The Amazing Race 33: Episodes 1 & 2 Recap

0:01 Coming to you live on the Nullified Take. We're here, myself, Chris, your host, with my co-host Michelle to talk about The Amazing Race 33. Michelle, it is back and it has been a long wait. Was the wait worth it for you? Woohoo! Yes, definitely. I mean, they even went to, you know, my favorite city in the world but where I live. But, yeah, just waiting for this to happen for so many fans. It was just amazing for it finally to be here. Yeah, I mean, listen, I didn't know you lived in London. I lived in London for 2 years as well. in London, but I've got so many Oh, you just love it. I've got so many family members there and I've been there three times and I just love I love the place. Yeah, no, I'm a I'm a I'm a big fan of London, lived there for 2 years. We're going to get to know each other, you know, like I saw that there was this unofficial competition of, you know, your pre I guess it's your previous podcast or the host you did it with previously is rating all the recaps and he's got a blog going on there and we're all up against each other.

1:03 I'm going to be honest and I'm probably going to lose points for this, but I didn't read the point system. I was never really good at school when it comes to like having points and preparing for tests, which is why we didn't have a cast assessment prior to going live together here as well. I was never good with that stuff. His name is Logan. Logan Saunders, he's a Canadian and I've been doing Amazing Race podcast with him for many years and then they decided Reality TV Warriors decided not to do it this year and so I've decided I can't not do it. So, I'd love to do it with you, Chris, and yes, he is rating us all on a point system and we didn't do very well last week because we didn't do a cast assessment. So, we are way down in the points. but I know that if you mention his name, we get an extra point or something and maybe no one else has seen that, but I have to look at the point system as well.

1:58 I don't know how we can bump ourselves up. I feel like I feel like I'm back at school, you know, I used to be friends with the smart kids and used to get all the homework stuff from them. You're doing the homework fast, you're getting all the point system stuff down, already getting a couple of points in there for us. But when it comes to this podcast extravaganza, we're like the blind date Australia or Amazing Race team here because this is the first time ever that we've done podcasting together. obviously we've had one previous one for Australian Survivor, and I thought, you know, obviously it'd be good to get you on. I know you're a big fan of the Amazing Race. But give people a little bit of a rundown, of some of the things that you get up to on Facebook because you are one of the admins on I think both the Australian and also the Amazing Race worldwide or the US Amazing Race. You're an admin on both those groups. do you want to give a shoutout where people can find that if they haven't actually joined those groups before and where they can find a community of like-minded people, I guess, when it comes to the Amazing Race?

2:53 Oh god, yes. So, the Amazing Race fans is the US group, the international group. We have 20,000 members. I think we've clocked over to 21. we have, I think, around 200 races in the group as well. And it's run by, admin all around the world so that we can be on it at any point 24 hours. I also run the Australian group, which is only little at the moment because it's only just sort of started in the last 3 years. and that's Australian Su- Australian Amazing Race Australia fans and racers. So, I think we have about 50 racers in that group. Or 30? Oh, that's really cool. and then I also run the Australian Survivor fans page, which has about 20,000 members and lots of survivors in there as well.

3:44 So, yeah, when the seasons are on I'm pretty busy, but let alone having a full-time job, but, you know, it's my passion and it's my hobby to look after these pages that I love. well, hats off to you because it is impressive. I know how much time it can take to work on things like podcasts or running groups and all those kind of things and still have a full-time job and still have a life outside of that. So, hats off to you. And as Chris Dickson says here, he says, "You chose the wrong Chris to podcast. You're going to lose this competition this year." That remains to be seen, Chris. Shots fired, you know. Also want to say hello to Archangel and also to Marcus who's over here in the live and also Kelly. Welcome to the live stream as well. We love to have people here in the live stream.

4:34 Please feel free to ask us questions and participate on the podcast as we go through it. It's always a lot more fun, Michelle, when there's people in the live stream being a part of the conversation. Definitely. I love that. I love the random questions that can come up. Especially when I did the I did the live podcasts on the last Aussie season of The Race, and that was lots of fun. I did that with Kai. Kai Armston is actually the partner who I applied with. Applied twice now. So, fingers crossed they're still casting. 100%. Well, be careful of what you want what random questions you want. We've got Chris Dickson here in the chat. I'm sure he's going to have a random question for us at some point during this live stream. Let's get into the actual episode. I mean, we can go back and forth like this for quite a while, but we are here to talk about episode one of The Challenge Oh, it's not The Challenge.

