Average rankings after leg 5 in Tirana
- Michelle & Matthew 2.6
- Conner & Garrett 4.6
- Ann-Marie & Riley 4.6
- Anuar & Andrea 5
- Erin & Javi 5.4
- Ali & Joanna 5.4
- Daisha & Dalton 6,6
- Doug & Dylan 7.8
- Dafina & Saran 8.4 (eliminated in Tirana)
I did predict correctly that Michelle & Matthew were going to win again but that was mostly because of the spoilers in the trailers but sadly, it was a very costly error in navigation that sent Dafina & Saran home in this leg. A pattern is emerging after leg 5, it is evident that Michelle & Matthew are the clear favourites at this point but I wouldn't count out any of the teams in the top half of the pack. My two favourites are still Conner & Garrett and Ali & Joanna but that's just a gut feeling thing still. Two teams still have their express passes and I am so glad Ali & Joanna did save their express pass for this rainy day in Tirana, but it would have been better spent on the second road block - the baking challenge which turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined, given the high standards of the chef who was quite a character scrutinizing the byrek.
How far away is Mullet from Tirana airport?
It is about a 35 to 40 minute drive if you know what you're doing and exactly where to go - the airport is to the north-west of Tirana whilst Mullet is to the south-east of Tirana. If you just looked at the map you'd think that the most logical thing to do is to take the most direct route through the city but actually, the traffic in the centre of Tirana is a nightmare and it is actually a lot faster to take the ring road and totally avoid the city centre despite that adding more distance to your route.
Do people in Albania speak English? How easy would it have been to ask for help?
Actually yes! Albanian is a language isolate, that means no other language in the world is related to Albanian at all, so in order to communicate with the rest of the world, Albanian schools introduce English from a very early age and hence based on my two visits to Albania, I would say anyone under 40 would speak it confidently whilst the older folks may struggle. If you're Albanian and monolingual, you're going to be so very limited in the amount of media you can consume in terms of movies, TV programmes, Youtube videos, websites, pop music, books, magazines, etc - so most Albanians will start to learn some English at school but improve it by consuming a ton of English language media over the years.
Are Albanians friendly?
I would say so, most of them at least but sadly, I have to report that this is one of the few countries where I experienced outright racism. I was minding my own business in Skandeberg Square where the pitstop was and this group of young men came up to me and yelled a bunch of gibberish that was meant to resemble the sounds of Chinese - they probably thought it was funny to do that to a Chinese looking tourist. Well, I yelled back at them in a mix of Albanian and English and I shan't repeat what I said to them, but given that I was already expecting racism (based on my first visit), I had come prepared with exactly what I would say in this situation to cuss them out in their own language. If a black or Asian person walked down the street in London, New York or Paris, it is really no big deal but in Tirana, I still stand out as a rare ethnic minority. The two other places where I had experienced this kind of outright racism are Tunisia and Georgia, but given that I do speak French and Russian fluently and I get by in Arabic (but sadly I don't speak Georgian), I always know enough to respond to these racists. They usually don't expect a response from someone like me and they run away the moment they realize I speak their language. I don't let these racists get away with such crap as a matter of principle.
Wait, you speak Albanian?
I always learn enough before a trip to deal with such circumstances. I spent weeks studying Czech before my recent trip to Prague and it really paid off because one of the guided tours I did in Kacina palace (featuring the pit stop of S38 E3) was done entirely in Czech and the guide spoke no English at all, so I was able to understand a bit. Look, I'm a non-white ethnic minority, an immigrant living in Europe - people like me always feel like we have to overcompensate to prove how we're more European than the white people who are born here in Europe. But I digress, let's get back to this episode.
What are the rules about the roadblock?
So the non-participating teammate can be supportive and cheer but they cannot offer any kind of help, so pointing out an error is not allowed and will incur a penalty. Andrea noticed Anuar pressing the grapes without removing the board over the barrel and Daisha noticed that Dalton squeezed his grapes into Anuar's barrel, but neither Andrea nor Anuar were allowed to say anything. Those participating in the roadblock can choose to help another team - that is totally allowed.
Did Michelle & Matthew use the double driver's seat wisely?
No, they didn't achieve that. Sure they forced Ali & Joanna to use their express pass but Conner & Garrett still have theirs and the statistically joint weakest team went home in this leg. A wiser strategy would be to deliberately help the weakest teams like Doug & Dylan and Dafina & Saran whilst trying to get rid of the stronger teams like Ann-Marie & Riley. But no, they simply didn't do that - the allocation of the tasks seemed to be done rather randomly without too much thought. I certainly wouldn't have seen Anuar & Andrea as one of the strongest threats at this stage, they have yet to win a leg and they have used their express pass. I know they were put on the spot to make a decision when they encountered the driver's seat board, despite winning this leg they missed a vital opportunity to take out a stronger team.
The byrek roadblock looked a lot harder than I thought.
Byrek/burek/borek is popular all over the Balkans and Middle East, This challenge only makes sense if the standards are so high that it turns into a classic 'attention to detail' task, rather than just a physical challenge like the previous one.
