The Amazing Race 32: Legs 8-12
Dec. 27th, 2020 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsTime to bring it home before the end of the year :-)
Episodes 8-9
1. As mentioned at the end of the previous leg, this week is a megaleg... we're heading to Hyderabad in India, and of course there's a confessional from Eswar/Aparna: They're hoping to get a coding task in this leg :-) The first task involves flagging down three auto rickshaws (or, as they're called locally, "autos", local knowledge that the siblings use to their advantage... while DeAngelo/Gary, NFL, struggle to figure out which ones are rickshaws :-D) in the extra chaotic Indian traffic to perform a pollution check, where the biggest drama is Riley/Maddison, the beards, flagging down two at once and NFL trying to argue that that isn't allowed...
2. Detour between Number Trap and Food App: The blondes are initially the only ones performing the latter, a food delivery task (and getting lost in the cab on the way there, since no leg with the blondes is complete without it :-)), while the others head to a software company, and play a Kinect-esque game to grab 0's and 1's (the essential fundamentals of binary, and Phil Keoghan weakly ties it in to India by saying that India invented the zero), and then decode a message from a bunch of binary codes appearing on the screen after a successful attempt, which then reveals the place for a clue pickup... (And apparently Hung/Chee end up switching over to Food App and actually arrive at that task before the blondes (!))
3. Roadblock at some fort: "Who's ready to open their lids?" Involves using a provided tablet to find pictures of guys in turbans in augmented reality, and then find the matching guy and place them at a given tile matching the post where they found the picture... Neat task, and Will/James struggle to comprehend the placement part, but the real important stuff is that this is preceded by a Yield, which Will/James use on the blondes, who are already so far behind they don't even start the task until part two, speaking of...
4. Part two starts off at the Charminar with a "This or That" Detour, where contestants have to actually get to either one of the locations to find out what the choices are: One of them involves pushing a cart with a pile of bangles to a jewelry shop, and then searching through the pile to match the bangles on a girl's arm (the beards are quick to call it a "run of the mill needle in a haystack challenge" LOL) and the other involves making a mold for dentures (which involves mixing up some molding material and having someone actually bite into it, ew!) and then polishing another set of dentures and installing them in a patient's mouth (Eswar/Aparna take this task, and Hung/Chee switch over from bracelets, queueing up behind the sibs to wait for them to finish their mold first...)
5. Beards are first to finish their task, and head off to the Taj Falaknuma palace (now a fancy hotel!) to ride with some fancy socialites in a carriage (even wearing fancy outfits for the occasion that really give them the Maharajah look ;-))... and the last Yield opportunity of the race, which the beards decide to use to buy time for CheeHu (that's their nickname for Hung/Chee?) by Yielding the blondes for 20 minutes (yes, double-Yielded)
6. Also at the palace is the 2nd Roadblock: "Who wants to set things straight?" In this case, set up 10 sets of dishes and stuff on (part of) a 108-foot dining table, replete with napkin (which comes with a guy demonstrating how to fold them in various fashions) The main issue here is that Riley finds a yardstick with which to set up each set... and James also discovers a bunch of yardsticks, and they decide to make sure Gary doesn't find out, since they've decided that it's time to cut the alliance of five teams down to three... Meanwhile, the blondes do the dentistry detour, and quip about giving their patient a lolly :-)
