S26.E05: Get in That Lederhosen, Baby (Bavaria)

[truthaboutluv]

All that convinced me of was that Blair was really good at pushing Hayley's buttons and getting her to lose it.

 

 

Or she's just a shrieking harpy who really is a little nuts. I know reality show contestants love using the old standby "editing" excuse when portrayed in a poor light and one can always argue the "what we didn't see", so maybe this happened or that. But honestly, I always just go with what was shown and what was shown in this episode was Hayley just digging in and belittling this man repeatedly with him not responding and saying anything to her. 

 

I may be willing to consider that Blair did something to push Hayley's button but you know what I think it actually may be - that he refuses to engage her. It's as simple as that. And so she will poke and poke because she's trying to get a reaction which he will not give her. I understand this because it reminds me of my relationship with my sister. I'm an introvert, like I suspect Blair is. And so I internalize a lot, I hate confrontations, I avoid them like the plague and I usually just shut down when I feel overwhelmed or annoyed like Blair probably is by Hayley. My sister, total opposite, complete drama queen and when we have any disagreement on any minor issue, she will poke and poke and poke until I finally explode because she wants the reaction. It bugs her when I just calmly stare back and say nothing. 

 

And I feel like that's what Hayley is doing with Blair and as someone who has lived that kind of stuff, it's awful and downright abusive to be the one on the receiving end of it. She did nothing but snap at him, belittle his efforts (see her snarky response to his getting the clue when he sang the song), yell at him, go on and on about how he was bugging her and how so annoying he is when she's the one bitching and yelling and he's saying nothing. And the more he continues to say nothing, the more it annoys and drives her crazy and the more of a screeching harpy she'll be. 

 

The contempt he has for Hayley is palpable, deserved or not.

 

 

At this point it's deserved in my opinion and it should be palpable because she deserves it. No one should have to put up with and accept being belittled and yelled at and insulted at every opportunity. She's a bitch to him, plain and simple and as someone who called out Blair's faults, I will argue that none of what he's previously done to her was deserving of how she's acting right now. 

 

I don't feel like without Hayley, Blair would suddenly turn into a witty, gregarious person and be able to live up to his full potential. She's loud and obnoxious, but he's supercilious and dull.

 

 

I don't know about anyone else but I don't need Blair to be witty or exciting and I certainly don't think that being stuck with Hayley on the blind date from hell is what's stopping him from being a super exciting personality and interesting racer. I imagine he would still be as quiet and likely not very memorable if he was running the race with someone else. And at best he'd just be one of those I forget is on the race but I'd take that over watching him be constantly screeched and yelled at by the obnoxious harpy. 

 

I posted in the Blair/Haley thread as well, but I truly want to know the examples of Blair being mean/condescending or rotten to Haley in the first epi.

 

 

I will say this, I did think he seemed uninterested and even slightly annoyed with her right at the start when she was blabbering on and on in the car. That said, I sort of sympathized with them both in that situation because as an introvert, I recognized Blair's reaction to someone talking nonstop. I do that "please go away" tense body language with people like that, especially ones I've just met, as was the case with him and Hayley. That being said, I felt at the time that Hayley was just nervous and was talking nonstop to cover it up and to make up for how much Blair was not saying. 

 

The mistake at the train station, Blair never demanded that he was right. They disagreed about it and he said he was sure and turns out he was wrong. He laughed awkwardly and told her she was right and then they kept moving. The worse example on Blair's part was really the food zip-line task where he really did just dismiss Hayley's valid questions and concerns and then turns out she was right. And when she was right, he said nothing while she yelled repeatedly about it. 

 

While I was the first to say at the start of the season that Blair was being somewhat dismissive, at this point, I actually can't say he has ever said or done a single thing to Hayley that comes close to the level of verbal abuse and rude behavior she has thrown at him in the last few episodes. She yells, she belittles, she nags and it just doesn't seem to stop ever.

Edited April 5, 2015 by truthaboutluv

[etagloh]

hearing Tyler / Laura's comments about Hayley confirmed to me that there's a fair amount of truth there.

 

We're not really meant to comment on bonus clips in episode threads, so I'll just say this: while they are, of course, selected from hours of footage, this week's in particular show that some (even) more fractious exchanges from the blind date teams are left out, along with some other comments on Hayley. 'The Amazing Argument' would be terrible television, so there's good reason to cut that stuff, but If anything, the editing's softer on the blind-daters, perhaps to reflect the season's gimmick.

[selkie]

My suspicions about one or two unplanned NELs are that they happened because something went wrong enough that production figured that it was better to go that 'nuclear' option than to have to take a lot of time to figure out time credits and then reshooting the correct mat order and have that put them behind on further legs. There are places they've gone that don't have good daily flight options, and an unexpected six hour delay on leg six trying to fix the leg can mean everyone will miss the only reasonable  airline and flight routing acceptable to the insurance company into Ouagadougou that's going out in the next two days and screw up the whole timeline for the rest of filming.

 

I see that kind of scenario as fair to all the Racers because production isn't intentionally favoring or punishing any particular team.

 

I'm not sure if the game show laws apply to competition reality shows but suspect that the producers do follow them for the most part because 1) a hit show is valuable to their company and credible allegations of faking it would harm a valuable property and b) if a case alleging producer fraud and faking things ever did hit the courts, there's no guarantee how the lawsuit would turn out. 

 

So it's in their own best interests to run an honest competition in general so they'll do just that.

[henripootel]

However, the hive-mind consensus regarding TAR in particular and competitive reality shows in general seems to include the following:

This is indeed the collective perception.  On the other hand, Linda Holmes (Miss Alli from the old TWoP, who is a lawyer) wrote an article once about the quiz show rules and how they may or may not apply to reality tv (Survivor in particular) [ETA: Found it].  The gist (if I recall) it isn't clear that they do at all and absolutely nobody is keen to find out.  Conventional wisdom aside, there's basically no reason to think these shows can't be scripted, in part or from start to finish.  This doesn't mean that they are scripted, but it does mean that they are almost certainly not in the same category as 'games of apparent skill or chance', like actual quiz shows.  Survivor (or Amazing Race, another Burnett property) may be wholly or partially scripted and not a law is broken, which may also explain the lengthy, detailed NDAs contestants must sign (part of which, I seem to recall, includes language that says basically 'the producers can change the rules whenever they want').

 

Now, I'm not saying that the Amazing producers do change things on the fly, but it does seem pretty clear that notion that they are forbidden to do so is a myth.  My guess is that they don't do so often, but changing a pre-planned NEL into an elimination leg?  Absolutely.  I mean how could they not, if this last leg was supposed to be an NEL?  Those guys just gave up - no way are they gonna give them a pass.  

