S36.E04: Those Who Wander Are Not Lost

[Honeycocoa]

I can’t figure out how to insert a photo!  I have a piece of a Starbucks cup with the quote

The way I see it #186

“The world is smaller than you think and the people are more beautiful.” - Bertram van Munster Emmy award winning executive producer/director

i don’t know how long it’s been stuck on my fridge, but it’s very cool to hear it as a detour. 

[Irlandesa]

4 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

I guess Danny isn’t conflicted about getting help.

No but I don't think he ever did feel conflicted.  He wanted to help/work with someone last week.  It was his mother who put the kibosh on that.

I felt sorry, a tid, for the nurses.  They had victory right in their grasp but their lack of Spanish cost them.  I had to laugh when Ricky and Cesar were talking about what helped them stay strong this round.  All the things they said were good but, in this case, it was literally the ability to communicate with the locals.  After that, they got to "con permiso" their way to the pit stop.  I like them a lot and think they're running a good race but so far, they're also a little lucky their skills have also happened to nicely align with the tasks. 

[Haleth]

Wow, these teams are hard to watch.  Between the snipping at each other and the stupidity it's hard to find a team to root for.  So far the only ones I'm really enjoying are Ricky and Cesar.  They've lucked out by having several challenges be right up their alley and speaking fluent Spanish helps, but they also run their own race with minimal drama.  (For now.)  The pilots are ok and the GFs are ok, but everyone else can leave now.  The firefighters certainly lucked out by catching up to racers who can't read a map.  Who goes on a show about travel without being able to read a map?

Maybe I'll root for the dog who followed the rules on the escalator.

Bizzy and Sunny had me in stitches with their random guesses of the puzzle phrase.  Also loved Phil breaking character when the jump rope hit the camera.  That'll make the cut!

[Browncoat]

It will be very interesting to see what happens with Ricky and Cesar when they are no longer in a country where the primary language is Spanish.

[Notabug]

1 hour ago, Browncoat said:

It will be very interesting to see what happens with Ricky and Cesar when they are no longer in a country where the primary language is Spanish.

Spoiler

Alas, according to the list we've gotten, the entire race occurs in countries where Spanish is the primary spoken language except for Barbados, where English is the primary language.  These guys lucked into the perfect itinerary for their language skills.

 

[Kelda Feegle]

Phil jumping rope is everything! 

Kish and Kash are annoying, especially with the tears.

Something really bothers me about vinnie.

[iMonrey]

11 hours ago, chaifan said:

And hey, I was wrong, the girlfriends survived.  But, damn, they really had a loser edit there in the beginning. 

Not to be didactic, but I assume you mean Sunny and Bizzy, who are not "girlfriends" in the dating sense if that's what you meant. Yvonne and Melissa are the dating couple. 

There hasn't been a whole lot of placement shakeup so far this season. I can't decided if that's because of the starting groups or because there are just consistently stronger and weaker teams. Probably a bit of both. The only real movement this leg was Angie and Danny who jumped from 9th to 3rd. Ricky and Cesar remained first, Amber and Vinny remained second, Rod and Leticia remained fourth, Juan and Shane remained fifth. Derek and Shelisa fell from third to sixth, Yvonne and Melissa dropped from sixth the seventh, while Sunny and Bizzy and Kishori and Karishma both dropped one spot from seventh and eighth to eighth and ninth. 

The Detour really did seem lopsided, I would never have tried the dancing in a million years and the puzzle seemed ridiculously easy until Sunny and Bizzy got there. But I thought the Roadblock was a good one.

So, that's one less racer who's terrified of heights and decided going on The Amazing Race was a good idea anyway. I kind of wondered if they just ended up giving Michelle the answers since they were out anyway. She seemed hopelessly lost and it was dark outside.

Edited April 4 by iMonrey

[sugarbaker design]

12 hours ago, Browncoat said:

The earth I find than we think?  WTF?

Look, a cursive E.  It's the symbol for ohm.  WTF!!!!

[chaifan]

15 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Not to be didactic, but I assume you mean Sunny and Bizzy, who are not "girlfriends" in the dating sense if that's what you meant. Yvonne and Melissa are the dating couple. 

Nope.  I meant the actual girlfriends - Yvonne & Melissa.  We've barely seen them until this episode, and in the first 15-20 minutes they were getting a lot of talking head time.  There was just something about it that made me think they were going to be eliminated. 

This was all prior to the firefighters rebus-blunder.  Holy hell.  I will admit the mouse and magnifying glass were weird, as was the mirror, but they were just in another universe on what they were doing. 