7. The beards are first to get the task done and check in on the palace grounds, winning a Caribbean cruise :-) and talking about their intent to drop the alliance down to just 3: Themselves, Will/James, and Hung/Chee (there's plenty of alliance talk with Phil)... While the remaining teams are setting things straight, the blondes finally arrive at the palace and find out they've been Yielded again... and laugh at their own misfortune ("We're Yield bros") :-D though they're still a bit bitter over the apparent disproportional retribution they've been handed for Yielding Leo/Alana, as the last other teams finish up the Roadblock before they've even started theirs (we get a "Thank god for alliances" soundbite again from I think Chee), and Phil finally eliminates the blondes with a strained "sand in the hourglass" metaphor (with the girls commenting that they were in costumes each time they'd been last)
Episode 10
1. This week is Siem Reap, Cambodia (a bucket list destination for James :-)) and it's a sponsor-mandated carry the gnome leg as well (Hung/Chee have a cab confessional in which they brag that their kids love the gnome :-)) Pick up is at a local market, where contestants are to find the gnome sitting in a rickshaw cabin, and then find a driver to hook a motorcycle up to it before heading off to the the first stop, the pier for the nearby floating village of Chong Kaneas, then ride a boat to a floating temple, where each team is to present offerings in a specific manner, and here I digress a little: Given that our broadcaster has edited out a scene of a contestant peeing in a stream in an earlier season of TAR, and blurred out all the captions mentioning Malaysia in a first season ep of the new MacGyver (which nevertheless has Mac drinking from a soda can with Thai writing on it, then using it as part of one of his "hacks", but enough digressing for now), it seems a bit surprising that they leave in Cambodian monks presenting contestants with the envelopes (I suspect that it's only because it's an integral part of the competition, unlike peeing in a stream) But anyways, the beards end up falling from 1st to 3rd due to engine troubles with their boat engine on their way to the temple...
2. Detour is between planting veggies in a floating garden and pulling a really long fish net (in-show graphic calls it 3280ft, which is non-metric for 1km) through a tool to remove the fish from it... The show goes out of its way to involve the gnome in both tasks, as it carries a satchel with seeds for the garden, and a scale needle to put on a needle-less scale to measure out 15kg ("about 30lbs") of fish from the net... Will/James are the only one to pick the gardens of their own volition, as Hung/Chee end up arriving at the gardens instead of the fish pier (and thankfully, Hung is somewhat familiar with the plants they have to plant)
3. Next up is a Double U-Turn (where Phil Keoghan reveals that there are no non-elims left), and DeAngelo/Gary (NFL) uses it on Eswar/Aparna, forcing them to do gardening as well, with the beards purposely putting up NFL's picture to prevent usage of the 2nd U-Turn... For the others, up next is a Roadblock at a tile making shop downtown: "Who thinks they can fit the mold?" (The beards end up beating NFL to the store despite starting like 5 minutes behind them LOL!) It's a two-part task: Make a colored tile, then use it as part of a sliding game (once again, the gnome gets involved since its satchel also comes with a key to unlock a chest with the pieces for the sliding game), but the first part is flummoxing the contestants who can't figure out how to get the tile out of the mold after it's been pressed, since they only watched the part of the demonstration with the local craftsman pouring paint into holes...
4. After a short interlude of Eswar/Aparna finishing up the gardening, it finally occurs to the beards and Will/James to watch the whole demonstration, where it turns out the trick is to grease the mold in order to remove the tile properly (Will analogizes it to greasing a cake pan before commenting on the big dumbbell-like handle on the tile press: "Spinning the big dumbbell :-)"), and they make short work of the slide puzzle while Hung/Chee and NFL are still trying to figure out the tile removal (with Gary taking a nap while he's waiting for DeAngelo)