 

I'm not sure if the game show laws apply to competition reality shows but suspect that the producers do follow them for the most part because 1) a hit show is valuable to their company and credible allegations of faking it would harm a valuable property and b) if a case alleging producer fraud and faking things ever did hit the courts, there's no guarantee how the lawsuit would turn out.

If the quiz show rules don't apply then there's nothing to be worried about from a legal point of view.  There is the notion that, should it become common knowledge that all competitive reality shows are not entirely kosher to one degree or another, people might stop watching them.  This is a real risk, but you can also invert the logic - big shows like this, they can't afford to just leave everything to chance and hope for the best.  On this show (as you say, selkie) it could lead to logistical nightmares.  But my bet is that you're right - for the most part, the let it play out.  

Edited April 5, 2015 by henripootel

[90PercentGravity]

FWIW, I wasn't suggesting that they would change a non-elim to an elim leg. I was saying that since Kurt & Berggan (or whatever) quit, they would have been out either way, so it would have been nice if it was a non-elim and Phil could basically have said "hey, all you had to do was finish, but since you couldn't even bother to do that, you're out." I imagine even in a non-elim leg the rules still require the racers to finish the leg.

[interesting]

Hayley, 5 Gs girl, 5 Gs.  Good God Get a Grip Girl!!!!!!

 

Then there was his utterly and condescendingly blowing off her totally valid complaint about reading the clue instead of just doing what the team before them did in the zip line task. Even in this episode, he was a smug and condescending jerk to her about proper stein-holding technique.           

Perhaps if she listened to him instead of dismissing him, they would have made through that challenge and went to the roadblock instead of wasting time changing because she's the useless one?
 

All that convinced me of was that Blair was really good at pushing Hayley's buttons and getting her to lose it.

I too thought in the first episode, that they were both nervous, probably trying to feel each other out, and perhaps he's being dismissive, and she's a little too excited.  BUT I have since changed my mind, she is a downright shrieking harpy who won't shuts the hell up.  No matter what he does, he can't talk to other people, he can't do something without her commenting on it.  He hasn't been rude to her AT ALL, dismissive does not equal rude to me, and there's no condescension there just because he thinks he's right and she's wrong, that doesn't make him condescending, otherwise, Hayley would be the condescending one because she's always the one to point out that she's right all the time, even when she's wrong!   I definitely laughed out loud when he said to her "I just crave conversation with happy people" while trying to ask Tyler what was up with him and Laura waiting outside and she keeps shrieking to him "why are you asking them?"

 

I still love them, and wish for them to stay because I think his blank passive responses to her are hilarious, "I don't know who you are arguing with anymore" to the above mentioned comment.

[John Seavey]

I'm not saying Hayley isn't her own train wreck, I'm saying that Blair is extremely passive-aggressive and just blanks her out when he thinks she's not worth listening to (which is ever--he's been doing it since they first met). Hayley gets frustrated by the lack of a reaction, and dials up her responses to try to get him to at least acknowledge her. He responds by blanking harder, which causes her to yell louder...it's a death spiral, and it's one they both bear responsibility for. You could say they bring out the worst in each other, but it's not just Hayley flipping out. Her end of things is more obvious, though--passive aggression can easily be mistaken for introversion or simple passivity, especially when they're Amazing Editing to show the more dramatic parts of the fights.

[green]

 (or Amazing Race, another Burnett property)

 

The Amazing Race is not a Burnett property and thank God for that.  It is World Wide Productions and created/produced by Bertram van Munster with his wife, Elise Doganieri.  Both of whom btw have stated publicly that non-eliminations are pre-planned and locked into place.  They aren't going to risk their franchise and cancellation by manipulating or interfering on who wins or even stays or goes in some particular leg of the Race.

Edited April 5, 2015 by green

[henripootel]

The Amazing Race is not a Burnett property and thank God for that.

Oops - right you are.  I never actually checked but assumed they were after I heard that their casting departments work together sometimes (that some folks try out for one but end up cast on the other). 

It is World Wide Productions and created/produced by Bertram van Munster with his wife, Elise Doganieri.  Both of whom have stated publicly that non-eliminations are pre-planned and locked into place.

 

And Jeff Probst says every season that the new season is 'the best ever'.  Maybe these guys aren't quite as, uh, 'media savvy' as Mr. Probst but I know enough folks 'in the biz' to take everything I read from that industry heavily salted.  Not saying they're liars but I'll bet the whole schedule for all the legs is planned and locked into place.  Until something goes wrong.  What are the odds that, in all the seasons, they've never had a leg like this last one (a logistical nightmare in the waiting) fall on a pre-planned NEL?  They must have contingency plans for this, and I think changing it to a 'normal' leg (and not being entirely honest about it) is the simplest.

Edited April 5, 2015 by henripootel

[RedheadZombie]

As many other posters have, my attempt to be supportive of Haley has evaporated.  She's quick to be offended, can't let anything drop, and freaks out constantly.  I'm starting to wonder just what job she has at her hospital.  Maybe sitting with unconscious patients and monitoring equipment?  Counting supplies to make sure something hasn't been left inside a patient?  Her hyper-ness in finding fault would be helpful then, "Doctor!  We're missing a surgical sponge.  Do NOT close up that patient until it's been found!"

 

She claims to be a pediatric trauma triage nurse.  I find that very hard to believe.  That's a position that requires analytical skills, quick thinking, and remaining calm under pressure.  The shrieking diva act and finger pointing of blame doesn't fly in that environment.

[interesting]

She claims to be a pediatric trauma triage nurse.  I find that very hard to believe.  That's a position that requires analytical skills, quick thinking, and remaining calm under pressure.  The shrieking diva act and finger pointing of blame doesn't fly in that environment.

If you head to the Blair and Hayley's thread, there's a claim in there that would explain all of Hayley's reactions very well if it is indeed true, which is that

Hayley tried to sleep with Blair on the first pit stop, and he rejected her!

 

I put that in spoiler just in case, but I just want to say that I think her behaviors even cause other teams to say something about their dynamics.  Also, the bonus clip shows the most uncomfortable and hilarious moments between Bergen and Kurt when they were waiting for the penalty stop at that warehouse.  And they were chatting with a bunch of other racers, apparently, Jenny and Jelani had a tough time too.

 

I think all team had trouble getting out of Munich (apparently one confusing city to navigate), even Blair asked all the team the same question when they were on the Mat Chat.  And the bonus clip shows how Hayley went off on Blair when they were apparently lost, which we saw that Jenny and Jelani and Mike and Rochelle also got lost.

[hincandenza]

This is indeed the collective perception.  On the other hand, Linda Holmes (Miss Alli from the old TWoP, who is a lawyer) wrote an article once about the quiz show rules and how they may or may not apply to reality tv (Survivor in particular) [ETA: Found it].  The gist (if I recall) it isn't clear that they do at all and absolutely nobody is keen to find out.  Conventional wisdom aside, there's basically no reason to think these shows can't be scripted, in part or from start to finish.  This doesn't mean that they are scripted, but it does mean that they are almost certainly not in the same category as 'games of apparent skill or chance', like actual quiz shows.  Survivor (or Amazing Race, another Burnett property) may be wholly or partially scripted and not a law is broken, which may also explain the lengthy, detailed NDAs contestants must sign (part of which, I seem to recall, includes language that says basically 'the producers can change the rules whenever they want').

