Guten tag, wie geht's ihnen? Қайырлы таң! Қалыңыз қалай? Yes we got our double episode at last and the results in these two legs did surprise me somewhat - the most shocking part was Hung throwing away her lead in Berlin over "her word" when DeAngelo & Gary were more than happy to stab them in the back when there was a prize of $15,000 on the line. Good grief - who do you blame? Well I was pleased to see Berlin featured again of course as it is a city I know really well as I have worked there and before we go any further, let's look at the average ranking statistics because the statistics never lie. We have to learn to put our feelings about the individual racers aside and simply look at the numbers.
Average ranking after leg 7 in Almaty, Kazakhstan
- Hung & Chee 2.57
- Riley & Maddison 2.71
- Will & James 3
- DeAngelo & Gary 4.86
- Eswar & Arpana 5.57
- Leo & Alana 5.71 (eliminated in Almaty)
- Kaylynn & Haley 6.57 (spared elimination in Berlin)
Despite the fact that Hung keeps making errors of judgement when it comes to helping DeAngelo & Gary, they are still statistically the strongest team - practically neck and neck with Riley & Maddison. With 3 wins, Will & James now have more wins than any other team with this win in Almaty in E7, keeping their average ranking right up in the top 3 but I think that what happened in Berlin goes to show how important the social element is in TAR - DeAngelo persuaded Hung to not only help him but to wait for him after the roadblock. I could see Phil's disbelief on the pit stop mat, he must be thinking, "Hung, I know you're a nice person but what were you doing? This is a race and you've just cheated yourself of $15,000 - just think about what that could have done for your family?" Hung wanted to make a point about being a woman of her word but no offence Hung, there are times when you just have to put your hands up and say, "I made a mistake, I was wrong and I will learn from my lesson" rather than try to defend what was clearly a mistake. DeAngelo & Gary had no intention of helping Hung & Chee at all and whilst that may make them unpopular with some viewers, they actually understand that this is a race and as long as you're not hit with a penalty - any kind of social game you play is fair game. Hung got played and taken advantage of; what shocked me was the fact that Chee felt that something was wrong yet he didn't stop Hung from making that mistake. They could have given DeAngelo the right answer and then rushed to get the taxi - they had everything to lose and nothing to gain from this 'alliance'. What they don't realize is that they are a super strong team as the statistics prove: they really don't need this alliance at all whilst DeAngelo & Gary need all the help they could get and there was just no way DeAngelo could have solved that roadblock without her help.
Was Hung merely unprepared or somewhat naive?
There is a sliding scale when it comes to how important the social game is when it comes to reality TV. On one hand, you have Survivor which does involve a lot of social skills - it is virtually impossible to make it to the final by simply winning one immunity challenge after another. Another programme (which I highly recommend) which is all about social skills is The Mole - there were versions of this programme in the USA, Australia, UK and New Zealand, it is still going strong in the Netherlands and Belgium whilst Germany has just had its first season. There are some physical challenges involved but you can be terrible at the physical challenges and still use your social skills and brain power to outwit the others to win the grand prize in the final. Then you have Tough As Nails on the other end of the spectrum where it's really down to your physical strength and dexterity to get through these challenges - sure you need to work as a team (that's where those social skills come into play) but there's less pressure on you as an individual to try to find alliances and ultimately the social game plays virtually no part in winning the grand prize. All I can say is that Hung & Chee, like all contestants, ought to prepare for TAR by watching loads of past seasons and seeing what has worked in previous seasons rather than try to figure out one's strategy when you're already mid-way through the season! I don't know what Hung was thinking by keeping her word to DeAngelo - I bet her kids who were watching this episode were probably screaming, "mum, what the hell did you wait for him for? He just stabbed you in the back right after you helped him! You've just cost us $15,000 to make a point? We could have gone to Disneyland with that money! You know I love you Mum but that was a really dumb mistake. This is a race and whilst you may have forgotten that in Berlin, DeAngelo & Gary certainly didn't."
