Average ranking after leg 7 in Bucharest
- Tucker & Eric 1.85
- Jas & Jag 2.28
- Natalie & Stephanie 3.85 (eliminated in Bucharest)
- Joseph & Adam 4.71
- Izzy & Paige 5.42
- Kyland & Taylor 5.71
- Jack & Chelsie 6.71
Okay I admit, I was wrong last week when predicting the winners and losers in this leg. Jas & Jag ran a good leg to finish 2nd but Tucker & Eric were just flawless once again. They were on the first place to skydive and then just never looked back, staying way ahead of the rest of the pack for the entire leg. Jas & Jag needed Tucker & Eric to make a small mistake but that never happened and thus not only are Tucker & Eric much stronger statistically now, they have also won four legs in a row making them the team to beat. But firstly, let's deal with Natalie & Stephie's elimination in this leg; we usually expect one of the weaker teams to be eliminated thus when a team in the middle of the pack gets eliminated, it is not only shocking but in this case, quite controversial because it boils down to what happened in the travel agent in Split.
What happened at Smokvina travel in Split then?
Teams departed from the Pelješac peninsular, near their last pit stop and jumped into taxis, heading for Split presumably because there would be more flights from Split that morning. It would be quite a long taxi ride of 181 km (112.5 miles) and depending on traffic would take about 2 hours 10 minutes. Natalie & Stephanie departed at 1:45 am in 4th place whilst Joseph & Adam left just 3 minutes after them at 1:48 am and then both teams arrived at the very same time at the travel agent in Split. Joseph walked in first, then followed by Natalie & Stephanie, followed immediately by Adam. Boy, how do you determine which team rightfully gets to be 'next in line'? You could argue that as Joseph walked in first, it would be Joseph & Adam who should get to book first but as Adam walked in last, one could argue that Natalie & Stephanie should be allowed to book first. However, neither team seemed too fussed about their positions at that point and were more interested in being social with the other teams who were already there - which, in my opinion, was a big mistake. So in the confusion, Joseph & Adam gave their passports to the man behind the counter first and that Croatian travel agent promptly accused them of not being gentlemen but still went on to issue their tickets regardless. If it had been a case of checking into the pit stop, then you would need both team members to step on the mat before the results were official. So if that counter had been a pit stop and the man behind the counter was Phil, then yeah Natalie & Stephanie would have been ahead of Joseph & Adam. But if it was simply rushing to a counter to book tickets, then in my humble opinion, it should be just first come first serve, thus if Joseph & Adam had their tickets processed first, that was fair and expecting them to give up that position for Natalie & Stephanie would be a rather unreasonable request - it would be on the basis of their gender, thus the 'gentlemanly gesture' rather than because Natalie & Stephanie were ahead of them. Since there are no strict rules about what should be done in this situation and arguably, if Natalie & Stephanie had kicked up a fuss then. perhaps the outcome would've been different. But they made so a few assumptions: that they were in an alliance and that there would have been enough seats for everyone on the plane, that was their downfall unfortunately. They were on the last plane for the skydiving and just never got out of last place despite their best efforts.
So did Joseph & Adam throw Natalie & Stephanie under the bus to get ahead?
No, I don't think so! They did the right thing by pushing ahead and if anything, they took advantage of the fact that Natalie & Stephanie had a temporary lapse of concentration. In doing so, they did manage to get rid of a formidable opponent who were statistically stronger than them. Ironically I don't think they were deliberately trying to do any of this, it was just the way things panned out and Natale & Stephanie probably just took their eyes off the ball for a moment - think about it, it was in the middle of the night (probably just before 4 am), they were probably very tired then but also since they knew they were flying to Romania for this leg, so maybe they had assumed that the race hadn't really started yet and getting the tickets from the travel agent was simply wasn't a big deal. So if they had been on the earlier flight, the very worst case scenario for them would have been in 4th position to do the skydive - that would have bought them enough of a cushion to avoid elimination in this leg. I'm sure this wasn't what Joseph & Adam would've wanted, but such is the race.
How far is it from Bucharest airport to the airfield where they did the skydive?
Bucharest airport is to the north of the city and Clinceni airfield is to the south-west of the city, the drive would be 33 km (20.5 miles) and depending on traffic, the drive would take 40 to 55 minutes, the traffic can be heavy around rush hour.
Why did it come down to a taxi ride?