 

Thanks for that, it was a really interesting read.  We're getting a bit far afield from the episode thread, but might as well add my last two cents.  I tend to interpret that a little differently; Ms. Holmes focuses on the narrow definition of "intellectual skill" which is in some of the text, but the title of the law itself is "Prohibited practices in contests of knowledge, skill, or chance", which sounds like the fundamental elements of most every reality competition show.  Even by the narrow definition- and not to blow smoke up its butt- I'd say "Survivor" for example has a lot in common with poker, which could easily be classified as a contest of intellectual skill (memorizing odds, computing percentages, planning strategies, reading your opponent).  By extension, given the amount of chance, the necessary skills, and the number of mentally taxing or involved challenges from memorization to puzzle solving... so would TAR.  Twenty One wouldn't have suddenly become legitimate if they'd played it on the beach instead of in a TV studio.

 

Ms. Holmes also mentions the category for "contests as advertised" that would seem more applicable to local radio and TV call-in prize competitions, but simply adding layers of intermediaries- show runners, production companies, distributors, networks, affiliates- shouldn't be a defense against running what amounts to a rigged contest.  Sure, just like pro wrestling, some reality shows are clearly fake to any reasonable person or are for entertainment value only- and these are the ones that have no real monetary prize being offered other than scale pay; dating a D-list celebrity or fellow LA mactor is not a "prize" to anyone except a particularly hands-on sort of epidemiologist specializing in the study of STDs.  However, shows that present themselves as actual competitions and entice viewers to audition (The Voice, Face-Off, Survivor, TAR, etc), for which they are choosing to make a potentially drastic lifestyle change in return for TV exposure and a fair chance to win the stated prize(s), would absolutely seem to be covered by these laws.  But regardless of the criminal/FCC violations, any egregious example would and should expose producers to meaningful civil suits; a famous example of this was the Hooter's manager who had a waitress contest for a "Toy yoda" and ended up having to buy a car for the winner, since the waitresses rightly had a reasonable expectation that their extra effort was in return for a defined chance at winning a new car. 

 

What's notable to me is that there haven't been any such suits that I've heard of, in 15+ years of watching reality competition TV.   I just think it's highly unlikely that it happens, and highly unlikely that it wouldn't fall under some of the varying laws Ms. Holmes mentioned if a case was pushed.  There's no motivation- these shows are edited after they finish taping; the people running the shows don't know mid-season or mid-race who will win, much less who will be "audience favorites", so why influence the outcome before they've finalized the narrative arcs they plan on presenting to us.  There's no benefit either, since as millions of sports fans have shown the natural outcome of a well-designed game is inherently dramatic, as often as not.  And that's live; these shows are culling from thousands of hours of footage, and we've seen editors wring Shakespearean drama and generate thousands of chest-pounding Internet comments off the most pointless and trivial things such as personal hygiene or the ability to read a map.  Lastly, the shows themselves- and I'm sure Mark Burnett can and does have some pretty expensive lawyers- sure seem to believe they are under these guidelines, as the case of "Our Little Genius" showed.  I suspect that if we did get an egregious case, those fancy contracts and NDAs wouldn't matter, and both civil and criminal precedent would be refined and updated to encompass broader formats.

 

Like you said, nobody is keen to find out.  Giving food to someone on Survivor might be necessary for medical or other legitimate reasons; changing a leg to a NEL when you see who finishes last is not.  I think the TV producers know better than to do anything to push those boundaries or outright change the outcome of the game, because they strongly suspect the law won't rule in their favor either criminally or civilly if it went to court.

 

And with that, I'll go back to lurking on this thread and reading only, since I didn't mean to be soooo verbose. :)

[kingshearte]

My suspicions about one or two unplanned NELs are that they happened because something went wrong enough that production figured that it was better to go that 'nuclear' option than to have to take a lot of time to figure out time credits and then reshooting the correct mat order and have that put them behind on further legs. There are places they've gone that don't have good daily flight options, and an unexpected six hour delay on leg six trying to fix the leg can mean everyone will miss the only reasonable  airline and flight routing acceptable to the insurance company into Ouagadougou that's going out in the next two days and screw up the whole timeline for the rest of filming.

Except that they would still need to sort out the order and times so they could all be released at the appropriate times the next leg. Plus, it's my understanding that while a standard pit stop is 12 hours, they have been known to extend that for various reasons, but always by a multiple of 12 hours so it doesn't really look off to us. But if you remember that a team arrived in the middle of the afternoon, and it's 2:12 pm when they start the next one (rather than am), you can guess that the pit stop was extended.

 

FWIW, I wasn't suggesting that they would change a non-elim to an elim leg. I was saying that since Kurt & Berggan (or whatever) quit, they would have been out either way, so it would have been nice if it was a non-elim and Phil could basically have said "hey, all you had to do was finish, but since you couldn't even bother to do that, you're out." I imagine even in a non-elim leg the rules still require the racers to finish the leg.

That's actually often an indication of a non-elim. When one team is so far behind that we all know they couldn't possibly not be last, but Phil doesn't show up for a field elimination, more often than not, it turns out to be a non-elim, to preserve the correct departure time structure for the following leg. I've been wrong on that a few times, and teams have gotten eliminated when I suspected they might not, but if he shows up in the field, you know it's over. And in this case, I'm so damn glad. Those two were such a casting fail.

[justawatcher]

I appreciate everyone's well thought out lawyerly arguments. However, I am going to add in this, heard third hand from my mother.

 

She knows a contestant from a cooking show (leaving the name of the show out and there are enough of them that I can keep it out). The contestant was told (paraphrase): It's your week to go. Would you rather have an accident with your dish or harsh editing and a completed dish?" Or to that effect. Whether the chick was telling the truth or not, I don't know, but I do know my mom is one of those impeccable rule followers, so if that's what she was told, she would take it as the absolute truth until proven otherwise.

 

Also, with respect to the Amazing Race, in Season 23, when the former football players got eliminated by airplane, I ask you, really? In this day and age, you're telling me you couldn't get from Santiago Chile to Lisbon Portgual before everyone else finished? BS. We're talking two national capitals, both with direct flights in and out of the United States as an alternate route. I never bought that one. And mom, the truth seeking no-liar commented, "Guess it was their week to drop the food".

[zoey1996]

I gotta know-Did Jerry Bruckheimer call in a chit from Disney to borrow Elsa on this leg? #Frozen

I don't know what that means - why would you think that?

