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spiderbraidsAnother week, another five eps to get through...
Ep 5
- The next stop is Jordan (our first non-Euro destination since the pandemic :-)) We lead off with possibly the most epic leg open ever, in which contestants get to ride a steam train into the Wadi Rum desert (with plenty of B-roll that might belong better in a documentary), and encounter a cavalry of horses and camels straight out of Lawrence of Arabia, and indeed, the clue leading to the start of the leg proper mentions the iconic movie (but Phil Keoghan also mentions other films that have shot here like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Transformers, and Star Wars during the Roadblock)
- Teams get a ride from a Bedouin (in an SUV, rather than a camel LOL) to a Roadblock: "Who wants to test their metal?" Not a typo, it's a task to use a metal detector to find a sheet of metal at a mock UFO crash site, which turns out to say Petra (iconic ancient Jordan town, so of course they have to include it somehow) In concerning news, one of the twins (Emily/Molly) appears to have tweaked a muscle running up the dune to the clue box :-\ (Next episode, it's suggested one of them tweaked it in Italy)
- The Bedouins then drive teams to the iconic town, for a Detour between Camel Caravan: retrieving and feeding hay and water to camels, and Palace Puzzle: Do a giant slide puzzle with a replica of Petra's original facade... While the top four teams are milling about Petra trying to complete either Detour, team ballroom (couple Aubrey/David), Boom-Boom (newlyweds Glenda/Lubumba) and Jamaica (parent-child Linton/Sharik) are left at the Roadblock, and David is not exactly doing great at this, going outside the circle at points, and returning a broken motor to the judge at one point LOL. Eventually David and Boom-Boom get their metal sheet, leaving Jamaica at the Roadblock for quite some time... Also, the twins' leg issues are exacerbated slightly by them getting lost on their way to the Detour tasks
- Over in Petra, the puzzle seems to be the more favorable choice, as the military bros discover there's plenty of running around to get the water and the hay, while Miami and Big Brother solve the puzzles and get their Pitstop clues (Claire tries to tie the whole deal with slide puzzles to solving puzzles in her machine learning job LOL), leading to a footrace to the ruins of The Great Temple, which includes a stair case (and also a brief glimpse of some guy with a still camera presumably shooting publicity stills), and in what is Phil Keoghan points out is literally a run for the money, Miami edge out Big Brother (who actually take bit a of a tumble as they're running toward the mat, ouch!) and win $5,000 (looks like the Expedia budget isn't quite stretching to give trips on all legs)
- Ballroom seems to be unaware of the actual example that is literally in front of them since they're wondering where the example is LOL (whereas Miami was quick to notice), and ends up putting the top row at the bottom, but still manage to eke out a win over Jamaica doing the camels, and in Jamaica's exit, we learn that Sharik considers themselves pretty competitive since she was a cheerleader and did sports in high-school
Ep 6
- After Jamaica's ouster, Phil has all the teams gather together in Amman to reveal that another team has been eliminated: Childhood sweethearts Abby/Will (4th in the previous leg), for a positive Covid test (the only thing I knew about the season was that there was a Covid elimination, though not who) So it's a de facto "non-elimination" up front, with a mass start, and the placement will determine the start groupings for "next week", where one team will start 15 minutes behind the next to last group
- First stop is a hard to pronounce bookstore, and it's a crazy montage of contestants asking for directions, with some getting flummoxed with the Arabic lettering... Detour is between Step by Step (another dance, a flirting dance even), and Letter by Letter (memorize all the Arabic letters) Of course team ballroom would do the dancing :-) But in a confessional they say whereas they normally "translate" the dance to terms of salsa, here there's nothing similar to what they do... Meanwhile, Luis/Michele and another team (Cheerleaders I think it was?) spot the final mat first LOL.
- Over at the Arabic lettering, the real hard part isn't just having to remember the order, but also having to memorize the pronunciation of the letters themselves (ghayn and qaaf are really hard, but Derek(/Claire, Big Brother) is finding the rolled "r" tough as well and Claire suggests making a gargling maneuver) Twins, having grown up in Jewish families, note it's like Hebrew (no surprise since they're in the same general region of the world) Meanwhile, despite the non-similarity of the dance to salsa, team ballroom still knocks it out first LOL!