5:27 The Amazing Race. I've been doing a lot of challenge podcasts recently, so I'm a bit rusty. But, we're here to talk about episode one of The Amazing Race, you know, season 33. And it's quite an interesting start here because we get Phil Keoghan on a beach somewhere in the US talking to us saying, "Hey, we've missed you. It's been a while." Very much reminded me of Survivor 41 when Jeff kind of had that similar line when they came back. So, it's maybe something where CBS said, "Hey, tell the fans how much, you know, we've missed you and vice versa." But, it's a bit strange. You can see there's no one on the beach. It's a bit eerie the way that he welcomes everybody in. And then also the start of the season is very different to other seasons that we've seen in the past where there's an actual starting line where people all the races get together and they start together. They get everybody starting from their home here with a phone.

6:19 With Phil being on a video on the phone there. It was very different. What did you think of it? I was a bit 50/50 because I really like the starting line for the race personally. It's a bit of a tradition. I do love the starting line. However, Hunted, which is another show that I podcast which runs from the UK, they've done start lines in a central spot like Amazing Race, but they've also done from the home. So, I'm used to it because I've seen it a couple of times already. So, I wasn't put out by it, but I can see how some people would be because you don't have the same energy as you do in a group. And I know when they do it in a group, they do so many takes by the end of it they're so hyped that it's just the energy there is great and then they just go off and run and it's crazy and some of them fall over because their energy is so high, their adrenaline is pumping.

7:12 By the time they leave, it's just it's great. But, I didn't mind it because I've seen it before in other shows. Yeah, I like the mad dash to the airport where everybody is trying to get there in time so they can get the best possible start and get on the best plane, which obviously this was going to be a little bit different with everybody having to fly from different airports. Clearly, there would have been a starting line in London when they actually got there where they told everybody, "Hey, wait here. You can't start before all the teams, you know, is actually in London." Because I'm sure having those many different planes going into London, they all would have arrived at different times and they couldn't have been an unfair start to the race, right? Definitely. And the funny thing is when they arrived at Heathrow, they seemed to have run from behind a barricade because they didn't run out of the terminal. In a lot of you know, episodes, they run out of the terminal and you see them all.

8:05 And I know they generally stop them all inside and then they say action and they all run out at the same time. But this time they were running around a corner and they all looked the same. They didn't have the colors on. They may have been given the jackets cuz I know they provide jackets for them sometimes, but they were all like black, brown, gray and I'm thinking, I don't know who's who. It was very confusing at times. I remember when Penn and Ray were in the second part of the second leg where they went down for the mail one where they had to do the little find the Amazing Race clue in between all of the different mail. he was talking to I believe Ray and at one point I thought it was Taylor that he was talking to. Like I was getting confused cuz there was no colors between them and to clearly distinguish who is who, you know, obviously the 20s is going to be difficult to know who's who throughout the whole season as well.

8:59 But I agree with you, that was quite interesting. Were you happy that London was the first leg of the race? What did you think of the fact that the Amazing Race went to London? God, yeah, cuz I love London. I thought it was amazing when they were going there. only because I had been there a month earlier. So, I had seen a lot of the places they were going to and had been in those train stations and I was thinking, oh, that's I know what the weather's like then. I know what they're feeling. I know how busy it is. I mean, they've been to England, I think, or they've been probably six or seven eight times to United Kingdom as a whole. and some of them have been etched in my memory. I think it was 17 or 18 that I think I was 17 they went to castle. And they had to climb up the castle on ladders and they were being drenched with buckets of water or something like that and that was one of the funniest challenges that I've ever seen big tasks because I just I just couldn't stop laughing.

10:03 They were just getting wet and wet and trying to climb up the castle. So because London and England generally has a lot of history, there's a lot of different things you can do there. However, they did go down the tourist route and did a lot of touristy kind of stuff in London, which I didn't mind about that. I know some fans thought it was a bit too kitschy and run of the mill sort of stuff, but I liked it. I love seeing the Bobby and the and the telephone booths and I generally enjoyed all that stuff. What about you? Yeah, I mean I lived in London for two years and traveled throughout the UK quite a lot of my time there. So when they sort of brought up the flight attendant saying they've traveled a lot and one of them I believe was in London like two weeks prior to the race starting.

10:54 The advantage that you have like all of those areas being very touristy spots that they went to Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, all of those areas really think they were in Piccadilly at one point. Like I know those areas so well because I had to navigate through there and when I lived in London, it was pre the smartphone era. It was pre Facebook being a thing. Like Facebook only became big I think in like 2007. you didn't have GPS. So when I first work worked there, I had to navigate by map. Like we didn't have smartphones like we have now. And London can be confusing because there's so many little small one-way roads that you can get stuck into as well. but I think if me and you were in the league, like I would have just been like, "Michelle, we're heading this way, follow me." I would have known exactly where to go because I lived there for so long. even though London has changed and it's continued to expand, it's still, like you said, it's an historic city, you know, it's still very much the same, especially when you get into the CBD.