5. Pit stop is at Angkor Thom, the big moated city just north of the more well-known Angkor Wat, where the beards get themselves a trip to Norway and quip about fitting in with the Vikings :-) while James comments that he's always wanted to come to Cambodia :-) Meanwhile, the sibs show up at the tile shop, so the final segment is down to who will decide to check the demo and notice the greasing first... and Chee and DeAngelo notice the greasing and finish the task in that order (with DeAngelo quipping like "I'm not going to retile my bathroom"), but there's still room for drama on the ride to Angkor Thom as a) both teams to have to walk a bit to get to their cabbie, and b) NFL have to wait for a tractor to push over a tree before they can continue to the pit stop... and NFL finish 4th to eliminate the sibs, but still, 9 legs is quite an improvement over the previous Indian team :-)
Episode 11
1. This week is a trip to Manila (Hung says she has a half-Filipino friend, Will/James let out a Mabuhay greeting immediately after reading the opening clue, and NFL bill the leg as "Thrilla in Manila, Part 2"), where the teams meet Phil Keoghan upfront for another unique twist on the leg: The "city sprint", in which all of the tasks are straight tasks, rather than Detours or Roadblocks, and the leg will end at the same spot where Phil has summoned the teams... Okay, so the first clue pickup is at a provided jeepney, where they have to figure out from the clue that they have to pick up their clue from a dancing policeman: NFL and the beards manage to get theirs first go, while Will/James and Hung/Chee have to circle around to pick it up second go because their drivers turned in the wrong lane or something... and incidentally, this leg has the rankings shown in a table, rather than via captions for each relevant team (at least for most of the leg)
2. Next stop is the Mall of Asia, where teams are to run in high heels (there's a popular high heel running race in the Philippines), and while one of the beards quips about wearing them every Friday night, Will/James are genuinely used to wearing them (one of them even boasts that he has 6 inch heels, compared to the 2 inch ones the race has provided :-)) Otherwise, it's pretty hard on the remaining contestants' ankles (except of course for Hung :-))
3. Next stop is Manila's Chinatown, where everyone is to find a dragon with a clue in its mouth (there's apparently only one dragon with the clues, and it's both of a different color and accompanied by a dude on cymbals), and Hung/Chee dig themselves even further into a hole by getting off at the wrong arch, and having to waste time getting directions to the proper arch (by imitating a roaring dragon to a couple of cops, LOL!)
4. Next task involves meeting a couple horse-drawn carriages ("calessas") at the Manila Central Post Office: Find all ingredients to feed a horse (molasses, seed, grass) from marked vendors, and mix them with water (minus the grass) In a nice long shot, NFL manage to miss the marked seed vendor, and decide against re-checking the area to make sure (it takes Will/James of all teams finding the seed for them to notice)
5. Last task is a race memory task, involving a rock band playing a medley of the music they've heard on the race... Two of the tunes are very familiar: Day-O from Trinidad and Tobago, and the generic circus music in Colombia (which I've recently learned is the opening section of the Julius Fucik (don't forget the "i" ;-)) march "Entry of the Gladiators" with the silly factor turned up to 11, LOL), while the others are less-recognizable music played by the recycled orchestra in Paraguay and the string quartet in France, and contestants are to find boxes with the flags of the relevant legs, and present them in order of the legs (and not in order of the appearance in the medley, as NFL has it during a piece to camera; though ironically, at at least two points they have the first three flags correct) It's a pretty tedious task, as there's a montage of several teams putting up one wrong guess after another...
6. Obviously most contestants know Day-O and the circus music, but the non-NFL teams end up deciding to work together, to just do all the permutations possible, and when that doesn't work out, Will/James pull out the clue and realize they have to order them by order of appearance on the race, and soon the beards are the first to get it right, before then passing it on to the other two non-NFL teams... Seeing this, NFL has no choice but to take the two hour penalty, as the rest head off back to the pitstop...
