Hi there guys, finally we have reached the end of TAR S36 and we congratulate the winners Ricky & Cesar! Oh TAR is a lot more fun to watch when your favourite team wins, so to all the haters out there who are upset with the results, tough - go watch something else instead, you didn't get the outcome you wanted in this season and in case you didn't get the memo, life is just not fair and one cares if you're not happy about Ricky & Cesar winning TAR S36. But before we look at the last two legs and reflect upon this entire season, let's conclude with the final average ranking statistics for TAR S36:
Average ranking statistics after leg 11 in Philadelphia
- Ricky & Cesar 1.45 (winners of TAR S36)
- Rod & Leticia 3
- Juan & Shane 3.18
- Amber & Vinny 4.5 (eliminated at La Boca, DR at the end of leg 10)
An average of 1.45 is a new record for the TAR global franchise.
Was the outcome predictable? Yes I think so, even with Ricky struggling with the windsurfing roadblock in leg 10 in Cabarete, DR, they merely slipped to third place on that leg. Whilst it was their worst performance this season, they still didn't open door enough for Amber & Vinny to sneak in ahead of them. Windsurfing is hard, there is a steep learning curve when it comes to the balance and Ricky would have been exhausted after having tried for so long. But nonetheless, their victory with an average of 1.45 is the best ever result in any franchise of TAR. They won 7 out of 11 legs which is impressive, but the record is winning 8 legs in a season: that record is held by Marc & Rovilson from TAR Asia S2 (who ironically crumbled in the final challenge and didn't win that season), Tom & Tyler from TAR Australia S4 (who were eliminated just before the final leg) and Rachel & Dave from TAR S20 (who won S20 but had a worse average ranking of 1.83 compared to Ricky & Cesar'S 1.45). Thus it is hard to argue which team has the best track record, Rachel & Dave or Ricky & Cesar, it depends which measure you use to measure their performance: by the number of legs won or their average ranking statistics. But hopefully, there will be plenty more reality TV for Ricky & Cesar after this victory.
That was a very short 10th leg in DR, wasn't it?
It felt shorter because the 10th and 11th legs were condensed into one episode, there's a really good reason for that decision. The tenth leg involved a detour and a roadblock like all the other legs, but there were only 4 teams to film compared to 13 teams in the first leg. The challenge the editors had in the first leg was that there simply wasn't enough time to show any of the teams so they had to focus on only a few such as the team that got eliminated, the winners or any other team where there was a lot of drama (like a major argument or a costly mistake) but if you're one of the teams in the middle of the pack in the first leg, you would barely make it into the final edit. But when you have only 4 teams left, you then have the opposite to deal with and it was a rational decision to condense that 10th leg into just half an episode.
No one chose "dive trip" at the detour. why was that?
Oh it was an obvious choice, it is so hot and humid in DR, that side of the detour just sounded like hard labour in the unforgiving tropical heat whereas making the cocktails in a bar seemed like a lot less effort, as it was more about memorizing the orders and paying attention to detail when creating those cocktails. Given that this was still early enough in the leg, it would thus be a strategic decision not to choose the detour that could potentially be really exhausting in order to preserve your energy for the rest of the leg. Sure enough, the next roadblock was indeed very physically demanding and hence the racers all made the right decision. Nonetheless, I do feel sorry for the staff at that diving shop on Sosúa Beach though, they would have set everything up for their 5 minutes of fame on TV, but then no one turns up.
No drama with the taxis on this leg?
In the previous leg, there was a lot of drama with Dominican taxi drivers who didn't speak any English and didn't know where they were going but this time round, the taxi rides were uneventful. Now it could be just the luck of the draw as the distances travelled were not that long: the distance from the detour in Sosúa to the roadblock in Cabarete was 13.4 km (8.3 miles) and the two locations were joined by the only main road that ran along the northern shore of DR, so it was obvious where to go and it was hard to get lost. The next taxi trip was also fairly straightforward, it was a further 15.8 km (9.8 miles) down that same road to La Boca. In rural parts of DR there is usually only one main road connecting all the towns along the coast and it's not like in the middle of a big city where there are dozens of roads like a maze. Furthermore, this area in Northern DR is sparsely populated so it really isn't that hard to get lost there if your destination is simply the next town down the only road along the coast. But that should be the way of course, the outcome of the leg should depend on the performance of the teams at the tasks and not some random factor like your choice of taxi drivers.
