S30.E02: You're The Best French-Fry Ever!

[blackwing]

2 hours ago, RockShrimp said:

WORST. TWIST. EVER.

 

I am livid. The team that came in THIRD ended up in 8th? I hated the Goat Yoga girls but it's bullshit that they went home. It defeats the entire purpose of the rest of the leg to have that stupid obstacle course.

AND the stupid fry costumes made it impossible to tell who was who because it's still too early to tell them apart. ARGH. 

eta: It also gives a huge disadvantage to the less physical teams, who ALREADY tend to be disadvantaged. I hope they don't do this frequently or I may have to give up on this show after 30 seasons. 

I thoroughly disagree.  I thought this was a great twist and it keeps the race fresh.  For once the team that was in last place still had a chance to avoid elimination.   I'm not saying I want to see this all the time, but I didn't mind it here.  

As far as creating a disadvantage to the less physical teams... I say too bad.  The race IS physical.  If you're not in good shape, you won't do well.   I think of teams like the Bowling Moms who were doing well until they couldn't ascend a cliff, or that husband/wife team that were fairly overweight and got eliminated because they couldn't hike in the snow.  I want to see well rounded teams do well and win the race.  If you're saying it's unfair that there is such a physical task that disadvantages the physically weak... then the same can be said about a mental task that disadvantages the jock teams.

I'm so happy that the goat team is gone.  I don't think I could listen to the voice of the passive aggressive one any longer.  It was like a baby frog.

I could do without the Yale Girl calling her partner "Hen".  A hen is a female chicken, and all I could think of was chickens.

Joey(?) from the eating team seems pretty physically incompetent.  The leg had just started and his partner is carrying his bag?  I can't recall if a team of two guys has ever had one carry both bags before.

[Lingo]

I was amazed that all 10 teams got the clue to the crane at the same time, and yet 6 teams got so lost that the first 4 teams finished the crane task and were gone before the other 6 even showed up! And they were traveling on foot, so you would have thought that the bottom 6 could have just followed the top 4?

[ByaNose]

13 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I thoroughly disagree.  I thought this was a great twist and it keeps the race fresh.  For once the team that was in last place still had a chance to avoid elimination.   I'm not saying I want to see this all the time, but I didn't mind it here.  

As far as creating a disadvantage to the less physical teams... I say too bad.  The race IS physical.  If you're not in good shape, you won't do well.   I think of teams like the Bowling Moms who were doing well until they couldn't ascend a cliff, or that husband/wife team that were fairly overweight and got eliminated because they couldn't hike in the snow.  I want to see well rounded teams do well and win the race.  If you're saying it's unfair that there is such a physical task that disadvantages the physically weak... then the same can be said about a mental task that disadvantages the jock teams.

I'm so happy that the goat team is gone.  I don't think I could listen to the voice of the passive aggressive one any longer.  It was like a baby frog.

I could do without the Yale Girl calling her partner "Hen".  A hen is a female chicken, and all I could think of was chickens.

Joey(?) from the eating team seems pretty physically incompetent.  The leg had just started and his partner is carrying his bag?  I can't recall if a team of two guys has ever had one carry both bags before.

Does Joey smoke or something? He can’t even run without running out a breath. He’s ain’t that old either. Not a good sign of things to come. 

Edited January 11, 2018 by ByaNose

[DrScottie]

9 minutes ago, piequinn35 said:

I didn’t know Tyrion Lannister is a Chocolatier.

Ha! He did resemble Peter Dinklage. I thought the same thing.

6 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I could do without the Yale Girl calling her partner "Hen".  A hen is a female chicken, and all I could think of was chickens.

Yeah, it's silly, but I'd rather couples call each other by pet names than scream at each other though. 

[hendersonrocks]

My opinion of the ballers, skiers, Yalies, and firemen definitely went up this week. I liked how they handled themselves.

I’m blissfully free of background knowledge on Big Brother aside from what I’ve read here. It sounds like that’s to my benefit, but I’m pretty sure I’m Not A Fan already.

Finally, I loved “pineapple” and think it’s actually a great idea. It’s a simple, drama-free way to try and address tension before it explodes. 