Why did a few teams get lost finding their way to Bunk'art 1?
It is actually not in the middle of Tirana, but in the mountains to the north-east of the city. In fact it is in the same area as Dajti - a popular tourist attraction where a cable car takes you to the top of the mountain with spectacular views. But as we have found out in previous legs, some teams really struggle with directions - they realize they have to get help with directions, but they fail to follow the directions that they have written down and at this stage, I can only shake my head.
How can anyone think that no one is one word?
It is always two words, never 'noone' - it is possible that the reason why some teams think it may be one word is because of other words like someone, anyone and everyone which are all only one word. But seriously, if you manage to get as far as to work out 'downtown ont' then common sense ought to kick in and figure out what the right answer ought to be. Yes, I've been in such high stress situations myself when I was on 007: RTAM S2 and I know how one's brain can simply fail to process seemingly simple information when you're panicking. But I would never think that 'no one' was one word.
Let's talk about Daisha & Dalton not helping Ann-Marie & Riley
A lot of people criticized them for breaking their side of the bargain - they got help from Ann-Marie & Riley but ran away to the next destination without sharing the correct answer. Oh they got so much hate online it was unreal. Personally, I thought that was foolish. Firstly, a first place was simply not possible at that stage given just how far ahead Michelle & Matthew already were, the best case scenario was a 2nd place finish, which was the best they have achieved so far in this season. However, they have burnt lot of bridges in the process. They may have bought themselves a small lead going into the next leg which will still be in the Tirana area but they now have a huge target on their backs. Daisha said the claws will have to come out at some stage, but I think it is still early days and with this many teams still in the race at this stage, you really don't want to make any enemies. I think it was a silly miscalculation on their part to try to pull a fast one on Ann-Marie & Riley, but the hate they got online was not justified at all. This is a race for a grand prize of a million dollars after all, not a popularity contest. So no, I am not going to make a big deal out of what Daisha & Dalton did then.
Speaking of which, why is there so much hate for Andrea?
Oh dear, Andrea got so much hate online for the way she communicated with her father, she was accused of being very disrespectful to her father. We have seen other difficult parent-child dynamics on TAR before and it is difficult because you need to be able to communicate as equal partners. But when one team member is a parent, that affects the power dynamics in the team and if these two had been friends or siblings, I don't think people on social media would be picking on Andrea this way. I don't feel this is fair on her at all - she is put in a highly stressful situation, this is nothing like the way they would experience anything together in their everyday lives so if a team member loses their patience or even their temper, that's completely normal. As long as that person is willing to apologize later and say something like, I'm sorry I shouldn't have raised my voice earlier, that was wrong of me and I promise I wouldn't do that again. Having been through the process myself, I can tell you that the part where the team members calm down, apologize and reconcile don't always make the final edit, so it would be wrong to jump to any kind of conclusions based on what you get to see.
What happened to Dafina & Saran?
They left Bunk'art in 5th place, that's the shocking part. They were supposed to drive to the iconic ultra modern skyscraper Downtown One, which as the name suggests, is smack in the middle of central Tirana and it is a sign of Albania's modern era. However, when they took a wrong turn, it appears that they ended up on the highway heading out of the city rather than towards the centre of the city. One can only wonder how long it took them to realize that big mistake as it did give Erin & Javi enough time to overtake them and reach the pitstop first. We know that Erin & Javi did make it to Downtown One before Dafina & Saran, so that suggests that the finish wasn't as close as the edit suggests - we are not given the actual timings of the results and they often deliberately create drama to increase the amount of excitement for the viewers even if teams are quite far apart. I often cite the example of my leg in Vienna when my team won by a margin of 11 minutes 38 seconds but in the final edit, it made it look as if the difference was barely seconds. It doesn't affect or change the results, but that is simply the way reality TV competitions are edited to create more drama.
So we had two roadblocks and a task that the teams did together but no detour?
That's right. It does seem a bit lazy to be honest - having a detour does mean preparing two different tasks and having the possibility that all the teams pick one task, so all the effort put into setting up the other task would be for nothing. I like detours because it forces teams to make a strategic decision and hence it could very much alter the outcome of the leg.
So what happens in the next episode? Who will win and who will be eliminated?
The teams stay in the Tirana region to do one more leg in Albania, we know there will be an intersection and none of the teams want to pair up with Doug & Dylan for a dancing challenge - I'm sorry, but Doug was 72 when this was filmed and he would probably struggle with a dance challenge like that which isn't just physical, but requires a whole lot of muscle memory to learn many complex dance steps. So we learn that Michelle & Matthew "bamboozle" Daisha & Dalton - we see them hiding in the bushes to avoid another team in order to partner with Daisha & Dalton instead. I think that based on the fact that only two teams still have expresses passes that must be used before the end of the next leg, one can safely assume that it will be a hat trick for Michelle & Matthew. And I'm sorry, the trailer already makes it very clear that Doug & Dylan are going tot struggle and be eliminated, so I'm not going to ignore that super obvious clue. They are the weakest team left at this stage in any case. Okay so that's it from me on this episode. Thank you very much for reading.
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