7. Back to the pitstop, and the entire final segment consists mostly of the beards, Will/James, and Hung/Chee checking in in that order in close succession (the first two make a "tunnel" for Hung to walk in), where the beards admit to helping Hung/Chee because they helped them, but really, the "real" reason to help them is to get rid of NFL, of which more shortly... Phil tells the others upfront that they're heading to New Orleans for the final leg, and they're getting an upgrade for the final plane ride (sweet!) Anyways, NFL wait out their penalty and get the elimination check-in (with a bunch of tai-chi practicioners at the park)... where DeAngelo calls it the worst experience of his life: "The race sucked. The bad outweighed the good" (that had better be sarcasm, D)
Episode 12
1. So they're heading to good old New Orleans for the final round, and after a nice brief scene of the contestants appreciating the extra leg space on the plane ride for the final leg (Will/James get the extra-spacious bulkhead :-)), the first stop is a clue pick up at Louis Armstrong Park, which puts the beards in a hole early since their cabbie drives them to the wrong area... The clue pickup leads them to Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, where not surprisingly, there's a Mardi Gras-themed task, even though by all indications the race was filmed around Christmas time (re: the decorations in the Manila leg, and the early sunset at the start of the Siem Reap leg) The task involves catching beaded necklaces from revelers, more specifically red and "gold" ones, even more specifically ones with large beads, to match the ones the "grand marshal" is wearing... And it just so happens that Will/James have been to the French Quarter before, and are very well in their element there, easily getting their 50 necklaces first :-)
2. Next up is a Roadblock: "Who will be left holding the baby?" After choosing, contestants then walk with a band to Cafe Beignet where the chosen contestant then squishes loads of "king cakes" (two racks' worth LOL!) looking for a small baby figurine (and these are actually relevant to Christmas time, since they're related to the Nativity), and it just so happens that James has been to New Orleans and knows what the deal with the baby in the "king cakes" is, and ends up finding the baby as the beards arrive at the Cafe... (Pretty sure my mom would not like perfectly good food being casually destroyed like that :-\) Chee calls it forearm exercise :-)
3. But there's a second, ostensibly easier, part of the task that keeps threatening to trip Will/James up: Eating 6 beignets total, which they compare to the cinammon challenge, and Will can't seem to keep his beignets down, so James has to eat 4 LOL. Meanwhile, both of the other teams have to go over their already-squashed cakes again to find their babies, and in Chee's case, it fell on the table, and since it's at the top of the table, he doesn't notice it until he's re-checked and cleared out the pile in front of him, but they're still ahead of the beards...
4. Next stop is the Crescent City Connection bridge for the second Roadblock: "Who wants to take a swing at this Roadblock?" (which of course means the other teammate) And it involves jumping off a ledge to grab a clue and swinging from a bridge, a la the very first Roadblock of the series to be shown back in 2001 (!) The biggest drama (other than the obvious) involves Hung concerned that she might not be able to grab the clue at the first go with her short T-rex arms (her words)... no worries, she manages :-) Meanwhile, the beards find their baby and add "Say hello to my little friend :-)"
5. After rappeling off the bridge, teams then pick up some large blue balls (no double entendres, please :-)) and roll them over to Mardi Gras World, where they keep the floats for the festival, for the final task... and since they've already done race memory last leg, for this task contestants are to find and open a chest to reveal pieces of a world map, which they then are to attach to the large blue ball before putting on top of a nearby float... and it seems like the last chance for any suspense as to the outcome ended when Will/James stopped being suspended from the bridge, since they're quick to order the pieces around properly and attach them, and even when the adjudicator, the owner of Mardi Gras World no less, tells them to tidy up their work, it's only to make sure the pieces are flat against the ball...
6. Will/James manage to get their finish line clue before any other teams even reach Mardi Gras World... and the finish line is at the Superdome (where else? It's even lit up in red :-)) or as the clue has it, "where the Saints go marching in" :-) No football related task, just the mat, Phil Keoghan, and the other teams waiting for Will/James to come running in :-) Will's finish line interview reveals he's been watching this show since he was 11... And when asked when he knew they were ahead, James answers: "When I jumped off a bridge... What the heck was that?!" LOL! Leo quips: "I can't imagine loving the team that U-Turned us more" The only real attempt at suspense after the bridge is pretty much pointless, since it's a race for 2nd place, but FWIW Hung/Chee manage to beat the beards... and Hung/Chee brag about their trip as being "The honeymoon we never had", while the beards don't look very happy about their finish, but say that "the race will bring more to our careers than our careers brought to the race" We end on Phil telling the collected contestants that they're part of history, since they just rolled over a million miles this season :-) (Though given the current situation, it remains to be seen whether the show will get to keep going)
Bonus: Apparently on the US broadcast, Will gave James an engagement ring right on the mat after the win, but our local broadcast cut straight from Will saying "I love him so much" back to the remaining two teams still working on the globe at Mardi Gras World... (and it's a pretty abrupt cut, as the scene clearly does not feel finished)
Episodes 8-9
1. As mentioned at the end of the previous leg, this week is a megaleg... we're heading to Hyderabad in India, and of course there's a confessional from Eswar/Aparna: They're hoping to get a coding task in this leg :-) The first task involves flagging down three auto rickshaws (or, as they're called locally, "autos", local knowledge that the siblings use to their advantage... while DeAngelo/Gary, NFL, struggle to figure out which ones are rickshaws :-D) in the extra chaotic Indian traffic to perform a pollution check, where the biggest drama is Riley/Maddison, the beards, flagging down two at once and NFL trying to argue that that isn't allowed...