[Lantern7]

58 minutes ago, piequinn35 said:

I didn’t know Tyrion Lannister is a Chocolatier.

I didn't think that. I thought of the guy from TAR5, who was also . . . Charla-sized. No, really, she hugged him and everything. A look into Wikipedia tells me that the chocolatier was based in Argentina.

41 minutes ago, ByaNose said:

Does Joey smoke or something? He can’t even run without running out a breath. He’s ain’t that old either. Not a good sign of things to come. 

Probably food particles in his lungs. Too small for him to choke, but it would build up over time. The part where Joey telling the Greeter his deal and her facial reaction was pretty funny.

[displayname]

goat yoga-ists

 

I know people found it fun, but this is the stupidest occupation that has ever been represented anywhere ever.

[LittleIggy]

A restaurant in the city where I live makes Belgian style fries, and they are the best fries I have ever had. They come with different kinds of mayo based dipping sauces. ? 

Edited January 11, 2018 by LittleIggy

[talktalk]

That head-to-head race at the end is STUPID and unfair. If they have to do it, do it earlier in the race, for example at the beginning of the segment where everybody is actually all there, and teams have the chance to recover if they don't do well. I don't like this twist at all. 

[Falafel]

I didn't love the head-to-head race twist, but I can accept it. It did seem set up to penalize whichever team lost because there would be compounding fatigue -- and even with the french fry stacks, foot racing still favors taller people and men, which is lame. But it took me a long time to accept the idea that some Amazing Race legs don't result in an elimination and it should be seen as a twist, just like a detour or a roadblock. I've come around to accept that was long as it's not blatantly engineered by the producers, everyone has a chance at any time and luck is a legitimate factor, so I can accept this head-to-head twist. Like, the producers once created "bunching" right at the very end of a leg where everyone had to wait together and then race up and down some sort of temple -- it was total bullshit and it was a manufactured dramatic finish. That's a bit what this felt like, but I do think every team had a better chance to finish and get through this. The teams that arrived last and second last to the fry race were penalized for their poor positioning because they could only do one or two races to get through, which seems fairer than just bunching everyone together. That said, if the Yale team got eliminated, I probably would've felt more outraged on their behalf.

Quote

A restaurant where I live makes Belgian style fries, and they are the best fries I have ever hand.

The secret is that fries in Belgium are double fried. They had them in Amsterdam when I visited and they were amazing.

Quote

Also, was there any reason you couldn't pull the cart behind you?

I was wondering the same thing when half of the goat yoga team got turned around mid-race. I wonder if it would've been faster or easier though -- maybe not.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Falafel

[LilaFowler]

Of course the mean goat lady got her way and made her meek partner run the race again, even though she was tired. Oh well. They deserved to lose. Stand up for yourself next time, lady.

[Shadow Wave]

2 hours ago, Lingo said:

Speaking of Phil: Is it just me, or does he seem a lot more soft-spoken this season so far? He hasn't been shouting anything, he's just been talking at a normal conversational volume. I wonder if he was nursing a touch of laryngitis.

When he was introducing the printing task, he sounded like he had a cold. And he seemed to be keeping the volume down, almost like he was in a library. Laryngitis is a good guess.

[Charlesman]

I know I've seen the Head To Head before on the last season of TAR:Canada, but it wasn't directly at the mat. They're had to at least drive somewhere and the last place team had a fifteen minute penalty or something before they could leave too. Not sure if it's been on other international editions too. But if one team had to be sacrificed to it, at least it was a team that didn't have much of a chance anyway. 

[helent]

3 hours ago, Wandering Snark said:

But Phil really needed to ooh and ahh about the Alpha Males more and talk about the people in the back 'falling out of it' and tell them they 'better pick it up' etc.

Also needs to add some double entendres - 'Henry's sacks are falling!', 'April's got a great grip there!' (this must be why so many Survivor challenges use balls, there aren't really a lot of potato innuendos).

[GaT]

Wow, I can't tell you how much I hated that stupid head to head frites race, I am not liking this season at all.

[biakbiak]

I seriously need Phil to stop reapting that these are the most competitive racers ever, there are people who do goat yoga and a pair who based on their own words (never seen an ep of BB) didn't win their season of a shitty reality show. 