[shura]

26 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Look, a cursive E.  It's the symbol for ohm.  WTF!!!!

Right? Btw, it’s not the symbol for ohm either. That would be the capital omega.

[Tango64]

The firefighters were killing me with the rebus guesses. I'm not sure they even know how a rebus works. They were just getting vague and mostly incorrect hints from the images, then filling in with whatever popped in their heads.

"The world is.... the world is.. A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE AND WE SHOULD ALL BE THANKFUL TO LIVE IN SUCH A GREAT PLACE!!! That's it! That's it!"

 

Edited April 4 by Tango64
typo

[Notabug]

1 hour ago, Kelda Feegle said:

Phil jumping rope is everything! 

Kish and Kash are annoying, especially with the tears.

Something really bothers me about vinnie.

A lot of things really bother me about Vinnie.  He kept saying 'I NEED you to run faster' to Amber as though she is somehow not moving fast enough just to tick him off.  And that she has an obligation to meet his 'needs' even when they are unrealistic.  Then, in the cab, very passive agressive BS as he 'helped' her realize that it was her anxiety and insecurity that caused the problem, not his constant badgering of her to perform according to his standards and his unwillingness to accept that she was doing the best she could and it was not physically possible for her to move as fast as him.  The gaslighting was right there for all to see as she was essentially burdened with changing her response to his bullying.  I was happy to hear her say that she did the statue challenge at least in part to get away from his constant harassment, but I have a feeling that is their dynamic.

Amber needs to run far away once the race is over; this guy is going to cut her down anytime he feels she is not meeting his standards.

Edited April 4 by Notabug

[david gideon]

I thought they spent an awful lot of time with the hang-gliding open. And they ran the full intro complete with all the team names, which helped fill more time (gotta find that extra 30m somewhere). But the jump-rope at the end made the episode.

[proserpina65]

14 hours ago, dizzyd said:

He couldn’t do the coffee steps but had not problem with paragliding.

They had an experienced pilot with them, right?  Maybe that made a difference.  I'm afraid of heights, but I think I could do something like paragliding with another person piloting.

14 hours ago, chaifan said:

Yeah, they are not close in any way.  I can't think of other detours that were so lopsided. 

Except it turned out to be much less lopsided for some of the racers.

14 hours ago, chaifan said:

Yeah!  Botero Plaza!  I looovvvve Botero!

Not quite my cuppa, but I think it's cool to have the whole plaza dedicated to a specific artist I've actually heard of.  I did really like the giant gato sculpture.

[proserpina65]

14 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The incessant pop-up ads for Elsbeth are annoyingly intrusive.

I honestly cannot stand that woman.

14 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Is the prize cash taxable?

All game show prizes are taxable.

14 hours ago, Browncoat said:

More helping?  Stop with the helping already!

I'm fine with teams helping each other, up until the next to last leg anyway.  As long as they're at least somewhat strategic.

14 hours ago, WatcherUp2 said:

Is the person not doing the task allowed to be that involved with the other team they've decided to work with? I kind of hope they get dinged for it.

As long as they're not actually doing the task or giving suggestions to the team member who is, I think it's fine.

13 hours ago, WatcherUp2 said:

They're gonna burn ME out. I have very little goodwill left toward them. I was yelling "There's no crying in Amazing Race!" when the tall one was blubbering.

I did the same thing.

 

[chaifan]

11 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

They had an experienced pilot with them, right?  Maybe that made a difference.  I'm afraid of heights, but I think I could do something like paragliding with another person piloting.

Oh, hell yes, there was an experienced pilot with those paragliders.  Otherwise, we would have seen each one plummet to their deaths.  I actually did paragliding in that exact spot.  My pilot was fabulous!  I don't have an issue with heights, and every time he asked if I wanted to go higher, I was all Yes! Higher! 

 

[iMonrey]

1 hour ago, Tango64 said:

The firefighters were killing me with the rhombus guesses. I'm not sure they even know how a rebus works.

I'm so old I remember the game show "Concentration" so that's how I know how rebus puzzles work. I thought this was a fairly easy one, but the two things that could trip you up were the magnifying glass (smaller or bigger? or larger?) and the mirror (me or us?) so it might take multiple tries. But boy, Sunny and Bizzy weren't even close.

[Netfoot]

"The world is waiting..." was my initial guess and I'm sorry it wasn't, but I suppose that would have been a little short/easy. Or maybe not.

I think I have seen the end of TAR. It will be killed by a lack of suitably smart people to compete. The dumb-ass youth of today are making the race impossible.

"TH" plus "E" gives "This". Or "That". Or "Photosynthesis". 

(Standing in front of a huge map) "Where's the map?"

