't figure out they had a problem a week earlier & just stopped people from leaving their homes?

As I just noted, it hit this country of USA that week; the first known epicenter and cluster of cases in a nursing home near Seattle was in the last week in February.  

Edited January 13, 2022 by freddi

[SnarkShark]

5 minutes ago, freddi said:

For me, the tears started when I saw the card that said February 28, 2020.  I went back in my email to that date.  In this NW corner of the country, we knew already how bad it was.  There had already been deaths and 27 cases of COVID at a nursing home two miles from where I live.  Our university was already getting ready to shut down, and people were buying massive amounts of shelf-stable groceries.  We have not yet hit "NINETEEN MONTHS LATER" in terms of recovery.  

As I just noted, it hit this country of USA that week; the first known epicenter and cluster of cases in a nursing home near Seattle was in the last week in February.  

I know that for a full two weeks before anyone in the US went into any kind of lockdown, even in New York, retail stores already had a full cycle of hoarding and then abandonment.  My employer sent people home and remote a week before formal lockdown, and had been planning it for 5 or 6 days before that.  So many naively believed the whole country would cooperatively hunker down 2 to 4 weeks, and it would be mostly over.  Ah, the days...

 

I think the show probably initially thought in terms of a few months, since so much of the world was involved. 

It would be interesting if one of the outlets that covers reality TV asked the contestants what they were told at the time.

[choclatechip45]

I thought the episode was pretty boring. I did think it was hilarious that they gave Kim & Penn a singing task.  

The ending made me choke up because I remember at the beginning of March  reading that The Amazing Race shutdown and I realized that COVID was serious. I had heard about it because one of the people I was managing at the time wife was in China. 

[Leeds]

1 hour ago, gatopretoNYC said:

 

I wish they had shown a little more of Glasgow.

Don't you mean Glass Cow (via Houston)?

I enjoyed this episode much more than the first one - at least the tasks involved some sort of effort/ability/perseverence.

[aghst]

4 hours ago, North of Eden said:

Got to lead with when I saw missing teams at the end of the episode my first thought was why couldn't the husband and wife You-Tubers be among them? They are the only team I actively dislike this year and it can be summoned up in a two second clip when they entered the bag pipe place...the husband was prancing and dancing just entering through the door. I have ZERO love for reality show contestants that find it necessary to be in the ON posistion 24/7

Anyway I hope we get eliminated teams as replacements and not trotting out someone like Margie and Luke (but I would take Mark and Bopper in a heartbeat...it really sucked what happened to them when they tried to come back last time)

Tonight's episode...Start the countdown to the LOVE ISLAND couples implosion...the bickering in the cab told me they weren't long for romance.

Akbar is so joyless that I really, really wanted the father and daughter to make it but alas it was not helping the other team it was an ill advised Bald Snark. With that said as much as I like them when the father was in tears I was like...stope crying and raaaaaaaaaaace!

I think they're just really enthusiastic, which is why they do those family videos.  Doesn't seem to be him being on so much as that's his personality -- probably why Larry David named his show Curb Your Enthusiasm, for people who are preternaturally positive and cheerful.

The would be the classy thing for the producers to do, offer the eliminated teams the option of coming back.  But 19 months, especially in a pandemic, can make people have a far different outlook.  You have millions of people quitting their jobs for instance, not to mention of course, the possibility of losing friends and acquaintances to serious illness or worse.

Yeah the Love Island couple may not have lasted regardless but the pandemic probably didn't help.

Akbar, compared to the first leg, toned it way down, didn't put down his wife.  And she didn't snipe back when he was struggling with driving and directions, so it's an improvement.  Maybe they worked on some things -- they had a lot of room for improvement -- and they come back with of Kim and Penn's enthusiasm.

He was saying he played mind games with Arun, as it was obvious he was struggling with the song and dance thing.  Also liked that he said they might as well to Scottish things, even though the whiskey barrel detour was also Scottish.

The whiskey barrel detour seemed a lot easier, except to Arun and Natalia, than doing the song and dance.  I laughed when Arun said "are you freaking kidding me?"

 

 

 

[aghst]

1 hour ago, GaT said:

So they started filming on 2/22/20, & stopped because of the pandemic on 2/28/20? What happened? Did Phil finally watch the news during that week? "Hey guys, have you heard of this covid thing?" I mean seriously, they couldn't figure out they had a problem a week earlier & just stopped people from leaving their homes?