- Roadblock is "Who's feeling broken carted?" Head to some park, put together a cart and drive it to the Pitstop... Luis manages to give us two quips about how they're basically having to do it from scratch: "This is not a Lego set" and "This is definitely not Ikea" LOL! Emily shows up and seems to be doing great a la the Ducati task and reassures that it doesn't have to be pretty to be sturdy, while the military bros (slightly delayed by passing the park at first) decide to take a detailed look at the example (too much of a detailed look perhaps?) and Derek has Claire do this task and call it "redemption season" LOL.
- Ballroom is also somewhat later than expected to the task after getting directions, but that's nothing compared to Boom-Boom only finishing their dancing after 8 attempts (!) David is doing the cart task for Ballroom, and of course he mentions his helicopter mechanic experience :-) Anyways, Miami are done first, but soon after they push their cart out of the park, the wheels fall off and they decide they have to fix it right there on the spot :-\ Ballroom is next to get their clue, but Miami manage to finish their repairs, and already know where the Pitstop is... which Phil Keoghan reveals to be the Roman Nymphaeum, and also has to amend his usual voiceover to say that the last place team will start in the last group next leg
- Miami are first to get to the Nymphaeum, get back-to-back wins, and get Expedia Reward Points for a 5 night trip to Barcelona (and they're fancying themselves as the team to beat :-)) Ballroom notes Phil has a less dour expression than they've previously seen and they suspect they're running better than near last place, and Phil notes that they're in 2nd... Both of the other two groups manage to check in together: Cheerleaders and Big Brother are 3rd and 4th and in group 2, and after a scene of Lubumba taking a water break, military bros and twins are 5th and 6th and in group 3
- After Boom-Boom finish the cart, the show just skips to them checking in at the Nymphaeum and being told they'll be starting 45 minutes behind the first group, but Boom-Boom try to spin a positive attitude: "Anything can happen, stay tuned" (spoiler alert: ...Yeah, I'll say) (An aside, seems like at least in the reruns, our broadcaster just fades out the final scene straight into the pre-closing-credits commercial instead of running the normal end of episode credits first)
Ep 7
- Next stop is France, more specifically a rural area known as the Dordogne Valley :-) First stop is a castle called Chateau de Commarque... In confessional, we learn that despite their separate individual lives, Emily/Molly share a lot of things like, how they like their eggs, getting punished in 5th grade for kissing their boyfriends, and playing woodwind in their school band :-) Also, Luis/Michelle are hoping to win a third leg in a row...
- Anyways, the castle has a Roadblock called "Who wants to climb the family tree?" which combines rappeling down the castle wall, with memorizing the seals of wives of the Commarque family to match them up with the given names... and the tree has like hundreds of entries LOL! So Michele decides to just rappel first and check what names she's looking for, and even adds fun mnemonics like referring to someone with the surname Chapelle as chap-stick, and Brouse as (eye)brows :-) Everyone has to rappel a few times to get their clue...
- Meanwhile, Boom-Boom end up in a ditch after mistaking the roadside for grass (we even get to see a member of the security crew for the contestants, replete with name caption), and have to wait to have their car dragged out by a farmgirl on a tractor... and it apparently takes only five minutes, but they're also the team starting in last, so they're just looking to get to the finish line :-)
- Quinton makes a mock cheer for Mattie, and there's discussion about cheering in the military LOL. Speaking of the military, after they finish in fifth, they're heading to their car and find out they forgot their keys, so end up having to run all the way back from the bottom of the hill back to the castle to get their stuff LOL, which thins their margin over team ballroom quite a bit...
- Boom-Boom makes it to the castle, and Glenda quips about hoping that the restraint equipment doesn't affect Lubumba's sperm, because they're trying for a baby :-) Back with other teams, military bros are at least good at maps, so they manage to jump all the way up to first by the time they arrive at the Detour cluebox at a farm called La Ferme de Turnac... Detour is between Walnut Cracker (extract walnut oil from walnuts spread all across the ground) and Medieval Gamer (play 3 medieval games) Military bros stand there dumbfounded for a few moments at what a walnut grove is before realizing that duh, they're spread on the ground they're standing right now LOL! Meanwhile, Miami has a brief go at one of the games, "Petit Gruyere", which involves controlling a ball to avoid holes on a 6-foot board until reaching the top, and quickly switches to the nuts...
