S05.E08: "Can I See Your Kuna?"

[Kanaloa]

Quote

The race goes overseas to Panama City, where teams get caught between two continents.

[Kanaloa]

Talk about one of the greatest Latin American legs in the history of TAR - and one of the best Mother's Day presents ever! (You go, Mrs. Richards ~)

[Taeolas]

Wow, that was a killer leg, especially with jet lag and temperature whiplash going from Newfoundland to Panama. 

Those challenges were brutal too; but shows you need to remember to read your clues. A mental and physical gruelling set of challenges.

You can tell they saw "Beer challenge. SCORE", and didn't realize how difficult it would be. Then the boxing after switching tasks, hehehe that was fun to watch. 

 

Considering the final bit came down to taxi luck on picking the right sign, I can see why they made this a NEL. I'm glad it was too; I don't think I wanted either of those two teams to leave. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

Loved the way Bert remained calm and reassured Karen while rereading the clue. And happy for them it was a non elimination leg. 

I thought at least one team would get the beer tasting challenge, but maybe I was deceived by Kenneth's big talk.

[Kanaloa]

After last season's painfully (no pun intended, Steph!) disappointing Havana episode, this one exceeded expectations and ties with S19's Snowboarder elimination as the best Central American leg ever - neither Family Edition nor Strangers' Edition could ever ~

[Pepper the Cat]

My favourite times are in the top three so I am good. 

That was a brutal leg though. I loved the Marching Band part!

[Rachel RSL]

Why the hell did the marching band task take so long? Some of the teams complained that they were there for hours yet when they went for it, it said "2nd attempt" or "3rd attempt". After that long, I assumed everybody had tried it like 10 times. Were they not even allowed to attempt it until the instructor said they were good enough?

Tricky pit stop with the 2 signs. I'm a little disappointed there weren't two teams scrambling around the wrong one, trying to find Jon. Speaking of Jon, he was a little stiff as host back in the first season but I really adore him now. I can't imagine anyone else hosting.

Go Hosers!

[piequinn35]

Lol TAR has been on TV for yearsss and still some people don't read their clues, as soon as I heard that there were 2 Panama signs, that's a NEL!

Disappointed that no one nailed the beer detour :P

Go Hosers! :) 

[Kanaloa]

5 hours ago, Rachel RSL said:

Speaking of Jon, he was a little stiff as host back in the first season but I really adore him now. I can't imagine anyone else hosting.

Even at his worst, he was/is still superior to that mactor who hosted the Australian edition, as well as the inexplicably overrated Arisa Cox. 

As for the Cavaleris, they never noticed that distinctive spice found in both South Asian and Northern European cooking? Then again, MTL's always had a rather minuscule Desi/Nordic population, and so the siblings probably had few to no neighbours from either ethnic cluster.

Now, if the dad/son from earlier in the season had survived to this point, they would've known if that flavour were present. 

Edited August 23, 2017 by Kanaloa

[Rachel RSL]

I don't even know what South Asian or Northern European cooking is, let alone the spices, and I'm from an extremely multicultural city so it's not surprising to me at all that people might not know obscure flavours from a specific ethnicity.

[TVbitch]

Now that was a great leg. I hope Phil is taking notes.  

[Charlesman]

13 hours ago, Rachel RSL said:

Why the hell did the marching band task take so long? Some of the teams complained that they were there for hours yet when they went for it, it said "2nd attempt" or "3rd attempt". After that long, I assumed everybody had tried it like 10 times. Were they not even allowed to attempt it until the instructor said they were good enough?

That judge got really forgiving by the end. Karen and Andrea didn't even come close and they got the pass. The majorette was doing spins and twirls, while Karen was just swinging the baton back and forth, and they got the clue. I think after three teams left he just let the last two go on the next try. 

[Kanaloa]

On 8/23/2017 at 2:39 PM, Rachel RSL said:

I don't even know what South Asian or Northern European cooking is, let alone the spices, and I'm from an extremely multicultural city so it's not surprising to me at all that people might not know obscure flavours from a specific ethnicity.

Fair enough.

(South Asian cuisines = Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Afghan, Bhutanese, and Maldivian; Northern European cuisines = Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Greenlandic/Inuit, and Faroese) 

Edited August 24, 2017 by Kanaloa

[Fake Jan Brady]

I loved how Sam was slightly buzzed for the rest of the leg after the beer task. 