Building right in front of you made from black & white stones is depicted clearly on the map. So, let's call that The Museum, which is actually located way over there! It's the best way to get every single statue wrong, time and time again, until night falls!

(From last week) "I don't know who Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor are!" Ever heard of Henry VIII? Mao Zedong? Ludwig van Beethoven? Anyone who doesn't have a Twitter account? This is what you get when your university graduates don't know that a dozen is not ten!

I do think that the opening parasailing "just for fun" and not part of the race was pretty cool.  And Phil jumping rope was pretty cool as well, but then Phil is a cool guy. I thought Multi-hat guy would hand them out -- not sure why he had them if not for that purpose. Or is multi-hatting an actual thing?

The teams are still undifferentiated. No team(s) to love, no team(s) to hate. They're just all the same:  Dumb. But I'm sure that in an episode or two when they start to burn out, one or two will show themselves to be dumb and nasty!

[Fukui San]

2 hours ago, shura said:

Right? Btw, it’s not the symbol for ohm either. That would be the capital omega.

The firefighters would see the Omega symbol and take it for the Lulu Lemon logo.  

I'm so glad the firefighters tried the Rebus puzzle. It was hilarious, and if they hadn't I'd have been so angry at the lopsidedness of the Detour. I was dumbfounded that so many teams thought the dance would be better. If you have some background in dance, sure, but I'd have thought anyone else should have puzzled. But that was before I'd met the firefighters.

Edited April 4 by Fukui San

[Haleth]

20 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

. I thought Multi-hat guy would hand them out -- not sure why he had them if not for that purpose. Or is multi-hatting an actual thing?

I always wondered how the producers find the greeters. Do the local authorities they work with suggest someone?  Do the producers grab someone off the street?

[sugarbaker design]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

"TH" plus "E" gives "This". Or "That". Or "Photosynthesis". 

Duh, it's TH + E = Thohm.

[tinkerbell]

I had an irrational dislike for Amber, I couldn't figure out why. Normally I would be sympathetic to a woman whose partner keeps telling her to move faster.

Then it hit me. The resemblance to Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

[eel2178]

6 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Look, a cursive E.  It's the symbol for ohm.  WTF!!!!

2 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Duh, it's TH + E = Thohm.

They were referring to the equation for Ohm's Law of Electricity.

[eel2178]

19 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

I liked Random Escalator Dog.

We saw a Reclining Feline also.

[eel2178]

19 hours ago, chaifan said:

Vinny and Amber are getting on my nerves.

The You Got This count at the roadblock was 14 (that we heard). Five of those were from Vinny when Amber had no competition there at the same time.

[eel2178]

18 hours ago, dizzyd said:

I only just realized the title quote is one of team fire’s ridiculous guesses. 

I have serious concerns about their problem solving skills on the job.

[Hera]

7 hours ago, Kelda Feegle said:

Something really bothers me about vinnie.

Same. He stressed me out even when he was saying supportive things to Amber. It just never seemed sincere to me—it was like he was making a concerted effort for the cameras.

But then again, what do I know? After all, the world is bigger than your evil thoughts.

[chaifan]

16 hours ago, eel2178 said:

I have serious concerns about their problem solving skills on the job.

As long as there aren't pictorals involved in firefighting, I guess they'd be ok.

They would make horrible Handmaids, though.  Can you see them grocery shopping?  Hey, here's a can with a picture of an ear of corn on it.  What could it possibly be?  hmmm... corn, corny, husks, husky, ears...  Yes!  It must be a can of bad jokes about fat people's ears! 

Edited April 5 by chaifan

[susannot]

The dancing challenge was very entertaining.  I thought Juan and Rod were the best dancers.  Loved the Gato sculpture.

[iMonrey]

5 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

19 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The incessant pop-up ads for Elsbeth are annoyingly intrusive.

I honestly cannot stand that woman.

I don't know anything about the show itself or the actress/character. It could have been any show they were promoting. The problem is that The Amazing Race is a very visual show. This isn't the show you want to have something pop up and cover the bottom of the screen constantly. 

[choclatechip45]

The highlight was paragliding and Phil double dutching. The rest was meh.  

[sugarbaker design]

1 hour ago, eel2178 said:

They were referring to the equation for Ohm's Law of Electricity.

They were still wrong!

[dgpolo]

57 minutes ago, susannot said:

The dancing challenge was very entertaining.  I thought Juan and Rod were the best dancers.  Loved the Gato sculpture.

I thought Shelisa was really very good. I think the judge was more forgiving for the dancers that were more enthusiastic.

