S05.E02: You've Got to Leave My Hose Alone, Dude!

[Kanaloa]

Congrats to both F/F teams for recreating last year's woman-power in Ho Chi Minh City! 

Ew to the Triple Express Pass recipients, though!

Edited July 12, 2017 by Kanaloa

[Pamela]

Goodness, such a shouty episode. Again. Have they always been this loud, or have I turned into a crabby senior all of a sudden?

[SomeTameGazelle]

1 hour ago, Kanaloa said:

Congrats to both F/F teams for recreating last year's woman-power in Ho Chi Minh City! 

Ew to the Triple Express Pass recipients, though!

It was painful watching them find all three, but I actually liked the way it led to wosstheirnames giving up on the arithmetic challenge and bartering one of the Express Passes in exchange for the answer. I like the married couple it benefited and in general I liked seeing most of the other teams had at least one person (often female) who was good at math and seemed to breeze through the challenge. Also even though the Collingwood boys get on my nerves, the YouTubers were the team I most wanted to see gone, so on the whole a good result from my point of view.

[xcrayon2215x]

I didn't hate Dan and Riya but they were my least favourite team. Kenneth annoys me but if they were competing on the last season of the Amazing Race US edition, I'd root for him. The women's teams seem stronger this year. 

[Rachel RSL]

You know what makes for thrilling television? Watching people do math! Good times! 

I'm so glad the annoying YouTubers are gone. Even his final words were something about the Race giving them more YouTube content. Ugh...bye!

I'm still torn on the hosers from Collingwood. (I don't think I've ever used the word hoser to describe anyone before but I just feel like it somehow fits them perfectly.) I can't tell if they amuse me or annoy me yet. They always seem to be dialed up to 11.

[piequinn35]

Was Dan the one who doesn't know the lyrics of the national anthem? ADIOS!

[SomeTameGazelle]

2 hours ago, Kanaloa said:

Yea, I will grudgingly admit that the Giver-boys kept up their end of the bargain by granting one of the EPs to the Richardses for the latter's assistance with the calculation Route Info Marker.

I also liked the fact that they were at least smart enough to try the barter before burning their own Express Pass. I mean, even though either way they're down one Express Pass, there would be no way to be sure that on a future task they would have another team handy who could offer them practical help, so it made sense to try to hold back their own for now.

[kingshearte]

If I'm not mistaken, Jon said they had to give up the extras by the end of Leg 3, so they only have one more leg to give them away, so giving one up now wasn't a huge strategic risk. Generally thus far, I find them more annoying than not, but that was a smart play.

This leg also did help redeem the penalty-takers of last week for me. I'm a big believer in decent numeracy skills (and, side note, think there's something seriously wrong with the way we're teaching math if it's leaving what often seems like a majority of people so scared of it that they just straight up freeze when confronted with anything more complicated than basic addition) so I'm always stoked to see people arrive at a math task and basically go "Yeah, OK, I got this." It's true that it doesn't make the most exciting TV, but it warms my nerdy little heart anyway.

I think I like Adam and Andrea OK, so I hope they've now learned that, even if you're going to follow someone, make sure you get at least general directions, too...

[Taeolas]

Yeah, they have 3 Express passes, they can only USE one of them and have to give the pass to 2 other teams by the end of the next leg. 

 

The way they gave a pass away this time was pretty much ideal; they got the effect of the express pass without actually using one, so it worked out well. 

 

In any case, a great set of challenges, and a great shwoing of Fort Mac. Amazing how the city appears to be rebounding; hopefully BC can rebound just as well. 

[etagloh]

I'm so done with the shouty hoserbros, and I'm dreading the amount of time they're going to get for Express Pass draaaamaa, though perhaps there'll be mental challenges ahead that extract the remaining one from them without it being a big thing. I wonder whether the playtesting of the Road Block challenge didn't expose how likely it was for a single team to grab them all, but I liked the concept of making it a choice to spend more time on the task (just as I've liked past TAR:US seasons where seeking out an Express Pass forces teams to go out of their way).

I enjoyed the reversal from the first leg to put the F/F teams up front, and though the maths challenge wasn't primo television, it served a good purpose. From afar, the typical portrayal of Fort Mac is "wasteland oil town with no heart that burnt down", so it was good to see another side and be reminded of the dedication and skill required to fight the fires.

[RHJunkie]

I may be in the minority but I don't mind the loud idiot friends....certainly not as much as I minded that pair that got eliminated (the Youtubers). Forget the lack of patriotism, but unless you're new to the country or have some sort of learning disability, how in the hell could you listen to the national anthem every day in school and not yet know the words? Good riddance.

Back to the loud idiot friends - I think they're showing the most extreme of their personality because they likely know it will garner airtime for them. But I've softened toward them because quickly into the season, they're playing a good strategy so far...but it's still early and there's plenty of time for them to dumb it up.