TAR in Berlin and Almaty
TAR has visited Germany a total of ten times before but has only passed through Berlin twice before - in S6 E5 and S22 E9, so this marks the TAR US's third visit to Berlin. Germany is a massive country with so many cities and places to visit, so in past seasons, the producers have chosen to showcase some other parts of Germany that the American audience may be less familiar with as practically everyone would know about the Berlin wall (apart from Chee apparently but I'm sure Hung would have filled him in by now). As for Kazakhstan, TAR has visited Almaty before in S13 E8 and there was only one task that they did back then which was repeated in this episode: the visit to Zeleny bazaar to pick up the clue - what is it with their obsession with that meat market? It is such a poor choice of a location for TAR when there are many awesome places to visit in Almaty - some of which they visited in S13 E8 like the Kok Tobe Arch and Almaty Old Square.
Let's talk strategy. What is the point of an alliance?
Let's talk about this alliance of the five teams: many of you on social media have mentioned that it makes no sense and I agree. It makes no sense for strong teams to form an alliance with each other - a far more useful strategy would be for a strong team (like Riley & Maddison) to pair up with a team at the back of the pack (like Eswar & Arpana) because Riley & Maddison are clearly stronger than Eswar & Arpana so they would be far better off racing against a weaker team like them in the final than against Hung Chee - statistically speaking, Riley & Maddison stand a much better chance against Eswar & Arpana than against Hung Chee. Yet the teams don't seem to understand how alliances work - you don't need to gang up against the weaker teams in this process, they will self-destruct in due course (as we have seen happen previously to Jerry & Frank). So the three strongest teams in this season thus far are Hung & Chee, Riley & Madison and Will & James - they should be working against each other to try to get each other out instead of helping each other. The one team that has benefited the most from this alliance is DeAngelo & Gary - they are a lot weaker statistically and without Hung's help in Berlin (and then promptly stabbing them in the back when it came to the taxi), they would have never won this leg. So clearly, this alliance has been of great benefit to DeAngelo & Gary - they may have struggled in some legs but at least they understand how to use alliances in TAR. But as for Hung & Chee, I adore them, I think they're really nice people but if they keep on helping other teams instead of looking out for themselves, then they're only going to sabotage their own chances of winning. Do I like DeAngelo & Gary? Well no but then again, this is not a popularity contest - they are willing to do whatever it takes to win and I have a little bit more respect for them after that leg in Berlin.
But turning now to another alliance that made very little sense: the one between Kaylynn & Haley and Leo & Alana - statistically, both teams were not strong - Kaylynn & Haley were the weakest team whilst Leo & Alana were the second weakest team by the time they got eliminated in Almaty. Whilst there's no point in two (or more) strong teams getting into an alliance, by the very same token, it makes little sense for two weak teams to get into an alliance either because you will end up in that precise situation where Kaylynn & Haley reluctantly yielded Leo & Alana in order to save themselves. Instead, what Leo & Alana should have done was tried to forge an alliance with a stronger team so that stronger team would have been in a better position to yield another team in order to save them. In fact, Leo & Alana had the opportunity to try to form an alliance with Hung & Chee at the film studios in Almaty - after all, they did the 'Great Khan Spy' detour together; they could have easily shared the answers in order to both get out quickly. They should have at least asked for an alliance at that point - after all, what have they got to lose? The worse case scenario would have been Hung & Chee saying, "sorry but no thanks, we don't want an alliance with you." You would have lost nothing by asking. But I suppose Leo & Alana must have thought, all we have to do is count and we know exactly what to look out for after the first round of questioning - how hard can it be to count the spears? Oops. It couldn't have been that hard as Hung & Chee got through that detour quickly on the second attempt - Leo & Alana did what Michelle & Victoria did in Paris, they self-destructed under pressure. As a mega-fan, I would have liked to have seen racers who are more strategic in this aspect.
Is sauerkraut such a difficult word to unscramble?