- Most of the teams end up going with the nuts, to the point that Big Brother take a chance on the games, and I'm thinking "Good luck with that" because of the "Petit Gruyere" game, but anyways, the other games involve shot putting bags up on to a small platform above (Claire is good at shot put, and Derek uses her technique to nail the task as well), and balancing rocks on a platform on a rope... Military bros are tired of finishing in the back... and to them, anything from 2nd afterwards is the back LOL; fortunately for them they're first to get the clue, while BB absolutely crush Petit Gruyere to get the clue just behind them in 2nd :-)
- The bulk of the drama is the drive to the pitstop, the Panorama at Domme (Phil Keoghan: "Like a painting") because contestants keep making wrong turns, and that's especially a concern for ballroom, who are in 6th after the Detour, and have quite a bust-up about their nav troubles... (For a bit of comic relief, Miami do their rendition of the show's theme song, and the sound people add the actual theme song under it :-D) Meanwhile, Boom-Boom do the medieval games (trying to invoke various famous basketball players during the bag throwing task, and with rock balancing shown in fast-forward time lapse and Petit Gruyere almost an afterthought) and are hoping that one of the teams managed to drive all the way to Germany LOL. Eventually, military bros get themselves the 1st place and $7500 each, and ballroom manages to get good directions to edge out Boom-Boom, but to Boom-Boom, "It's not the end of our race, it's just the beginning" as Glenda hopes to be a good mother to her future children :-)
Ep 8
- After an exit from Boom-Boom and a win from the twins (and a product placement mandated scene of them looking over their prize trip) next stop is a self-drive to Toulouse, France (aka "The Pink City", which will figure in one of the Detours), to the Stade Toulousain stadium... Luis and Derek have a bromance going on (Michele's words, not my own) Derek also mentions he doesn't have good memory, and Luis mentions that Michele had a dream about her late father, daww... Meanwhile, Aubrey decides to switch driving with David after having issues with all the maps they're having to handle LOL.
- Roadblock at the stadium is "Who's ready to take one for the team?" It's a rugby drill with Stade Toulousain's women's rugby (most successful rugby team in France) Most of the task (tackling, running, passing, receiving) is a formality; the real issue is the dropkick, which is a problem for the twins... But they have plenty of time, because the military bros (who started in their group) end up on the wrong road to the stadium and get into a traffic jam, and only arrive at the same time as Miami and Big Brother, quite a bit after the twins got their kick through on something like the 6th go
- Both Miami and Big Brother nail their kicks first go, with Luis giving a nice celebration (heck, Big Brother send Claire to do it; in confessional Claire claims that she was recommended to join her college's rugby team, but Derek doubts that story) Meanwhile, military takes like seven attempts because while one of them did play regular American football, he was a receiver... and on top of that, they proceed to get on the wrong road on their way to the next task LOL. They're only narrowly ahead of team ballroom, who "only" need 4 attempts to get their kick in :-)
- Military bros aren't the only ones making a wrong turn though, as the twins end up in a parking garage, wherein they learn how to use a vending machine to pay the parking fees with cash... Back to racing, and the next stop is Couvent de Jacobins to pick up a Detour clue from a dude blowing a French horn, and it's between Say Six (memorize French poetry from three different locations) and Lay Bricks (into the given pattern, using Toulouse's distinct pink bricks) Miami start doing the poetry and decide to switch to bricks, while the twins (with their knee issues) just go straight to bricks... Derek studied French in high school, so he's pulling plenty of weight on this task, while to her credit, Claire memorizes "les yeux" as "lasers" LOL.