2. Detour between Number Trap and Food App: The blondes are initially the only ones performing the latter, a food delivery task (and getting lost in the cab on the way there, since no leg with the blondes is complete without it :-)), while the others head to a software company, and play a Kinect-esque game to grab 0's and 1's (the essential fundamentals of binary, and Phil Keoghan weakly ties it in to India by saying that India invented the zero), and then decode a message from a bunch of binary codes appearing on the screen after a successful attempt, which then reveals the place for a clue pickup... (And apparently Hung/Chee end up switching over to Food App and actually arrive at that task before the blondes (!))
3. Roadblock at some fort: "Who's ready to open their lids?" Involves using a provided tablet to find pictures of guys in turbans in augmented reality, and then find the matching guy and place them at a given tile matching the post where they found the picture... Neat task, and Will/James struggle to comprehend the placement part, but the real important stuff is that this is preceded by a Yield, which Will/James use on the blondes, who are already so far behind they don't even start the task until part two, speaking of...
4. Part two starts off at the Charminar with a "This or That" Detour, where contestants have to actually get to either one of the locations to find out what the choices are: One of them involves pushing a cart with a pile of bangles to a jewelry shop, and then searching through the pile to match the bangles on a girl's arm (the beards are quick to call it a "run of the mill needle in a haystack challenge" LOL) and the other involves making a mold for dentures (which involves mixing up some molding material and having someone actually bite into it, ew!) and then polishing another set of dentures and installing them in a patient's mouth (Eswar/Aparna take this task, and Hung/Chee switch over from bracelets, queueing up behind the sibs to wait for them to finish their mold first...)
5. Beards are first to finish their task, and head off to the Taj Falaknuma palace (now a fancy hotel!) to ride with some fancy socialites in a carriage (even wearing fancy outfits for the occasion that really give them the Maharajah look ;-))... and the last Yield opportunity of the race, which the beards decide to use to buy time for CheeHu (that's their nickname for Hung/Chee?) by Yielding the blondes for 20 minutes (yes, double-Yielded)
6. Also at the palace is the 2nd Roadblock: "Who wants to set things straight?" In this case, set up 10 sets of dishes and stuff on (part of) a 108-foot dining table, replete with napkin (which comes with a guy demonstrating how to fold them in various fashions) The main issue here is that Riley finds a yardstick with which to set up each set... and James also discovers a bunch of yardsticks, and they decide to make sure Gary doesn't find out, since they've decided that it's time to cut the alliance of five teams down to three... Meanwhile, the blondes do the dentistry detour, and quip about giving their patient a lolly :-)
7. The beards are first to get the task done and check in on the palace grounds, winning a Caribbean cruise :-) and talking about their intent to drop the alliance down to just 3: Themselves, Will/James, and Hung/Chee (there's plenty of alliance talk with Phil)... While the remaining teams are setting things straight, the blondes finally arrive at the palace and find out they've been Yielded again... and laugh at their own misfortune ("We're Yield bros") :-D though they're still a bit bitter over the apparent disproportional retribution they've been handed for Yielding Leo/Alana, as the last other teams finish up the Roadblock before they've even started theirs (we get a "Thank god for alliances" soundbite again from I think Chee), and Phil finally eliminates the blondes with a strained "sand in the hourglass" metaphor (with the girls commenting that they were in costumes each time they'd been last)
Episode 10
1. This week is Siem Reap, Cambodia (a bucket list destination for James :-)) and it's a sponsor-mandated carry the gnome leg as well (Hung/Chee have a cab confessional in which they brag that their kids love the gnome :-)) Pick up is at a local market, where contestants are to find the gnome sitting in a rickshaw cabin, and then find a driver to hook a motorcycle up to it before heading off to the the first stop, the pier for the nearby floating village of Chong Kaneas, then ride a boat to a floating temple, where each team is to present offerings in a specific manner, and here I digress a little: Given that our broadcaster has edited out a scene of a contestant peeing in a stream in an earlier season of TAR, and blurred out all the captions mentioning Malaysia in a first season ep of the new MacGyver (which nevertheless has Mac drinking from a soda can with Thai writing on it, then using it as part of one of his "hacks", but enough digressing for now), it seems a bit surprising that they leave in Cambodian monks presenting contestants with the envelopes (I suspect that it's only because it's an integral part of the competition, unlike peeing in a stream) But anyways, the beards end up falling from 1st to 3rd due to engine troubles with their boat engine on their way to the temple...
