TAR S32 E3: the most bizarre U-turn choice in TAR ever?

Bom dia, como você está, tudo bem? I hope you all enjoyed this episode as much as I did because it was a bit more unpredictable, but still I felt that there were certain elements of this leg that were not well constructed. And yes we will talk about Will & James U-turning Leo & Alana - what a bizarre choice! I really struggled to understand why their very odd decision, what kind of strategy is this? Did they really see Leo & Alana as more of a threat than Hung & Chee? As Alana pointed out, they U-turned the team that finished 7th on the last leg and at that point, had only an average ranking of 6.5, putting them firmly in the lower half of the pack. This is why I say one always needs to put any personal feelings aside and simply follow the statistics, cold hard statistics never lie so let's see how the average rankings look after this third leg.

Average rankings after leg 3 in Manaus

• Hung & Chee 1.33
• Riley & Maddison 3.33
• Will & James 3.67
• Michelle & Victoria 4.67
• Eswar & Arpana 5.67 
• DeAngelo & Gary 5.67
• Kaylynn & Haley 6.33
• Leo & Alana 7 (U-turned in Manaus)
• Jerry & Frank 7.67 (U-turned and eliminated in Manaus)

Wait, why did they get Hung & Chee out of bed so early? 

Since all the teams were on the same flight, it was just cruel to wake Hung & Chee up so early and send them to the airport a good three hours before the last team in last position Jerry & Frank- okay, so Hung & Chee had plenty of time to look at the duty free shopping at Bogota airport, but since the production team knew that they were all going to travel on the same flights together to Manaus, then why bother setting all the teams off in the order they finished the previous leg in? They could have given Hung & Chee a few hours more sleep! Furthermore, why did they spend so much time doing such a painfully cheesy product placement for Travelocity then spend even more time covering the taxi ride to Bogota airport which really wasn't part of the race per se, given that everyone knew they would be meeting up at the airport anyway, so they were in no hurry? There were several questionable choices when it came to the editing of this episode. 

That bizarre U-turn decision by Will & James

Goodness me, why didn't they U-turn any of the stronger teams like Hung & Chee? One could argue that their strategy was based on earning the trust of the stronger teams so they could go to the finals together and perhaps the way the teams related to each other also played a part in this - however, here's my take on the situation as a TAR fan. You want to use every opportunity to get rid of a stronger team because you're more likely to win against a weaker team in the final than if you had to go up against a team like Hung & Chee who have proven that they are truly a force to be reckoned with. The race is unpredictable and even the strong teams can fall behind at times, so I would have either U-turned Hung & Chee or Riley & Maddison at that stage. However, their choice turned out to be a moot point as Jerry & Frank were so far behind that it was pretty clear they were going to get eliminated anyway with or without the U-turn. This double U-turn did prove a point though - that relationships and alliances are a very important part of the game, if you neglect that part of your strategy then you risk being in Jerry & Frank's position - Kaylynn & Haley had absolutely nothing against Jerry & Frank, it wasn't personal at all but it was merely to return a favour to Leo & Alana when they received very important information about the horn in the last leg in Bogota. If you are a rather weak team at the back of the pack, then you really need to rely on those relationships to make sure other people are targeted during a U-turn. Given all the teams were on the same flights to Manaus, they had plenty of time to chat and make friends. Oh and there are no direct flights between Bogota and Manaus, they showed a Copa Airlines flight touching down at the airport in Manaus, so that indicates the teams had to travel via Panama City which would have given them even more time to socialize and form more alliances. 

One thing that did confuse a lot of viewers was the fact that Will & James were not actually there at the truck station when Leo & Alana decided to help Kaylynn & Haley - I watched that part of the episode again and it was clear that the moment Will & James received their clue, they were out of there as soon as possible and they did not see what Leo & Alana did. So under those circumstances, one can only guess that they were told what happened by one of the teams who were there and the only other team that could have tolem them was Jerry & Frank. So when they found out about what happened, they got worried that Leo & Alana have a strong bond with Kaylynn & Haley because they helped Kaylynn & Haley - their reasoning makes no sense at all. I could turn it around and say, "what a helpful team Leo & Alana are, clearly they're looking for alliances and are willing to help other teams - let's go have a chat with them so we can get friendly with them, let them know we are looking for alliances too and they could help us out too." Whilst Leo & Alana's actions did eventually lead to Kellie & LaVonne getting eliminated, I really didn't see Kellie & LaVonne being a strong team at all. They had an average ranking of 9.5 when they got eliminated and so whilst Kellie did win an Olympic bronze medal (and respect where respect is due), they didn't come across as a strong team at all in this season. Certainly, Leo & Alana were shocked that Will & James had targeted them and there was nothing to suggest that Leo & Alana wouldn't have been averse to an alliance with Will & James in the first place - you know the saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Given that it was a double U-turn, even if Kaylynn & Haley didn't U-turn Jerry & Frank, Leo & Alana could have easily U-turned another team behind them to save themselves. Leo & Alana did see Michelle & Victoria at the cooking task so they already knew they were ahead of them and hence could have easily U-turned Michelle & Victoria at that point. So for Will & James it was a wasted U-turn, the chances of eliminating Leo & Alana at that point was very low. 