I had this discussion with my partner (who doesn't speak German) - we watched the episode together and when I saw the letters, my brain instantly unscrambled the word 'sauerkraut' in under a second - like it was that quick, I didn't even need to think. He told me that it was only because I spoke German well and was familiar with German cuisine (and on top of that, I do like sauerkraut too), so it was really easy for me but the Americans who neither speak German nor have been exposed to much German cuisine would really struggle with finding the word. Besides, it was a relatively long word at ten letters, at which point I replied, "this is TAR, such challenges are meant to be difficult. Anyway Hung is Asian like me, she probably grew up eating noodles, tofu and spring rolls and not sauerkraut, schnitzels and bratwurst everyday, yet she got it even though she was protesting, screaming and crying all the way down." So are people like Hung and I just somehow unusually good at such unscrambling puzzles or is sauerkraut really such a difficult word? Only Hung and Leo managed to figure it out whilst the rest either benefited from working together or in the case of Haley - she finally realized that it was going to be much faster asking for help in the hotel rather than repeating that rappel over and over again. I do wonder why she even bothered going up to do it for a second time - never mind a third time because she clearly saw all the letters, she just couldn't unscramble the word. So why didn't she just run into the hotel to ask for help earlier then? So did someone from the production crew drop her a less than subtle hint that it wasn't against the rules to ask random strangers for help with this roadblock? In fact, the only person who wasn't allowed to help then was Kaylynn.
Did anyone else expect the teams to have to eat some sauerkraut in Berlin?
The moment I saw the word sauerkraut, I thought that it was setting us up for the next challenge where the teams had to either eat or make sauerkraut - but I was rather surprised that this leg didn't involve any sauerkraut at all. Did they simply pick a German word which they thought the American racers would at least know? I would have gone for something like schadenfreude - anyone who has seen the musical Avenue Q would know that word. At 13 letters, it is only slightly letter longer than "sauerkraut". If you don't know that funny song from Avenue Q I have embedded a lyric-video below for you.
Do people in Berlin speak English well?
I laughed at how the taxi driver struggled to communicate with Kaylynn & Haley because they were speaking too quickly. Having worked in Berlin, allow me to explain: Berlin is located in the former communist East Germany, apart from parts of the city which belonged to West Germany - it's complicated. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, before that, English wasn't widely taught as a second language in communist East Germany, the second language taught in school was Russian which was the lingua franca used amongst the communist countries in Eastern Europe. Germans who were educated in West Germany tend to speak English to a very high standard. However, after 1989, English became a lot more popular as the default second language even in East Germany. So it was 2018 at the time of the filming and someone who was born in 1989 would be 29 in 2018 but since they usually start learning English at the age of about 9 in Germany so as long as they encountered a taxi driver under the age of 38, he would have definitely spoken some English. Anyone between the age of 40 to 50 would depend, they might have missed the chance to learn it at school but with older East Germans, the chances of them speaking any English is actually very low. Then there are also the migrants from places like Turkey and Poland working as taxi drivers in Germany - for them, German is already a second language and English is often a third language but then age is a factor. So always speak slowly and clearly when it is obvious that you are dealing with someone who speaks English as a second or foreign language. Mind you, they do the same thing with me when I speak German with them, they often speak too quickly for me and I need them to slow down.
Do people speak any English in Almaty?
The answer is simply no, you're going to get hardly any English from the vast majority of the people there. This is a bilingual city where both Kazakh and Russian is spoken, given that Kazakhstan used to be part of the USSR and there is still a substantial Russian minority in the city. You might encounter some highly educated young people who might have learnt some English at university, but otherwise it would be very challenging for the American racers to have communicated with the locals if they didn't at least speak any Russian. I heard a few of the racers say 'spasibo' (thank you in Russian) a few times in Almaty but that was it, nobody even tried to say a word of Kazakh which was disappointing. And in case you're wondering, of course I speak Russian. It is one of the world's most spoken languages and I have spent a grand total of 11 years working in companies where I have always had some Russian colleagues so I have not only been exposed to Russian for a long time, but I have also made a genuine effort to learn it. You don't just catch it like the Coronavirus after having been exposed to it you know, you have to put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears before you get to a conversational level in Russian. However, I only know a few words of Kazakh, so I don't claim to be able to speak it. If I was in Almaty, I would probably just ask the local, "сен орысша сөйлейсің бе?"(Do you speak Russian?) then just use Russian to communicate. Russian is still very widely used as a lingua franca in all ex-USSR states, whilst only the very touristy places like a five-star hotel would have English-speaking staff to deal with foreigners.
Should Will & James have been penalized for abandoning their Trabant?
