S26.E12: Monster Truck Heroes

[sportsgirl]

I am a bit disappointed that teams do not wear Dallas Cowboys colors and logo. The star logo is not even on the end zone. Teams wore Liverpool FC kit in Liverpool. In TAR Canada teams wore Saskatchewan Roughriders jersey and Winnipeg Jets sweater. But I guess Dallas Cowboys and the NFL are in a whole other level.

TV Anon, their unis were exactly like this one, minus the Star over the stripes & on the helmet. The lack of the star is due to the NFL's insane licensing department -- but the colors & designs were pretty much spot on. (I did notice when Mike entered the locker room, they had jerseys hanging for Mike, Tyler, Jelani & Blair -- so were the women not allowed to do this one?!)

Edited May 16, 2015 by sportsgirl

[backformore]

The least offensive of the final three won. Crappy season. But then again, all the shows I watch have had crappy seasons this year. Please don't try to be the dating game again. Just race.

no kidding!   I'm glad you said this, I thought it was just me being burned out on reality shows.   Because the current seasons of a bunch of shows  just suck.

[vousviou]

One thing I liked was the way Laura helped Jenny find the flags as they were coming down the tower.  She could have kept quiet and left Jenny struggling behind, and gained some time, but took a risk for no benefit to her team, as far as I could tell.

 

I thought the tasks were fairly unsuspenseful, though.  It's not clear to me why final episodes so often seem to be designed with fairly blah challenges.  The logistics are easier with only 3 or 4 teams to follow, and it seems like you ought to be able to design some more interesting challenges even if you're trying to make the last one a summing up of the season.  As it is, they seem more like ticket punching.  Although Haley did manage to mess it up.

 

I also really prefer self-navigation on the final leg.  If someone is going to get lost, it ought to be their fault -- the Wrestlers being eliminated in the final last season because they drove the wrong way seems a lot more significant than Mike and Rochelle being eliminated this season because of bad cabbie luck.

[Rick Kitchen]

dammit, our cable went out just as the show started!!!

[ichbin]

Did Jenny think that aggressively screaming at Jelani was going to make him succeed at the football  task any faster?  She more than equaled Hayley in being annoying.  

 

 

Blair is a very special person.  I don't know how he kept calm while Hayley berated him for not helping.   He would be great during an emergency.

 

I was would have been fine with any of the top three teams winning.  All in all a good season. 

Edited May 16, 2015 by ichbin

[vousviou]

   (I did notice when Mike entered the locker room, they had jerseys hanging for Mike, Tyler, Jelani & Blair -- so were the women not

   allowed to do this one?!)

 

My guess is that there was a separate locker room for the women, and since none did this challenge, they never bothered to show it.

[ChuChu]

Remembering Rochelle's fear of heights when stacking boxes -- I think that it's a good thing that they got eliminated before the tower task.

[TV Anonymous]

TV Anon, their unis were exactly like this one, minus the Star over the stripes & on the helmet. The lack of the star is due to the NFL's insane licensing department -- but the colors & designs were pretty much spot on. (I did notice when Mike entered the locker room, they had jerseys hanging for Mike, Tyler, Jelani & Blair -- so were the women not allowed to do this one?!)

 

I am sorry I did not make myself clear. By colors I mean the official jersey of the team, as worn on the field, as sold in the pro shops.

[blackwing]

Congrats to Laura and Tyler!  They and Steve/Aly were my favourite teams, so I'm happy for them.  They never gave up on the locks, they kept trying.  Laura was the one pulling out the photos, so she really rocked it.  I'm glad to see that the selfies had some meaning.  Throughout the race it seemed to me that based on what we saw, Tyler was taking 90% of the selfies shown, and hardly any from other racers, so I assumed that he just liked the concept.  Now we learn that they all took them throughout.  I'm curious if there was a rule that you had to take at least three per leg or something like that.  What if you were completely selfie happy and took tons?  I'm amazed that the teams didn't seem to have issues arranging them.  Some of them didn't seem to have any distinguishing backgrounds, they were just the two of them in a car.

 

Jenny was indeed gracious in defeat, but I too hope she views the show and sees that she can be a real harpy.