[justawatcher]

 

 

 

I gotta know-Did Jerry Bruckheimer call in a chit from Disney to borrow Elsa on this leg? #Frozen

I don't know what that means - why would you think that?

 

The chick at the Winter Wonderland detour with the reindeer at her side looked an awful lot like the character Elsa from Frozen.

[kili]

Hayley gets frustrated by the lack of a reaction, and dials up her responses to try to get him to at least acknowledge her. He responds by blanking harder, which causes her to yell louder...it's a death spiral, and it's one they both bear responsibility for. You could say they bring out the worst in each other, but it's not just Hayley flipping out.

 

He's trying to dial down the drama. Is he supposed to start yelling at her? Nagging her for every mistake? Should he have spent 2 hours nattering at her because she mispronounced Schieserlee? "You were wrong and I was right?" What's the solution here? Blair is calmly trying not to escalate things.  I highly doubt she would deal well with him blowing up at her or returning her abuse.

 

He's tried acknowledging his mistakes. He's tried letting her lead. He's tried doing as she has demanded. He's tried letting the abuse roll of his back.  Even when he does something right all on his own like singing the song, she snarks at him.  She belittles his suggestions. Rants at him every time he does something wrong. She snaps at him when he asks for directions and rages at him when he doesn't magically know where they are going.

 

Nobody should be subjected to that level of verbal abuse she has heaped on him.

[needschocolate]

I don't know if they can legally change a leg ending, but, from a practical standpoint, changing a non-elim leg into a regular leg would be no big deal, but it would be rather cumbersome to have the ability to change a regular leg to a non-elim.  This would mean that they would have to have speed bumps ready to go on each leg, other than the first, so that they could change the previous leg into a non-elim to save their favorite teams.  

 

I thought the first rule was : Read the clue .

 

First rule of going on TAR - Learn to drive stick shift

Second rule of going on TAR - Learn to swim.

 

First rule of being on TAR - Read the clue

Second rule of being on TAR - Never take off your fanny pack.

 

If you are going to take off your fanny pack to get comfortable or make a wardrobe change or for any other reason, then clip your pack onto you partners pack or onto your belt loop - Never, ever let it be not attached to your team in some way.  

 

I like the team that lost the fanny pack and was not fond of Kurt and Bergen, but I still wish the lost fanny pack would have been in Kurt and Bergen's abandoned car, just to see what would have happened.  Would fanny pack losers have to wander all over town looking for the car?

 

They obviously quit and didn't plan on ever racing again, but it seems to me that Kurt and Bergen didn't "officially quit" the race but got a "mercy elimination."  I want to know how many hours of penalties they would have gotten had they stayed in the race.  They took a two hour penalty because they wouldn't/couldn't drive to the task, but then the clue said for them to drive to the next task and they went back to the train - wouldn't they end up getting a penalty for not driving, then a penalty for not doing the next task or the one after that, and the one after that, and....

[selkie]

 

Also, with respect to the Amazing Race, in Season 23, when the former football players got eliminated by airplane, I ask you, really? In this day and age, you're telling me you couldn't get from Santiago Chile to Lisbon Portgual before everyone else finished? BS. We're talking two national capitals, both with direct flights in and out of the United States as an alternate route. I never bought that one. And mom, the truth seeking no-liar commented, "Guess it was their week to drop the food".

 

At some point, they changed the rules so that apparently once you book a flight, you're locked into that purchase and can't make another. (I think there was a rumor about one team booking multiple flights and this would  block other teams from getting a seat on a flight with reasonable and timely routing.)

 

So you're stuck with the airline you bought a ticket on, and many airlines have gotten quite good at 'revenue management' so their planes go out 85%+ full under normal circumstances. The down side is that when there is a kink in the system, you can get a whole bunch of flyers impacted by that kink chasing a very limited number of seats available for rebooking, and this is not easy for international routings. I've ended up one day late from Florida to Scotland because of cascading flight delays from a ground stop in Atlanta, and it literally took a fourth level customer service ninja who had the ability to rebook us on another airline 20+ minutes clicking on the keyboard to find us a routing that was only one day late and did not send us from Florida to the UK by way of San Francisco.

[John Seavey]

He's trying to dial down the drama. Is he supposed to start yelling at her? Nagging her for every mistake? Should he have spent 2 hours nattering at her because she mispronounced Schieserlee? "You were wrong and I was right?" What's the solution here? Blair is calmly trying not to escalate things.  I highly doubt she would deal well with him blowing up at her or returning her abuse.

 

He's tried acknowledging his mistakes. He's tried letting her lead. He's tried doing as she has demanded. He's tried letting the abuse roll of his back.  Even when he does something right all on his own like singing the song, she snarks at him.  She belittles his suggestions. Rants at him every time he does something wrong. She snaps at him when he asks for directions and rages at him when he doesn't magically know where they are going.

 

Nobody should be subjected to that level of verbal abuse she has heaped on him.

He hasn't tried acknowledging his mistakes at all--in fact, he's now deep in the throes of a martyr complex. And his idea of "letting her lead" is saying, "I'm just going to shut up completely and make her make all the decisions so that when we fail, it'll be her fault!" That's passive-aggression in a nutshell--deliberate passivity with the intention of blaming others for the decisions they made in the absence of useful input from you.

What should he do now? Quit the Race. The relationship is irretrievable. What should he have done three episodes when it mattered? Talk and listen, instead of ignore and condescend.

[henripootel]

 When one team is so far behind that we all know they couldn't possibly not be last, but Phil doesn't show up for a field elimination, more often than not, it turns out to be a non-elim, to preserve the correct departure time structure for the following leg.

I'm not sure this speaks to whether or not they'd change an NEL to an EL on the fly.  If people are still trying on a NEL (and not screwing up production schedules too much), my guess is that they'll let them flounder and just figure out how to bunch everyone up again later.   If it's an EL anyway, they can always just do an on-site Philimination and end it.  But there have been odd incidents.

 

Couple of years ago there was a team stuck at a physical challenge and there was no way they were ever gonna do it.  Phil showed up and commiserated briefly, but then said something along the lines of 'for the record, you've decided to withdraw from the race?'  I remember thinking 'why bother?  If they're last, they're done - doesn't matter where Phil delivers the news'.  The only way this made sense to me was that Phil was being officious - that it was an NEL but the guys were never gonna get to the Amazing mat.  So it wasn't technically a switch from a NEL to an EL, but that's what it was for all intents and purposes.  Made me wonder if that's what they did this week, the just edited out Phil going through the formalities. 

 

What's notable to me is that there haven't been any such suits that I've heard of, in 15+ years of watching reality competition TV.