Ah the classic Trabant - this is a car manufactured back in East Germany and production stopped a few months after the Berlin Wall fell. This has been used by so many to highlight the contrast between East and West Germany in the 1980s - whilst West Germany was selling brands like Mercedes Benz, Porsche BMW and Audi, East Germany had the Trabant. According to Wikipedia, "The 1980s model had no tachometer, no fuel gauge, no rear seat belts, no external fuel door, and drivers had to pour a mix of gasoline and oil directly under the bonnet/hood." Needless to say, it would not have resembled any car that the American racers would have ever come across and part of the challenge in that leg was to navigate Berlin using this car that was obviously hard to drive. Clearly some teams had more difficulty than others in driving the Trabant, but Will & James claimed that the clutch in their Trabant was broken and so they abandoned the car and made the rest of the journey to Andel's hotel on foot - according to usual TAR rules, if a vehicle breaks down due to now fault of the racers (hey these are very old cars), then the production team would provide a replacement vehicle but the team would not be compensated for the time lost due to the vehicle malfunction. Should Will & James have been forced wait for the team to supply them with a replacement Trabant and subsequently push them to the back of the pack? Was there even a spare Trabant should such a situation happen? Thanks to social media, I did find out that the production team were consulted in this case and Will & James were indeed given the choice of waiting for a replacement Trabant or continuing the journey on foot (which was a 2.0 km or 1.24 miles walk) from where they were (they broke down in front of Co Ha restaurant) to Andel's Hotel and according to Google map, that would have taken them 24 minutes to walk, less if they ran; they chose to complete that journey on foot with the permission of the production team.
Wait this sounds familiar, has this happened before?
Those of you hardcore fans of TAR would remember that this isn't the first time the Trabant has appeared in TAR US - way back in TAR S6 E6, the teams had to drive a Trabant from Budapest to Eger castle in Hungary. Yes that was the season with Jonathan & Victoria - it is hard to forget just how vile he was to Victoria during the race and he was probably the most hated racer ever. Technically speaking, a Trabant is an East German car rather than a Hungarian car; whilst I have no doubt that Trabants were in use in Hungary back during the cold war, I must say it was odd to feature an East German car in a leg in Hungary back then. And of course, those old Trabants were a lot of trouble during that leg then too as well, poor Hayden & Aaron jumped into a Trabant with a dead battery which they couldn't even drive out of the airport, causing them to lose a lot of time as they were given a new car after the local mechanic confirmed that it there was a genuine mechanical fault with the car. Then Adam & Rebecca's Trabant just broke down in the middle of the motorway on the way to the town of Eger - they met a kind local who appeared out of nowhere and helped coaxed their car back to life. Then another team Kris & Jon's Trabant also broke down before they got to Eger - good grief, this time the car was totally dead and they had to wait for a replacement car. That's not even the end of it - Lori & Bolo's car then also broke down on the motorway - they too had to be given a replacement car. That was a shockingly planned leg - Trabants are notoriously hard to drive and it is funny to make the racers adapt to a totally different kind of car, but if Will & James' Trabant broke down like so many of those on TAR S6 E6, then I actually feel that they should not be penalized for abandoning their car - after all, it would be really unfair if a team randomly picked a Trabant that was barely functioning and was not fit for purpose, even for a relatively short drive across Berlin and that wouldn't be the fault of the racers at all.
Another two interesting episodes which featured classic cars were TAR Australia S2 E7 + E8 in Havana, Cuba. That was an epic leg that spanned three continents (Turkey in Asia, France in Europe and Cuba in North America). In that leg, the teams were given these classic cars from the 1940s and 1950s to drive in Havana; because of the American embargo on Cuba since 1958, it is not uncommon to find really old cars (usually American) still on the road in Cuba and thus getting the teams to drive these cars was showcasing a part of the culture. Most teams struggled and spent ages trying to even figure how to drive out of the airport car park. Joseph & Grace broke down in Havana twice and had to ask the locals for help - they ended up at a Cuban house party where this older Cuban lady fixed their car. Shane & Andrew had their fair share of comical moments with their car as well before it totally broke down, then out of nowhere, a random Cuban guy walks by and offers to fix their car - these two episodes were truly amazing and so worth watching because you can't make this up, these resourceful Cubans take fixing and mending to a whole new level. In fact, most teams had to ask the locals for help to push their cars when the car just wouldn't start - which seemed to be a regular enough occurrence hence the locals didn't hesitate to jump in and help even if most of these Australian racers didn't speak any Spanish at all. Then Jo & Michelle had a flat battery whilst driving to the pit stop - you'd think that the production team would check details like that before allowing the teams to drive off in these very old cars, but clearly not. But hey, the power of being two beautiful Australian ladies in Cuba, they managed to persuade a local to join them in their car and the local man clearly knew how to operate these very temperamental old cars. So if you thought Will & James had bad luck in Berlin with their old Trabant, you should really watch these two episodes from TAR Australia! I actually really liked the old TAR Australia (S1 to S3) seasons from back when Grant Bowler was the host - those three Australian seasons were brilliant!