 

I liked Hayley and Blair, and I think they grew to have a good brother/sister type relationship.  Loved their parting comments at the end that Blair said he would run along with Hayley again as long as she doesn't yell at him so much, and she says that if he would listen to her more.

 

I don't feel bad at all for Mike/Rochelle.  They didn't even deserve to be in the finals.

 

Too much Matt/Ashley in the final comments.  Couldn't we at least have heard something from each of the teams?  They got their own interview, and they got footage talking to Phil.

 

My guess is that there was a separate locker room for the women, and since none did this challenge, they never bothered to show it.

I don't think there was any restrictions, Laura was clearly in the locker room with Tyler afterwards.  They just put a harness and pads on over whatever they were wearing.  Edited May 16, 2015 by blackwing

[ichbin]

I am the (only?) person who LOVED this season.  Loved it.  Almost every freakin' second (minus Steve/Aly's KF double-leg implosion).

 

Three of my least favorite racing types are the Alpha Male Bro teams, the "we're going to flirt our way to the finals" teams who can race in full makeup but can't read a map, and the self-righteous "we've got this because our relationship/friendship/brothership is stronger than yours." Those types were no where to be seen (especially after week 2, when it became clear to the teams that having a pre-existing relationship was no advantage). The teams felt a lot more even from the start, and focused more on actually racing than working through their whatever -- half of them didn't care, and the other half gave the impression that the Race would have no affect whatsoever on their dating life. (OK, Rochelle's son can now meet Mike. And Phil gets to officiate Matt & Ashley's wedding.) 

Nope, you're not alone!  I'm right there with you on all points!

[cooksdelight]

Hayley's a nurse, correct? Imagine being in her care....

"OK!!!!!! I'm going to start an IV so stop telling me what to do!!!!!!! OK, wait.... what do I do now????? Oh why don't you just listen to me??????? LISTEN TO MEEEEEEEE!!!"

[blackwing]

I think Hayley/Blair and Steve/Aly have their trips booked on a future Unfinished Business.  Hayley/Blair because they are memorable and there'd be the "will they learn from last time" angle.  Steve/Aly because TPTB seemed to like them, they were the most physically dominant team but made some bad mistakes.

 

None of the other teams, except for Matt and Ashley, really did anything that memorable like getting eliminated because you had to pee (Kisha/Jen) or losing their passports (Justin/Zev).  And as for Matt and Ashley, I really hate the spectacle of the proposal on national TV.  It's completely self-serving.  Maybe I'm still irritated about Noah Galloway.

[Souris]

The best part of the ep was Hayley being the one to screw it up.

 

A bit surprising how much shuffling there was within the ep, as most of it was spoon-fed "go here and do this in order."

 

Laura & Tyler had a much better strategy for completing the selfie task, and that's ultimately what won it for them. Jenni & Jelani wasted a bunch of time there.

 

I also wondered how the heck Tyler jumped in front of Jelani somehow during the locker room at the stadium. Is Jelani a slow dresser?

[ChuChu]

I also wondered how the heck Tyler jumped in front of Jelani somehow during the locker room at the stadium. Is Jelani a slow dresser?

 

Maybe Jelani had to pee.

Edited May 16, 2015 by ChuChu

[Stardancer Supreme]

With three blind date couples coming in 1-2-3, you just know they are going to do this again.

Phil: "You all came looking for love."

Blair: "Still looking...."

Best line of this entire show.

 

I hope that stupid idea was put to rest since none of the blind date couples actually fell in love with each other.  I especially loved Jenny's response; "I'm sure Jelani will make some woman out there really happy (since it ain't gonna be me!)..."  

[Chyna]

Thinking about it, it's not so much that the blind daters won as a young fit team won. The blind date teams were heavily young and fit, those teams always have an advantage in just being able to 'power' through things. I know this isn't always so but I think there is a reason the majority of winners have been all male teams or young, strong teams. It took a long time for an all female team to win or an older couple.

That's a great point about how the young fit "blind daters" had an advantage.  I think there's potential in having strangers matched on teams if they were done more with an eye toward balance, but that would have obviously messed up the crazy notion that this show could work as a dating game, and whatever network exec greenlighted this theme never would have gone for something like making the races competitive.