I really loved how the Kuna women would NOT be rushed into walking faster in the heat. 

That was the tensest I've been for a taxi free-for-all at the end, not knowing who was headed to the wrong Panama sign. What an exhausting episode. 

[amazingracefan]

The challenges were good (three stages as well, not just two stages as often on the US one now) but it was also very predictably a non-elimination leg, I could see it a mile off.  Two signs at the end, making it quite likely a taxi driver would take a team to the wrong one first.

The boxing challenge was ok  but I was a bit put off with one team member shouting out to another what punches they should throw during the challenge itself.

The tasting one was surprisingly difficult as I think they only had about 5 to get right, and both team members could do it together (maybe that just added to the confusion?).

Two polls in it, the first one was fine enough, the second one seemed a bit silly asking whether you would yell or scream or whatever, when the bigger question was whether a penalty would be taken.

I always like it when a clue box is more hidden, though I would have loved it to have been made even harder.

And then an Amazing Race staple, 'I'm so unhappy, I was forced to go on this race to be away from my children' kind of line, followed by a  'we set a great example for our children' at the end.  I can't stand that on any Amazing Race, and I like this team even less now (always found her annoying).

Edited August 25, 2017 by amazingracefan

[Kanaloa]

14 hours ago, cousin oliver said:

That was the tensest I've been for a taxi free-for-all at the end, not knowing who was headed to the wrong Panama sign. What an exhausting episode. 

Heck, even if one knew spoilers, the results of this particular leg were so unclear that the suspense was still there!

(The last time that happened was three years ago during the legendary episode in Paris that eliminated those twin-brothers from QC, when - up to that point in TAR history - there had never been a single team who used the U-Turn board without getting U-Turned and somehow got eliminated, all of which occurring on the exact same leg.)

Edited August 25, 2017 by Kanaloa

[etagloh]

That was a weirdly uncompelling leg for me: I sort of lost interest when the majorette task began. I didn't predict a NEL, but there was somehow a kind of NEL-ness wrapped into it, and it felt like everyone was racing with sufficient Killer Fatigue to suck at something along the way, but not suck amusingly. Karen and Bert won the prize for making the most mistakes -- and getting the most frustrated about making those mistakes. The naughtiness of placing a deceptively-hard beer Detour against a boxing one, though, was something you probably wouldn't get in TAR:US, so a tip of the hat to TPTB-Can for doing it.

[Kanaloa]

5 minutes ago, etagloh said:

The naughtiness of placing a deceptively-hard beer Detour against a boxing one, though, was something you probably wouldn't get in TAR:US, so a tip of the hat to TPTB-Can for doing it.

Right, the closest approximation was probably that timed schnitzel supper onboard a Ferris versus carrying furniture on foot across city streets during Unfinished Business's Vienna episode *.

* That leg also ended up sparing the team who came in last, Gary/Mallory, the spiritual forerunners of both Neil/Kristen and Joel/Ashley (c.f. Ron/Christina with Simi/Ope). 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 8/25/2017 at 6:34 AM, amazingracefan said:

The tasting one was surprisingly difficult as I think they only had about 5 to get right, and both team members could do it together (maybe that just added to the confusion?).

That tasting challenge was bullshit. I mean I love beer so I probably would have picked it. But picking out flavours, unless they are super obvious is extremely subjective. So if one person is tasting grapefruit, someone else might be picking up something else that is also present. Add to that, that flavours in beer change as it warms up, and in some cases quickly as well as it is exposed to the sun. Add that together with the difficulties around being super hot/sweaty and things getting harder the more beer you drink and I could see that one being impossible. Especially since the judges only told you if you were right or wrong.

[Harry24]

So I'm watching this two years after the rest of you, and what a leg!!!  

I really felt for Karen and Bert, after her self-inflicted time sucking error at the Kuna fabric challenge, they're one of two teams to get a taxi driver who takes them to the wrong Panama sign, PLUS the boxing coach who didn't understand the challenge exactly and taught Bert to box left-handed, thus making him have to re-learn all the combinations backwards.

I only realized a few legs ago that Ivana and Korey (sp?) are not a couple.  It's kind of cool that two such gorgeous people aren't in the obvious relationship.