Average rankings after leg 2 in Puerto Vallarta
- Rod & Leticia 1
- Ricky & Cesar 2
- Derek & Shelisa 3
- Juan & Shane 4
- Yvonne & Melissa 5.5
- Angie & Danny 6.5
- Michelle & Sean =8
- Anthony & Bailey =8
- Sunny & Bizzy 9
- Amber & Vinny 9.5
- Kishori & Karishma 10
- Chris & Mary 11.5 (eliminated in Puerto Vallarta)
Who did well in this leg? Who struggled in this leg?
The top four teams powered ahead and kept their leads by performing consistently well in this leg. The most improved team was Amber & Vinny who climbed from 12th to 7th, the worst performing team that escaped elimination was Michelle & Sean who fell from 5th to 11th after a series of critical errors. I was surprised that Amber & Vinny performed poorly in the first leg as I thought they were a rather strong team who did tick all the boxes for me and thus their strong performance in this leg does confirm that they are a team that will go far in this season. As for Michelle & Sean, sigh, they were one of two teams who got hopelessly lost in Puerto Vallarta whilst trying to find the Iguana bridge. Kishori & Karishma made the same mistake when they stumbled upon a clue box at Lázaro Cárdenas Park, thinking they had found the clue box at Iguana bridge. It was unlikely that one team would make that mistake but for two teams to make that exact same mistake was unreal - according to Google maps, from the last pit stop, Iguana bridge was just 500 meters (0.31 miles) away due east and the walk would take you about 8 minutes only if you knew where you were going. Lázaro Cárdenas Park on the other hand was 800 meters (0.5 miles) but in a completely different direction due south-west, so you really had to be very unlucky or bad at directions to have ran that far in the wrong direction. Just looking at the map, I found it unreal that two teams could get that lost - after all, Rod & Leticia who won both legs in Mexico clearly don't speak any Spanish at all, yet they were able to ask for directions to find their way around Puerto Vallarta very efficiently, so it wasn't even a language barrier issue here. The fact is Puerto Vallarta is a resort town that attracts loads of American and Canadian tourists, thus those who work in the tourist industry would tend to speak some English and they would certainly speak enough English to help you with directions if you're looking for the Iguana bridge. Puerto Vallarta is Latin America light, or diet Latin America - like you are in Latin America but it is modern, relatively safe and clean and people do speak some English so it is less of a shock for Americans who don't speak Spanish and very tourist-friendly. So if Michelle & Sean and Kishori & Karishma can struggle so much in this leg, thus I think they're really going to struggle in the coming legs in places like Colombia, where the locals will be far less likely to speak any English.
Was this an unbalanced detour - why was colour correction side of the detour so hard?
The detour was a choice between a physical task: collecting six bunches of balloons across town and delivering them or one that required attention to detail whereby teams had to search amongst strings of paper flags for the one set that did not follow a set pattern. There was nothing complicated about the balloon collection, the teams found all the balloons without too much fuss despite the fact that it was obviously tiring to walk around town in that tropical heat. The colour collection task however was fiendishly difficult and only Sunny & Bizzy managed to complete it. Most teams switched detours the moment they realized what they had to do and that was probably the right decision. But why was this task so hard? The concept of the task wasn't difficult, simply spot the odd one out, find the string that didn't follow the sequence. But I suppose the teams were already very hot and tired at this point and they had to constantly look up at the paper flags above them in that courtyard, it would have been hard to focus. I can just imagine the racer doing that detour to think, "woah wait a minute, which string was I looking at again?" I suppose they could have either climbed the ladder to physically hold onto the string (or simply extended their arms up to grab the string if they were very tall) to make sure they don't look their focus but that would have been exhausting to keep up until you found the right string. I felt bad for Sunny & Bizzy as I would have definitely chosen that detour given that it looked less tiring than the other side of the detour, but I think the producers could have either made this side of the detour a little easier by having less paper flags in that courtyard. Alternatively, they could have done what they did in the first leg by limiting the number of teams who could do each side of the detours - so if you only provided enough balloons for 6 teams to do that side of the detour, it would force teams at the back of the pack to do the colour correction side of the detour. They could have also balanced things out by making the balloon collection task a lot more difficult - so many teams lost a few balloons along the way as they brushed against fences and trees, causing the balloons to pop. There should have been some kind of time penalty for every balloon that the teams lost, like "you lost 8 balloons along the way, so you have to serve an 8 minute time penalty before you can get your next clue." But no, the teams were not punished for losing some balloons along the way which seemed oddly lenient to me - I think the producers definitely made a mistake on his detour given how unbalanced it was.