Exactly. I was annoyed that this season was turning into a referendum on which type of relationship fares better in the race, when the real issue was (not surprisingly) that young and very fit racers tend to fare better in the race. If they'd had some blind daters over 35 or over 5% body fat, it might have been more interesting in a lot of ways.

[backformore]

Hayley at the monster trucks: "buckle up buckle up buckle up! BUCKLE UP BLAIR, BUCKLE UP!!!!!!!!!!" all said while he's buckling his seat belt and orienting himself to the truck.

Yeah, I couldn't stand it if she won.

[Former Nun]

Hayley's a nurse, correct? Imagine being in her care....

 

 

This season I've imagined all of her coworkers (ALL!) telling their families, "See! This is what I've been telling you.  Haley is like this All. The. Time.  She's impossible to work with and I would never work FOR her!"

 

 

Edited May 16, 2015 by Former Nun

[Cyranetta]

I never would have thought of a football stadium for a heights-based challenge, and that's one I never could have done.

 

Cab luck certainly doesn't improve being back in one's own country, does it?

 

I find myself sort of indifferent to the winners, and I hope they never try to force-feed romance into the competition again. It was like having to consume mass quantities of baklava (lovely in small quantities when one is in the mood, but nauseating if it's not of one's own choice, partiuclarly if it's not the real deal). If they want to try the excitement of random pairiings, make it truly random and have to draw partners at the beginning.

[selkie]

Granted dark in Dallas is a little after 5:00pm in December, but it was definitely getting dark when Hayley and Blair hit the finish line. I wonder if they ended up struggling at the selfies enough that they got sent to the mat with task unfinished because other teams had finished and production wanted to wrap without having to bring out the spotlights.

[chaifan]

Did Jenny think that aggressively screaming at Jelani was going to make him succeed at the football  task any faster?  She more than equaled Hayley in being annoying.  

 

 

Yes, but to be fair, she was in a stadium, probably 100-200 feet from Jelani.  So there's a valid excuse for the volume level.  Hayley screamed just as loud on legs where Blair was right next to her. 

 

I'm happy with Laura & Tyler winning - they had the best team dynamic of the blind date couples, pretty much from the start.  I would have loved Rochelle and Mike to win, just because it would mean the blind date teams losing, and maybe put an end to that for future seasons.

 

I'm ok with TAR doing non-relationship couples again, but please no more Bachelor/ette lite on this show. 

[Packerbrewerbadger]

I was very surprised they didn't wear helmets while on horseback since they all seemed like very novice riders where serious injury was only a gallop away. Was it Tyler whose horse took off on him? That cost them some time. It looked like the professionals did all the work and their job was only to not fall off . I preferred the shepherding from last season where the racers were on their own.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Packerbrewerbadger

[mojoween]

Boys all did the football task and drove the monster trucks. I don't care about driving a Ford, but I would have run my husband over to try to catch a ball from a Jugs machine. Don't be sexist, show.

Cowboys on Big Brother, Cowboys on TAR, a Cowboy was once on Survivor. CBS, why do you hate me?

As Commissioner Gordon said on Gotham, Tyler and Laura were the least worst option (for me).

[blackwing]

Boys all did the football task and drove the monster trucks. I don't care about driving a Ford, but I would have run my husband over to try to catch a ball from a Jugs machine. Don't be sexist, show.

I noticed that too.  This season of Survivor has taken a lot of flack for the way it has portrayed women.  Some of the comments from some of the participants were just nasty.  But then we come over to innocent TAR and we see the sexist stereotypes reinforced.  All of the guys did the football task, leaving the women to do the relatively easier rappelling task.  And then there didn't even seem to be a discussion at the monster trucks, the guys  automatically got in the driver's seat.

 

Throughout the race, I think of all the male/female pairs, the man did almost all the driving in self-navigation legs.  The only woman that I seem to recall driving with any regularity is Rochelle, because Mike was horrible at stick.  Now I'm curious as to the experiences of people on this forum, whether if you are in a male/female relationship if the man always drives.  For me, it seems to always be automatically assumed that I always drive, even though I don't particularly like driving.  I'd love to let my wife drive occasionally and be a passenger for once, but for whatever reason, driving seems to have permanently fallen into my column in the division of household duties.