I didn't know there was a Brittany on this show and I seriously don't know her partners name.

Edited January 11, 2018 by biakbiak

[AfterwardsTV]

Wrong team went home. They should be in separate lanes so less funny business happens. April had that lead. Very convinced that this is a budget saver since at the very least it saves on camera footage expenses.

Guess they want to keep intro focus on the teams since Phil doesn't need to continually be the last shot. Maybe he was just there last week to introduce to newbies.

Good for the girl at finish line not caring about the 6 pounds of fry scarfing. Correction: You're only the best in the world that has TRIED/been officially timed.

Jody deserve to be the team to beat because it does seem their talents were severely wasted being strapped to a smelly ogre's rig story. Now they have actual rivals instead of a degenerate that famewhores were brainwashed into obeying.

That Henry end crash was kind of jarring, but I don't think they'll ever have to worry about being 8th again.

[ProfCrash]

10 hours ago, Eolivet said:

Guys, if you were going to do an arbitrary twist, why didn't you just make them build fire against each other instead?

Really. That twist was awful. Simply awful.

The one on Amazing Race sucked just as badly. You put together a race that requires running and pushing a heavy hand cart and the team that loses is out. Yeah, that doesn't totally give an advantage to the athletic teams. There was no way Henry and Evan were winning until one of the non-Professional Athlete/Firefighter team showed up. If you are going to do something this incredibly stupid it needs to have tasks in it that balance the race out so that the non-physical teams have a shot at winning against the athletic teams. Say, a puzzle. So not only is a team screwed out of the position that they earned and they are even more screwed if they do not fit the stereotype needed for the race. Complete and utter bullshit.

 

10 hours ago, InDueTime said:

"Pineapple" safe word? Huh? You just can't tell the other person to relax or something?

I like the idea of a safe word but what a stupid safe word to choose. They should have chose something that would sound more natural then yelling out a random tropical fruit. I like that they thought ahead and knew that there would be times that they would get stressed and upset and looked for a way to signal the other to leave them alone for a bit.

I liked the Detours. Loved the printing press one and how people dealt with the challenge of reversed letters and the like. The diamond one seemed to be pretty challenging. I was not expecting to see the mathematic formulas on their worksheets. It was far more complex then it sounded when it was described.

The roadblock was OK. It looked hard but I am not sure how much of an advantage the first team down got. It looked like the entire thing was lifted in the air so the first team down would have had to wait for it to come down before they could get off.

[TheRabbi]

2 minutes ago, ProfCrash said:

 

 

I like the idea of a safe word but what a stupid safe word to choose. They should have chose something that would sound more natural then yelling out a random tropical fruit. 

I was wondering if they were a fan of the show Chuck, which had an absolutely hilarious use for the word pineapple as a trigger-word. How i miss that show. 

 

Nice reading all the opinions on the head to head. I didn't realize it was imported from TAR Canada. They can keep it. Not everything from Canada is better, though I will hang onto my Labatts

[Haleth]

9 hours ago, Lingo said:

Speaking of Phil: Is it just me, or does he seem a lot more soft-spoken this season so far? He hasn't been shouting anything, he's just been talking at a normal conversational volume. I wonder if he was nursing a touch of laryngitis.

When he was describing the printing challenge I thought he sounded like he had a cold.

8 hours ago, piequinn35 said:

I didn’t know Tyrion Lannister is a Chocolatier.

I was waiting for someone to say this.

7 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Probably food particles in his lungs. Too small for him to choke, but it would build up over time. The part where Joey telling the Greeter his deal and her facial reaction was pretty funny.

Ewww.

[TaraS1]

Count me in as hating the head-to-head race.  You work hard to complete a detour and get to the mat first, second, whatever, but yet you still run the risk of being eliminated once you get there?  As the kids say - miss me with that.

[Lamb18]

11 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

Or, in my opinion, *insert bullshit reason here in order to hang it over April's head the rest of their lives when they lost*

That crossed my mind. Payback for Iceland.

[amazingracefan]

Yes the end did make the detour less important, and the detour was good, the best part of the episode.  The climbing part and the race at the end needed to be made a bit harder I thought, it looked like they all did the climbing on first go.  It would have been better on the head to head if they had to pick someone to compete without knowing what the task was, as they all picked the strongest person in their team, which automatically meant the two physically weakest teams were the only two likely to lose.