 

There have been several for Survivor, this despite a lengthy and detailed NDA saying contestants have no rights to complain about anything, and in fact wave the right to complain.  Heck, the very first season (I think) had a lawsuit where a contestant claimed she got voted out cuz the producers rigged a vote.  The funny thing with that one is that the producers claimed that they would never ever interfere, drawing comments from at least one other contestant (not involved in the suit) that he got talked to all the time from PAs trying to 'suggest' who he might want to vote for.  Maybe they won't just rig the vote outright but not interfere at all?  Uh, no.

 

And mom, the truth seeking no-liar commented, "Guess it was their week to drop the food".

My guess is that on the continuum from 'utterly honest' to 'utterly fake', AR is nearer the honest end of the spectrum.  Doesn't mean they never fudge but I think they do so rarely.  Food shows, on the other hand, I hear are pretty much scripted end to end, so I'm betting your mom is right on the money.  Plenty of these shows (ANTM, Project Runway, American Idol) - they don't even seem to bother pretending to not be (at least partially) scripted.  And some of these are ostensibly about skill or knowledge, so you'd think that if the Quiz Show rules should be applied to anyone, it should be them.  Nope, nobody's interested in messing with this, and I can understand why.

Edited April 5, 2015 by henripootel

[kili]

He hasn't tried acknowledging his mistakes at all--

He did in the BTS (if anybody is suffering from the editing, it is him). It got him nowhere. While this strategy may have worked with a normal person, it has not worked with Hayley.

 

in fact, he's now deep in the throes of a martyr complex.

 

With the level of abuse he has taken, he is fully entitled to that martyr complex.

 

What should he do now? Quit the Race. The relationship is irretrievable.

 

Who cares about the relationship (there was nothing ever there)? He's in a RACE around the world.He's already invested the time and quitting the race isn't going to get him away from that harpy until the race itself is over. I can only imagine the full-blast furnace of her ire he would receive in sequesterville if he quit. At least if he stays on the race, he gets to do some interesting tasks to distract  him.

 

What should Hayley do? Stop being so abuse. It's obviously not yielding the results she wants and she's quite quickly gaining a spot in the pantheon of most abusive partners in TAR history (provided she avoids hitting Blair, Jonathon's title of most abusive is still safe).

[peachmangosteen]

He did in the BTS (if anybody is suffering from the editing, it is him).

 

What ep is the extra clip of him acknowledge his mistakes from?

[kili]

What ep is the extra clip of him acknowledge his mistakes from?

 

Here is admitting he was wrong for not listening to her in Japan

(he says that she can give him crap about it for the rest of the trip - which she obviously took literally).

[Rancide]

He hasn't tried acknowledging his mistakes at all--in fact, he's now deep in the throes of a martyr complex. And his idea of "letting her lead" is saying, "I'm just going to shut up completely and make her make all the decisions so that when we fail, it'll be her fault!" That's passive-aggression in a nutshell--deliberate passivity with the intention of blaming others for the decisions they made in the absence of useful input from you.

 

This is where I am.  I am most definitely Team Blair, and I acknowledge that since we're not seeing every interaction, it's possible he's tried other approaches that have failed, but what we have mostly seen is him literally ignoring her or just throwing his hands up and saying "fine, you do it" rather than trying engage with her in any way.

 

Things he could have done:  Apologize for giving the appearance of not listening to her and express concern about the fact that she feels like her input isn't valued.  Explain why her mode of communication is difficult for him to interact with (as his is apparently difficult for her) and try to work out some mutually acceptable form of resolving conflict that doesn't involve her yelling, whining, and belittling and doesn't involve him staring over the top of her head acting like he can't even hear her.  

 

I get that she's a crazy person, but we haven't really seen him give her any feedback on what she could do to make it easier for him to hear her (occasionally legitimate) concerns.  Hayley, on the other hand, has actually tried to engage him on the topic of how his communication style pushes her buttons.  Granted, she usually does so by shrieking it over and over at inappropriate moments, i.e., in the middle of a challenge or when they're driving around lost, but she is at least attempting to engage.  If her mode of engaging isn't working for him--and it most definitely wouldn't work for me--he can try to explain that to her and see if there are other approaches that they could both live with.

 

I mean, maybe he doesn't really care at this point whether they win or lose and is just trying to avoid looking like an ass on television while waiting for the inevitable elimination that will result from their inability to work together.  But if he cares at all about winning, it would be in his best interests to try to find a way to work with her wherever she is, even though where she is is apparently in CrazyTown.  

Edited April 5, 2015 by Rancide

[iMonrey]

 

Now we learn that Kurt was only there to find love on a reality show (really??? who does that?)

 

Everyone who's ever been on The Bachelor.

 

And that's really the problem with "reality shows" in general. There's an entire industry devoted to casting these reality shows and unfortunately, having seen the show is not a requirement for being cast. That's why every single season we're banging our heads against the wall asking "How can you go on this show without learning how to drive stick?!?" Easy. Kurt's probably never seen the show and had only the vaguest idea what it was about. When he was recruited and went through the audition process he was told this was going to be some kind of blind dating thing and he might find his true love on the show. That was probably the selling point for him.

[Artsda]

Watching Kurt and Bergen was painful, Kurt's just a quitter who was on TAR for all the wrong reasons and just didn't care. It's too bad when they thought up this twisted blind dating theme, they didn't create a "swap partners" card. Tag one partner out and bring in another, Haley's awful and Kurt's awful they should put them together and free Blair.

[possibilities]

I wonder if there's a penalty for quitting. It might be that the contract the racers sign says if they quit, they have to pay a hefty fine of some kind. This would keep people from officially quitting (which would really be disastrous for the show if it happened even once a season), but would not keep them from becoming dead weight for their partners and provoking tension (which the editors apparently love) and leg-losing foregone conclusion failure (which no one likes and which I think is why Phil was so pissed off when he found them at the train station-- he can be compassionate with people who lose horrendously but keep trying, but I suspect he has no sympathy for people he knows don't give a damn). I suspect that Bergen knew Kurt had every intention of losing the leg so he could quit without paying the penalty, and that is why he was so angry and unforgiving about it, and why he didn't fight harder to stay in. There's just no way to do it when your partner is hellbent on losing. Kurt wasn't having a meltdown and falling apart from KF or terror or an injury. He just didn't give a shit. You can't fight with that, and Bergen had no leverage like someone who's on an on-going relationship with their partner.

[Jamoche]

I wanted Hayley to sing, because I really wanted to see her get water dumped in her face. Shut up Hayley!

[etagloh]

I think all team had trouble getting out of Munich (apparently one confusing city to navigate)

 

Central Munich, like a lot of German cities, is not really meant for driving: there are lots of restrictions in the central ring and lots of incentives to use public transport. Like I said upthread, this didn't feel like a heavy self-navigation leg, but there it was clearly a challenge at the outset. If I'd been there, my navigation approach would have been to drive out of the city until I hit one of the ring roads, and then go round in a circle until I hit the right exit.