 

I'm impressed by the guy who was checking the selfies.  There was at least 15 there, how did he know the order just like that?  I think maybe he secretly had an earpiece or something and some production person was telling him if it was good or not.

[Myrrhine]

I was very surprised they didn't wear helmets while on horseback since they all seemed like very novice riders where serious injury was only a gallop away. Was it Tyler whose horse took off on him? That cost them some time. It looked like the professionals did all the work and their job was only to not fall off . I preferred the shepherding from last season where the racers were on their own.

I think they were wearing helmets. They were just wearing oversized, goofy cowboy hats over them.

I ended up really enjoying the season, minus Phil's painful attempts to uncover some kind of love connection between totally indifferent team members. I liked a number of the teams and enjoyed rolling my eyes at Hailey's antics.

[Artsda]

Really happy Tyler and Laura won. They were having such a great time and racing together, loved them winning.

 

Hayley needs to live with her failing at that task forever, if that was Blair she'd still be ranting and raving about it never letting him forget. If she had listened to him in the cab, it could be that his idea of following the train tracks would have had them finding the flags on ground sooner. 

 

I liked Mike and Rochelle, but glad they were eliminated they should have been eliminated last week. 

 

Good for Jeff and Jackie for still dating and making it work, I guess TAR should be happy they got at 1 couple out of this bad gimmick which I hope to never see again. 

[biakbiak]

 I wonder if the judges for the selfie tasks were crew members and there was some sort of embedded clue in the pictures because that would be crazy difficult to judge because most didn't have easy identifying characteristics.

[dgpolo]

I wonder if the judges for the selfie tasks were crew members and there was some sort of embedded clue in the pictures because that would be crazy difficult to judge because most didn't have easy identifying characteristics.

 

That would be soo funny if there were tiny little numbers in the corners that told if they were in order!

Phil tweeted that Tyler and Laura took the most selfies, Did everyone have the same number to put on the map?

[Guiaoshi]

Easily the most vain team rocks a selfie challenge to clinch TAR. Somehow it seems a fitting result for this particular season...

Exactly.. When Laura figure out the numbers and it came down to the selfies I knew they would catch up. I can´t be totally mad since they won it faiir and square, good racers, but I can´t get excited with the cocky attitude and the lack of a deeper bound between this contestants (Haley and Blair actually had the nicest finishing with Blair spinning with her with the setting sun behind them). As far the leg, good one, not the best but not near the worst last leg. Yep, too bad Michael and Rochelle got bad luck with the cab, once again, but after the major struggle last leg, they shouldnt have such a easy jump to the top on this one. And yep, after all the yelling and the ´´listen to me, I´m right`` , Haley cost them the race. Yep, at least after came out of the crazy/annoying racer mode, she was able to take the blame. And once again, bless Blair heart to take it so well, no one of the other guys would have made this far with her, specially without snap out.

[Merneith]

My heart was in my mouth when Jennifer's horse started wallowing in the water. I thought for a second that it was going to roll on her.

 

Taylor and Laura are worthy winners. I know it's none of my business, but I can't help wondering why they aren't interested in each other.

[millennium]

Yawn.  I'm okay with Laura and Tyler winning ... mostly.    They seem the types who get everything they want in life, in no small part due to their looks.   I sort of resent that.  But there's no particular complaint I can pin on them.   They had fun and it was infectious at times.  What I don't get is why he didn't kiss her.   I'm not saying they had to profess love for each other, but they did both just win $500,000.   It called for a kiss, even if just in celebration.

 

But even better, their win prevented Jenny and Jelani from winning.   I can't stand hardass Jenny.

 

Funniest line (to me anyway) was when Tyler was driving the monster truck back to the parking area, just after Laura said she saw Blair and Hayley in the monster truck heading in the opposite direction.  Tyler asked her "Are you sure it was them?" and then I swear he said, "Were they ghosts?"

[etagloh]

Final legs are always weird because of spoiler-avoidance and limitations on what can be done to keep things safe. This was no exception.

It's not clear to me why final episodes so often seem to be designed with fairly blah challenges.