2. Detour is between planting veggies in a floating garden and pulling a really long fish net (in-show graphic calls it 3280ft, which is non-metric for 1km) through a tool to remove the fish from it... The show goes out of its way to involve the gnome in both tasks, as it carries a satchel with seeds for the garden, and a scale needle to put on a needle-less scale to measure out 15kg ("about 30lbs") of fish from the net... Will/James are the only one to pick the gardens of their own volition, as Hung/Chee end up arriving at the gardens instead of the fish pier (and thankfully, Hung is somewhat familiar with the plants they have to plant)
3. Next up is a Double U-Turn (where Phil Keoghan reveals that there are no non-elims left), and DeAngelo/Gary (NFL) uses it on Eswar/Aparna, forcing them to do gardening as well, with the beards purposely putting up NFL's picture to prevent usage of the 2nd U-Turn... For the others, up next is a Roadblock at a tile making shop downtown: "Who thinks they can fit the mold?" (The beards end up beating NFL to the store despite starting like 5 minutes behind them LOL!) It's a two-part task: Make a colored tile, then use it as part of a sliding game (once again, the gnome gets involved since its satchel also comes with a key to unlock a chest with the pieces for the sliding game), but the first part is flummoxing the contestants who can't figure out how to get the tile out of the mold after it's been pressed, since they only watched the part of the demonstration with the local craftsman pouring paint into holes...
4. After a short interlude of Eswar/Aparna finishing up the gardening, it finally occurs to the beards and Will/James to watch the whole demonstration, where it turns out the trick is to grease the mold in order to remove the tile properly (Will analogizes it to greasing a cake pan before commenting on the big dumbbell-like handle on the tile press: "Spinning the big dumbbell :-)"), and they make short work of the slide puzzle while Hung/Chee and NFL are still trying to figure out the tile removal (with Gary taking a nap while he's waiting for DeAngelo)
5. Pit stop is at Angkor Thom, the big moated city just north of the more well-known Angkor Wat, where the beards get themselves a trip to Norway and quip about fitting in with the Vikings :-) while James comments that he's always wanted to come to Cambodia :-) Meanwhile, the sibs show up at the tile shop, so the final segment is down to who will decide to check the demo and notice the greasing first... and Chee and DeAngelo notice the greasing and finish the task in that order (with DeAngelo quipping like "I'm not going to retile my bathroom"), but there's still room for drama on the ride to Angkor Thom as a) both teams to have to walk a bit to get to their cabbie, and b) NFL have to wait for a tractor to push over a tree before they can continue to the pit stop... and NFL finish 4th to eliminate the sibs, but still, 9 legs is quite an improvement over the previous Indian team :-)
Episode 11