- The trick with the bricks (ooh, rhyme :-)) is that there are two different lengths of brick to lay, and one has to start from the inside part... Luis reveals that he comes from a family of salsa dancers (so we have a second connection to salsa, after team ballroom) and quips that he doesn't put do construction work or even do Legos, but he does pay attention to detail, so it looks like Miami's getting the job done quickly, as the twins show up... Meanwhile the cheerleaders arrive in last at the Roadblock, and of course there's always going to be that one guy who mistakenly tries to punt the ball instead of dropkick, and that one guy is Quinton :-) That said, he gets the hang of the dropkick quickly, and gets it first go :-) Back to the Detour, and Big Brother are the first to get the pitstop clue for a boat on Canal de Brienne, while the twins are the first to get their clue at the brick task :-)
- Both ballroom and military bros have no issues memorizing the text element of the words, but it's the French pronounciation that's the problem (like pronouncing "Je" as "Jay")... and this is where I have to skip straight to the end, since on the rerun, this is about when I left the room to wash my dishes (rather, someone made me leave and didn't give me any say in the matter, the less said the better :-\), so I ended up missing the first four teams' check-ins and by the time I was done, ballroom was checking in, narrowly edging the cheerleaders out of the race, and in their exit interview, they say the real stinger for them is that they consider themselves competitive and had hoped to make it to the final leg
Ep 9
- After the exit of the cheerleaders, it's another megaleg, starting in Malaga, Spain at a fort on a hill, where teams find out that they're not getting extra money for this megaleg (they haven't noted how much money they get for the leg lately; teams got $10 for the latter of the Jordan legs and that's it as far as that goes) Anyways, from here teams will have to walk to a plaza to do the Roadblock: "Who's the master of pieces?" Malaga is the birthplace of Picasso, and this one involves sliding a bunch of giant glass plates into a giant frame to assemble one of his works, "Three Musicians" :-) A contestant quips about the Picasso statue at the plaza still having both ears, and promptly gets the response "That's Van Gogh" LOL. Claire quips about getting her fair share of cardio running between the example and her station (furthest from said example) and lifting the giant glass plates, while Molly has Emily (with the bum knee) do the task because Molly has done 5 Roadblocks, and Emily has only done 3...
- Big Brother are first to get the picture done (and team ballroom are in 2nd, their best position in a while), and get a clue to bike to El Cubo, which a) is literally a giant multicolored cube b) sounds like bad mock Spanish for "The Cube", but is actually correct Spanish (!) Derek comments that he's crashed a motorbike, a scooter, and a skateboard, so he has plenty of trauma to deal with while trying to keep up with Claire ("Can I walk the bike?")... Anyways, it's a Detour between Fish Fry (grilling sardines on a sword, AKA Espeto) and Sailboat Supply (paddleboard to supply a sailboat, as a nod to Malaga's role as a supply stop for ships; Miami will do this because they practiced paddleboarding before the race :-))
- Emily manages to finish ahead of military bros despite her bum knee, and after fiddling with the glass plates for a bit, the military bros only realize to their dismay that they forgot about the back panel after removing all the glass plates :-\ During the biking, Michael (well, the smaller of the bros) talks about how he got into a biking accident and the doctors didn't give him much chance to live, "But this boy's a fighter, and that's why I'm a fighter pilot" LOL. Meanwhile, the twins bike past El Cubo, and don't believe that that big multicolored cube to their right is what they're looking for because apparently it's supposed to be on their left :-\
- After Derek has a quip about the sardines being salted "Salt Bae style" (and he even imitates Salt Bae's style later in the task), we learn in confessional Claire is vegan and has never done a fish dish before, so she's mainly here for salting and watching the fishes, while letting Derek do most of the work (including referring to the example to make sure he's doing it right :-)) since he's the chef at their apartment, and was the chef on Big Brother... and Aubrey's also excited about this task, because she grew up in a Filipino household and ate sardines with her grandma :-) Derek pretends one of the fish is alive LOL. (Meanwhile, during the first run my mom was surprised to see the show and assumed it was old stuff, and was surprised to hear it was new, amazed [heh] that they'd be running this race with the pandemic still somewhat going on... I noted that they're mainly confined to Europe, but she noted racing in Europe isn't exactly a small deal either)
- Big Brother are the first to get a picture of some stone bridge on a postcard, and instructions to find a tour guide at the depicted location, and leave in a convertible, but we won't find out more about that until next week (without the quote marks, as both the first run and the rerun aired the ep on a Friday) Meanwhile, Miami gets cheered upon while inflating the paddleboard, and Luis quips "No one's cheering for the cooking, cooking's boring" :-) The twins take quite some time to get to the beach, and as they're grilling, Molly reveals one thing that differs between them: Molly likes fish, while Emily didn't grow up in a fish-eating family... and David also reveals that he's from a family of fishermen, so he's all "This one's for you, dad", especially when he chomps on a fish at the end of the task :-)