Partly because there are things you can't do well in the US and/or the final leg, partly to look spectacular. In a way, it was all hat and no cattle. Flashy challenges, but not a massive amount to do in them until seeking out the clue from the tower, and then the final memory/selfie task. (And yeah, the stadium task was straight outta TAR Canada.) Mainly, splashy flashy stuff was being done around teams, not by them: get yanked up on a rope, don't fall off a horse. It was also pretty clear that taxi luck played a big role in spacing out teams between the tasks, but none of that really made the edit.

Mike & Rochelle should have really gone at the end of the previous leg, so they got an extra half-leg out of it, but to be eliminated mid-way because of taxi stuff seems pretty meh.

Laura & Tyler were the strongest team, and are worthy winners. They seem to have gelled because they're secret superfans who knew what it took to make a TAR team work, with a dash or three of snark to go with it. But this is a season that might have been -- not atrocious, but could have been better without the damn gimmick, and TPTB shouldn't dare repeat it.

I wonder if the judges for the selfie tasks were crew members and there was some sort of embedded clue in the pictures

I wonder if they had an earpiece and were being given the thumbs-up/down from afar.

[Muffyn]

For the last time (or so I hope) I can say Shut up, Hayley!  Blair became more of a catch after spending so much time with her and not killing her or at least taping her mouth shut.  Jenny’s shrieking at the stadium was so high I was afraid birds were going to fall from the sky.  Jelani also moved up in the dateability factor. 

It seemed like Jenny and Jelani focused too much on trying to get the pictures in the right spots on the map rather than just in the right order.  The clue mentioned the order only.  They made the task harder by over-thinking it.  

At the finish line, Tyler was mister chatty and Laura was very quiet.  Maybe she was just overwhelmed or he just wouldn’t let her get a word in. 

Blackwing, had Dr. Muffyn and I been in the race, I would have done the football task (he’s never played and I was quite good at it back in the day) and I would have driven the truck.  We have already decided I do all driving tasks.  When we go out, I almost always drive.  I am just a better, more confident driver.

[ichbin]

I was very surprised they didn't wear helmets while on horseback since they all seemed like very novice riders where serious injury was only a gallop away. Was it Tyler whose horse took off on him? That cost them some time. It looked like the professionals did all the work and their job was only to not fall off . I preferred the shepherding from last season where the racers were on their own.

Those hats had an oddly large look.  It wasn't just a high crown, they seemed thickish and buIky around. I was wondering if they were actually helmets with a hat cover.

[Netfoot]

I love TAR.  I've watched every season.  Every episode.  This season wasn't all that great.  Not terrible, but not great.

 

TPTB should be told:

1. The only place for a scheduled elimination is on The Mat.  Mid-leg and pre-leg and other such rubbish are no good.  It smacks of unfairness, and it is poor entertainment.
2. When some stupid season-gimick like 'Looking for Love' is an obvious bust from episode 2, don't force Phil to keep flogging that dead horse for the entire remainder of the season.  It's boring and somewhat pitiful.

 

Some additional points:

• The shrieking harpy is gone from my screen.  Implosion never looked so good.
• Selfies are stupid.  Including the selfies in a race challenge is stupider, and setting the challenge in such a way that the viewers can't tell if the selfies are ordered correctly is stupidest.
• Run out on a field (yawn) get winched into the air (snooze) and kick a ball (snore) is not exciting.  In fact any game that must rely on scantily clad women, fireworks and flag-waving to entertain the viewers is probably boring.
• Monster trucks are cool.  Pity all they had to do was drive 50 yds in a straight line.
• Gawdolmighty!  I've never seen such a collection of dim-witted taxi-drivers in all my life.  Maybe they were carefully selected by production for their stupidity, and constituted a stealth-challenge!

 

Best part of the episode: Jenny falling off the horse and landing on her ass in the mud.

 

Oh, the winners?  Well for the first time in 26 seasons, I couldn't care less.

[dgpolo]

 

I think you can see the helmet here, under the hat. This is from the EW page, there is an interview with Tyler and Laura there.

 

Gawdolmighty!  I've never seen such a collection of dim-witted taxi-drivers in all my life.  Maybe they were carefully selected by production for their stupidity, and constituted a stealth-challenge!

 

My thought exactly, how do taxi drivers not know where things are in the city they work in, especially in these days with GPS. Were they told not to use it?