The detour isn't fair at all, one was clearly harder than the other. 

In this leg's detour, the teams had to choose between a cooking task ('well done please') or building a section of a house's roof ('shelter from the trees') - this is when I have to blame the production team for making the cooking task a lot easier than the building task. The standards for the building task seemed to be a lot more strictly enforced than the cooking task; not a single team who did the cooking task were asked to redo any part of the process even when some teams like Michelle & Victoria clearly made some mistakes (she said she didn't add any salt) . So Riley & Maddison were very unlucky in having picked the harder side of the detour, because they were in the lead arriving at the village but then eventually finished 4th despite not having made any glaring errors on this leg. This is when I hold the production team responsible for this kind of situation that shouldn't happen in the first place: both sides of the detours need to be equally hard and take as long - the way I would have ensured that would have to make sure that both sides of the detours were judged to the same standards. So if a team messed up the cooking, then they should be faced with the choice of either return to Manaus to get more ingredients from the market (not a wise choice, given how long the boat journey took) or to switch detours (which would have been the obvious choice) - yet none of the teams were forced to switch detours as a result of problems during the cooking task. I see this as bad organization on the part of the production team and this adds to a long list of complaints I have had about this season so far; as fans, we shouldn't put the production team on a pedestal as if they are untouchable and beyond reproach - we should be able to point out mistakes when they happen. 

Could the teams get away with not bringing their shopping from Manaus? 

The teams bought all those ingredients from the market in Manaus so that they could use those ingredients in the cooking detour - but what if a team left the items behind and simply said, we'll just do the building detour instead as we don't have those ingredients to cook with? Would Phil have then given such a team a 30 minute (or longer) penalty for not bringing all the items with them to the village? Would he have then sent them back to Manaus to pick up the items (such as the hammocks which could have been used for their overnight cruise) before checking them in? So I guess we will never know since all the teams did eventually bring their shopping with them, despite a few mishaps along the way. 

Let's not underestimate the heat in Manaus - it is tropical and brutal. 

Oh it is very hot in Manaus all year round. According to Wikipedia, when the teams were there in November, the average day time temperatures would reach around 32.6 degrees Celsius but it could reach 38.2 degree Celsius (that's over 100 Fahrenheit for you Americans) and it would be extremely humid as well. This would make any kind of physical activity extremely tiring and it's not the temperature per se, but the combination of the high humidity that would make you sweat buckets under those conditions. Mind you, we have seen teams on TAR succumb to heat exhaustion in other tropical countries like Vietnam before. It is brutal and there were probably a lot of insects as well in that village given the proximity to the tropical jungle - I hope the teams were given ample warning and supplied with insect repellent as they would be covered with nasty insect bites otherwise. Despite growing up in the tropics I really hate the tropical heat, it's so horrible! 

Respect for the local culture of the tribal people

I noticed two things about the interactions with the tribal people in this episode: firstly, the women were topless in their traditional costumes and naturally, this being an American programme the breasts were pixelated/censored. And secondly, quite a few female racers like Alana and Hung were so excited when receiving their clues they wanted to hug the local tribesmen who were clearly unwilling to do that - surely that's something the production crew ought to tell the racers about in order to avoid upsetting the local tribes people? After all, they are welcoming an American TV crew and all these racers into their village, the least they could have done was to make sure that the racers don't accidentally do anything silly to offend the locals, even if there was no ill intention at all? I love it when they showcase local culture like that; but the viewers wouldn't want to see the locals offended or upset by racers being unaware of such cultural taboos. 

And for crying out aloud, stop speaking Spanish in Brazil! 