How far was it to walk from the end of the detour to the roadblock?
That was approximately 900 meters (0.56 miles) and a 13 minute walk, if you had good directions for the best route.
The heat in Mexico can be brutal.
We all knew that Chris & Mary were probably going to be eliminated in this leg because Chris succumbed to heat exhaustion as that was featured in the trailers for this episode, thus it made it rather easy for me to predict the team that would be eliminated. The heat exhaustion in such places can be brutal as it is not just the temperature but the humidity that is the issue - your body will react to the heat by sweating and if the humidity is low enough, that sweat can evaporate and have a cooling effect on the body but if the humidity is very high, then that sweat cannot evaporate and your body can't cool down, that forces the body to produce even more sweat in reaction to that and that's why it is so crucial to drink a lot of water to avoid heat exhaustion in such conditions as you can lose dangerous amounts of water through sweating like that. This is why the make up challenge was tricky as the racers were just pouring with sweat even when they were just sitting on the chair, I felt sorry for both Mary and Chris on this leg as this kind of heat exhaustion is pure torture; years ago when I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I remember how I collapsed as I was crossing the road - I felt faint as I looked around for traffic and I said to myself, if you're going to faint, at least first make it to the other side of the road and sure enough, I collapsed on the kerb just as I made it to the other side. The added challenge for the racers is that when you drink so much water, you might need to go to the toilet more often but the racers might be thinking, I don't want to waste precious minutes looking for a toilet when we're on the race and I don't want to get eliminated because I wasted five minutes looking for a toilet in an unfamiliar city. Yes some people do hard labour in these tropical countries where they experience very high temperatures and humidity - but if you are not used to it, it can be very brutal and unforgiving.
Was Chris & Mary's elimination inevitable?
I'm afraid so, even if they survived this leg, I have to call out the elephant in the room: I'm afraid Chris simply isn't physically strong enough to keep up with many of the younger racers. It isn't his age per se as he is only 3 years older than Derek and 5 years older than Shelisa, but Derek & Shelisa are so fit and strong they can easily keep up with and outperform the younger teams. Sorry to call a spade a spade but Chris is fat, he is overweight and that is the problem. When I see teams with fat racers, I know that they are going to amongst the first to be eliminated given the very physical nature of TAR. They have an interesting story as a father and daughter team but you can't run away from the fact he simply hasn't prepared himself adequately for the challenges of the race by losing a lot of weight. I think it is important to cast older racers on TAR and I was delighted when Kim & Penn won S33, beating a lot of younger racers in that season but Kim & Penn (just like Derek & Shelisa) are fit, strong older racers who are not fat! Thus the issue here isn't whether or not you should cast older racers (yes they should) but whether or not they should cast fat, overweight, unfit racers (no they shouldn't)? Or would you like to see a season that has far less physical tasks, less running around (for example, if you allow the racers to always drive from one location to another), so that the fat racers are not at such a disadvantage?
Was it that hard to find Casa Kimberly?