Wasn't that last bit with the dune buggy and the kayak a bit pointless?
It was more an advertisement for what tourists could do in that part of DR, there was no real skill involved and that part was never really going to change the order of the teams on their way to the pit stop. It wasn't even that interesting and as someone who has visited DR as a tourist, I did so many interesting activities there but I didn't choose to do either of those activities as there were far better things to do there - especially in the capital city Santo Domingo and Punta Cana.
Oh no she said yes. Hell no Amber, you made a massive mistake.
Vinny proposed to Amber and I was screaming at my computer "don't do it girl, you're emotional at the pit stop and you're not thinking straight, he ain't right for you!" After the way Vinny treated Amber on this entire season, she is going to regret saying yes. This was shot 18 months ago, they have not gotten married yet and presumably are still engaged or keeping a very low profile (and got married in secret) as they realized just how their really toxic relationship was exposed on the show. They were a strong team that performed well to get this far in the process, but some people accused TAR of normalizing and condoning this kind of extremely toxic, abusive relationship where Vinny treated Amber like crap. People like him will never change, I will only hope that she will eventually come to her senses and break it off but Vinny will just find another woman with low self-esteem where he can have another very abusive relationship with but he will keep that out of the public eye and not become public enemy number one again. I'm not going to sugar coat it and say "oh we can't judge them", I am only saying all of this in the hope that Amber gets the relationship she deserves and we can never condone such toxic relationships. The question I want to ask is whether any of this was flagged up in the casting process as TAR has made the huge mistake before back in TAR S6 when Jonathan was painfully abusive towards Victoria throughout the race and yup, sure enough, they got divorced eventually. There are so many thousands of applicants for each season, why pick the toxic couple only for the viewers to witness such nasty abuse in the show? This is certainly not what the viewers and fans want to see, quite the opposite; the producers should also be aware of the fact that they shouldn't be accused of just standing back and condoning such toxic abuse in the name of reality TV. The casting process usually involves a test day where the teams are invited for a mock leg, they would be filmed and tested, to evaluate how they handle the pressure and I can only guess that during the test day for Amber & Vinny, they managed to do the tasks fairly easily and thus didn't get frustrated with each other. So the lesson here is to make sure the test day is a lot more stressful and push the teams a lot harder, in order to expose any cracks in the potentially toxic relationships.
And we finish the story in Philadelphia, the city where Ricky was born.
Many people on social media complained about the fact that the final leg took the teams to a city where Ricky was born, thus he had a major advantage there. Cue the complaints of "it's not fair!" Well, let me clarify things here: firstly, the route of the season was confirmed before the casting was completed, so it was complete coincidence and an element of good luck for Ricky & Cesar that they chose to race through Philadelphia. Teams encounter good and bad luck on the race - Ricky encountered his share of bad luck in the previous leg when he chose to do the windsurfing roadblock, a task he really struggled with. You don't see them complaining when they encounter bad luck like that. Inevitably, teams will encounter some good and bad luck along the race, that's just the nature of the game. In any case, the two tasks on this leg required a level of skill - firstly at the football stadium, it took the racers quite a few attempts each to finally hit the target, that was far more crucial in determining the order of the teams compared to the time spent navigating. After that, Juan & Shane had that disaster when they got bad directions from a security guard, taking them across the state line to New Jersey - at some point, you have to wonder if they should have questioned themselves and asked, "wait a minute, do you think we are headed in the right direction? Should we check again with someone else?" Juan & Shane were responsible for that mistake, but it was also bad luck that they received bad directions. At that point, it was still a tight race between Rod & Leticia and Ricky & Cesar, then Rod hit a task which he simply struggled with - he couldn't memorize big chunks of text. Was that bad luck or was that just a weakness on his part or his inability to perform under pressure? He did manage to perform that task eventually but by then, they had lost so much time, Ricky & Cesar were assured of victory already at that point. By that token, it made this final leg somewhat boring and predictable - with Juan & Shane making that fatal flaw with directions and Rod having his meltdown on that task, Ricky & Cesar coasted easily to victory with neither of the other teams in sight. If it was a tight race, then perhaps Ricky's knowledge of Philly might have been advantageous but really, in this case, it wasn't a factor. After all, they were back in the USA, asking for directions and help shouldn't be a problem - unless you're as unlucky as Juan & Shane. Thus Ricky & Cesar won fair and square, congratulations to them; they were my favourite team from the very start and I'm thrilled that they won TAR S36.
