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Subscribe via RSSSeason 12, Leg 4: Let’s Do It Over Again
In this leg, the teams dance their pants off, dig for gold, overload bicycles, and get lost in the local market. All while dragging a live chicken around with them. And Phil introduced us to a new twist in the race, the U-Turn. Whether this replaces the Yield or not, it certainly seems like a better idea.
Lorena & Jason were pretty much doomed from the start of this leg. They left the pitstop nearly 3 hours behind Azaria & Hendekea, there were no significant bunch points in the leg, and then they were U-Turned. No matter how much tension the editors tried to introduce, there was nothing they could do to close the gap. Sorry you two.
As for the Detour, panning for gold was clearly the better choice. As Nicolas & Don correctly pointed out, it’s an opportunity to put your fate in your own hands, like the previous leg where you could either teach or learn. And it clearly wasn’t that hard a task as they finished it very quickly. The Dancing was, for the most part, atrocious. I suspect that after seeing how bad the first team did, and then realizing that none of the teams were going to be any better, the judges realized that they were definitely going to have to lower their standards.
The Roadblock consisted of loading a bike with a ridiculous amount of stuff and then riding it through the market looking for a vendor. A classic needle-in-a-haystack task which clearly rattled many of the team members. I do wonder whether it was the unwieldy bicycle, or the frantic searching through the market that caused more frustration. For some teams, one clearly built on the other. And for a fortunate few, they managed to get help from some of the locals to find their way through the confusion.
The whole chicken side story was extremely boring. It’s clear that the producers were hoping that at least one of the teams would forget their chicken at some point and add to the tension. But none of the teams followed that particular script. And poor Phil was stuck repeating the inane “No chicken, no check-in” line with no payoff. Maybe if they had introduced an opportunity at some point for teams to have the option to give their chicken away and been forced to make a choice, we could have wrung more drama from it.
Finally, we come to the introduction of the U-turn. It forces the targeted team who has just completed the Detour to go back and complete the other Detour task. This is a much better idea than the Yield as it the length of the setback is in the hands of the U-turned team. If you can complete the task quickly, your delay may be less than the 30 minute penalty of the Yield. But if you suck at the alternate task, it can destroy your chances in the race.
Any discussion of the U-turn clearly has to address the “ethics” and “morality” of using it. Shana & Jennifer clearly had different ideas about the morality of using the U-turn on Lorena & Jason. Shana is right in her assertion that using the U-turn, which is part of the game, is not immoral any more than playing a Draw Four card on someone while playing Uno. Did it engender ill will from the other teams? Maybe a little. But how much does that ever come into play in this race? The most likely result of their use is a growing friction between Shana & Jennifer. And, like Danny & Oswald’s use of the Yield, the use of the U-turn will cause them to internally collapse faster and more completely than anything the other teams could ever do to them.
In fact, all of their trouble seemed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. They believe they had done something wrong, and beat themselves up about it. They clearly believed that they deserved to have everything go wrong in this leg because of it. So, when things started going wrong, instead of taking steps to correct the problem, like finding a new taxi driver, they wallowed in self-pity and let things continue to spiral out of control.
There wasn’t enough of the leg left this time around for the self-destruction to appear, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they are out the next leg. It killed Danny & Oswald, and it will probably kill Shana & Jennifer as well. If they can get past this and not beat themselves up over it on the next leg, they stand a chance of surviving. But if they start to wallow in self-pity and karma, they’re doomed.