- Meanwhile, Miami have to supply an ice cooler and lifejackets to the sailboat and given that the sea is somewhat choppy, it's a major struggle for them to keep the ice cooler from falling over and spilling the ice, and I was easily amused by the fact that since they're from Miami, they talk with the guys on the sailboat with ease ("Viva España" and all that) Ballroom finish their detour 2nd, and Miami are in 3rd... so that leaves the twins and the military bros yet to finish this half of the leg, but again, that's for next week :-)
Ep 5
- The next stop is Jordan (our first non-Euro destination since the pandemic :-)) We lead off with possibly the most epic leg open ever, in which contestants get to ride a steam train into the Wadi Rum desert (with plenty of B-roll that might belong better in a documentary), and encounter a cavalry of horses and camels straight out of Lawrence of Arabia, and indeed, the clue leading to the start of the leg proper mentions the iconic movie (but Phil Keoghan also mentions other films that have shot here like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Transformers, and Star Wars during the Roadblock)
- Teams get a ride from a Bedouin (in an SUV, rather than a camel LOL) to a Roadblock: "Who wants to test their metal?" Not a typo, it's a task to use a metal detector to find a sheet of metal at a mock UFO crash site, which turns out to say Petra (iconic ancient Jordan town, so of course they have to include it somehow) In concerning news, one of the twins (Emily/Molly) appears to have tweaked a muscle running up the dune to the clue box :-\ (Next episode, it's suggested one of them tweaked it in Italy)
- The Bedouins then drive teams to the iconic town, for a Detour between Camel Caravan: retrieving and feeding hay and water to camels, and Palace Puzzle: Do a giant slide puzzle with a replica of Petra's original facade... While the top four teams are milling about Petra trying to complete either Detour, team ballroom (couple Aubrey/David), Boom-Boom (newlyweds Glenda/Lubumba) and Jamaica (parent-child Linton/Sharik) are left at the Roadblock, and David is not exactly doing great at this, going outside the circle at points, and returning a broken motor to the judge at one point LOL. Eventually David and Boom-Boom get their metal sheet, leaving Jamaica at the Roadblock for quite some time... Also, the twins' leg issues are exacerbated slightly by them getting lost on their way to the Detour tasks
- Over in Petra, the puzzle seems to be the more favorable choice, as the military bros discover there's plenty of running around to get the water and the hay, while Miami and Big Brother solve the puzzles and get their Pitstop clues (Claire tries to tie the whole deal with slide puzzles to solving puzzles in her machine learning job LOL), leading to a footrace to the ruins of The Great Temple, which includes a stair case (and also a brief glimpse of some guy with a still camera presumably shooting publicity stills), and in what is Phil Keoghan points out is literally a run for the money, Miami edge out Big Brother (who actually take bit a of a tumble as they're running toward the mat, ouch!) and win $5,000 (looks like the Expedia budget isn't quite stretching to give trips on all legs)
- Ballroom seems to be unaware of the actual example that is literally in front of them since they're wondering where the example is LOL (whereas Miami was quick to notice), and ends up putting the top row at the bottom, but still manage to eke out a win over Jamaica doing the camels, and in Jamaica's exit, we learn that Sharik considers themselves pretty competitive since she was a cheerleader and did sports in high-school
Ep 6
- After Jamaica's ouster, Phil has all the teams gather together in Amman to reveal that another team has been eliminated: Childhood sweethearts Abby/Will (4th in the previous leg), for a positive Covid test (the only thing I knew about the season was that there was a Covid elimination, though not who) So it's a de facto "non-elimination" up front, with a mass start, and the placement will determine the start groupings for "next week", where one team will start 15 minutes behind the next to last group
- First stop is a hard to pronounce bookstore, and it's a crazy montage of contestants asking for directions, with some getting flummoxed with the Arabic lettering... Detour is between Step by Step (another dance, a flirting dance even), and Letter by Letter (memorize all the Arabic letters) Of course team ballroom would do the dancing :-) But in a confessional they say whereas they normally "translate" the dance to terms of salsa, here there's nothing similar to what they do... Meanwhile, Luis/Michele and another team (Cheerleaders I think it was?) spot the final mat first LOL.
- Over at the Arabic lettering, the real hard part isn't just having to remember the order, but also having to memorize the pronunciation of the letters themselves (ghayn and qaaf are really hard, but Derek(/Claire, Big Brother) is finding the rolled "r" tough as well and Claire suggests making a gargling maneuver) Twins, having grown up in Jewish families, note it's like Hebrew (no surprise since they're in the same general region of the world) Meanwhile, despite the non-similarity of the dance to salsa, team ballroom still knocks it out first LOL!
