Lurker > Mewtwo59

If Amy's there instead of Tina, I think it's a pretty good chance that Cirie goes first. It seemed like Tina's problem was that she just didn't get along with the other women, and Amy was pretty well liked by the rest of her tribe. And I think Tina would do better on Yaxha than a tribe entirely composed of "older" women.

Yeah, Cook Islands only had a handful of fun characters, and two of them ended up going pre-jury (in a season where 12/20 made jury or F3). And one of them was the second boot. Post-merge it was carried by Penner and the strength of Yul's game (even if he did have the god idol that made it easy).

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Both a hot take and a bad one.

This was by far my favorite of the New Era, largely because the cast was mostly bad at the game. I found myself more emotionally invested than I had been since WaW, a returnee season. And I feel like I'll actually remember these people, whereas I just learned that there was someone named Lindsay on either 43 or 44 and I couldn't even picture her. My mind went to Lindsay from 42.

If you disliked this season, I think you might be watching Survivor for the wrong reasons. Like we all know foolmo does.

The problem with me was that I hated all of the final 6 except Jake, and the only way I was emotionally invested in them was me wanting to see them lose. I wasn't a big fan of the season before Emily's boot, and it fell off a cliff after that despite Jake's best attempts to carry the rest of the season. It's just a case of I prefer a bland, unmemorable cast (like 43) over a bunch of people I can't stand (like 45).

Seeing the 90 minute episodes here just makes me sad that we didn't get 90 minute episodes last season with Carolyn and Yam Yam.

And after sitting on it for a couple of days, I'd say even 90 minute episodes can't keep this from being my least favorite of the new era. I'd go 42 > 44 > 41 > 43 > 45. I prefer the apathy I had towards most of 43's cast to the dislike I had towards most of 45's cast. Plus, this season got even worse with the twists than the rest of the new era, and that's saying something. The even seasons have been better in the new era, so I'm cautiously optimistic for 46.

And yeah, TAR 36 is probably not going to go well with the extra runtime. They're really going to have to stretch it out once we get past the halfway point, if it's anything like post-return 33 and 34. At least it'll be nice to see South America again.

Bruce's reason for voting Austin should be obvious. Dee trashed him to his face at FTC. So obviously he was going to vote for whoever had the best chance of beating her.

Huh, they've completely cut out recruits now? Or is Drew just saying that (or do we have more liars?)

Yeah, I have to disagree, now that this post show is reminding me how much I don't like this cast.

Honestly, I think she loses if she doesn't bring that up at the very end. That's why it was so close. She won it on that last question.

And I'd put this in the bottom quarter of seasons. Jake needed to win to save this season, and that was never going to happen.

Couldn't they have at least tried to make her likeable?

But I'm guessing 7-1-0 again, with Dee winning and Bruce voting for Jake.

Aww, Bruce didn't get to say anything

Yeah, didn't expect Jake to make it three records in a row

Is there any uncertainty left?

Thanks Katurah

Yeah Katurah, why not have Jake tell you he'll play the idol on you so you can talk to Dee and Julie and vote him out.

I'm just hoping Dee loses at fire and we get a disaster F3 like 43, because this is looking like a foregone conclusion otherwise.

Katurah ruins everything, even her own plans.

Not so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it, Katurah?

Uh oh, here comes the "Katurah is a threat to win" to justify her f5 boot

Julie, at least you have two second places. Katurah never came close

I love how Jake yelled out "JT, Gabler, Denise" as if they had any idea of what he was talking about.

Has anyone had as quick a downfall as a character as Austin did?

Mewtwo59 posted...

Uh oh, Rob & Corey are going to suffer the hometown curse.

Following up on this with remembering that one of the brothers said they lived in Seattle and Joel saying in a post-race interview that he also lived around Seattle until recently, it means we had another season 17 situation where they all suffered the hometown curse. And that's great because it means that the Beekman Boys are still the only team to overcome the hometown curse, which is the most hilarious outcome.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

I keep seeing people saying that Dee is for sure winning but... something just bugs me about that. It feels like she's getting too cocky and we're supposed to root for her demise. Similar to Cassidy, only with less narcissism.

I agree, but when Jake has the second best winner's edit left out of everyone, you don't need a perfect winner's edit to be the odds on favorite. Still, I'd be really confused as to why they left that rice-stealing scene in if Dee wins, given how they love to whitewash winners (just ask Sarah).

Eddv posted...

Best Reba was literally Sifu

Yeah, it's going to take an amazing finale from one of the three remaining Rebas for my top 2 Rebas to change from Sifu and J Maya.

I'm so over the over the top reactions from the jury, and Kellie is the worst offender this season. Kaleb and Kendra are pretty bad too.

I hope it's a Jake, Austin, Katurah F3 where it's 7-1-0 Jake. (The one for Austin can be Dee).