1. This week is a trip to Manila (Hung says she has a half-Filipino friend, Will/James let out a Mabuhay greeting immediately after reading the opening clue, and NFL bill the leg as "Thrilla in Manila, Part 2"), where the teams meet Phil Keoghan upfront for another unique twist on the leg: The "city sprint", in which all of the tasks are straight tasks, rather than Detours or Roadblocks, and the leg will end at the same spot where Phil has summoned the teams... Okay, so the first clue pickup is at a provided jeepney, where they have to figure out from the clue that they have to pick up their clue from a dancing policeman: NFL and the beards manage to get theirs first go, while Will/James and Hung/Chee have to circle around to pick it up second go because their drivers turned in the wrong lane or something... and incidentally, this leg has the rankings shown in a table, rather than via captions for each relevant team (at least for most of the leg)
2. Next stop is the Mall of Asia, where teams are to run in high heels (there's a popular high heel running race in the Philippines), and while one of the beards quips about wearing them every Friday night, Will/James are genuinely used to wearing them (one of them even boasts that he has 6 inch heels, compared to the 2 inch ones the race has provided :-)) Otherwise, it's pretty hard on the remaining contestants' ankles (except of course for Hung :-))
3. Next stop is Manila's Chinatown, where everyone is to find a dragon with a clue in its mouth (there's apparently only one dragon with the clues, and it's both of a different color and accompanied by a dude on cymbals), and Hung/Chee dig themselves even further into a hole by getting off at the wrong arch, and having to waste time getting directions to the proper arch (by imitating a roaring dragon to a couple of cops, LOL!)
4. Next task involves meeting a couple horse-drawn carriages ("calessas") at the Manila Central Post Office: Find all ingredients to feed a horse (molasses, seed, grass) from marked vendors, and mix them with water (minus the grass) In a nice long shot, NFL manage to miss the marked seed vendor, and decide against re-checking the area to make sure (it takes Will/James of all teams finding the seed for them to notice)
5. Last task is a race memory task, involving a rock band playing a medley of the music they've heard on the race... Two of the tunes are very familiar: Day-O from Trinidad and Tobago, and the generic circus music in Colombia (which I've recently learned is the opening section of the Julius Fucik (don't forget the "i" ;-)) march "Entry of the Gladiators" with the silly factor turned up to 11, LOL), while the others are less-recognizable music played by the recycled orchestra in Paraguay and the string quartet in France, and contestants are to find boxes with the flags of the relevant legs, and present them in order of the legs (and not in order of the appearance in the medley, as NFL has it during a piece to camera; though ironically, at at least two points they have the first three flags correct) It's a pretty tedious task, as there's a montage of several teams putting up one wrong guess after another...
6. Obviously most contestants know Day-O and the circus music, but the non-NFL teams end up deciding to work together, to just do all the permutations possible, and when that doesn't work out, Will/James pull out the clue and realize they have to order them by order of appearance on the race, and soon the beards are the first to get it right, before then passing it on to the other two non-NFL teams... Seeing this, NFL has no choice but to take the two hour penalty, as the rest head off back to the pitstop...
