Matt & Red 3
Tara & Joey 3.33
Becca & Floyd 3.5
Liz & Michael 4.33
Vanck & Ashton 4.83 (eliminated at Lake Como)
Brooke & Scott 5.67
London & Logan 6.16
But wait, since I love stats, I'm going to do a slightly different ranking. In this ranking, I am going to assign joint-places (eg. equal first place), so if a team finishes within seconds of each other on the pit stop mat, I'm going to assign them an equal ranking. I'm also going to assume that Becca & Floyd didn't lose their passport in Zanzibar and I will also assume that if the TAR producers had been a bit more fair, they should have won the leg in Norway after their fast forward. This is just a way for me to give you a more accurate reflection of where the teams stand thus far. Remember, this is based on me making a judgement call as to when to award a joint placing - so please take it with a pinch of salt, but I will arrive at a conclusion about where the teams currently stand and who might win this season.
Becca & Floyd 2.16
Matt & Red 2.5
Tara & Joey 3.16
Liz & Michael 4
Vanck & Ashton 4.5 (eliminated)
Brooke & Scott 5.5
London & Logan 5.5
So I stress this is to be taken with a pinch of salt okay? I am going to conclude now that the team to beat should really be team fun: Becca & Floyd. They made a number of errors so far: not using their Express Pass, taking the Fast Forward in Norway (not their fault really - I blame the producers) and Becca stopping to help Brooke in the metal work factory in Dar Es Salaam (note that Joey didn't help Brooke then, that gave him the precious few minutes to win that leg). Yet all I have done was to change the rankings based awarding joint-rankings, ignoring the passport mishap in Zanzibar and fixing that Fast Forward mistake made by the producers in Norway - instantly, you see that Becca & Floyd are actually stronger than Matt & Red. Yes they have made some stupid mistakes along the way but have still done very well regardless. It is no way a forgone conclusion that Matt & Red will win this season, it is probably a two horse race between them and team fun - with Tara & Joey as well as Liz & Michael having a shot as well, since both teams have each won two legs. Tara & Joey have had a slow start, but have excelled in the last few legs. Liz & Michael seem to be somewhat inconsistent, they have some awful days (Panama, Norway) but when they are having a good day, they can easily win a leg. So if they do make it to the final leg, they just need to be firing on all cylinders that day!
This has been talked about a lot on social media - I would like to start this section off by bringing up the statistics after the end of leg 5 (ie. where we stood, at the pit stop at Alesund, Norway) at the end of the last episode.
Matt & Redmond 3.2
Tara & Joey 3.4
Becca & Floyd 4
Vanck & Ashton 4.4
Liz & Michael 4.4 (spared by the NEL in Norway)
Brooke & Scott 5.8
London & Logan 6.2
Out of a team of 7, Vanck & Ashton are at best in the middle of the pack, being joint 4th amongst 7 teams. They didn't stand out as the strongest team having neither won a leg nor showed enough consistency in the first 5 legs. They did well in some legs and struggled in others - communication was clearly a problem for them and really, they should have called themselves #teamchalkandcheese given how incredibly different they were. Why didn't anyone think about U-turning Matt & Red who are statistically the strongest team by a long way and had should incredibly consistency throughout the race thus far, never dropping beyond 4th place? Or what about Becca & Floyd, who have had their ups and downs but still stormed to victory in Italy - did anyone notice how strong they are despite their happy-go-lucky persona? They only team that couldn't have been U-turned was Tara & Joey, having departed first from the ferry boat - they squandered a golden opportunity to U-turn a strong team to secure another win in this leg. Why did everyone else choose to U-turn Vanck & Ashton then? And what is this "social game" theory that everyone has talked about?
Here's my theory - reality TV 101
The first person who talked about 'the social game' and U-turning Vanck & Ashton was Scott but it is clear that he has done his research, spoken to the others and knows that Vanck & Ashton are somewhat unpopular with the other teams. But from Scott's point of view, there may be a method to his madness - he has already seen how a U-turn in Zanzibar only slowed down Matt & Red but failed to eliminate them, thus it was an opportunity to get rid of a slightly stronger team that will indeed be eliminated if U-turned. However, for the others to go along with the plan, now that's questionable. Anyone who has watched a lot of Survivor will be familiar with the tense plotting that happens once a tribe loses an immunity challenge (or after an individual immunity challenge, after the merge) - the easiest strategy to save yourself at tribal council is to simply latch onto someone else's plan to make sure that you don't get voted off. I call it the, "I'll go along with your plan, as long as it isn't me who's going home, I'll back your plan, you have my support 100%" strategy. Sandra Diaz-Twine used this simple but effective strategy really well and said her way to win Survivor. The moment someone suggested U-turning Vanck & Ashton, it would make perfect sense for the strongest teams to back that idea, so they are not the ones being targeted. Once a plan has been established - as in Survivor - you don't want to be on the wrong side of a voting pact, or else you may risk being the next one being picked off by the pack.