[blackwing]

Taylor and Laura are worthy winners. I know it's none of my business, but I can't help wondering why they aren't interested in each other.

 

EW interviewed Tyler and Laura.  http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/15/amazing-race-winners-are-less-about-romance-and-more-about-respect-and-being

 

As to why they never clicked, they don't really say.  There was speculation earlier in the season that either 1) Tyler is gay, or 2) Laura has a boyfriend.  In this article, Laura indicated that the casting agent asked her if she was single.  Not sure if that means anything, she could have said yes just to get on the show.

 

While I am glad the show has evolved a long way from the "land in final city and take a taxi to pit stop" final episodes, I was a bit disappointed with the tasks here.  The football one didn't seem particularly difficult.  All of the teams pretty much finished within a few minutes of each other.  On the horses, all the teams had to do was to stay on them.  The actual work of the herding was done by the professionals.  Monster truck - drive straight through some water?  I'm sure it was fun but it had zero skill.  I guess the most difficult task was spotting the flags from the tower, but even then it wasn't that hard.  Hayley seemed to be looking for an actual clue box and thought she saw one on the parking lot.  One of the other women initially saw the same thing Hayley did.  Would have been better if the clue had been more descriptive.

 

Final task - I guess it was tougher than some in the past, but unfortunately it wasn't all that interesting to watch since we barely even got to see the pictures.  I agree with the comment upthread that Jelani and Jenny misread the clue.  The clue simply just said to put them in order.  Jelani and Jenny seemed to try to put them in the actual spot on the map, which is why they had issues when Jelani said there was no more room.  Jenny was a shrew to the end on that last task.  She kept imploring Jelani "please hurry.  Hurry.  Please."  What did she think he was doing?  Sitting around and picking his butt?

[GaT]

And the winner is.........NOT HAYLEY!!!!!! That's all that really matters to me, I'm fine with with Laura & Tyler winning.

 

I don't mind watching teams of strangers as long as they lose the "looking for love" gimmick.

Exactly, this looking for love stuff was crap, I don't want to see that again. Or Hayley.

[meep.meep]

That's a great point about how the young fit "blind daters" had an advantage.  I think there's potential in having strangers matched on teams if they were done more with an eye toward balance, but that would have obviously messed up the crazy notion that this show could work as a dating game, and whatever network exec greenlighted this theme never would have gone for something like making the races competitive.

I was thinking the same thing until I remembered that one of the eliminated dating teams were Olympic athletes in their prime.

[Corgi-ears]

I would like to award an Emmy (of my own making) to the Amazing Editors, for the moment when they captured, in a long shot, Hayley rappelling down while braying, "You don't see anything anywhere else that's obvious, do you?" and then zooming the camera out so that, POW! the TEN FUCKING AMAZING RACE FLAGS ARE IN THE FOREGROUND MERRILY BLOWING IN THE WIND. 

Edited May 16, 2015 by Corgi-ears

[scrb]

Hayley's screeching may get her and Blair on an all-stars season.

 

In fact, Phil asked them at the finish line if they'd do it together again.

 

Or did he just ask Blair?  Blair said yes but either he's being polite or he's some kind of masochist.

[Lingo]

I just want to ditto everyone's thoughts about the final tasks being all flash and no substance. It seems that more and more lately they pick tasks that they think look good on TV, but leave little room for the teams to show their stuff and give themselves opportunities to pass each other through skill.  The football challenge was only a little tough (though it can be tricky to kick a ball from a stand if you're not used to it), and yeah, there was no actual herding in that herding challenge.  Then the tower, which really should have been a breeze for Hayley.  The trucks again look good but were no challenge.  The only real challenges, I guess, were the lock and ordering the photos.

 

So I was pretty depressed around the halfway point when B&H seemed to have an insurmountable lead, as lead teams so often get in final legs.  All that said, it was surprising how close it was through most of the leg, and how often the order of the teams changed.  For a minute there at the end I thought Jenny and Jelani were actually going to win, which would have been a big (and welcome) surpise to me, considering how often they foreshadowed a Laura&Tyler / Blair&Hayley showdown.  But in the end it was indeed one of those two teams, and I'm sure glad it was not Hayley.