5 hours ago, AfterwardsTV said:

Wrong team went home. They should be in separate lanes so less funny business happens. April had that lead. Very convinced that this is a budget saver since at the very least it saves on camera footage expenses.

Guess they want to keep intro focus on the teams since Phil doesn't need to continually be the last shot. Maybe he was just there last week to introduce to newbies.

Good for the girl at finish line not caring about the 6 pounds of fry scarfing. Correction: You're only the best in the world that has TRIED/been officially timed.

Jody deserve to be the team to beat because it does seem their talents were severely wasted being strapped to a smelly ogre's rig story. Now they have actual rivals instead of a degenerate that famewhores were brainwashed into obeying.

That Henry end crash was kind of jarring, but I don't think they'll ever have to worry about being 8th again.

It did make me wonder about what the rules were on barging into someone, I guess it was a case of anything goes, which again meant the stronger contestant wasn't likely to lose.

[TheRabbi]

According to Sarah's Facebook page, they waited nearly 3 hours for the twins to show up to the challenge. That's pretty unfair. 

[ProfCrash]

So even if Goat Yoga had won, they are screwed with a three hour penalty on their departure or was their departure time set by their arrival time at the ridiculous race?

[amazingracefan]

10 hours ago, Lingo said:

The point of the head-to-head was that it was an elimination competition. To have the finish mat anywhere else would be missing the point.

This was exactly the twist, and I don't think it's the same as on the Canadian version or the intersection someone mentioned.  On those there is still at the very least a race to the  mat, maybe even some other task or navigation to work out the placings.  Here the final loser of the head to head is out, totally different really.  The mat just becomes the announcement mat not a race mat.

[amazingracefan]

9 hours ago, Lingo said:

I was amazed that all 10 teams got the clue to the crane at the same time, and yet 6 teams got so lost that the first 4 teams finished the crane task and were gone before the other 6 even showed up! And they were traveling on foot, so you would have thought that the bottom 6 could have just followed the top 4?

It's so boring when all the teams follow each other, it's just part of the helping that goes on.  Soi I was happy there was a split, but the climbing task didn't seem to split teams that much more as they had so much time to get to the top.

[Fukui San]

Hopefully for Evan and Henry there'll be a debating based head-to-head challenge later on in the season.

I liked the idea upthread about having one fewer sack with each attempt.

Whatever you think of the twist, I don't think it was any sort of cost-saving move. They still had to film the same number of attempts as they would if the teams had to, say, compete individually against a set time.  If they did it that way you might have to film more attempts as Evan and Henry and the Goat Yoga team may have needed a number of solo tries to beat the clock.

[Netfoot]

The hard thing about the head-to-head elimination is that the last team to arrive gets to race against a team that has had a chance to practice at least once.  Sure, they will be fresher, but the other team will know what to expect from runaway trollies, tumbling frites-bags, etc.  So, off we go...  trolly-mishap... Philiminated.  No chance for recovery.    Still, if this is what TPTB hope will boost ratings thereby making them give TAR another season, I'm for it.  I just hope that we won't see this at every pitstop from now on.

Once again, a really cute greeter.  Most ungentlemanly of Phil not to introduce her!

[Fukui San]

4 minutes ago, amazingracefan said:

It's so boring when all the teams follow each other, it's just part of the helping that goes on.  Soi I was happy there was a split, but the climbing task didn't seem to split teams that much more as they had so much time to get to the top.

I was surprised at the climbing task that teams that dropped the clue didn't have to do it again.  That would have been brutal.

[amazingracefan]

1 minute ago, Fukui San said:

I was surprised at the climbing task that teams that dropped the clue didn't have to do it again.  That would have been brutal.

Yes, I don't know why the clues dropped and whether it was their fault or not.  But you do find on tasks on the race in modern times that if you drop something you don't have to go back to the start, that didn't used to be the case in tougher older times.  I guess budget cuts meant they wanted to cut the time raced.