Good grief, so many of the teams were speaking Spanish in Brazil when the national language there is Portuguese. I have a new level of respect for Riley & Maddison for being the team to have been able to speak some decent Portuguese on this leg, well it was a mishmash of Portuguese, Italian and Spanish but at least they made a decent effort. Kaylynn & Haley actually said merci (thank you in French) whilst Eswar & Arpana said arigato (thank you in Japanese) instead of obrigado. Goodness me, like seriously guys - where do I even begin? I suppose they would understand simple words in Spanish but it is at best a pet peeve amongst the locals and some may even get quite offended because many Brazilians are very proud of their heritage as being the only Portuguese speaking country in the Americas; so when some Americans turn up speaking Spanish, yeah I can see how they get offended. It's as bad as turning up in Holland and speaking German to the locals instead of Dutch in a poorly planned attempt to impress the locals - holy crap, don't even go there. I do speak Portuguese and the locals will always react a lot in a far more friendly manner when you try to speak their language. So when in Portugal and Brazil, I am offering you this easy 3-step guide to communicate with the locals. 

1. Speak Portuguese. If you don't speak Portuguese move on to step 2. 

2. Speak English. If the local doesn't speak English and you wish to try Spanish, move onto step 3.

3. Offer a sincere apology for not being able to speak any Portuguese whilst in a Portuguese-speaking country and politely ask if you could use your Spanish to communicate with them, whilst letting them know that this is really a last resort to communicate with them and that you realize of course that you are indeed in a Portuguese speaking country. 

I do wonder if the teams actually looked around them and notice - hey the signs around me are no longer in Spanish and they are in Portuguese, people around me are speaking Portuguese and not Spanish, I am in Brazil and they don't speak Spanish here. Or are they simply oblivious to it all because they don't understand either Spanish or Portuguese? The one team that spoke only English throughout was Jerry & Frank and I was not impressed at all - but at least they didn't commit the mortal sin by speaking Spanish in Brazil. Furthermore, when Will & James made it onto the pit stop mat, they thanked the greeter incorrectly by saying 'obrigada' instead of obrigado' - I'm not sure if it was a gay thing by deliberately using the feminine form but in some languages like Portuguese and Thai, the word you use for thank you depends on your gender. So I would say 'obrigado' because I am a man and my sister would have to say 'obrigada' as she is a woman. One thing is for sure - in a place like Manaus, I really don't think the locals would speak any English and as a Portuguese speaker, I enjoy the watching the Americans struggle with the language barrier - that is a major part of TAR! 

Was I surprised that Will & James won this leg? 

Yes actually, if I may be honest! I had expected Hung & Chee to win again, but they had made some silly mistakes when leaving the Port of Manaus and that cost them precious time. There wasn't a single team that ran a perfect leg this time round. Even when Will & James seem to have learnt their lesson by reading their clue properly this time, it was a slapstick comedy of errors seeing them trying to make sure they had everything before leaving the port. Nonetheless, Hung & Chee were still extremely strong in this leg despite the few mistakes they have made on this leg - if not for those errors, they could have easily won again and I expect them to continue dominating this season. But with this win, Will & James have certainly proven themselves as a real contender in this season and I certainly think they could go quite far. Likewise, I was very pleased to see Kaylynn & Haley do really well on this leg - I think they were unlucky in the first two legs and I never saw them do anything really wrong or stupid during the race, but they just had bad taxi drivers. Their 3rd place finish in Manaus was well earned and they are certainly stronger than their average ranking of 6.33 suggests. However, I can't say the same about Michelle & Victoria, they struggled in this leg finishing 7th - bearing in mind the fact that the team that finished 8th was Leo & Alana who got U-turned, there's no way to say this nicely I'm afraid: they ran a terrible leg - they wasted 34 minutes just to find a clue that was in a basket right next to the U-turn board. I was frustrated because they were so brilliant in the first two legs but it was a bad combination of nerves, stress, the tropical heat and sheer exhaustion that got to them in this leg. Let's hope the cooler climate of the next leg in Paraguay would see them bounce back to their usual form, because I think their poor showing on this leg was not a true reflection of their potential. 

Was I surprised to see Jerry & Frank eliminated? 