 

 

The only way this made sense to me was that Phil was being officious - that it was an NEL but the guys were never gonna get to the Amazing mat.  So it wasn't technically a switch from a NEL to an EL, but that's what it was for all intents and purposes.

 

I can't think of anything we've seen on TAR that earns an outright disqualification other than losing passports: the James/Abba precedent for that is that if it's a NEL, you're even allowed to compete in the next leg, though that's surely dependent on the next leg being in the same country as well as local laws on carrying ID. You could skip all the tasks and incur hours of penalties for other not-following-the-clue infractions and not be given the hook. When it's an elimination leg, as Phil explicitly stated at the end of this leg, then the field elimination kicks in once the second-last team is checked in. When it's a designated NEL, it gets tricky.

 

(We can only extrapolate The Rules from what we see and the on-the-record statements from Phil, the producers, and to some degree from former contestants. There are very strong patterns to suggest that significant changes are only made because of circumstances In The Real World, not the Race itself.)

 

The juxtaposition of Blair at the end with Kurt/Bergen seemed very deliberate. This isn't to set up Blair as a heroic figure, but to indicate that there's a difference between persevering with an excruciating situation and quitting. On reflection, it might have been better for TPTB to disqualify K/B the moment they abandoned the car and since this was the first time it has happened, I'm sure there was a lot of real-time back-and-forth on how to handle it. But like I said, we've never seen any mechanism for doing that in seasons past, and since it was the very start of a leg, TPTB couldn't simply tell them to go to the Pit Stop, go directly to the Pit Stop, do not pass Go, do not collect $1m.

Edited April 5, 2015 by etagloh

[enlightenedbum]

 

There have been several for Survivor, this despite a lengthy and detailed NDA saying contestants have no rights to complain about anything, and in fact wave the right to complain.  Heck, the very first season (I think) had a lawsuit where a contestant claimed she got voted out cuz the producers rigged a vote.  The funny thing with that one is that the producers claimed that they would never ever interfere, drawing comments from at least one other contestant (not involved in the suit) that he got talked to all the time from PAs trying to 'suggest' who he might want to vote for.  Maybe they won't just rig the vote outright but not interfere at all?  Uh, no.

These days Probst tries to influence the vote every damn episode and he's an EP.

Edited April 5, 2015 by enlightenedbum

[TV Anonymous]

Know how to drive manual transmission, know how to swim, ready for height-related challenges and ready to eat food one is not familiar are the very basic skills in The Amazing Race. The show has been on-air for 13 years, there is no excuse that racers do not master those skills before they stepped on the start line.

 

Hayley, Hayley, Hayley. Such a pretty face, such a lousy personality and such a useless racer. Does she have an inferiority complex against Blair considering that he is a physician and she is a nurse? She keeps on pointing on Blair's errors yet she is so defensive when her errors are pointed out.

 

Is it the first time that the Greeter welcomes the team with the name of the state instead of the city / town? And TPTB, we get it. You are in Bayern. The lozenge flag motif is everywhere throughout the episode to hammer that point down.

 

I wonder why no racer who does 'stein' try to steal a gulp of beer, as in previous seasons.

[green]

I appreciate everyone's well thought out lawyerly arguments. However, I am going to add in this, heard third hand from my mother.

 

She knows a contestant from a cooking show (leaving the name of the show out and there are enough of them that I can keep it out). The contestant was told (paraphrase): It's your week to go. Would you rather have an accident with your dish or harsh editing and a completed dish?" Or to that effect. Whether the chick was telling the truth or not, I don't know, but I do know my mom is one of those impeccable rule followers, so if that's what she was told, she would take it as the absolute truth until proven otherwise.

 

Also, with respect to the Amazing Race, in Season 23, when the former football players got eliminated by airplane, I ask you, really? In this day and age, you're telling me you couldn't get from Santiago Chile to Lisbon Portgual before everyone else finished? BS. We're talking two national capitals, both with direct flights in and out of the United States as an alternate route. I never bought that one. And mom, the truth seeking no-liar commented, "Guess it was their week to drop the food".

 

1.  Cooking shows are part of trash reality TV shows which I define in part by having "judges" thus scripted by there very nature.  Some might be a bit more legit then others but all can easily manipulate the "winner" and elimination order.  They aren't a race where you make your own destiny.

 

2.  And yes you sometimes cannot get from one place to another before everyone finishes.  See The Guidos from Season 1.  The Father/Gay Son team from TAR3.  The Gutsy Grannies from TAR2.  The boring barfly guys from TAR4.  The older couple from TAR5's Russian leg.  It happens a lot.  Further proof the show is NOT fixed cause how would it profit the producers to have a team falling that far behind?  They want close finishes in each leg, not people stranded behind.  The latter makes for bad TV.

 

And yes you sometimes cannot always get coach seats on flights from Santiago, Chile to Lisbon, Portugal at the last minute.  You should have seen the different routes and connections the TAR3 Racers took from Cancun to Mexico City to London via pretty much everywhere.  And the crazyass scramble that lasted hours and bizarro connections to get from Sao Paulo to Cape Town.  You are required to fly on an economy ticket.  Getting one at the last minute anywhere isn't all that easy.  Also sometimes Racers make poor decision on flights taking too close a connector flight and so forth.  It just shows the LACK of production interference and it is part of what the Race is all about.

Edited April 5, 2015 by green

[biakbiak]

The person I thought was being a condescending ass at the Stein challenge was Haley. Blair made one suggestion in a completely neutral way after her several failed attempts and she bitched and belittled him it.

[needschocolate]

Is Blair a good guy or a jerk?  I honestly don't know - Haley is too hard to ignore, so I never pay attention to him.  It is like being asked if the plant next to the 8 car pile-up was a flower or a weed.  

[henripootel]

Further proof the show is NOT fixed cause how would it profit the producers to have a team falling that far behind?

True, but I think the point you're supporting here is that it's not all fixed.  I don't think anybody's saying that, but this doesn't preclude the notion that some of it is fixed.  No reason why it'd have to be all or nothing.

It just shows the LACK of production interference and it is part of what the Race is all about.

Case in point.  Sometimes there are screw-ups where a team gets on a bad flight (trying to do something clever) and take themselves right out of the leg and race.  That's exactly what should happen sometimes, what with connections and such.  Then are other times when there 'are no flights out of Joberg to europe until ... everyone arrives at the airport'.  Yeah, no.  They even made a joke about it once - teams arrived for a roadblock (which involved taking a boat) way strung-out, some hours behind, and the first to arrive found a sign that 'closed for rough seas' or some such.  And then they panned to the flat, calm ocean.  Ha. 

[TV Anonymous]

Regarding TPTB's interference on the race, I just remember Gus McLeod (TAR 6). While he could not reveal anything because of the non-disclosure agreement*, after the race was over he said in the effect of, "TAR is definitely not a 'reality' show. It is rather an 'unscripted television'."