- Roadblock is "Who's feeling broken carted?" Head to some park, put together a cart and drive it to the Pitstop... Luis manages to give us two quips about how they're basically having to do it from scratch: "This is not a Lego set" and "This is definitely not Ikea" LOL! Emily shows up and seems to be doing great a la the Ducati task and reassures that it doesn't have to be pretty to be sturdy, while the military bros (slightly delayed by passing the park at first) decide to take a detailed look at the example (too much of a detailed look perhaps?) and Derek has Claire do this task and call it "redemption season" LOL.
- Ballroom is also somewhat later than expected to the task after getting directions, but that's nothing compared to Boom-Boom only finishing their dancing after 8 attempts (!) David is doing the cart task for Ballroom, and of course he mentions his helicopter mechanic experience :-) Anyways, Miami are done first, but soon after they push their cart out of the park, the wheels fall off and they decide they have to fix it right there on the spot :-\ Ballroom is next to get their clue, but Miami manage to finish their repairs, and already know where the Pitstop is... which Phil Keoghan reveals to be the Roman Nymphaeum, and also has to amend his usual voiceover to say that the last place team will start in the last group next leg
- Miami are first to get to the Nymphaeum, get back-to-back wins, and get Expedia Reward Points for a 5 night trip to Barcelona (and they're fancying themselves as the team to beat :-)) Ballroom notes Phil has a less dour expression than they've previously seen and they suspect they're running better than near last place, and Phil notes that they're in 2nd... Both of the other two groups manage to check in together: Cheerleaders and Big Brother are 3rd and 4th and in group 2, and after a scene of Lubumba taking a water break, military bros and twins are 5th and 6th and in group 3
- After Boom-Boom finish the cart, the show just skips to them checking in at the Nymphaeum and being told they'll be starting 45 minutes behind the first group, but Boom-Boom try to spin a positive attitude: "Anything can happen, stay tuned" (spoiler alert: ...Yeah, I'll say) (An aside, seems like at least in the reruns, our broadcaster just fades out the final scene straight into the pre-closing-credits commercial instead of running the normal end of episode credits first)
Ep 7
- Next stop is France, more specifically a rural area known as the Dordogne Valley :-) First stop is a castle called Chateau de Commarque... In confessional, we learn that despite their separate individual lives, Emily/Molly share a lot of things like, how they like their eggs, getting punished in 5th grade for kissing their boyfriends, and playing woodwind in their school band :-) Also, Luis/Michelle are hoping to win a third leg in a row...
- Anyways, the castle has a Roadblock called "Who wants to climb the family tree?" which combines rappeling down the castle wall, with memorizing the seals of wives of the Commarque family to match them up with the given names... and the tree has like hundreds of entries LOL! So Michele decides to just rappel first and check what names she's looking for, and even adds fun mnemonics like referring to someone with the surname Chapelle as chap-stick, and Brouse as (eye)brows :-) Everyone has to rappel a few times to get their clue...
- Meanwhile, Boom-Boom end up in a ditch after mistaking the roadside for grass (we even get to see a member of the security crew for the contestants, replete with name caption), and have to wait to have their car dragged out by a farmgirl on a tractor... and it apparently takes only five minutes, but they're also the team starting in last, so they're just looking to get to the finish line :-)
- Quinton makes a mock cheer for Mattie, and there's discussion about cheering in the military LOL. Speaking of the military, after they finish in fifth, they're heading to their car and find out they forgot their keys, so end up having to run all the way back from the bottom of the hill back to the castle to get their stuff LOL, which thins their margin over team ballroom quite a bit...
- Boom-Boom makes it to the castle, and Glenda quips about hoping that the restraint equipment doesn't affect Lubumba's sperm, because they're trying for a baby :-) Back with other teams, military bros are at least good at maps, so they manage to jump all the way up to first by the time they arrive at the Detour cluebox at a farm called La Ferme de Turnac... Detour is between Walnut Cracker (extract walnut oil from walnuts spread all across the ground) and Medieval Gamer (play 3 medieval games) Military bros stand there dumbfounded for a few moments at what a walnut grove is before realizing that duh, they're spread on the ground they're standing right now LOL! Meanwhile, Miami has a brief go at one of the games, "Petit Gruyere", which involves controlling a ball to avoid holes on a 6-foot board until reaching the top, and quickly switches to the nuts...