There were four teams on the first plane to Bucharest but only three teams got on the first plane for the skydiving whilst the fourth team had to go on a second plane. That outcome came down to a random factor - it was a taxi ride from Bucharest airport. All four teams ran out of the airport to the taxi rank at the same time, so it was not like Jas & Jag had stopped for an ice cream and a coffee before getting their taxi, yet they somehow arrived 4th at the airfield and were at least 15 minutes behind the teams in the first plane for the skydive. If they had been on that first plane, who knows - they might have won this leg as they still managed to finish 2nd despite having been behind by at least 15 minutes at that point. I realize that TAR likes to incorporate an element of chance into some of their legs but it does seem somewhat unfair to a team to be penalized this way as Jag & Jag had simply picked the wrong taxi driver - that was plain bad luck.
Why skydiving though?
Skydiving wasn't invented in Romania - it was actually invented in France in 1797. Whilst I think it is important to push the racers to do something scary associated with heights, there is often little drama with skydiving challenges. This is because it is a tandem skydive, there's absolutely nothing that can go wrong and it's not like one racer can perform the challenge better than the others. I really dislike challenges like that where the order is fixed from the point the racers turn up at the venue. Once the racers pick up their numbers to determine the order of the skydive, the programme is no longer a race - it turns into a travel programme and the race really only resumes after the skydive.The only outcome that may produce some drama is if a racer panics, gets scared and refuses to jump - however, this was a roadblock so even if one racer was scared of heights (as in the case of Izzy), the other could perform the skydive hence avoiding any drama. As viewers, we really want tasks where teams can outperform another team by performing the task better than the others - we want to see racers rewarded for their skill, tenacity and brains rather than for their luck in having chosen a better taxi driver. If I were to plan this, I would make the racer who had to skydive spot a word in Romanian somewhere in the countryside (like a sign written in TAR colours mounted on a rooftop) and I wouldn't make it easy at all - if they could keep calm and carefully scan the countryside for the word, then they would be rewarded with the clue to continue racing. If they were panicking so much they couldn't see a thing or even dare to open their eyes, then they would've missed the word and would be forced to do the skydive again or take a penalty and that is how I would introduce some element of skill into a skydiving task. It really isn't that hard to tweak it to introduce an element of skill into a skydiving task on TAR.
Sheep herding though? Talk about low-tech, low-budget.
I am in two minds about this one. On one hand, herding sheep like that does feel kinda lazy and low-budget, like oh look there is a sheep farm next to the airfield, let's do something there. On the other hand, working with animals often leads to very unpredictable results as you can't force animals to obey your commands and the sheep are so big you can't actually try to pick them up and carry them. Izzy & Paige really struggled wit this task. It can produce hilarious results if the racers really get it wrong so on one hand, I think it worked well as a challenge because it did scramble the order of the teams to a certain degree, but on the other hand, just like the skydiving challenge, there wasn't anything particularly Romanian about this apart from the shepherd wearing some kind of cloak that was supposed to look Romanian. Yes there are sheep in Romania, but there are sheep in so many other countries. There was really nothing Romanian about this task.
The pontoon boat task? What the heck was that about?
Again, there was absolutely nothing Romanian about the pontoon boat which looked pretty standard. The task may have been time consuming but no so difficult that teams would be left stuck there, too confused to be able to complete the task. The teams left in the order they arrived in and no one fell into the water. By that token, it was way too straightforward and easy, what were the producers thinking? This wasn't even a particularly scenic part of the river delta.
Mud bricks? In Romania? Are you serious?
Similar tasks to this have been done before in TAR where the racers use traditional building methods to create bricks or build a wall but this has been done in places like Ethiopia (S6 E8), Peru (S26 E11) and India (S5 E9) which are much poorer countries and hence such low-cost traditional methods are still more commonly used. But Romania? Are you kidding me? Sure they have a word for mud bricks in Romania but the fact is people don't use it anymore in Romania in 2025. Maybe during the communist era when they were desperately poor, this might have been a last resort in the countryside but Romania is a relatively prosperous European country today. It may not be as rich as say Switzerland or Norway but it would be unthinkable for ordinary Romanians to resort to using mud bricks to build houses today, even in the rural countryside! This is when I have a major problem with the choice of this task: firstly, it gives the American viewers a distorted, inaccurate impression of Romania being a much poorer country where the people have to resort to using mud, straw and manure to build houses. And secondly, because such techniques to build houses are no longer used today, this task isn't Romanian at all. Whilst there might be an element of slapstick humour to make the racers handle foul-smelling manure, this was a really bad choice to the point where Romanians watching this will feel deeply offended. At least the other side of the detour was a decent choice, as those masks reflected an element of local culture.