 

I have been holding on that comment ever since, every time I watch TAR, Survivor or the like. I find it easier to let go each time I see something that I think suspicious. 

 

 

*The word on the street is that TAR NDA makes racers liable for tens of millions of dollar in case of a breach. That is why we may never, ever, know for sure what is happening on the race except for what is officially told to us.

[selkie]

I'm not sure this speaks to whether or not they'd change an NEL to an EL on the fly.  If people are still trying on a NEL (and not screwing up production schedules too much), my guess is that they'll let them flounder and just figure out how to bunch everyone up again later. 

 

I agree that the James/Abba missing passports in Russia episode is as close as we'll get to proof that they won't change a NEL to an elimination. We'd been told several times that a team MUST have their travel documents on their person to check in at the mat, and had seen teams eliminated over this. And yet James & Abba were allowed to check in on about a 5% chance that their passports would be turned into the US Embassy overnignt instead of sold on the black market, and were allowed to start the next leg even though they would not be allowed to physically leave Russia until the US Embassy had managed to reissue proper documents. racers do not master those skills before they stepped on the start line.

I wonder why no racer who does 'stein' try to steal a gulp of beer, as in previous seasons.

 

 

In the extended instructions Racers get with the clue, I suspect that there was a stern warning about Germany having pretty much zero tolerance of drinking and driving, and who knew how much longer they'd be self-driving after the beer hall.

 

  Then are other times when there 'are no flights out of Joberg to europe until ... everyone arrives at the airport'.  Yeah, no.  They even made a joke about it once - teams arrived for a roadblock (which involved taking a boat) way strung-out, some hours behind, and the first to arrive found a sign that 'closed for rough seas' or some such.  And then they panned to the flat, calm ocean.  Ha. 

 

The infamous 'you can't get there from here' when production didn't check the calendars in Mozambique and learn that every single upper middle class citizen there who could afford a plane ticket would indeed be trying to leave the country at the same time as the Racers because it was both school holiday and hadj (big Islamic population there) season. I think that the Guidos actually ended up having to go from Mozambique to Tanzania by way of, like, Amsterdam and Nairobi and only got to the boat to Zanzibar a full day after any other team and two days after Charla and Mirna got the 'rough seas' message.

[blackwing]

Never did figure out which one was Bergen and which was Kurt.  Is the one that cried about not finding love the same one that was in the backseat getting upset that the other one couldn't drive stick and saying that if the driving didn't get better in a few minutes that he was done?  Is he also the same one that has never been in a relationship?  And the one that said that his teammate was rich and didn't need the money but he did?  That one is a whiny baby.  Sad that a slot on TAR was wasted on him.  After his appearance on this show, I doubt his dating prospects will be any better.

 

I'm sure there is a rule against tampering with someone else's fanny pack.  Jeff and Jackie should have just left it on the seat.  I'm sure they weren't allowed to open the door and "accidentally" have it fall out of their moving car.  But to me, stuffing it underneath the seat is bad too.  They were deliberately trying to hide it.  What they should have done when they found it was to ask their cameraman to ask for guidance?  I probably would have left it at the curb.  My justification would be that surely TAR would have someone standing guard over it (we've seen it in the past where a lost fanny pack magically stays untouched for a long time) and that at least this way, the team that lost it could know to go back to where they last saw it.  Would have caused Tyler and Laura to lose lots of time.  

 

Steve and Aly were awesome.

[Babalu]

I bet Jackie and Jeff got a 30-minute penalty for putting Tyler and Laura's fannypack under the seat, but it probably won't be shown because it didn't affect anything, with the possible exception of standings at the beginning of the next leg. In Unfinished Business, the Globetrotters (accidentally, I think) moved Ron and Christina's fannypack and were only penalized half an hour.

[biakbiak]

Since it was still in the car I don't know that they will get a penalty. Though it was an accident the GTs took R/Cs pack without their knowledge and left it at a different place even though it was still at the task location.

[enlightenedbum]

Regarding TPTB's interference on the race, I just remember Gus McLeod (TAR 6). While he could not reveal anything because of the non-disclosure agreement*, after the race was over he said in the effect of, "TAR is definitely not a 'reality' show. It is rather an 'unscripted television'."

 

I have been holding on that comment ever since, every time I watch TAR, Survivor or the like. I find it easier to let go each time I see something that I think suspicious. 

 

 

*The word on the street is that TAR NDA makes racers liable for tens of millions of dollar in case of a breach. That is why we may never, ever, know for sure what is happening on the race except for what is officially told to us.

I wouldn't consider anything involving Jonathan to be "real" either.

[selkie]

One last note on flight booking- one of the eyes on the ground at RFF managed to get a picture of one of the flight booking exclusions list that a few Racers had mentioned in previous seasons. I suspect that about 10% of the stuff on the list for any given leg is to keep Racers from getting ahead of production, 45% of it is over safety/insurance concerns because a lot of the names below are on the 'banned from operating in the EU for safety reasons' list, and 45% is for immigration & customs paperwork reasons. And this is for a SE Asian leg, so it may explain why Jon & Harley managed to get so far behind everyone else- too many of the earlier options could have been blacklisted by production.

 

 

You must not under any circumstances connect through or stop in any of the following countries and/or any other places deemed unsafe by production on day of travel:

 

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Mainland China, Laos, Nepal, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste

 

For reasons of safety, you may not, under any circumstance, fly on the following airlines and/or any other airlines deemed unsafe by production on day of travel:

Cebu Pacific Air, Lion Air, Malaysian Airlines, Mandala Airlines, Marpati Nusantara, Sriwijaya Air, Pacific Royale Airways, Batavia Air, Malindo Airways, MASwings, Mandarin Airlines, Uni Airways, VietJet Air, Air Mekon, Citilink Indonesia, Scoot, Myanmar Airways, Jin Air, Eastar Jet, Zestair

[kili]

Mainland China

 

Yet the race has been to China a couple of times. I don't think it has been to any of the other countries on the list.  I guess not traveling through Afghanistan is a given and needs no special mention.

 

Malaysian Airlines

 

They had a pretty good safety record until somebody ran off with one of their jets and somebody else decided to shoot another one down over Europe. I'm going to assume that list is for an Asian leg because there are a lot of other airlines that should be on the list.

 

The stacking task should have been a roadblock because only one person did it (the handing up of the crates could have been done by any helper - the stacker was what made it successful or not). I suppose making it a detour allowed teams to switch who was doing it.  I noticed that while Blair seemed to be the one who figured out how to do the task first, he wasn't the first to complete. I'm glad they edited out Haley's response to that.

 

I loved how enthusiastic the singing coaches were. The lady in the pink jacket got picked twice.

Edited April 5, 2015 by kili

[selkie]

I suspect Mainland China was excluded over paperwork reasons- even though they allow a pretty generous transit without visa period for several major airports, the crew might not have had the right documentation to take expensive camera gear into and out of the country.