[hincandenza]

So, I can't hate on Laura & Tyler; she's insanely gorgeous and he's bog-standard handsome, and like millenium I get the sense they are people who have always had an easy path in life.  But of the four teams left... they were the most deserving between both team members, being competent and focused racers without a huge amount of negative baggage.  Speaking of which, Hayley and Jenny are such bitter, horrible people, so it would have sucked to see them win- except I was still really rooting for poor, beleaguered Blair.

 

Actually, speaking of bitter... I couldn't help notice how thin-lipped and unhappy Aly looked at the finish line.  Everyone else is clapping, and she's just shooting death stares at the final 3.  Suck it up and smile honey, you can't be an Olympian at everything in life!

 

I don't care that Rochelle and Mike got eliminated (and it was obvious: there were only three clues and three corrals) since I think they'd been running on sheer luck for a while.  However, that entire taxi thing seemed very questionable to me.  First, I'm not sure Mike dismissed their cab; Mike did say repeatedly that their driver wouldn't wait, so what else can you do but take your stuff and tell him "That's all of it"?  Second, what on earth was with all the waiting around with Tyler/Laura and Hayley/Blair?!?  They're in the US, everyone speaks English, and all those drivers surely have phones... what or who are they waiting on for so long?  Third, when Mike and Rochelle finally got a cab, it conveniently was running low on gas when they were only "three minutes away".  Not that it would have mattered- the three other teams were already there- but why is a cab driver running on fumes, or not fueling up while in the frickin' city?!?

 

And that bothers me, because it all seems a little too "thumb on the scales" of the show, to ensure Mike & Rochelle quietly fell out of it right near the start.  Even if it wasn't, if the final leg is going to depend on cab driving- and I'm torn between the safety of people driving too fast and the unfairness of random cab luck- then give them pre-selected cab drivers who are equally competent and willing to wait.  It's not right for the million dollar prize to come down to crappy taxi luck, or for that matter on point-to-point leg design... although at least Hayley actually managed to screw that up.

 

Blair might literally be a saint; he's on my short list of people who in my mind 100% deserved to win but didn't, along with the amazing Beauty Queens Kandace & Dustin.  I know for a fact I couldn't have been that calm leg after leg, and Hayley is possibly the least self-aware person I've seen on this show in ages.  My god, that screaming, the henpecking- and not a bit of it justified!!!  Small points for admitting at the end that she- and only she- fucked it up, but the fact that she was back to her old tricks of projection and nagging even after all that time... oof. 

 

A lot of people rightly ripped on Blair in episode 1 for his comment about not having found a woman to meet his standards... but now, I wonder if maybe he's right.  He's good-looking, funny, laid back, remarkably patient and supporting, smart, and a doctor to boot.  Maybe all his friends have been trying to hook him up women who were all like Hayley... if so, no wonder he's still single!

Edited May 16, 2015 by hincandenza

[mertensia]

I loved even in this last leg Tyler and Jelani laughing and being good-natured with each other while they waited for the rapellers.

Oh Hayley. You did this to your team. Though it's probably Blair's fault for doing the football task so she had to do this one.

[In Pog Form]

This show really falls apart whenever they get back to the USA. Aren't finales supposed to be exciting?

Also, "Selfies Galore" was the one woman James Bond rejected.

Edited May 16, 2015 by In Pog Form

[cooksdelight]

I wonder if production went out and hired some guys off the street, put them in cabs and said "just tell them you don't know where anything is."

[Peanutbuttercup]

I feel bad for Mike and Rochelle, but really, if your cab driver tells you he can't wait, the next thing you say is, "okay, can you call your dispatcher and have another cab sent here to wait for us?" so IMO the cab troubles are on them.

[anonymiss]

Oh God, Hayley: "Listen to me!" "No, decide for me!"

 

I'd like to pretend Tyler & Blair won.

[cooksdelight]

Maybe these people (or the ones who fail when it comes to cabs) have never had to take them anywhere before? If you don't know the right strategy for making sure you get from point A to point B successfully, it is probably something hard to learn on the fly. Like driving a stick shift.

[Primetimer]

In Dallas, one of the four remaining Amazing Race teams will win a million dollars, but Phil just won't be happy until one of these blind date teams admits they're into each other already.

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