- Most of the teams end up going with the nuts, to the point that Big Brother take a chance on the games, and I'm thinking "Good luck with that" because of the "Petit Gruyere" game, but anyways, the other games involve shot putting bags up on to a small platform above (Claire is good at shot put, and Derek uses her technique to nail the task as well), and balancing rocks on a platform on a rope... Military bros are tired of finishing in the back... and to them, anything from 2nd afterwards is the back LOL; fortunately for them they're first to get the clue, while BB absolutely crush Petit Gruyere to get the clue just behind them in 2nd :-)
- The bulk of the drama is the drive to the pitstop, the Panorama at Domme (Phil Keoghan: "Like a painting") because contestants keep making wrong turns, and that's especially a concern for ballroom, who are in 6th after the Detour, and have quite a bust-up about their nav troubles... (For a bit of comic relief, Miami do their rendition of the show's theme song, and the sound people add the actual theme song under it :-D) Meanwhile, Boom-Boom do the medieval games (trying to invoke various famous basketball players during the bag throwing task, and with rock balancing shown in fast-forward time lapse and Petit Gruyere almost an afterthought) and are hoping that one of the teams managed to drive all the way to Germany LOL. Eventually, military bros get themselves the 1st place and $7500 each, and ballroom manages to get good directions to edge out Boom-Boom, but to Boom-Boom, "It's not the end of our race, it's just the beginning" as Glenda hopes to be a good mother to her future children :-)
Ep 8
- After an exit from Boom-Boom and a win from the twins (and a product placement mandated scene of them looking over their prize trip) next stop is a self-drive to Toulouse, France (aka "The Pink City", which will figure in one of the Detours), to the Stade Toulousain stadium... Luis and Derek have a bromance going on (Michele's words, not my own) Derek also mentions he doesn't have good memory, and Luis mentions that Michele had a dream about her late father, daww... Meanwhile, Aubrey decides to switch driving with David after having issues with all the maps they're having to handle LOL.
- Roadblock at the stadium is "Who's ready to take one for the team?" It's a rugby drill with Stade Toulousain's women's rugby (most successful rugby team in France) Most of the task (tackling, running, passing, receiving) is a formality; the real issue is the dropkick, which is a problem for the twins... But they have plenty of time, because the military bros (who started in their group) end up on the wrong road to the stadium and get into a traffic jam, and only arrive at the same time as Miami and Big Brother, quite a bit after the twins got their kick through on something like the 6th go
- Both Miami and Big Brother nail their kicks first go, with Luis giving a nice celebration (heck, Big Brother send Claire to do it; in confessional Claire claims that she was recommended to join her college's rugby team, but Derek doubts that story) Meanwhile, military takes like seven attempts because while one of them did play regular American football, he was a receiver... and on top of that, they proceed to get on the wrong road on their way to the next task LOL. They're only narrowly ahead of team ballroom, who "only" need 4 attempts to get their kick in :-)
- Military bros aren't the only ones making a wrong turn though, as the twins end up in a parking garage, wherein they learn how to use a vending machine to pay the parking fees with cash... Back to racing, and the next stop is Couvent de Jacobins to pick up a Detour clue from a dude blowing a French horn, and it's between Say Six (memorize French poetry from three different locations) and Lay Bricks (into the given pattern, using Toulouse's distinct pink bricks) Miami start doing the poetry and decide to switch to bricks, while the twins (with their knee issues) just go straight to bricks... Derek studied French in high school, so he's pulling plenty of weight on this task, while to her credit, Claire memorizes "les yeux" as "lasers" LOL.