Who should Tara & Joey or Liz & Michael have U-turned instead then?
Easy. The statistically stronger teams.They should have targeted Matt & Red or Becca & Floyd. Matt & Red may be very strong and have proven that they can survive a U-turn which they did in Zanzibar. But what do you do then, just pave the way for them to win without even trying to get rid of them? Tara & Joey chose not to use the U-turn because they didn't want a target on their backs but that's not how it works in TAR: the moment you win a leg, a target is immediately placed on your back as the other teams realize that you are a threat. Yes there's an element of worrying about offending someone should the U-turn fail to get them eliminated, but the only true way to stay under the radar is to be constantly at the back of the pack, so nobody actually thinks that you are a threat at all. If Tara & Joey or Liz & Michael wanted to win a million dollars, it would be far easier if they didn't have to race against a very strong team like Matt & Red - this is a decision that may turn out to be extremely costly for them if Matt & Red do go on to win this season. What's the point of keeping the teams you like in the race when they're just going to beat you in the end?
Well yes, several times but the clearest example of that was TAR S16 E9 in my hometown of Singapore when Caite was determined to U-turn the lesbian team Carol & Brandy because of some kind of personal vendetta against the lesbians despite the fact that Carol & Brandy were not at that stage the strongest team. The strongest team at that point statistically was Jet & Cord who had already won three legs and had proven to be consistently strong - it proved to be a poor choice that would come back to haunt Brent & Caite in the end as they were defeated by Jet & Cord along with Dan & Jordan in the finals. A confrontation at the final pit stop between Carol & Brandy along with Caite proved that Caite still hadn't learnt her lesson - she still stood by her decision despite the fact that it had proven to be wrong eventually. In Singapore, that was more a case of a Caite acting out a personal vendetta, but at Lake Como, it seems that all the teams were happy to gang up against Vanck & Ashton. Would they all live to regret it when they get beaten by Matt & Red in the end? We shall see, I think they will regret it as this decision may come back to haunt them.
Brooke just gets more annoying with each leg.
How much did she moan when she was rock climbing? I'm amazed at how Scott put up with her whining nonsense. This begs the question - what is Brooke like in real life? Believe you me, we all have frustrating days at work. I won't go into details, but boy I had my fair share of crap today at work - would Brooke moan, bitch and cry each time she encounters something at work? I do wonder how her family members or colleagues have to put up with each time she has an emotional outburst. The fact is, we all get emotional when we are stressed but I don't think I would be employable if I broke down and cried like her or threw a tantrum each time I encountered a difficult situation at work. I have gotten quite good at hiding my feelings, I am like a duck - the duck's feet may be paddling furiously underwater but the duck seemingly glides across the water so gracefully. We call that being professional - only young children get away with crying and being so emotional like that. I don't buy the bullshit that some people are more emotional than others - we all experience emotions, some of us are simply more in control under stress than others. It is a vital skill in life that we all have to learn, some of us do it better than others. I know my no-nonsense boss would never put up with someone like that! He'll be like, "I've already got two kids at home, I don't need more in the office." Giving in to your emotions, crying or throwing a tantrum the way Brooke does never helps anyone. Since when did crying ever solve your problems? Seriously, in Alesund, she accused Scott of "making her feel like crap everyday" - she refuses to take any responsibility for her mistakes/shortcomings and instead takes out her insecurities on Scott. I find Scott annoying too, but I actually feel sorry for him now. Such is the nature of reality TV, us viewers want to see conflict like that.
It was nice to see Tara make an effort to speak Italian with the locals - as an Italian speaker, I can tell you that her Italian was pretty good. It sounded a bit rusty, she took a while to construct her sentences but at least she didn't just give up and revert back to English. Many of the teams couldn't even be asked to use a few words of Italian - like come on, you may not be able to speak it, but at least use a few words here and there like Ciao and Grazie. I don't think I heard anyone even try to speak any Norwegian in the last leg either. I remember way back in season one when team Guido (ie. "the evil gays" - I love them) were the only team who were happily speaking Italian with the taxi drivers when they arrived in Rome and it proved to be a huge advantage for them. It seems that the language barrier wasn't a problem for the teams on this leg - I note that the jogger on the shores of Lake Como who helped some teams find their detours spoke English fluently. In big cities in Italy, you should not have a problem finding people who do speak English but in rural areas, that would be a lot more rare. I note that Redmond is of Portuguese extraction, but I didn't really hear him say more than one or two words in Portuguese when in Brazil - so perhaps Americans are more monolingual than I thought. Is it too much too make a bit more of an effort to say a few words in another language?
