Though I've since learned that other people, who are wrong, disagree on this point, I think that the leg run by Dave and Blonde Rachel in this episode was one of the worst I've ever seen. Granted, I need to qualify that statement as "one of the worst legs I've ever seen that did not result in elimination." After all, Dave and Rachel are still in the race, which makes it a better leg than the Momily collapse in the first race, or Misa and Maiya's pitiful efforts in the first leg of this race.
What made it so bad? Well, let's see how things went. This leg of the race started off with Travel Bunching at the Buenos Aries airport. However, a few teams, including Blonde Rachel and Dave, Bopper and Mark, Team Border Patrol, and Team DEA (alias "Kindergarten teachers") all managed to get onto a flight that gets them into the next destination, Asuncion, Paraguay, a couple of hours before the other teams.
They'll need it. This leg includes a Detour that has two choices, as always. The first is to create a pyramid of watermelons. The second is to string a harp. Every team from the first flight decides to do the melons. It turns out to be a bad call, because even if you can accomplish the task, it still takes a lot of energy and time. For Dave and Blonde Rachel this is Bad Decision #1. Granted, it's a forgivable mistake in that virtually every team on this leg will make the same call.
To their credit, Team Border Patrol plans carefully as they lay down their watermelons, making sure that they're all facing the same direction as they go to increase stability. And it works for them, letting them cruise through the stacking in one try, and after going through the Roadblock without much problem, nets them a first place finish. I might find them a little obnoxious, but you've got to give the Border Patrol guys credit, they've never finished worse than third place so far. My original analysis of them as a strong team remains a pretty good call.
But this entry is about Blonde Rachel and Dave. Their melon pyramid collapses, as does those of Bopper & Mark and Team DEA. However, while both Bopper & Mark and Team DEA take the hint and immediately bail out to try the harps, Blonde Rachel and Dave decide to try to fix their pyramid, despite the probability that they'll pretty much have to take it apart and start over. They consider using the Express Pass that they earned for winning the first leg of the race, and decide against it. I'm going to call this Bad Decision #2. Either use the Pass immediately so you get the maximum value out of it, or put it aside. Furthermore, if you leave the same time that the other two teams do, you're still in the pack and not likely to fall very far behind. Especially since the teams from the second flight are arriving just as Bopper & Mark and Team DEA are bailing out on the melons. Since you know it takes ages to to the melon pyramid, it's the perfect time to bail out and see how the harp goes.
What's worse, though, is what happens next. You see, Blonde Rachel and Dave futz around with their pyramid even longer, and when it collapses for real then decide to bail on it. They rush over to the harp, glance at it, and then decide to use the Express Pass at that moment. Without even trying to do the task. That means that they've wasted a ton of time that they could have skipped if they'd done the Pass at the outset, but that they're alos using it while in around fourth place, meaning they're not in great danger of getting eliminated. They've pretty much done the worst thing they possibly could with that Express Pass, making this Bad Decision #3.
But the hits keep coming! Next they get to the Roadblock. The clue is "who's ready to use their head?" Odds are good that this isn't going to be a running or strength based task. Probably it'll be a figuring something out task, or something goofy if the clue writes are being clever. Your team consists of one strong and buff man and one not very much of either woman. So, logically, you should send Blonde Rachel in for this task and save Dave for a task where carrying or running is important, right? That is, however, not what they do. They send Dave. And, as it turns out, the writers were being clever. The task is to balance bottles on your head. And, unlike most tasks where you can keep trying until you succeed, there's a fail state: You only get 20 bottles. If you break them all, you lose.
Dave breaks them all.
So with Bad Decision #4 in the rear view mirror, Blonde Rachel and Dave make their way to the Pit Stop. Had they not wasted their Express Pass, they could have used it on the bottle task when it became clear that Dave was never going to succeed at it. If they had, they'd have come in second this leg. Instead, they wait out a two hour penalty and end up in sixth place for the leg. If everyone had been able to get on the first plane, that penalty would have ended the race for them.
Truly, it was a miserable performance, which even Dave agrees with in a post-leg interview. "We did everything wrong."
True. Luckily for you, there was that two hour gap. And because of that, the twins managed to botch both the harp stringing and the bottles badly enough that even Ralph and Vanessa, who got the bit in their teeth and fought through to finish the melons despite multiple collapses, passed them for eighth place, ending the twins' run.
But I'll remember this leg for Blonde Rachel and Dave's mistakes. I've rarely seen a team that was doing so well manage to do so poorly and still survive. Let's see if Nietzsche was right about getting stronger.
Episode three standings:
1st - JJ and Art (Border Patrol)
2nd - Red Rachel and Brendon
3rd - Joey "Fitness" and Danny (Jersey Boys)
4th - Bopper and Mark
5th - Nary and Jamie (DEA)
6th - Blonde Rachel and Dave
7th - Kerri and Stacy (Cousins)
8th - Vanessa and Ralph
OUT - Eliott and Andrew (Twins)
OUT - Dave and Cherie (Clowns)
OUT - Misa and Maiya
There are some trends to note here. First of all, the Border Patrol guys have, as mentioned, never finished worse than third. Meanwhile, Vanessa & Ralph and Kerri & Stacy have never finished better than fifth. keep an eye on that. Also, I'd like to take a moment to compliment Red Rachel & Brendon and the Jersey Boys for coming in second and third, despite coming in two hours behind because of the airport situation.
Dead Team Obituary: Eliott and Andrew
Remember what I said last week about a team not getting much screen time early in the race meaning they'll be around for a while? In particular, in reference to the Twins? Yeah, that didn't work out. Despite my expectations, the Twins went sixth, ninth, and last. the only significant screen time they ever got was their final death spiral. I guess they never did anything so interesting that the producers felt thy needed to be on screen. There are teams that go that way, some races. The first team ever eliminated from the race, Matt & Ana, went out like that. I guess I was trusting the tropes more than I was the evidence of the twins' poor performance. Good to know, I guess.
As for the twins themselves, we never really got to know them. They didn't fight very much, they didn't interact with the other teams very much, at least as far as was ever shown, and they never did anything particularly cool or terrible except proving to be bad at harp stringing and balancing a bottle on your head. I expected more of them, but that's the way it goes. At least Andrew got to play some soccer with a Brazilian hero, so that's something right?
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