- The trick with the bricks (ooh, rhyme :-)) is that there are two different lengths of brick to lay, and one has to start from the inside part... Luis reveals that he comes from a family of salsa dancers (so we have a second connection to salsa, after team ballroom) and quips that he doesn't put do construction work or even do Legos, but he does pay attention to detail, so it looks like Miami's getting the job done quickly, as the twins show up... Meanwhile the cheerleaders arrive in last at the Roadblock, and of course there's always going to be that one guy who mistakenly tries to punt the ball instead of dropkick, and that one guy is Quinton :-) That said, he gets the hang of the dropkick quickly, and gets it first go :-) Back to the Detour, and Big Brother are the first to get the pitstop clue for a boat on Canal de Brienne, while the twins are the first to get their clue at the brick task :-)
- Both ballroom and military bros have no issues memorizing the text element of the words, but it's the French pronounciation that's the problem (like pronouncing "Je" as "Jay")... and this is where I have to skip straight to the end, since on the rerun, this is about when I left the room to wash my dishes (rather, someone made me leave and didn't give me any say in the matter, the less said the better :-\), so I ended up missing the first four teams' check-ins and by the time I was done, ballroom was checking in, narrowly edging the cheerleaders out of the race, and in their exit interview, they say the real stinger for them is that they consider themselves competitive and had hoped to make it to the final leg
Ep 9
- After the exit of the cheerleaders, it's another megaleg, starting in Malaga, Spain at a fort on a hill, where teams find out that they're not getting extra money for this megaleg (they haven't noted how much money they get for the leg lately; teams got $10 for the latter of the Jordan legs and that's it as far as that goes) Anyways, from here teams will have to walk to a plaza to do the Roadblock: "Who's the master of pieces?" Malaga is the birthplace of Picasso, and this one involves sliding a bunch of giant glass plates into a giant frame to assemble one of his works, "Three Musicians" :-) A contestant quips about the Picasso statue at the plaza still having both ears, and promptly gets the response "That's Van Gogh" LOL. Claire quips about getting her fair share of cardio running between the example and her station (furthest from said example) and lifting the giant glass plates, while Molly has Emily (with the bum knee) do the task because Molly has done 5 Roadblocks, and Emily has only done 3...
- Big Brother are first to get the picture done (and team ballroom are in 2nd, their best position in a while), and get a clue to bike to El Cubo, which a) is literally a giant multicolored cube b) sounds like bad mock Spanish for "The Cube", but is actually correct Spanish (!) Derek comments that he's crashed a motorbike, a scooter, and a skateboard, so he has plenty of trauma to deal with while trying to keep up with Claire ("Can I walk the bike?")... Anyways, it's a Detour between Fish Fry (grilling sardines on a sword, AKA Espeto) and Sailboat Supply (paddleboard to supply a sailboat, as a nod to Malaga's role as a supply stop for ships; Miami will do this because they practiced paddleboarding before the race :-))
- Emily manages to finish ahead of military bros despite her bum knee, and after fiddling with the glass plates for a bit, the military bros only realize to their dismay that they forgot about the back panel after removing all the glass plates :-\ During the biking, Michael (well, the smaller of the bros) talks about how he got into a biking accident and the doctors didn't give him much chance to live, "But this boy's a fighter, and that's why I'm a fighter pilot" LOL. Meanwhile, the twins bike past El Cubo, and don't believe that that big multicolored cube to their right is what they're looking for because apparently it's supposed to be on their left :-\
- After Derek has a quip about the sardines being salted "Salt Bae style" (and he even imitates Salt Bae's style later in the task), we learn in confessional Claire is vegan and has never done a fish dish before, so she's mainly here for salting and watching the fishes, while letting Derek do most of the work (including referring to the example to make sure he's doing it right :-)) since he's the chef at their apartment, and was the chef on Big Brother... and Aubrey's also excited about this task, because she grew up in a Filipino household and ate sardines with her grandma :-) Derek pretends one of the fish is alive LOL. (Meanwhile, during the first run my mom was surprised to see the show and assumed it was old stuff, and was surprised to hear it was new, amazed [heh] that they'd be running this race with the pandemic still somewhat going on... I noted that they're mainly confined to Europe, but she noted racing in Europe isn't exactly a small deal either)
- Big Brother are the first to get a picture of some stone bridge on a postcard, and instructions to find a tour guide at the depicted location, and leave in a convertible, but we won't find out more about that until next week (without the quote marks, as both the first run and the rerun aired the ep on a Friday) Meanwhile, Miami gets cheered upon while inflating the paddleboard, and Luis quips "No one's cheering for the cooking, cooking's boring" :-) The twins take quite some time to get to the beach, and as they're grilling, Molly reveals one thing that differs between them: Molly likes fish, while Emily didn't grow up in a fish-eating family... and David also reveals that he's from a family of fishermen, so he's all "This one's for you, dad", especially when he chomps on a fish at the end of the task :-)
- Meanwhile, Miami have to supply an ice cooler and lifejackets to the sailboat and given that the sea is somewhat choppy, it's a major struggle for them to keep the ice cooler from falling over and spilling the ice, and I was easily amused by the fact that since they're from Miami, they talk with the guys on the sailboat with ease ("Viva España" and all that) Ballroom finish their detour 2nd, and Miami are in 3rd... so that leaves the twins and the military bros yet to finish this half of the leg, but again, that's for next week :-)