Yeah, I agree that losing Emily in the last episode really hurt. Between that and Austin becoming an idiot, Jake is the only one left that I actually like. Somehow, Julie is my second favorite of this final 6.

And I strongly disagree about Kellie and Katurah. Kellie's gotten really obnoxious on the jury and it's really soured me on her, and Katurah is a one note character who has kept anything fun happening strategically.

Aww, I was hoping they'd have a preview of next season since they filmed it over a year ago.

Man, they risked elimination to go back for their notebook and they still can't get this.

35 seasons and somebody finally realizes that they're on the Amazing Race

Not only that, but watching them do that multiple times

Uh oh, Rob & Corey are going to suffer the hometown curse.

Of course Austin was gonna play it. He lost a sandwich to get that.

Blaziken posted...

C'mon...just take Drew out. PLEASE let that happen.

Oh, he's so gone

I'm surprised Katurah has all these confessionals about wanting to win, because it really seems like she wants to finish third.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

I see two "really bad" here. I see four I'm like "whatever" to and three I'm like "Yesss!"

Also, regarding Survivor, why does nobody realize that Dee was the rat?

It makes no sense, especially since Katurah was ready to blame Austin for telling Dee in her voting confessional last week.

Well, I hope they update to OoT Randomizer 8.0 by then.

Yeah, I don't get why Drew didn't try to flip it to Dee when he found out that Austin told Dee. Maybe he was worried that they'd insist on Austin instead and wanted to protect him?

Well, I was expecting Austin to get idoled out by his own idol there, or Emily to go after a null vote. Not sure if not going for Austin is a good move there, but if he looks like enough of an idiot from this it probably doesn't matter that he has an idol and is by far the best in challenges out of everyone left. But I'm hoping if enough of us want a Jake win we can materialize it into the universe.

And I'm going to go against the grain and say that Anna Leigh sucks. Glad that she went out, and also glad that Steve didn't get pulled mid-leg like Floyd did back in 29. I felt kinda bad rooting for the all-male final 3, but unfortunately it was Anna Leigh there and not Ashlie.

Eh, that one was a special case since they went for the Fast Forward that leg. No amount of editing was going to be able to hide Andrea & Malaina's boot when they don't even have footage of them doing anything past the first Roadblock due to Phil coming out to the parade to eliminate them. Like the best they can do is stuff they did in this last episode is when they added doubt on whether Todd & Ashlie made the same train as everyone else, and even then there was no doubt because Todd & Ashlie were never in the same shot as any of the other three teams that were grouped up.

The 90 minute episodes have nothing to do with the boots being obvious (and I'd argue the first three boots weren't obvious by the halfway point either), it's because these teams keep digging themselves into deep holes and only Rob & Corey and Steve & Anna Leigh have been able to dig themselves out of them in the two episodes you mentioned. 60 minute episodes wouldn't disguise the fact that Liam & Yeremi, Andrea & Malaina, Robbin & Chelsea, and Todd & Ashlie were hopelessly far behind and would never be able to catch up.

Yeah, I'm not nearly as high on this season as the rest of you. I'd only put it ahead of 43 as far as the new era goes. (I'm the guy who voted TAR in the poll, btw). I'm just not really enjoying this cast very much.

Also, I think this season is another example of just how stupid the fire making challenge is. If you have a group of four who all think they can beat each other (and given two of them are Dee and Drew, whose egos are so big that the thought of losing hasn't even crossed their mind, this is likely the case), they have no reason to ever turn on each other. Just go to four and let fire sort it out.

Without Rob & Corey there to stop them, they would've taken the bus to the subway station, when they were supposed to take the subway. I'm sure that's some sort of penalty.

Are Joel & Garrett actually going to pull this off?

Not looking good for Todd & Ashlie if they don't even have footage of them at the recycling place with Joel & Garret.

They're lucky that Rob & Corey used the Express Pass already, or they'd be looking at a penalty.

Blaziken posted...

More than that...one of the things I've said a couple times in the past (mainly focused on Tyler during the final 7 episode of WA). If you believe someone has an idol and there is a good chance that person plays that idol...I feel like you shouldn't be okay with being one of the votes on the idol-holder. Look at the vote breakdown: Austin/Dee/Drew voted Jake, meaning that if Bruce DID play his idol, it was Austin/Dee/Drew deciding the boot. Given a group of four potential back-up targets, I feel like they shouldn't have been so willing to risk themselves, just to flush Bruce's idol.

Honestly, I'd say this lost the game for all three of them, except that the edit went out of its way to portray this awful move as a good thing for Emily. Last time they did something like that was Erika's split vote plan that only worked because Danny made a terrible move, so I'm thinking this works out for Emily somehow.

Man, they even split the vote in a way that the three of them could've taken out Julie. That's even worse.

Also sucks that Katurah got to outlast Bruce. Awful payoff to that storyline.