[susannot]

2 hours ago, dgpolo said:

I thought Shelisa was really very good. I think the judge was more forgiving for the dancers that were more enthusiastic.

You're right, she was amazing.  And her husband is very handsome.  That grey head of hair really suits him well.

[J-Man]

I'm trying to imagine how the twins would've done on the rebus puzzle ...

[Roccos Brother]

There's NO way that wall puzzle was on par with the dance challenge in terms of difficulty or time required. I don't think we've ever seen a detour as unbalanced as this one. Although the firefighters did prove it was possible to botch the puzzle - it was funny to watch at first, but then became sad and pathetic. Kudos to them for getting the dance challenge on the first try, further adding to the irony.

Sorry, but I'm team Vinnie on this one. I know it's easy to judge from the comfort of home and we can never know what it's really like to be there -- but I really got the impression that it was less of an issue of Amber not being able to keep up, and more that she just didn't like feeling pressured into it; like the "racing" aspect was just a choice and not the obvious practical thing to do. They're both young and healthy-looking, running through crowded city streets, and only one of them was carrying any weight on his/her back.

Edited April 5 by Roccos Brother

[Quilt Fairy]

13 hours ago, Netfoot said:

(From last week) "I don't know who Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor are!" Ever heard of Henry VIII? Mao Zedong? Ludwig van Beethoven? Anyone who doesn't have a Twitter account? This is what you get when your university graduates don't know that a dozen is not ten!

Don't forget about the current Survivor season where Jelinski insisted - insisted! - that everyone knows that "several hours" meant "seven hours". 

But I have had a slight change of heart about the Twins' Elizabeth Taylor remark when it occurred to me, as a comparable example, that although I have heard of Taylor Swift, I could not name you a single Taylor Swift song.  (Billy Joel lyrics are a different story entirely....)

Edited April 5 by Quilt Fairy
Removed possible spoiler.

[Netfoot]

32 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Don't forget about the current Survivor season....

Which I have not watched yet...  🙁

34 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

although I have heard of Taylor Swift, I could not name you a single Taylor Swift song.

It's only within the last month or so that I learned what she looked like.

So, point taken. But there is much culture and history out there and when an entire generation knows none of it... Well, it's not a good sign for the country.

[Quilt Fairy]

19 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Which I have not watched yet... 

Oops!  I will go back and edit that. 

[SDVegas]

On 4/3/2024 at 7:42 PM, WatcherUp2 said:

Is the person not doing the task allowed to be that involved with the other team they've decided to work with? I kind of hope they get dinged for it.

What are you referring to?

[Skooma]

22 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

They had an experienced pilot with them, right?  Maybe that made a difference.  I'm afraid of heights, but I think I could do something like paragliding with another person piloting.

In one case there is the fear of falling.  In the other there is the joy of flying.  Yep, totally different.

I have vertigo.  Once up in the mountains I fell behind my friends hiking up a logging road and they didn't notice I had.  I was stumbling along like a drunk cause the up side of the cliff looked like it was tilting over on me and the drop off side looked like there was suddenly a steep slant to that drop off. 

Also it felt like a giant magnet was pulling me off.  Then the barbershop pole spinning effect started.  I tried to drop to my knees then stomach before I stumbled off the cliff but was afraid a big wind would catch me if I tried and sweep me off the side of the mountain. 

It is a very real thing.  My mind said fall down on the ground and my guts said no way.  I finally managed to drop and closed my eyes hugging the earth for about 15 minutes before the effect stopped and I could manage to get up again.  I felt for that guy last episode cause I know what he was going through.

But paragliding I could do.  It is totally different. Gravity isn't out to get you.  You aren't falling, you are soaring and floating.  Entirely different feel.

17 hours ago, eel2178 said:

They were referring to the equation for Ohm's Law of Electricity.

Where the Electromotive Force (EMF aka prime source of the voltage) is represented by the standard capital E.  Not a cursive one. 

Learn all about it here cause that formula is pretty cosmic too https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-2/voltage-current-resistance-relate/

But the one Racer was definitely referring to the Om syllable.  She said she knew what it looked like.  She didn't.  The first part of it only was what she was really referring too and not the whole syllable and it more closely looks like the number 3 than a cursive E which faces the other way. 

11 hours ago, Roccos Brother said:

There's NO way that wall puzzle was on par with the dance challenge in terms of difficulty or time required. I don't think we've ever seen a detour as unbalanced as this one.

There have been plenty and the Detour choices are NOT suppose to be balanced anyway.  The so-called balanced ones are made to play to strengths and weaknesses on teams so they are never truly balanced.

And sometimes the more simple ones are miles away or have to be found wandering crowded and confused streets where the harder ones are right at hand. 