[TheRabbi]

4 minutes ago, Fukui San said:

 

Whatever you think of the twist, I don't think it was any sort of cost-saving move. They still had to film the same number of attempts as they would if the teams had to, say, compete individually against a set time.  If they did it that way you might have to film more attempts as Evan and Henry and the Goat Yoga team may have needed a number of solo tries to beat the clock.

Agreed with this. They still had to pay to shut down that street block for the day, and still paid to set up a detour and roadblock like usual. It was a gimmick pure and simple, worked into their season budget.

I also like the idea presented upthread about losing  one sack of fries every attempt. Might make it a bit more fair.

[Lady Calypso]

Well, I know when I watched the Canadian version last year, their Face Off competition still had a race to the mat, and the last team had a chance to get there. In fact, the competition was in between the Detour and the Roadblock, if I remember correctly, and I don't think the last team for the Face Off actually got eliminated that leg. 

I think that having the Face Off as the elimination competition sucks, especially depending on the comp. This time, it was purely physical, no advantages for the team who might have kept losing (this time, it was Henry/Evan, clearly not physical competitors), and too many teams to compete against. I think the Head to Head competition is a fine idea, but it needs some fine tuning. I think it's one thing to get eliminated on bad luck. Even if it was the fault of the team for getting lost or taking too long on a task or something. This Head to Head competition, in hindsight, could be well done IF there was an equal mixture of physical and mental, to give the physically weaker teams an advantage. That's all they needed to do; add in something else, or give the losing team a slight advantage (in this case, getting to take one bag off of the dolly). 

Also, I think that having it in the middle of the leg isn't the worst idea, because it does allow for a team, who might be at a disadvantage with the Head to Head competition, to get a chance to not be eliminated. It does suck for Goat Yoga Moms that they got eliminated against the Firefighters. They're basically trained to do this kind of stuff, so they had a clear advantage over April and Sarah. I mean, i'm glad my least favourite team got eliminated, but I know I'm biased because if it had been Evan/Henry who got eliminated over a competition not made for them, and a comp that tired them out the more they did it which lessened their chances to win, I would have been livid.

And it's why I cheered when Henry cut in front of April to win. At that point, after doing it three times, I would have done the exact same thing to avoid being eliminated.

[amazingracefan]

3 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

The hard thing about the head-to-head elimination is that the last team to arrive gets to race against a team that has had a chance to practice at least once.  Sure, they will be fresher, but the other team will know what to expect from runaway trollies, tumbling frites-bags, etc.  So, off we go...  trolly-mishap... Philiminated.  No chance for recovery.    Still, if this is what TPTB hope will boost ratings thereby making them give TAR another season, I'm for it.  I just hope that we won't see this at every pitstop from now on.

Once again, a really cute greeter.  Most ungentlemanly of Phil not to introduce her!

There is always that aspect to a head to head, however that dolly/trolley racing course wasn't actually very difficult even for first timers, it was more about speed and strength.

[MyAimIsTrue]

My love for the Ballers continues as they're always so pleasant and even with a serious disadvantage due to their height on the head to head race they remained so.  I noticed on the flight to Amsterdam they had exit row seats as I was wondering if or how two 6' 7" guys could fit into standard coach seats.

[Netfoot]

3 minutes ago, amazingracefan said:

I don't know why the clues dropped and whether it was their fault or not.

Looked to me like the clues were taped to the top rung of the ladder.  When the wind caused them to flap around a bit, they shook themselves loose, and they fell.  Not the fault of the racers.  The second batch of climbers had their clues attached with a different type of tape, presumably to reduce/eliminate the clues being dislodged by the wind.

[Bryce Lynch]

I think the head to head would have been a good method for bunching and reshuffling.  But, it should have been done in the middle of the leg, not at the pit stop.  That way, the losers would not be determined entirely based upon their ability to win the Fry Race.  

[Bryce Lynch]

11 hours ago, notcreative enough said:

I felt just awful for team Yale having to go over and over again. Don't know why the other goat lady didn't switch off maybe she was just over the whole thing.

Glad the close counted after that fell off the ladder. It wasn't that one guys fault the wind blew it off. 

Don't really know why Phil said something about the twins getting a second chance. Was it because the switched detours? They could have taken 4 extra hours and it would have all come down to the fry race.