11:53 But I also like the fact that they brought in like the slang, you know, like the Bobby for instance, and you had someone like Connie who was walking past the guy who was the police officer the whole time, not asking him if he's the Bobby until he finally got it. And I felt so bad for him because another thing that sort of stood out for me early on in this episode was that there weren't many teams that you would shout against. And that could be a positive or a negative thing because sometimes it can be fun to have a team not to like on a race. Like you're like, "Ah, damn this team." You know, obviously if any racers are listening to this, I'm talking about the character that is being portrayed to us on the show. Like obviously we don't know you as full-dimensional people outside of the show. but early on definitely for me there wasn't many things that stood out where I could say, "I don't like this group. I don't like this team in the race." I know they're very likable teams, all of them, and they have great backstories.

12:45 I mean, you need a backstory to be cast in a reality show regardless, but their backstories, most of them were fantastic. And so they've really cast a good bunch of people. I know the fans had a couple of niggling points against a couple of people, but you know what? I think that'll go away. I don't think that will stay around cuz they're such nice likable people. I agree. I mean, some of the backstories that stood out for me, obviously, we've got Anthony and Spencer who was a part of three, I think there was three of them that actually stopped the terrorist attack from happening in France. and such a crazy story to have, such a crazy bond to have with someone like Anthony and Spencer who they literally put their lives at risk for each other in a life or death situation.

13:41 And they're now doing something like The Amazing Race, which to them should be child's play in comparison to what they had to go through in real life, you know, outside of this. I'm very impressed by these two. They seem very grounded for people who have actually met Clint Eastwood. I don't know if I could be as grounded and humble if I met Clint Eastwood. you know, they seem like really cool people, you know, and people that you want to root for in the race and they did dominate large parts of these first two legs. Probably they probably did better the first leg than the second leg, but still I think they're going to be a force to be reckoned with for the rest of the season. Definitely. I mean, get two strong fit guys together, they are usually up there at the top of the pack. It's very unusual if they're not. so I, you know, as Kelly's just said now, she'd be happy with any of the teams winning so far because they're I mean, they are really likable.

14:37 Yeah, 100%. We've got Archangel here also saying Anthony and Spencer with a love heart. definitely I think early season favorites just for what they did in real life. I mean, we've got real life heroes playing a game, a reality TV show. How lucky are we to have these guys go out there and do something like The Amazing Race. Now, another pair or duo that really stood out to me and there were a few of them and I think it's good it's probably appropriate to talk about them since we didn't do a preseason cast assessment. I do like to get to know these characters on the actual episode. was Connie and Sam. like we spoke a little bit about Connie and Sam early here with Connie walking past the bobby a few times, didn't get it. They had a bit of a slow start to this first leg, but they've also got a really interesting backstory with him being a teacher. There's more than one teacher here this season, so you've got to wonder if them and Akbar will at some stage connect and have an alliance going because they must have some things in common.

15:33 But he, you know, brought a kid home, someone who needed a home, raised them to become like a son to him. What a What a great story. I mean, again, you just you just want to shout for Connie and Sam because, you know, Connie works as a teacher, Sam is in retail. You know these guys aren't making a million dollars a year. This could really change their lives. Mhm. I know, it's amazing. I mean, go teachers. I'm a teacher myself. But it is it's such a big thing and you find actually that a lot of teachers apply for these reality shows, all of them, because I don't know. We tend We tend to be fun-loving people for one thing. We do the job we do. We don't do it for money, really. We do it for the for the joy of doing it. And I find a lot of teachers love to do fun things and step out of their comfort zone because they're used to doing it at work every day in that you know, they suddenly have to perform for kids and you have to be ready to do anything at any time.

16:32 So, I love I love teachers on reality shows. Yeah, 100%. I mean, going into the other pair that also here in this episode, one of the two is a teacher and it's Akbar and Sheree being a team here together. You know, again, what he's doing for his community there as well, a tough neighborhood, starting a school up, which if I heard it correctly, it's like 6:00 p.m. till like 10:00 p.m. or something. It's like a Well, no, it's normal hours, but then he also opens it at night time so that the kids have somewhere to go so they're not on the street. And I actually remember I think it was Ellen or Oprah gave him money. Ellen, I think. And it was Ellen. Yeah, I remember watching that episode and because she loves doing that for schools and it's just such an amazing thing. He said that no one has died from gun violence because of it because he's been doing that which is which is such a great thing.