In the early days some were the scary/chicken ones.  Fast but scary or slow but steady.  Like when the legendary Flo (Season 3) freaked out over rappelling down a cliff face so forcing her and Zach to switch to the "hike" down the slower walking trail to the bottom instead.

[One Imaginary Girl]

OK, this is probably mean of me, but I chuckled that Danny went to the trouble of pronouncing Spanish with the accent but kept calling one of the Botero sculptures "Mujer con Esposa" (Woman with WIfe) instead of "Mujer con Espejo" (Woman with Mirror).

[smartymarty]

22 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

All game show prizes are taxable.

Yes, just ask Richard Hatch, Survivor season 1.

From Wikipedia: Hatch was convicted also on January 25, 2006, by jury with two counts of attempted tax evasion and one count of signing a fraudulent tax return for not paying taxes on about $1.4 million: his past Survivor winnings, his $321,000 earnings as a co-host of a Boston radio show, and $28,000 rental property.[36][37][38] According to investigation, he hired two different accountants in 2001 and 2002 to prepare his tax returns that would have reflected his Survivor winnings. Rather than file either return, he filed a return that did not reflect the winnings.[39] He pleaded guilty to two of those counts before the conviction.[40] He served 51-month sentence in federal prison, particularly Federal Correctional Institution, Morgantown,[1] and his release was under three-year supervision.[37]

[iMonrey]

9 hours ago, Netfoot said:

9 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Don't forget about the current Survivor season....

Which I have not watched yet...  🙁

Do yourself a favor: Don't.

[bioprof]

“Sorry, but I'm team Vinnie on this one. I know it's easy to judge from the comfort of home and we can never know what it's really like to be there -- but I really got the impression that it was less of an issue of Amber not being able to keep up, and more that she just didn't like feeling pressured into it; like the "racing" aspect was just a choice and not the obvious practical thing to do. They're both young and healthy-looking, running through crowded city streets, and only one of them was carrying any weight on his/her back.“

 

 

Totally agree. Amber actually said, during the art challenge, “ oh no, I guess I have to run again”.  Seriously! Amber, dear, it’s, well, you know, a RACE!  It must be exhausting to have to cater to her self doubt issues.  I thought Vinnie handled it the best he could under the circumstances. Why the heck did she sign up for this if she doesn’t like the race aspect of it?

[realitytvfan1017]

I'm a big Amazing Race fan but personally I find this season a little boring. I get why it's all the pandemic protocols as this was filmed before what we saw as season 35. But after being given a post pandemic season, it's hard to go back. It is saved by some of the fun cast members like:

Danny, the cousins, the grandparents, and Cesar and Ricky. 

[dizzyd]

This is why we love The Race

[susannot]

BEST reality TV show ever.  SO much better than Survivor.

[North of Eden]

Not sure why Vinnie and Amber want an alliance with a team that has one foot in the grave the first time there is  a physical roadblock the Mother has to do.

Speaking of the nurses Couple Counseling in a Cab as hard to watch as there was something uncomfortable about the way he was trying to manage Amber.

I usually don't like teams helping each other but I felt the women at the end should have tried to team up like the athlete/top gun did when the firefighters showed up.

Very happy. I was not ready for Team Double K Cousins to go. I know they can't win but I'm rooting for them anyway. They are bumblers but I like them.

On the other hand, I was completely ready for Firefighters to go. They provide zero entertainment value as do their clones The Girlfriends team.

I almost blew my beverage out my nose when Phil said "Medine has a checkered past."  You think?! I wonder if the cartels are really gone or just lying low like cockroaches.

Breakin' you can't get more 80's than that! So it surprised me when it was said to be 50 years old. I have zero recollection of it being a thing in the mid 70's.

There is something very reassuring about Phil's casting calls. There were so many years CBS did wrong by the show...moving it around all over the board including putting a family show on at the deathslot of 10pm Tuesday and yet it STILL beat the odds and got viewers or just doing one cycle a year. And of course I have to mention as I always do their stubborn refusal to do a Re-Union show!

Edited April 6 by North of Eden

[seacliffsal]

10 hours ago, susannot said:

BEST reality TV show ever.  SO much better than Survivor.

I like both shows for different reasons.  I understand that many also think that Phil is a superior host to Jeff, but, as much as the shows are different so are the hosting responsibilities of the shows.  The shows inherently demand different sets of skills and strategies which is why I thoroughly enjoy both of them.  When I was (much) younger I also applied to both shows (and obviously never received a call [what were they thinking?]).  

So, count me in for enjoying both shows and both hosts.