Loved the eater guy (Joe?) telling his partner that he responds well to being yelled at. 

That was a poorly designed task, with the clues falling off.  I also noticed that a couple of the partners were yelling encouragement that could have been interpreted as instructions., something like, "One rung at a time."  An argument could made that they should have received penalties like the NBA players received last episode.   

[ProfCrash]

32 minutes ago, Fukui San said:

I was surprised at the climbing task that teams that dropped the clue didn't have to do it again.  That would have been brutal.

 

19 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Looked to me like the clues were taped to the top rung of the ladder.  When the wind caused them to flap around a bit, they shook themselves loose, and they fell.  Not the fault of the racers.  The second batch of climbers had their clues attached with a different type of tape, presumably to reduce/eliminate the clues being dislodged by the wind.

Both teams that had the clue fly off said that they still had to touch the top before coming down. That makes it seem to me that the Racers were told what to do in case of the clues falling. I suspect that the wind and shaking ladders was enough to send some clues flying.

[sigmaforce86]

I wonder if they threw in the head to head this leg because they knew all teams would be on the same flight so any time advantages from Iceland were lost?  I don't know but the only reason I didn't mind it was it got rid of the yoga team.  I like the twins but I don't see them lasting very long.  It's not a bad idea but it's not making a very fair race either - what if one team was waiting to race and the next team was an hour behind?  It could really screw up the start times off the mat in the next leg.  The reason I always told people I liked this show was the racers rose and fell solely on their own - they either find their way or they don't, they either complete the task or they don't; no alliances (not that they don't make them but it's not the same), no tribes, nobody votes them out it's just all on the team.  The head to had sort of takes away from that dynamic, there should be other ways to "freshen" the game if they think that's needed.

I loved the seats on the plane - the little napkin things on the head rest said ""Hi, I'm your seat cover" on them which for some reason we all found very funny.

7 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

I also noticed that a couple of the partners were yelling encouragement that could have been interpreted as instructions., something like, "One rung at a time."  An argument could made that they should have received penalties like the NBA players received last episode.   

It has to help advance the team or person doing the task - so yelling the obvious like go slow, be careful won't count against them.  If the clues were hidden on some platform at the top of the ladder and the other teammate yelled "go left" that would be the penalty because it helped the person doing the task find the clue where "one rung at a time" doesn't help them complete anything it just sort of states the obvious.

ETA:  I think there have been a couple tasks in the past where the clue specifically says the other teammate can't talk at all during it.  One I vaguely remember was maybe Denmark or Finland?  

Edited January 11, 2018 by sigmaforce86

[chaifan]

1 hour ago, TheRabbi said:

According to Sarah's Facebook page, they waited nearly 3 hours for the twins to show up to the challenge. That's pretty unfair. 

If that's the case, then it made sense for the one who previously did the course do it again.  No argument that she was too tired for a second run, and she knew the course.  So, that was actually a good decision.

But 3 hours???  wow.

[blackwing]

49 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

The hard thing about the head-to-head elimination is that the last team to arrive gets to race against a team that has had a chance to practice at least once.  Sure, they will be fresher, but the other team will know what to expect from runaway trollies, tumbling frites-bags, etc.  So, off we go...  trolly-mishap... Philiminated.  No chance for recovery.    Still, if this is what TPTB hope will boost ratings thereby making them give TAR another season, I'm for it.  I just hope that we won't see this at every pitstop from now on.

I think you're saying that the second team is disadvantaged, because the first team gets the experience of having tried it before?  That certainly didn't help Henry.  He even commented he knew the cart was loose and turned very easily, but he still failed multiple times.  And it didn't help the Goat Lady who got beat by the fireman brother.

 

I don't think that encouraging the teammate to go up the ladder, or telling them to take the turns slowly on the French fry race, is something that amounts to "helping".  To me, helping is something blatant, like some seasons ago when someone told their partner that their rack of fish was upside down.

[Boilergal]

13 hours ago, InDueTime said:

 

"Pineapple" safe word? Huh? You just can't tell the other person to relax or something?

 

I think the safe word is a good idea - usually when someone says relax...that starts a much bigger argument that begins with I AM RELAXED!!!!!!!  QUIT TELLING ME TO RELAX!!!!!