 

I also figure there's probably a blanket ban on transit through Tel Aviv because one person accidentally picking up an Israeli stamp on their passport on a long layover could screw up their ability to get admitted to a whole list of other Middle Eastern countries the Race often goes to.

[Vantraveller]

Is Blair a good guy or a jerk?  I honestly don't know - Haley is too hard to ignore, so I never pay attention to him.  It is like being asked if the plant next to the 8 car pile-up was a flower or a weed.  

Watch this and let me know. She just goes on and on!! I was on team Hayley at the start but not any more. How can she blame him for not knowing where they are going when she is supposed to be navigating and him driving? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qn__Eo4h58

[UncleChuck]

 

It is snivelling little turds like Kurt & Bergen that spoil modern TAR.  When I think of that earlier Minor Guido, the elimination of Lena & Kristy, with Lena's hands bleeding from eight plus hours of unrolling the Haybales from Hell, it makes me so mad.  Kurt & Bergen should be flushed down the crapper where they belong.

Seems to me that they did not deserve the Phil Phield Elimination.  As they pouted in that train station, I would have loved to see a production INTERN, perhaps the junior assistant to the assistant transportation manager's secretary, show up to deliver the news.

[Vicky8675309]

This is where I am. I am most definitely Team Blair, and I acknowledge that since we're not seeing every interaction, it's possible he's tried other approaches that have failed, but what we have mostly seen is him literally ignoring her or just throwing his hands up and saying "fine, you do it" rather than trying engage with her in any way.

Things he could have done:  Apologize for giving the appearance of not listening to her and express concern about the fact that she feels like her input isn't valued. Explain why her mode of communication is difficult for him to interact with (as his is apparently difficult for her) and try to work out some mutually acceptable form of resolving conflict that doesn't involve her yelling, whining, and belittling and doesn't involve him staring over the top of her head acting like he can't even hear her.

I get that she's a crazy person, but we haven't really seen him give her any feedback on what she could do to make it easier for him to hear her (occasionally legitimate) concerns. Hayley, on the other hand, has actually tried to engage him on the topic of how his communication style pushes her buttons.  Granted, she usually does so by shrieking it over and over at inappropriate moments, i.e., in the middle of a challenge or when they're driving around lost, but she is at least attempting to engage. If her mode of engaging isn't working for him--and it most definitely wouldn't work for me--he can try to explain that to her and see if there are other approaches that they could both live with.

I mean, maybe he doesn't really care at this point whether they win or lose and is just trying to avoid looking like an ass on television while waiting for the inevitable elimination that will result from their inability to work together.  But if he cares at all about winning, it would be in his best interests to try to find a way to work with her wherever she is, even though where she is is apparently in CrazyTown.

 

IIRC he has apologized (unnecessarily imo) to her and used active listening to communicated (I think this episode or the last one). He calmly asked her how she wanted to handle it and then repeated back what she said and then agreed to it. It was even more than that…they had a good back and forth discussion about what she wanted and he verified her wants (showed he respected her decision, would do it and did it). They have discussed their communication and different methods/options. She doesn't always stick to her decisions and then yells at him. He can't control her reactions and I don't think she has the skill to change how she reacts. She reacts to various situations and various methods of communication all the same. Even when it is going her way she is still annoying. By this time I think he is doing the only option he can (to minimize her outbursts and more importantly to keep his sanity and temper) which is do what she wants and tune her out when she started verbally abusing him. He was patient at the beer hall and tried helping her. I don't see how he was being an ass there even though she was annoying (her captain obvious comment when he was just trying to help and he shut up faster than most when he saw she was misinterpreting his help).

I would of tuned her out once she started the ditzy act at the onset of the race…then just tuned her in as needed.

LOL at all the make up, blow dryer, curling iron, straightener she is lugging around.

The first night (1st pit stop) he tracked down two leather pillows for her but she turned her nose up at them and said they were dirty. He went out of his way to try to do something sweet and she was her usual horrible self.

At least at one of the mats with Phil, when asked who they found the most attractive, she said Blair and he was a gentleman and said her. I suspect he lied since her personality makes her ugly.

I'm really disappointed at how snarky she was with his singing and you could see she wanted to tell him how he was doing it wrong at the singing task. I'm so glad he got it on the first attempt so he didn't have to listen to her ranting at him and just had to hear her say he was "lucky" (what a b*tch).

I find Blair to be a nice guy and a gentleman. He is very patient with her. I thought he would be a douche based on his intro where he said something about woman not living up to his standards but I have been pleasantly surprised by him.

[truthaboutluv]

Watch this and let me know. She just goes on and on!! I was on team Hayley at the start but not any more. How can she blame him for not knowing where they are going when she is supposed to be navigating and him driving? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qn__Eo4h58

 

Best part of the video - Blair "like I don't even know what argument you're having right now." Hayley's comment at the start of the video is interesting, that she's normally not like this and is usually a fun person and Blair is just a complete wet blanket who just annoys her.

 

It sounded to me like she may have been just like Kurt in that she came onto the race fully hoping for the love connection part they were selling but quickly realized no way in hell is that happening with Blair and have decided to just transfer her feelings to plain dislike towards him. And also channel her frustration about that to his being a completely horrible racer and all around horrible human being and like she's the victim.

 

And then he continues to not react or engage her dramatics which is only just pissing her off even more because not only is no romance happening but he's borderline indifferent, or at least that's the impression he gives. I really just feel more and more that this is about Hayley's ego and she needs to get the hell over it because continuing to screech like a harpy isn't going to make him any more interested and only makes her look horrible and quite frankly embarrassing. 

Edited April 6, 2015 by truthaboutluv

[Ottis]

While I was the first to say at the start of the season that Blair was being somewhat dismissive, at this point, I actually can't say he has ever said or done a single thing to Hayley that comes close to the level of verbal abuse and rude behavior she has thrown at him in the last few episodes. She yells, she belittles, she nags and it just doesn't seem to stop ever.

 

 

Right. And here's the thing: The way you deal with a condecsending jerk is, you continue to be right. You don't bitch, complain, needle and insult. You simply. Keep. Being. Right. And you don't need to point it out. Just do it. If you are wrong, you handle any condenscension with grace and keep plugging along. From the opening episode I viewed Hayley as a little nutty, and if anything I was understating it. Whatever Blair is, I can handle him far more than Hayley. And honestly, if I am Hayley, I'm not sure why I want to put out there for the world to see my particular brand of shrewishness (edits or no, there is a lot of it). It speaks to a level of unawareness that makes her all the more alarming.

 

The stick shift fail ... oy. That has been a rule for TAR for more than a decade. I guess they didn't know who they would be paired with, so perhaps each was willing to gamble that the other would have that skill. But it was ugly.