I actually had a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand in mid February planned.  I didn't go, nothing was canceled so I could have gone and in retrospect, I probably would have been okay though I was wary because a lot of Chinese, including many from Wuhan, had traveled south for Chinese New Year's, to places such as Hong Kong and Thailand.

Also traveled to New Zealand in December 2019 and there's evidence that the virus was already circulating in various places by then.  

But you could follow what was going on in China and cruise ships being denied from entering ports in January, so things were bad, even if it hadn't fully hit the US yet.

So when they announced that the TAR was going to suspend the filming of the season, I wasn't surprised at all.  Probably had been following it too much by then.

 

[GaT]

1 hour ago, freddi said:

As I just noted, it hit this country of USA that week; the first known epicenter and cluster of cases in a nursing home near Seattle was in the last week in February.  

Yeah, but they weren't in the US, they had to have heard about the fast growing cases all over the world, they had to have known there was a problem on the 22nd, what happened in that week that made them change their mind about running the race then? I find the fact that one of the prizes for coming in first was a trip to Cape Cod, those kind of trips are usually some place like Bali, did they think Cape Cod was safer? The whole thing is really odd.

[Honeycocoa]

The prizes from Travelocity are essentially gift cards. They can use them however they want.

So glad our show is back. I enjoyed the tasks. And Phil was  thoughtful and reasonable as usual. 

[bref]

I'm with others who found the last five minutes surprisingly emotional. It really brought back the shock of the early days of COVID and how the entire world was upended in those few weeks.

Phil continues to be the best.

[Fake Jan Brady]

37 minutes ago, GaT said:

Yeah, but they weren't in the US, they had to have heard about the fast growing cases all over the world, they had to have known there was a problem on the 22nd, what happened in that week that made them change their mind about running the race then? 

It was a simpler time. Maybe they thought they could literally outrun Covid? Maybe the next leg was going to be Italy or another country that had been hit hard. Circumstances were changing fast and often back then and there was a general air of "How bad could this be?" [a lot worse, as we discovered]

 

[Zonk]

Nice enough episode. Though I couldn't concentrate much on it with the anticipation of the suspension coming up.

Sad that the husbands aren't returning. They probably wouldn't have won, but I would have still liked to root for them a little longer.

6 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

Spoiler

The preview didn't show who was coming back, but Phil said something about "since not everyone could return, here are some familiar faces" and the teams made "ah ha" faces. So my guess is Michael/Moe and Arun/Natalia are back in.

 

spoiler for the preview, nothing else:

Spoiler

The preview did in fact show who was back. The last wide shot from behind you can see that it is Michael/Moe and Arun/Natalia. So you guessed right.

 

5 hours ago, bearcatfan said:

I did a little Facebook stalking and Connie is holding a very new baby in the family Christmas photo. I’m guessing they didn’t return because she was very pregnant. 

This seems to confirm:

6 hours ago, North of Eden said:

Got to lead with when I saw missing teams at the end of the episode my first thought was why couldn't the husband and wife You-Tubers be among them? They are the only team I actively dislike this year and it can be summoned up in a two second clip when they entered the bag pipe place...the husband was prancing and dancing just entering through the door. I have ZERO love for reality show contestants that find it necessary to be in the ON posistion 24/7

Meh. Dude has bad ADHD and is excited to be on the race. I give him a break. I buy that he's just having fun and not mocking for the cameras.

3 hours ago, GaT said:

So they started filming on 2/22/20, & stopped because of the pandemic on 2/28/20? What happened? Did Phil finally watch the news during that week? "Hey guys, have you heard of this covid thing?" I mean seriously, they couldn't figure out they had a problem a week earlier & just stopped people from leaving their homes?

The US government didn't figure out there was a problem until a month later, so: Guess not?

Edited January 13, 2022 by Zonk

[mojoween]

5 hours ago, SnarkShark said:

She's smart, calm and seems competent at most things.

He seems like a basket case. 

I mean, in the clip they showed in their matching pajamas at home, he was jiggling his ass right next to his daughter’s head.

YEEEESSSSS the prancing when they got into the venue it’s just TOO MUCH.  Also, don’t argue with the professionals, you weirdo.

[Guest]

For the record, Caro said on her Instagram that she and Ray are no longer together. Whether or not that was the only reason they didn't return, I don't know.