But wait, beer yoga isn't German. It is American!
Beer yoga is a fun detour of course but I have to point out that it isn't German at all - it was in fact invented in America, it got popular in America before spreading to other countries around the world like Germany, but I felt that the whole point of TAR was to showcase aspects of local culture that you wouldn't find in America. The other side of the detour was very German indeed, the racers had to learn a German song but otherwise making the racers do a detour that is quintessentially American is like an American tourist in Berlin who refuses to touch all of these weird, unfamiliar European foods (like sauerkraut) and finds the nearest McDonald's instead. I get it, it is a muscle memory challenge to remember the various poses of the rather long yoga routine, but couldn't they have at least made the racers remember the names of the poses in German instead of English to give the beer yoga detour at least some German flavour? Again, this is a poor choice on the part of the production team. Another terrible mistake they made was in leg 7 in Almaty, Kazakhstan where once again, Kaylynn and Haley had another very lame, lazy roadblock. Goodness me, you're in a film studio in Kazakhstan, there must be so many fascinating, colourful, interesting props and costumes that can showcase Kazakh culture - I could have easily come up with a speed bump whereby Kaylynn and Haley had to sort out some beautiful costumes or dress some actors up in traditional Kazakh clothing. But instead, they just glued beards onto each other? How lazy and uninteresting was that? What were they thinking with this speed bump? Seriously, I want to know which idiot on the production team thought that would have been a good idea because it was a really terrible idea, a truly awful idea. Like what if it was Riley & Maddison who had to do that speed bump, that would have been utterly pointless.
The Belt It Out detour was too easy.
At first I thought the racers had to memorize all lyrics in German, that'll be so funny. Then when I saw that the racers were offered cue cards when they performed, I thought, that's making it way too easy. That's just like doing karaoke then and the judges weren't even that fussed about their appallingly bad pronunciation in German. Do you know how hard I had to work on my German when I was an actor in Germany - I had a German teacher who spent many hours trying to get me to improve my accent. I do speak German of course, but as a foreign language and hence with an accent; was I allowed to get away with it? No, I wasn't. I was made to work my butt off till my German was nearly native standard. That's why I get upset when I see Americans get away with mangling the German language. I thought that it made this one side of the detour a lot easier than the other, but ultimately the teams that were behind chose the easier detour whilst the teams that were ahead tended to pick the longer beer yoga detour - so in the end, it really didn't matter.
Were these two legs well constructed?
The only gripe I had about the Berlin leg was the inclusion of the beer yoga detour because that was very American. I liked the fact that they included some iconic East German symbols like the Trabant and the Berlin Wall but the Teledisko thing was quite pointless as there was no skill involved there. I like TAR tasks that are a feast for the eyes, that involve a big cast and showcase some of the local culture and we got just that at the Kazakh film studio. I definitely enjoyed that part of the episode as well as the visit to the rustic nomadic village of Karasay where we got a taste of the Kazakh countryside and their way of life. I thought they had to eat the sheep's head before they got the next clue - that was done back in S17 E5 in Norway when it was a Fast Forward that Nat & Kat completed. the visit to the Zelenyi bazaar was pointless though, all they had to do was to pick up a clue from the clue box. There were so many more beautiful locations in central Almaty that they could have sent the racers to - all we saw was a big meat market. The First President's Park was only ranked 8th on the list of the top ten most interesting things to do in Almaty on the Tripadvisor website. And that whole beard gluing speed bump was too lame. The Berlin leg was satisfying but the Almaty leg was at best just average.