Wait, there was no memory challenge in the final leg?
Well the memory challenge came in the form of the task where both team members had to memorize the preamble to the US Declaration of Independence. Granted this is very different from previous seasons when the memory challenge usually revolved around specific events from their journey around the world, this was very different but it was still, in essence, a memory challenge. This was especially difficult for Cesar for two reasons: English is his second language and as he grew up in Mexico, he didn't learn all this in school so he was encountering it for the first time. Rod on the other hand, speaks English as a first language and was educated in the US, so did anyone complain that this was rigged against Ricky & Cesar? No, Cesar just took on the challenge like the champion he was and dealt with it. Furthermore, Cesar performed the roadblock in Philly which once again, was a complex puzzle delivered in English and it was all about American history. It almost felt like the producers were throwing everything they could at Cesar to try to slow him down but he still managed because despite the fact that he is an immigrant who speaks English as a second language and was educated in Mexico, he is extremely intelligent, resilient and knew how to stay calm under pressure (contrast that to Rod who just totally cracked under pressure - oh dear) and this is why I think they are truly deserving of this win.
If not for Juan & Shane's detour to New Jersey, could they have won?
The answer is possibly and it would've been a much more exciting finale for us viewers They were about 50 minutes behind Ricky & Cesar at the final pit stop but that long detour to New Jersey was also about 50 minutes - you work it out.
What was the point of the Liberty Bell 3D jigsaw challenge?
Again, it was totally pointless. Whilst it is a landmark that is found in Philly, the 3D jigsaw wasn't that hard and the teams simply left in the order that they had arrived in and it was never going to change the order of the teams at that point. It was just way too easy, once again that was an utterly pointless addition to this leg - what were the producers thinking?!
There is a lot of racism, homophobia and xenophobia in America.
Yeah I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room - a lot of people on social media accused CBS of rigging the game to allow Ricky & Cesar to win. That's complete bullshit of course, TAR has always been very good when it comes to diversity on the race. Even in the very first season, we remember team Guido and they were the first openly gay couple in American reality TV - that was a big deal back in 2001. There has always been LGBTQ representation in every single season, the same way there are always some non-white racers on every season. Some of these viewers feel like minorities like Latinos, gays and Muslims should be allowed to take part in such programmes in the name of diversity, as long as the winner is white and Christian. Well, amongst the top six teams in this season, there was plenty of diversity to offend the haters: Danny Butler is probably gay, Yvonne & Melissa are a lesbian couple, Vinny is Filipino, Rod is black, Leticia is mixed, Juan and Cesar are Latinos and of course, Ricky & Cesar are a gay couple. In fact, you have got to go all the way back to Sunny & Bizzy who finished in 7th place to find a team who were entirely white and heterosexual.
Here's another dumb theory I read online which I must address.