Pineapple is as good as any other word to use, maybe it's an inside joke to them.   I can't help thinking of 4 Christmas's where the safe word was mistletoe.

I'm not sure how I feel about the head to head race - I'm glad Team Yale didn't go on that, because that realllllly wouldn't have been fair, to come in 3rd and then booted because of your lack of athleticism.  I'm okay with it coming down to the last two teams doing the head to head.

Looked like they figured out how to secure the clues after the first set of rope ladder climbers.  The basketball player made it clear that he continued to climb to the top and tap to make sure not to incur a penalty,  but the other guy that had a dropped clue didn't make it clear...I was expecting a penalty at the mat for that.

[Bryce Lynch]

20 minutes ago, chaifan said:

If that's the case, then it made sense for the one who previously did the course do it again.  No argument that she was too tired for a second run, and she knew the course.  So, that was actually a good decision.

But 3 hours???  wow.

I was thrilled to see Team Goat Yoga eliminated.  (Leave those goats alone!)  But getting to the final task 3 hours ahead of the last place team, and having to wait for them for an all or nothing race, is unfair.  They should have done the head to head in the middle of the leg.  That way teams that failed at it would be punished by losing ground, but not eliminated for not being able to win at a single, stupid task.

[Etta Place]

Yes, Belgian frites are the best. I used to live in Belgium, and the mere mention of them had me very sorry I'm not there anymore.

The race didn't bother me, honestly. It was somewhat arbitrary, and the teams at the end had fewer opportunities to get it right, but that happens with needle-in-a-haystack challenges where there are a finite number of clues to be discovered too. 

I was expecting some sort of explanation about the clues falling - either that it was okay or that they had to get a new clue or whatever but there was just nothing. It made it seem weird that the teams commented on it if there wasn't going to be any sort of consequence mentioned.

[Netfoot]

22 minutes ago, ProfCrash said:

I suspect that the wind and shaking ladders was enough to send some clues flying.

I agree that this was the probable cause of the flying clues amongst the first batch of four climbers.

This is Joey's clue just before it detaches itself and falls.

And here it is again moments later.

Notice that the black stuff (what ever it is) remains on the rung after the clue detaches.  There also appears to be more black stuff on the rung three down.  The falling clue is hardly Joey's fault, and the reasonable solution was to climb to toe top, then recover the clue from the ground after returning to earth.  (Shawn's clue fell first, in pretty much the exact same way, but wasn't as photogenic!)

Now, during the second batch of four climbers, we see Evan's clue.

 

They seem to have switched to a white-coloured tape.  There is also more black stuff on the rung.  This clue does not fall.  In fact, there are no more falling clues after the two from the initial batch of climbers.

[bmoore4026]

Oh, God, Team Yale is too milquetoast to be winners of this show.  Only after seven losses do they decide to be more assertive.  Jesus!  If they don't lose in the next round, I'm going to be pissed!

[chaifan]

Any idea how long the rope ladder/clue grab challenge for most teams?  The second set of teams really had a time disadvantage, because they had to wait for all 4 teams to get down, then for production to send people back up to attach the 2nd set of clues, then do the challenge.

[amazingracefan]

24 minutes ago, Etta Place said:

The race didn't bother me, honestly. It was somewhat arbitrary, and the teams at the end had fewer opportunities to get it right, but that happens with needle-in-a-haystack challenges where there are a finite number of clues to be discovered too.

It was more like an intersection, they had to wait 3 hours for the last team apparently.

[Special K]

I too was comparing Phil's commentary to Jeff Probst's.  Jeff would have been all:  "Henry fails AGAIN!!  He CANNOT get a hang of this!  He's MILES BEHIND his competitor!!!"  Phil was:  "It must be so hard to be Evan and Henry right now, giving it their all, staying upbeat, but clearly exhausted."

I'm not even afraid of heights and I don't think I could do that ladder climb.  Maybe I'm afraid of flimsy flailing rope ladders?

I'm loving "Pineapple."  would you rather hear that than "Shut the &%$ up and calm down!"

Props to Evan/Henry -- they really are a great team.  I hope they go far.  Still liking the Skiers, NBA guys, Violinists, Team Yale.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Special K