Jessica, I've been told there are sometimes additional instructions in the flight plans, like "You can only take one airline" or "You can only take a direct flight" or whatever. And sometimes the producers just want to bunch up the teams.

Jessica, I've been told there are sometimes additional instructions in the flight plans, like "You can only take one airline" or "You can only take a direct flight" or whatever.

Well that's just stupid. It's a travel competition! They should be allowed to compete on travel, damnit.

We did hear at least one team ask specifically for a direct flight. But if it's in the rules, they should indicate that so we don't think they're all a bunch of dumbasses.

Yeah, the airport/flight scrambling and negotiations are some of my favorite parts of TAR.

I didn't even like the poker players, but what a heartbreaking way to go out. Hand to god, there's no way that I could've rung that bell or done that golf thing, either. I have no upper body strength to speak of.

Yeah, it was the type of task that makes me think they really don't want a female-female team to win ever. At least, they should have made it so both partners have to ring it so that couples couldn't get out of having the woman do it too.

I did dig how fake-cheerful she was at eating the herring though.

You really saw her Miss America training come through on that one!

As for the Poker girls, I wish we had seen them actually do the bell challange. That they were able to skip through that (thanks Sam/Dan) irked me.

Yes, however, the reaction of Meghan and Cheyne made me like them even more. They called them on it and then they got over it.

I was really surprised nobody tried to get an earlier flight out. I know there was only the one nonstop flight, but they had nearly twelve hours to find alternatives! Dubai is a major international port - surely they could have found a flight to somewhere else in Europe with a connection to Amsterdam, even if it meant taking two or three planes instead of one.

I was surprised about this too. That seemed obvious. If they really can't do that, I am liking this show even less as time goes on.

At least, they should have made it so both partners have to ring it so that couples couldn't get out of having the woman do it too.

YES. That really bugged.

Yeah, very annoying.

Stephanie Izard, winner of Top Chef a few seasons ago, recently had a bacon feast--three courses, ten dishes, all with at least some bacon involved. Sounds like it was fun! (All 100 tickets sold out within 90 seconds.)

God, there's a girl after my own heart.

I did appreciate how non-bitchy with each other they were when the challenge(s) kept going so badly. Not a lot of teams would have gotten through that without more sniping at each other.

This definitely. I really started to like them more and more the worse they started doing on the tasks. They stayed supportive and generally positive. I even liked the way they quit. I would've hung it up, too, if I'd been out there for hours in the freezing cold wind in wet long johns, knowing that I wasn't strong enough to do the task in the first place back when I was relatively warmer and stronger. I still wonder what would've happened if they'd just gotten some male Fern and had him do the bell ringing for them.

I really dug Team Zebra at the beginning of the race, and I'm still a huge Brian fan, but Erica has been grating on me for a while now. The only two road blocks she's done so far are this last one and duck block, no? Otherwise, she always steps aside to let him do the task. And even when they are doing a group task, it's mostly him working and her kibbutzing and occasionally yelling at him to get the task done faster. And while I agree that they generally do a good job of overcoming challenges and pulling it together as a team, it seems like he is always the one who is calming her down, keeping her focused. And she's usually the one that leads them into the mess. You know, Miss America, don't yell at him about how he can't get the car in gear. Why not just switch places and you drive? Mad that you had to walk miles and miles in wooden shoes? You were the one rushing him out of the changing station before thoroughly reading the clue, yelling at him to hurry up and follow you while you were halfway down the road. And the whole prissy girl thing? OK, I get that because I'm a prissy girl, too, but the "Chocolate melts in the sun", can't get wet, "I spend money, not count it" thing. Yeah, that's not nearly as cute as she thinks it is.