Some idiots have been complaining about Rod & Leticia being allowed to take part because Rod has already made a lot of money in his 6 seasons playing American football professionally. Back in 2001, Rod was signed to the Washington Redskins for US$7.78 million - that was a 5-year contract but still, that makes the prize money of US$1 million look less attractive in comparison. Rod is rich - there's no doubt about that. So some of the haters online were complaining, why is Rod even allowed to take part when he doesn't need the money? Let poor people who can never earn a million dollars take part instead. He made his fortune when he was playing football and is still rich today, but why discriminate against people who are rich in this kind of programme format? After all, I don't think these producers should have that Messiah syndrome, they shouldn't be the ones with all the power, giving poor people the chance to win a life-changing amount of money. If someone is rich, it probably means that they have the social skills, intellect and the street smarts to thrive in their respective industries to make a lot of money, those would probably be the same kind of skills needed to perform well on TAR. By the same token, if someone is very poor, it might also mean that lack all of those same skills to find a decent job and thus they would suck as a racer on TAR. This isn't some kind of charity programme where you give out the prize money to the poorest racers who need the money the most - it is a competition based on skill which means you might end up with a winner who is already a multi-millionaire and doesn't really need the money, but had the skills to win the race. CBS are creating a reality TV programme that needs to be entertaining and one of the key ingredients to TAR would be excellent racers who have the right skills to thrive in the process, whether or not they are rich or poor is a moot point. In this season though, Ricky & Cesar are neither rich nor poor - Ricky is a preschool teacher and Cesar is a chef. I wonder if they will just go back to their old jobs, or if they would want to use this new found fame to do something else?
How did the results compare with my initial reactions of the teams?
I actually thought that another team would've won this season - that was Juan & Shane. My reasoning was that Juan was born in Colombia and thus he was raised in a Spanish speaking household, giving them a massive advantage in this season. They were both also younger than Ricky & Cesar and appeared physically very strong, but their performance had been disappointing. They only won one leg and even though a second place finish in this season is very credible, I really thought their average ranking would have been a lot better than 3.18 given their relative strengths. The two teams that well and truly exceeded my expectations were Rod & Leticia and Angie & Danny. Firstly, Rod & Leticia won three legs, finishing this season with an average ranking of 3 - I honestly did not expect them to perform this well as neither of them spoke any Spanish. Whilst Rod was obviously physically quite strong, Leticia did come across as a rather average woman of her age. As for Angie & Danny, they were eliminated under very controversial circumstances in leg 8 and they probably could have raced one or two more legs with the remaining teams. Initially, thought they were one of the teams that had no hope in hell of surviving more than one or two legs at first, given that they didn't come across as well travelled and I was biased because of Angie's age. But sure enough, I was proven wrong as they exceeded all my expectations. I don't think they would have beaten Ricky & Cesar in the finale but I am sure they could have survived a few more legs in the season if they didn't get separated from their camera crew. Then there are the joker teams - of which, there are 5 in this season. I'm talking about the first 5 teams that got eliminated who were either absolutely clueless (I'm trying to avoid using the word "stupid" and I guess "clueless" is as good as it gets) or simply so fat and unfit they had no chance in hell of surviving a typical season of TAR. Nothing personal but when you have such weak teams in the season, it makes the first few legs boring as the viewers are often just left shaking their heads in disbelief watching the weaker teams make all kinds of really dumb mistakes and that was just so painful to watch. What was the point of casting those very weak teams, knowing full well you're only going to see them struggle a lot and they have absolutely no hope of winning? For every one joker team they put on this race, how many strong, credible teams did they say no to?
That's it from me on this season, many congratulations to Ricky & Cesar and we have to wait a whole year until spring 2025 for the next season of TAR. It was my pleasure to share my insights on this season with you and like all hardcore fans of TAR, I am just glad they managed to film this season during the pandemic. If you have any recommendations on what else to watch in the coming weeks, please let me know. Currently, I'm watching the Belgian version of Destination X - it is absolutely awesome but of course, the whole thing is in Dutch as it is made for the local Flanders audience in Belgium. I'm not fluent in Dutch but my Dutch is good enough for me to understand most of it. I'm also looking forward to Race to Survive New Zealand, which starts on the 20th May. Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.
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