TAR - All Stars Episode 4

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 4 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Rob & Amber
2. Uchenna & Joyce
3. Eric & Danielle
4. Dustin & Kandice
5. Oswald & Danny
6. Teri & Ian
7. Joe & Bill
8. Charla & Mirna
9. David & Mary



Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').


1. Oswald & Danny

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Last week: 5
This week: Up four places

The editing didn’t really show us how they got to the head of the pack so easily, but somehow they did. I’m thinking it was mainly because everyone else was making a lot of mistakes. Obviously they also made the right choices and didn’t run into any bad luck, so good on them. Plus I picked them to come first so I’m glad they did.
One of them also made a very funny comment at the start of the episode, that I’m hoping Bevis noted, cause I didn’t write it down.

2. Eric & Danielle


Last week: 3
This week: Up one place

Eric made another comment about Danielle's boobs and they came second, that about sums up their input this episode. Oh no, I almost forgot Danielle showing her smarts by saying ‘Australia’ when she meant ‘Argentina’.

3. Teri & Ian


Last week: 6
This week: Up three places

I don’t know how these guys managed to come in third place. The stand out moments were when they couldn’t follow simple directions on a compass, eg. Going south, and the other thing was the trouble they had finding the clue box for the roadblock (although in fairness they were not the only team to go astray looking for it). Experience must count for something I guess cause often older teams like this stay in the race for far longer than I expect.

4. Joe & Bill


Last week: 7
This week: Up three places

I don’t like these guys and hope they are not in the race much longer. They must had been reading their instructions carefully this week as they didn’t veer off course this time. I'm looking forward to next week as the preview showed them getting into a big argument with Eric and Danielle.

5. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 4
This week: Down one place

I will mention here that all the teams at the back of the pack from here on were the teams that chose to do the ‘building’ task rather than the navigation task in the detour. In past series of TAR, Phil has announced why one task might be better than another, eg, one may favour strength, while another might be done quicker by someone with good attention to detail, etc. This does not seem to have happened this series, or if it has I just haven't been paying attention. As far as I can tell, one task is almost always just crappier than the other. D & C made a bad choice by going for this one. It was funny to hear one of them saying that their weakness was to over think things! The producers obviously included that because they knew people would find it an amusing thing for two beauty queens to say.

6. Uchenna & Joyce


Last week: 2
This week: Down four places

These guys are boring. I like them, but they are about as interesting to watch as paint dry in this race! I think they were only one of two teams to finish the construction of a signpost task as the other two who tried their hand at it left in frustration after a while. There was a bit on the boat toward the finishline where the old rivalry between this couple and Rob and Amber was brought up, but at that point I thought it was a red herring as I was really expecting Rob and Amber to be going, due to their stuffing up.

7. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 8
This week: Up one place

These two are truly an unintentional comedy duo! There was an advert on TV that stated that everybody loved Charla and how in this episode she would be asked to be a hero! WTF!??! Apparently to whoever does the advertising, Charla carrying stuff up a flight of stairs while Mirna yells at her is hero behaviour!!! Granted it did look hard for a little person, but seriously, she wasn’t saving lives or anything. And since when does everyone love her?
The best comedy was when Amber lied to them that there was a clue down a dirt track when there actually wasn’t. It was funny because they continued down the path a bit, and then had a ‘waaaait a minute’ moment after which Mirna insisted that being a lawyer made her know when people were lying! In that circumstance I would have thought common sense should have been enough. Later when they confronted Amber about it, she lied again that she had been directing the comment to Rob about something else. In an interview to camera about this Charla, commented that what Amber said just didn’t make sense!.....derrrrr, because she was obviously lying!


8. Rob & Amber: ELIMINATED!


Last week: 1
This week: Went very badly for them!

In TAR people are often eliminated because they either make one or more serious mistakes, or luck just isn’t with them. In the case of R&A, both of these factors played a major part. Mistakes were made early on and the final nail came through taking longer than another team to sort through a huge pile of letters.

Rob wanted to do the task that involved building a signpost that had the destinations of one of Magellan's journeys on it. Although he knew that Magellan set sail from Seville rather than...Guam I think, which was what Amber thought (this seemed to be the main 'trick' to this task), Rob didn't know that the Phillipines is not spelt 'P-H-I-L-L-I-P-E-A-N-S' (or something like that). Amber either didn't know or didn't notice, because that appeared to be the reason that they spent ages on the task and then finally decided, along with D & K, to quit the task and try the navigation. This set them at the back of the pack as I believe U & J who started after them were able to leave first. At some point D & K also got ahead of them. The funny thing was that when Rob and Amber began the navigation task, Rob correctly figured out the destination without needing to refer to the compass much. This was possibly because he had intercepted some directions that an air steward was intending to give to Uchenna! If only they had picked the other task instead!

Anyway when they hit the road block they were neck and neck with U & J with C & M just over 20 mins or so behind them. U & J seemed to find their letter from previous racers in the piles of envelopes they had to sort through, while Rob had bad luck and was searching through the wrong piles for too long. C & M caught up and Mirna seemed to find their letter pretty quickly as well.

While they did not win any friends on the race they bowed out quite gracefully I thought and their competitive drive will be missed from TAR - All Stars.

I'll finish up by listing their sneaky/underhanded behaviour on this leg:- Rob stealing directions meant for Uchenna, Stealing a taxi that C & M had called for and finally lying to C &M about where a clue box was. Truly a pair of sneaky bastards. ;)


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Last week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny. Correct!
Last Team: Rob & Amber. Correct!
Biggest Argument: Charla & Mirna. Correct!
Smartest Team: Oswald & Danny.....Not sure, they came first, but I don't remember anything really clever they did. I'll wait for Bevis's judgment with this one and say I'm Wrong! unless he says otherwise.-----After conferring with the judge, Bevis has deemed me Correct!....on a technicality.


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Next week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny.
Last Team: Charla & Mirna
Biggest Argument: Charla & Mirna.
Smartest Team: Oswald & Danny.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that BEVIS posted on his blog.


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