Some teams struggled to find the pit stop at Casa Kimberly. It is a 1 km (0.62 miles) walk which would take about 15 minutes, the route would actually take them back past the area where they performed the detours and thus it shouldn't be that unfamiliar to them. It is one of the more famous tourist attractions in Puerto Vallarta hence all the teams had to do was to ask for help. It was very frustrating to see the teams run around aimlessly refusing to ask the locals for directions.
Some of the racers didn't know who Elizabeth Taylor was.
Okay I'm in two minds about this: Elizabeth Taylor was a very famous actress from the last century, she had a career that span 7 decades, but was most famous in the 1940s to 1970s when she was a global mega-star. So if you take Anthony and Bailey for example, they are only 26 years old and would've been born in 1998 and thus probably did not grow up watching any of her films at all. But would that be a valid excuse for not knowing anyone famous from the last century, from Winston Churchill to Nelson Mandela to Elvis Presley to Marilyn Monroe? In one word: history - you ought to be aware of the history of the world we live in and get to know the important people who shaped the world in the last century so as to understand the world we live in. Therefore being young doesn't give you an excuse to be ignorant and whilst I was never a fan of Elizabeth Taylor, at least I knew she was a very famous actress - furthermore, if I had a camera pointing at my face and I really didn't know whom she was, then I would have not said that out aloud just in case that got picked up; no I'd censor myself as I had nothing to gain and everything to lose by opening my big mouth in that situation.
One small change I would've made to this leg.
Looking at the map of Puerto Vallarta, I did think that it would have made more sense for the leg to have been organized differently by starting at the roadblock at Lázaro Cárdenas Park, before going to do the detour at Isla Cuale which would have been a lot closer to the pit stop, that would have spared the racers a lot of running around Puerto Vallarta in the harsh tropical heat. Come on, the race should be about getting through these interesting challenges at the detours and road blocks, rather than an endurance test involving running long distances in very hot weather. In this leg, the racers walked/ran a total of 2.4 km (1.5 miles) excluding the additional distance covered by those who chose the balloon collection side of the detour. If the leg was organized the way I had suggested above, they would have done it all in a distance of 1.8 km (1.12 miles), okay it's slightly shorter but still, when you're dealing with such high temperatures, even sparing the racers an additional 600 meters (0.37 miles) would have been kind to the racers, as well as the cameramen who have to follow the racers around with so much heavy camera equipment in tow - now that's a really tough job to do.
Which team is going to win the next leg? Which team will be eliminated next?
I had been ignoring Rod & Leticia as a possible winner because they clearly don't speak Spanish and I knew that was going to be a disadvantage for them in this season, however, they had clearly proven that they really have what it takes to go all the way by winning the first two legs. They also won a well deserved prize at last for winning leg 2. Given how well they have performed so far, there's nothing to suggest that they can't win the next leg. Ricky & Cesar have a major advantage in that Cesar is a native speaker of Spanish, but still they were just one step behind Rod & Leticia, thus I think the next leg would be won by either teams - my heart wants Ricky & Cesar to win, but my head says it's going to be Rod & Leticia. As for the weakest team to go next, I have a few teams in mind: Kishori & Karishma have made some major errors in the first two legs, but they managed to avoid elimination because there were plenty of weaker teams around. I realize that Angie also suffered from heat exhaustion in this leg but Guatapé is not on the coast but in the mountains at the altitude of 1890 meters (6200 feet) which means that it stays relatively cool despite being in the tropics. In fact many Colombians choose to live in the towns and cities in the mountains because the weather is just so much more pleasant there, so hopefully the teams can enjoy a leg without suffering from the tropical heat. However, in the previews, we see Angie & Danny stuck in a boat with a stalled engine; we also see Anthony & Bailey being very indecisive about switching detours and Sean struggling with a heights challenge. Given the way the trailers often give a clear hint as to which team is going to be eliminated, I am guessing that it would be one of these three teams and somehow, Kishori & Karishma will survive this leg. If a boat stalls because of an engine failure, the producers will have to provide a replacement boat and I think Sean may struggle with a heights challenge but he is going to fight his way through it in the end. However, being very indecisive about the detour sounds like a far more costly error and so despite not being the weakest team at this point, I am going to guess that Anthony & Bailey will be the next to be eliminated - this is purely based on the previews. Based on the teams' performance so far, I didn't think they would be next to go but it would be foolish to ignore the previews. But I definitely think that Kishori & Karishma are on borrowed time, even if they could survive this next leg. Hence the winner I am picking for leg 3 is Ricky & Cesar, the team that will be eliminated next will be Anthony & Bailey.