Am I sad to see Leo & Alana gone?
I am truly heartbroken. I really liked them as a team and had hoped for them to at least race to the final. I suppose like them, I am a total geek as well. They were not the weakest team when they got eliminated in Almaty - it was in fact Kaylynn & Haley who are still the weakest team at this stage. It is so frustrating that they got eliminated over something like counting the number of spears, but I would like to point out that they were probably very sleep deprived, cold and exhausted (not to mention the effects of jet lag) at that point. More to the point, I am shocked to see them eliminated whilst teams like Kaylynn & Haley and DeAngelo & Gary are still around. I genuinely did not expect this at all but there you go, that's TAR for you. However, I think it does prove that Will & James had made an error of judgment way back in leg 3 when they targeted Leo & Alana with the U-turn - even though they are clearly super intelligent, they were not the biggest threat in this season; quite unlike Hung & Chee and Riley & Maddison, who are the real threats to Will & James.
Who will win next in India? Who will be eliminated next in India?
Any of the top three teams have the potential to win in India. They all have been so strong and consistent so it's impossible to say for sure who will win, but I do hope Hung has learnt her lesson and will not be helping any other teams in India! But what about the language barrier and are Eswar & Arpana fluent in Urdu or Telugu - the two main languages spoken in Hyderabad? Their parents are from Chennai and they were born there, but the main language of Chennai is Tamil and not Urdu, Hindi or Telugu. So chances are, they are Tamil-speaking Indians who have no advantage at all in Hyderabad, a city where Tamil is not spoken at all and they ironically, despite being born in India, they would be probably using English to communicate just like all the other racers. However, they have visited India many times so there is no culture shock for them and can hit the ground running whilst the other teams are in for a real shock if they have never been to India before. It would be so nice to see Eswar & Arpana win a leg at last though I wouldn't be counting on it. I'm just glad they made it this far in the season to make it to India, oh gosh - I remember TAR S24 when twins Natalie & Nadiya who grew up in Sri Lanka were eliminated in leg 1 of that season when the teams raced to Sri Lanka in leg 5 and spent the entire leg 6 in Sri Lanka, imagine what kind of massive advantage Natalie & Nadiya would have had in Sri Lanka but alas, that was not to be for the twins! I digress, this leaves us with DeAngelo & Gary and Kaylynn & Haley - my heart wants DeAngelo & Gary gone but my mind tells me to put my feelings aside and look at the statistics: Kaylynn & Haley are not only the weakest team currently but have been spared elimination four times - twice with the non-elimination legs and once when Michelle & Victoria self-destructed in Paris and then when Leo & Alana self-destructed at the Kazakh film studios. So their luck may just run out in the next leg - though I am hoping they will find a way to survive!
Wait, you're not even going to mention Borat once?
I understand that could be some people didn't know much about Kazakhstan until the movie Borat in 2006 but that's as much as I would say about it. I knew about Kazakhstan since I was a very young child as I was a geek who really enjoyed reading atlases and encyclopedias - I have a geography degree, I am a Russian speaker who has traveled widely all over the former USSR. I know that the movies of the Borat series are wildly inaccurate depictions of Kazakhstan for the purpose of cheap comedy. If all you know about Kazakhstan is from the Borat films, then you're really quite ignorant and stupid. So I am not going to pander to that section of the audience whose only reference to Kazakhstan would be the Borat films. We don't know if the racers actually mentioned the word 'Borat' whilst on this leg, either none of them mentioned it or even if they did, it wasn't shown in the programme because a major purpose of TAR is to educate Americans about the world by actually going to all of these exotic countries like Kazakhstan and showing them the real Kazakhstan - thus this couldn't be more different than the Borat films. So that's my stance on the issue. I've nothing against the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and his Borat films, but I don't think it would have been very appropriate for any of the racers to even mention Borat when in Kazakhstan just in case it offended the locals - after all, if I was from Kazakhstan, I wouldn't want others to think that my country was anything like what was depicted in the movie.
Okay, so that's it from me on this double episode, I'm sure we are all really looking forward to this mega-long leg coming up in India, which would push these remaining teams so hard. Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.
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