This was the worst episode of the season and I blame the producers - it wasn't Romanian at all.
Yeah you may not see the producers on the screen but they were responsible for some of the worst decisions in this episode. The skydiving, sheep herding and mud bricks had nothing to do with Romania - it was only the other side of the detour (the winter mask challenge) which was Romanian. Why bother going to Romania if you're barely going to acknowledge the fact that you're in Romania by doing very local activities that showcase Romanian culture? Skydiving, herding sheep, building pontoon boats and mud bricks - well you could do all that back in America without going all the way to Romania. You go to Romania to do uniquely Romanian things that cannot be found back in America - that is what TAR ought to be all about. It is to teach that housewife in Idaho who has never left the country something about the rest of the world that she will never experience. And then there were two activities where the teams left in the order they arrived in - it's bad enough when there's just one such activity but two in one episode? What the heck were the producers thinking? Do they not realize just how awful their choices are? Why are the producers on this season so incompetent?!
Are we sad that Natalie & Stephanie are eliminated?
I feel bad for them because I think their fate was sealed back in Split - there's a sense of 'you snooze, you lose' and they snoozed for a brief moment in that travel agent. They could have pushed forwards and handed their passports over quickly instead of being social. Izzy & Paige left the door wide open as they really struggled with the sheep herding task and had fallen way behind, but Natalie & Stephanie were bickering with each other too much and lost their focus. I don't want to be too harsh on them as I know how the producers will deliberately highlight their arguments and mistakes in this episode in order to 'explain' to the viewers why they lost, as part of the narrative. Statistically, even with their elimination in this leg, they are still the third strongest team and I actually think they are a lot stronger than some of the other teams that are still left in this season. I am surprised, even shocked that they have been eliminated before Jack & Chelsie who are statistically the weakest team at the moment, but they still ran a decent leg, even beating Izzy & Paige to the pitstop.
Who is going to win the next leg? Who will be eliminated?
Since the next leg will continue in the capital city Bucharest where they had just finished this leg, the racers at the front of the pack will keep their lead and thus I am going to predict that this will be just enough to keep Tucker & Eric in front of Jas & Jag, even though Jas & Jag do have an express pass they seem to have lost their momentum right at the time Tucker & Eric have hit their stride. So notwithstanding the express pass, I am going to bet on Tucker & Eric to win this next leg as they do have a bit of a lead over the rest of the pack. The two teams who are currently at the very back of the pack now are Jack & Chelsie and Izzy & Paide. Kyland & Taylor also still have an express pass that they must use in the next leg, so they are definitely safe - hence I think it will be Jack & Chelsie who will be next to go but all this will really depend on the tasks they are asked to do in Bucharest. In the previews, we see Jack & Chelsie having an argument and I am guessing that this is similar to the way the editors have presented them at their worst to explain a certain outcome which would be them getting eliminated. They are statistically the weakest team and so I think they are very lucky to have made it this far to Bucharest but I think they're next to be eliminated. This is nothing personal but I think that Jack is really lucky to have made it this far when he is up against much more well travelled, stronger, younger racers in this season.
What else is there to watch this season?
I do have a nice list for you. Obviously, please do check out 007: Road to a Million S2 because I'm in it, you've read how I've judged the racers and producers from this season now you can judge me doing through the same process. Furthermore, I really enjoyed the Jet Lag series (available for free on Youtube) and their latest season Jet Lag All Stars (set in Europe) was fantastic as always, simply because the producers actually make a genuine effort. There have been so many seasons of Traitors available in the global franchise, but for those of you who prefer your entertainment in English, I can recommend the Irish and British versions - in particular, the BBC Celebrity version with a stellar all-star cast. There is also TAR Australia which concluded a few weeks ago and I actually found that to be a much better product that S38 - their host Beau Ryan is annoying but the Australian producers always do a much better job. There is also BBC's Celebrity Race Across The World that has just started this week, though it is so different from TAR. It is a lot less competitive and more about the relationships of the racers. Still, I do enjoy watching it. So that's six recommendations for you and I'll try to come up with some more for you next week. So that's it from me for now and many thanks for reading.
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