So which teams are on borrowed time?
Apart from Kishori & Karishma, I'd add Angie & Danny to that list. I know Danny is a mega fan but neither him nor his mother speak any Spanish and Angie as strong as Derek & Shelisa. I'm sorry but Danny really should have picked someone his own age rather than his mother if he wants a realistic chance of making it to the end. I know that the dynamics of a parent-child team can be interesting for this format of reality TV, but the parent really needs to be as strong as Derek & Shelisa in order to not slow down the child in the team. They also look uncomfortable in a non-English speaking country and in past seasons, we have seen the huge difference between teams who have the necessary experience to thrive in such conditions and teams who can't even understand English when spoken with a non-American foreign accent. Evidently, teams that have had the chance to travel a lot more would thrive much better in TAR and it just doesn't strike me that Angie & Danny are in this category. I think that CBS wants to give some poorer teams who don't have much money the chance to travel and see the world, but ultimately such teams are going to lose out to the teams who have more travel experience. I'm a super fan too, but I am a super fan with money so I just book a trip to visit the amazing locations that have been featured on TAR. How many super fans of TAR have the kind of money to do that? Finally, another team on borrowed time would be Michelle & Sean, they ran a decent first leg but had so many things go wrong for them in the second leg - it just gave me the impression that they crumble easily under pressure, heat, stress and fatigue, all of which are vital ingredients in any TAR episode. The teams are going to become more and more tired as the season progresses, hence I'm looking out for teams who will crack under pressure and that's why I am adding Michelle & Sam to this list. Ironically, there are two teams which have been at the back of the pack after two legs: Ambey & Vinny and Sunny & Bizzy, but I actually think these two teams have what it takes to survive this season till near the end or to the very end. And ironically, despite all these reasons I have stated above, I simply can't ignore the fact that Angie & Danny have a respectable average ranking of 6.5 after 2 legs - which places them comfortably in the middle of the pack.
Am I being too harsh on the teams that don't speak Spanish?
Actually no, I don't think so - I am harsh but fair and as my regular readers will know, I am in the process of trying to get on the British version of TAR at the moment and nothing is confirmed yet, but if I do get on the show, then there will be a process whereby I will be taken to the airport on the day of departure not knowing what country I will be flying to until I literally get to the gate at the airport to board the flight. At which point, I will run to the nearest bookstore in the departure longue of the airport to get a travel guide for the destination and armed with a pen and paper, I will be talking to the crew of the flight and other passengers to try to get as much information as I can and learn some important basic phrases of the language(s) of the country I am going to. Perhaps there's not that much that I can do that in a short period of about 12 hours when traveling, but I daresay that valiant effort would make some difference and in this process, you would want to get every advantage you can get. Anyone who has been a student will tell you that making a valiant last minute effort for an exam is better than going into that exam with completely unprepared. This is why I am rolling my eyes at Danny who claims to be a super fan who has studied for this race, really? Memorizing every detail of which the teams did in a season from ten years ago is far less relevant to what you're about to encounter in Mexico and he must have had at least a few hours at the airport and on the flight to prepare himself and memorize some phrases in Spanish. If you can be like Rod & Leticia and win two legs in Mexico without a word of Spanish, then fair enough but any super fan should know that you need to go into every leg with every advantage you can possibly get before the start of each leg. Okay so that is it from me on this episode - do let me know what you think, please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
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