7. Back to the pitstop, and the entire final segment consists mostly of the beards, Will/James, and Hung/Chee checking in in that order in close succession (the first two make a "tunnel" for Hung to walk in), where the beards admit to helping Hung/Chee because they helped them, but really, the "real" reason to help them is to get rid of NFL, of which more shortly... Phil tells the others upfront that they're heading to New Orleans for the final leg, and they're getting an upgrade for the final plane ride (sweet!) Anyways, NFL wait out their penalty and get the elimination check-in (with a bunch of tai-chi practicioners at the park)... where DeAngelo calls it the worst experience of his life: "The race sucked. The bad outweighed the good" (that had better be sarcasm, D)
Episode 12
1. So they're heading to good old New Orleans for the final round, and after a nice brief scene of the contestants appreciating the extra leg space on the plane ride for the final leg (Will/James get the extra-spacious bulkhead :-)), the first stop is a clue pick up at Louis Armstrong Park, which puts the beards in a hole early since their cabbie drives them to the wrong area... The clue pickup leads them to Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, where not surprisingly, there's a Mardi Gras-themed task, even though by all indications the race was filmed around Christmas time (re: the decorations in the Manila leg, and the early sunset at the start of the Siem Reap leg) The task involves catching beaded necklaces from revelers, more specifically red and "gold" ones, even more specifically ones with large beads, to match the ones the "grand marshal" is wearing... And it just so happens that Will/James have been to the French Quarter before, and are very well in their element there, easily getting their 50 necklaces first :-)
2. Next up is a Roadblock: "Who will be left holding the baby?" After choosing, contestants then walk with a band to Cafe Beignet where the chosen contestant then squishes loads of "king cakes" (two racks' worth LOL!) looking for a small baby figurine (and these are actually relevant to Christmas time, since they're related to the Nativity), and it just so happens that James has been to New Orleans and knows what the deal with the baby in the "king cakes" is, and ends up finding the baby as the beards arrive at the Cafe... (Pretty sure my mom would not like perfectly good food being casually destroyed like that :-\) Chee calls it forearm exercise :-)
3. But there's a second, ostensibly easier, part of the task that keeps threatening to trip Will/James up: Eating 6 beignets total, which they compare to the cinammon challenge, and Will can't seem to keep his beignets down, so James has to eat 4 LOL. Meanwhile, both of the other teams have to go over their already-squashed cakes again to find their babies, and in Chee's case, it fell on the table, and since it's at the top of the table, he doesn't notice it until he's re-checked and cleared out the pile in front of him, but they're still ahead of the beards...
4. Next stop is the Crescent City Connection bridge for the second Roadblock: "Who wants to take a swing at this Roadblock?" (which of course means the other teammate) And it involves jumping off a ledge to grab a clue and swinging from a bridge, a la the very first Roadblock of the series to be shown back in 2001 (!) The biggest drama (other than the obvious) involves Hung concerned that she might not be able to grab the clue at the first go with her short T-rex arms (her words)... no worries, she manages :-) Meanwhile, the beards find their baby and add "Say hello to my little friend :-)"
5. After rappeling off the bridge, teams then pick up some large blue balls (no double entendres, please :-)) and roll them over to Mardi Gras World, where they keep the floats for the festival, for the final task... and since they've already done race memory last leg, for this task contestants are to find and open a chest to reveal pieces of a world map, which they then are to attach to the large blue ball before putting on top of a nearby float... and it seems like the last chance for any suspense as to the outcome ended when Will/James stopped being suspended from the bridge, since they're quick to order the pieces around properly and attach them, and even when the adjudicator, the owner of Mardi Gras World no less, tells them to tidy up their work, it's only to make sure the pieces are flat against the ball...
6. Will/James manage to get their finish line clue before any other teams even reach Mardi Gras World... and the finish line is at the Superdome (where else? It's even lit up in red :-)) or as the clue has it, "where the Saints go marching in" :-) No football related task, just the mat, Phil Keoghan, and the other teams waiting for Will/James to come running in :-) Will's finish line interview reveals he's been watching this show since he was 11... And when asked when he knew they were ahead, James answers: "When I jumped off a bridge... What the heck was that?!" LOL! Leo quips: "I can't imagine loving the team that U-Turned us more" The only real attempt at suspense after the bridge is pretty much pointless, since it's a race for 2nd place, but FWIW Hung/Chee manage to beat the beards... and Hung/Chee brag about their trip as being "The honeymoon we never had", while the beards don't look very happy about their finish, but say that "the race will bring more to our careers than our careers brought to the race" We end on Phil telling the collected contestants that they're part of history, since they just rolled over a million miles this season :-) (Though given the current situation, it remains to be seen whether the show will get to keep going)
Bonus: Apparently on the US broadcast, Will gave James an engagement ring right on the mat after the win, but our local broadcast cut straight from Will saying "I love him so much" back to the remaining two teams still working on the globe at Mardi Gras World... (and it's a pretty abrupt cut, as the scene clearly does not feel finished)