Why "Cernobbio, Concordia and Lago"?
During the only roadblock in downtown Milan, one team member had to dine in a tram restaurant whilst spotting three marked words on the ride. The words were Cernobbio, Concordia, and Lago. Cernobbio is a commune on the shores of Lake Como, about 40 km north of Milan and that was where the ferry boat was waiting for the racers. The name of the ferry boat was Concordia - that's where the racers had some food and were able to rest for the night. And for those of you who speak Italian or Spanish, you would know that the word Lago means lake in Italian. So these three words were telling the contestants what to expect next in this leg of the race, go to the commune of Cernobbio, where the Concordia awaits you on the shoes of Lago di Como (Lake Como). It didn't look like a hard task, but I was amazed just how many racers struggled with this task. It was an interesting, unusual task, but it was a shame we didn't get to see more of Milan in this leg, which is a truly magnificent city. Having visited Milan, I well and truly recommend it - though nothing quite compares to Rome! Lake Como looked charming in this episode, I'd love to go there one day.
At Lake Como, the racers had the choice between 'Make A Mold' and 'Grab A Hold' - it was pretty clear that one detour was going to take much longer than the other. Racers who chose to go rock climbing flew through that task - even Brooke managed to get up that rock face kicking, screaming, crying and whining every step of the way. It was physically demanding but not impossible or unsafe in any way. The molding task however, took an awfully long time because you needed to wait for the mold to dry. With TAR detours, there's always an option for those who want to avoid the more physically demanding task (in case the racers were older, less fit, scared of heights etc) - but why did Tara & Joey and London & Logan go for this task, despite the fact that both teams were clearly strong enough to attempt the rock climbing task? I thought Scott & Brooke would have chosen to do the molding task, but even they made the right choice to go rock climbing. Choosing the wrong detour probably costed Tara & Joey yet another first place finish - they are both strong enough to have completed the rock climbing task easily.
Nice to see Liz & Michael make up
Well, such is reality TV editing for you. Liz & Michael had that meltdown at the pit stop in Alesund, but made up before they had even left the carpark at Mt Aksla. The editing made it look like Michael was about to quit the race when he was simply frustrated at having gotten lost on the way to the pit stop in the previous leg. I suppose it is a steep learning curve whenever you have to work with someone you have never ever met before - you know, some people experience that all the time, others don't. If you are say an accountant who has worked in a bank for 10 years, you know your team really well and you are not challenged to work with strangers. But if you are an actor for example, you show up on set on the first day of your shoot and you're desperately trying to learn everyone's names. Some people are simply forced by the nature of their work to learn to work with strangers better than others. All the teams have been trying to improve their working relationships and the only one that stands out as most dysfunctional are Brooke & Scott - even London & Logan always seem to work rather well together, despite constantly flirting with elimination. Go figure.
We're staying in bella Italia for yet another leg and why not? TAR loves Italy and so do I. Tara & Joey clearly have an advantage since Tara speaks Italian and we can expect them to do well there. From the previews, it seems that Becca & Floyd are having fun there too, so look out for a strong finish from them. We are also shown "a grudge match" between Liz & Michael and team Lolo, so either or both of them could be in trouble. Nothing about Brooke & Scott, but I'll be surprised if Brooke doesn't go into her usual whiny, moaning, crybaby routine in Venice (and I'm waiting for the moment when she pushes Scott so far he will finally snap). Matt & Red are super strong physically - but it looks like the tasks in Venice have a more cultural theme, so apart from running faster than the rest, they have no advantage in the next leg, so I am going to predict a win for Tara & Joey or Becca & Floyd. As for elimination, I think Brooke & Scott will finally self-implode, not unless Liz & Michael have another really bad day like in Panama and Alesund. I do hope Liz & Michael will survive Venice though, I really like them as a team! But it is hard to predict these things: the teams did not U-turn the strongest team at Lake Como and who knows what other strange twists awaits us next in Venice?
So that's it from me on this episode, I'm looking forward to the next episode in Venice. Many thanks for reading guys!
Now you made me interested in this episode of TAR because of your Sandra references haha she really made Survivor v.interesting to watch for such a so-simple-but-you-dont-think-about-it kind of strategy!
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