Can't wait to see all of the stops they make this season. Was cool to see Fort Mac. Knew nothing about it other than the fires but it's great to see the community and it was an awesome opportunity to highlight the work of those that no doubt worked tirelessly to salvage the town for those fires. Looks like they're rebounding well though.

[kingshearte]

7 hours ago, etagloh said:

I wonder whether the playtesting of the Road Block challenge didn't expose how likely it was for a single team to grab them all, but I liked the concept of making it a choice to spend more time on the task (just as I've liked past TAR:US seasons where seeking out an Express Pass forces teams to go out of their way).

Playtesting very well could have never shown this result, because the placement of them was presumably either legitimately random or deliberately spread out, so if teams spread out and don't all go in the same direction, there's no odds-based reason for one team to end up with more than one (or all of them!). Or maybe they were actually placed close together on purpose in hopes that this would happen so we could get some super fun drama over handing them out, because we all love that so much.

This does remind me, though, that while I appreciated their strategy later when the gave one of them up, I though they missed an opportunity when they found the last one. I mean, I think I probably would have kept it pretty quiet if I found any of them, but I really thought they should have definitely kept the last one quiet. Not to keep it a big secret that they have it (with the quite short window they have to give them away, that would be an even more pointless secret than usual), but to encourage other teams to potentially stay at that task longer looking for that last Express Pass, to give them more of a time cushion. There was at least the one team that had found all the clues, and were giving it a little extra time to look for the Pass. If the boys had kept quiet about having found it, that team might not have beaten them out of the task.

[SomeTameGazelle]

22 minutes ago, kingshearte said:

Not to keep it a big secret that they have it (with the quite short window they have to give them away, that would be an even more pointless secret than usual), but to encourage other teams to potentially stay at that task longer looking for that last Express Pass, to give them more of a time cushion. There was at least the one team that had found all the clues, and were giving it a little extra time to look for the Pass. If the boys had kept quiet about having found it, that team might not have beaten them out of the task.

It wouldn't have made a difference -- an official race person made an announcement to everyone that all the Express Passes had been found.

[kingshearte]

Oh, I missed that. Nevermind, then. :)

[SomeTameGazelle]

22 minutes ago, kingshearte said:

Oh, I missed that. Nevermind, then. :)

Well, in fairness, I don't think we have any way of knowing that the Collingwood boys could have known that the announcement would be made. So they could have tried to cover it up in case there was a benefit to them. Maybe they were just too excited to think about it -- or they thought that it would be more advantageous to them for everyone to know that they had Express Passes to give away.

[TVbitch]

I'm finding it hard to get into any of the teams yet. And maybe I'm old too, but the show does seem particularly shouty. It all just gets to be noise at some point and I lose awareness of what anyone is actually saying. 

With only 8 teams left after this leg, 3 express passes seems a bit much.

Are their also going to also be U-turns and double U-turns? Express pass holders should be targeted by the others to negate their passes. 

[Kelda Feegle]

Old and over the shoutyness here too. Have yet to find someteam to actually root for.

[kingshearte]

I don't have a favourite yet, but I also don't really have an un-favourite yet. I find that my favourites tend to reveal themselves gradually, several episodes in (and they're almost always on the quiet, "boring" end of the spectrum). But if I'm going to actively dislike anyone, I've usually figured that out very quickly. Some of these teams are definitely a little shouty, but I can deal with that when it's not mean shouty; it's just over-exuberance. Which is somewhat annoying, but no one's really hit my active dislike threshold yet.

[aemom]

I also don't have a favourite yet, but my God, the hosers need to tone it down two notches. SO MUCH SHOUTING!

[Rachel RSL]

God...I'd probably *still* be at that challenge trying to figure that shit out. Fuck algebra! 

[piequinn35]

Thanks Kanaloa for posting the problem, that one is easy coz I love Math :)

I don't need the algebra, I will use trial and error because there's a limit. LIMITS 150.9-152.5

M, add all = 3160

X, add all = 796.4

MX, add all = 468305

MX is M times X, CG is MX/M

trial 1 = 200 fuel MX is 36000 you add those 2 above, the CG will be 150.06, wrong, below limit

trial 2 = 300 fuel MX is  54000, the CG will be 150.93, correct 

trial 3 = 400, CG = 151.74, correct

trial 4 = 500, CG = 152.51, this was their answer I believe, close to upper limit but they accepted it

my first attempt will be 300 (trial 2)  and that will be correct. Answer could be any number from 300 to 500

[Keener]

9 hours ago, Rachel RSL said:

God...I'd probably *still* be at that challenge trying to figure that shit out. Fuck algebra! 

Same. Same. 
I thought it was just pop in the numbers into the formula provided and off you go. My head is spinning at that. Wow. No way I'd ever figure that out. 

[amazingracefan]

The Ep1 thread disappeared for me, but this is still briefly here anyway.

 

Three express passes to one team, and they can use them all in a sense because other teams give them help so they can get given one.  So it ends up being 5 express passes in effect.