Not at all, don't get me wrong - I have absolutely nothing against them but I was merely looking at the statistics of the last leg: they were already the second weakest team and so I knew they were very vulnerable. Besides, they barely escaped elimination in the last leg - remember they only hooked up their horn moments before Kellie & LaVonne did, giving them enough time to make it to the pit stop in 9th place. Despite all teams starting in effectively joint-first place from Manaus airport, they quickly fell to joint last place at the central market in Manaus and really struggled with the language barrier in Brazil. Gosh, I hate to sound cruel saying this but on TAR, you can see how some teams have certainly traveled a lot and are not fazed at all when you drop them off in a country halfway around the world and then there are some teams which have that 'fish out of water' look on their faces when take them to a country where English is not widely spoken. The impression I got from Jerry & Frank was that they have not traveled much, certainly not as much as some of the other teams and it takes money to travel long-haul, to see exotic countries of the other side of the world and some folks are just not that fortunate to have that privilege to go on foreign holidays. I too came from a poor working class family when I was a kid and I really only started traveling to see the world in my 20s. Furthermore, Jerry is 61 - he is the older racer by a long way in this season. The next older racer is Nathan (of Nathan & Cody) and Hung who are both 39. It is always going to be a disadvantage for Jerry trying to keep up with these younger racers doing anything physical, even tasks that don't appear to be physical can be exhausting - such as running around the market in Manaus with their backpacks trying to buy all the items on the list. His age was definitely a factor in slowing them down and there were just too many things that went wrong for them on this leg: first they left their shopping in Manaus and the U-turn was the final nail in the coffin. 

Is Jerry the oldest racer on TAR? 

Actually no! There are two teams which stand out in TAR US as the oldest teams: Meredith & Gretchen of S7 had an average age of 67.5 years and they did stunningly well, finishing 4th just shy of the finals. Then there was Don & Mary Jean of S6 who finished in 8th place - they too had an average age of 67.5 at the time of racing. Don was in fact 69 years and 7 months old at the starting line for S6 whilst Meredith was 69 years and 15 days old at the starting line for S7, so Don is in fact the oldest racer ever. The oldest winner so far is Dave (of Dave & Connor) the father & son team that appeared on S22 and S24 - Dave was 59 years old when they won TAR S24 so it goes to show that such a father & son pairing can work. It has been a while since TAR has cast an 'older couple' with both racers in their 60s, perhaps it would feel quite unfair to expect older racers to keep up with racers a good 30 or even 40 years younger. This is all about creating a diverse cast and one of the boxes they always try to tick is the 'older' racer but I suppose you need to balance it out by making sure that the challenges on the race are not all just based on brute strength and fitness, but you need to also have enough mental challenges like the steel pan challenge in E1 where no amount of muscles could help you -  after all, this is TAR - it isn't "Tough As Nails" at the end of the day. I hope to see more challenges like that in this season. 

Which team is going to win in the next leg in Paraguay? Which team will be eliminated next? 

Obviously, the strongest team statistically is still Hung & Chee - even if they don't win this next leg, they're probably going to still finish near the top. Is anyone going to challenge them? But let's see, I've been observing Riley & Maddison and let me be the first to admit I had been underestimating them from the very start: they have performed really well in the first three legs. Sorry but I just couldn't take them seriously at first with those hipster beards but hey, their performance speak for themselves: they have been very steady, they have avoided rushing into tasks and making major mistakes, they even make more an effort than the other teams with the local languages - so they could well win the next leg in Paraguay given that they do speak Spanish which would be a massive advantage there. Will & James have proven that they can win a leg but they have also made enemies on this leg - they have incurred the wrath of Leo & Alana as well as their buddies Kaylynn & Haley, so I think they would be pretty nervous going into this next leg given that there is going to be another yield on this season. As for who will be eliminated, statistically the weakest team right now is Leo & Alana but that reflects the fact that they were U-turned on this leg. I don't think they're the weakest team around at the moment, the second weakest team at the moment is Kaylynn & Haley and again, I don't think they're that weak - they finished in a very respectable 3rd place in this leg. The third weakest team is DeAngelo & Gary but then again, that's only because they ran a terrible first leg in Tobago. However, I believe we're long overdue for a non-elimination leg, so I am guessing nobody is going to get eliminated in this next leg but if they are going to eliminate a team, I am guessing it would be either DeAngelo & Gary because they have been so inconsistent. But we're at the stage where the weaker teams are gone already, all the teams left are all very strong, so it is less obvious who will go next - your guess is as good as mine. 

TAR has only visited Asuncion, the beautiful capital city of Paraguay only once before in S20 E3 and bizarrely enough, TAR Latin America has never even been to Paraguay once! So this next leg in Asuncion should be very interesting. So that's it from me on this episode, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below please, many thanks for reading.