17:31 Yeah, I mean I'm a very firm believer. You know, I had the jokes in the beginning about me not being an A student. I was actually probably that student that went to school and it was just fortunate enough to do good even with not trying. Most people would hate that about me but you know, I do believe I do believe that another reason not to tune into this podcast in the future. but you know, I do believe that education, you know, is the answer to a lot of problems that we have in the world when it comes to violence and poverty and obviously education coupled with opportunity which it does seem like, you know, he's giving people an opportunity to get them out of these situations, helping them with educating them and things like that. So definitely going to be a team I'm going to look at. The one thing that did stand out for me on this team throughout this episode was he was pretty harsh on Sheria times where she was struggling to keep up.

18:23 And listen, it's just one of those things. There's always going to be one person in the in the group that's going to be a bit more fit than the other one. They're not going to have an understanding that the other person can't keep up And it's for a lot money and it's a race and I you know, I understand there was some women fans on the groups today who were thinking he was a bad person which is just ridiculous because just it's just an argument and people were saying awful things and it's just not true because you're in a big situation and I've said to my partner if we ever get cast we if we want to scream at each other, we can scream at each other but keep running. Just keep racing. I don't care. We don't care. We just we'll scream and just keep going.

19:14 It's a high-stress situation and I don't hold anything against him because he's stressed. She knows what she has to do. If she can't run, that's fine. He's not being very thoughtful, but it's the race. You've got to take that into account. Listen, this is not The Amazing Race season 1. Like we've seen 30 This is the 33rd season of it now. Like we've seen so many seasons where there's been different couples that have had their fights. I mean, look at Rachel Reilly and Brendan who are still together. And that's probably the greatest example of a couple that used to fight all the time. They still love each other. They're still together. but the one question I have, Michelle, you know, obviously we're skipping ahead a little bit here on The Amazing Race, but we do know that the season is going to get cut short at one point. They're going to suspend it. People are going to go home.

20:04 Like I'm wondering if Sherry's going to take that opportunity to say, "I had a bit of a feel like these guys have got an opportunity now that other racers haven't had before where they can go and say, 'These are the things that work well for us in these first two legs or first three legs. These are the things that didn't work well. Let's go practice it. Let's go practice attention to detail. Let's go practice doing more puzzles. Let's go practice getting better at the at the endurance stuff.' Do you think that we will see some racers come back with a different game plan because of the fact that the show were sort of suspended for a while? Good question. I mean, they could come back with a different plan of attack, see where their weaknesses were, and actually improve on them. And you know what? A lot of time in when you're actually in the race, it's really hard to do that cuz you can't think overnight, "Well, I've got to do this the next day. Let's do this." And it's really hard when you're still racing, but that is a good question because this is the first time that will happen and probably the only time this will happen.

21:01 Yeah, I think that the whole I think the whole dynamic of who did well and who didn't do well could very much change when they come back and obviously we'll talk more about that as well as the show continues cuz we'll probably see and look back at the end of the season to who did really well in the first couple of legs, who didn't perform at that same level towards the end because you know, another thing here is that it's unprecedented for racers to know who the other competitors are going to be that are going to race. So they've got 12 months, 18 months to build alliances outside of the game when they come back and I know that alliances in my opinion is something that to a certain degree has enjoyed sorry has ruined a bit of the entertainment for me when it comes to The Amazing Race because they can really just stick together and you know, do the U-Turn or what's the one where you do the time stop where they've got to they get them to do something else.

21:57 Is it the U-Turn? It's a U-Turn, right? Where they've got to go do another U-Turn. Yes. So you can U-Turn a team out of the game just by alliance aligning with someone. So it really could have a massive impact on the second phase of the game if they restarted at a later stage. Like I mean, a team that is like Ryan and Dusty who did so well, people might want to target them early when they come back to race again. Definitely. And you know what? If I was them, I would have made you know, some really good relationship almost sort of cement a lot of relationships in this 18 months time off at home. Yeah, that's that I never even thought of that. That's really good. Yeah, well, it's just something that came to mind when we were watching the episode. I thought, you know, even with the flight attendants, they come in here, they do extremely well in both legs.

22:51 I think they came in third in the first leg and something like fourth in the second leg and you can correct me if I'm wrong. You are correct. Very good. Good memory. I didn't even have to look at my notes for that one. so they did really well in both of these legs of the race. And one of their advantages, one of their superpowers coming into this race is the fact that they're flight attendants. They should be good at navigating through airports and knowing their way around. Obviously, they've traveled a lot, so that won't be something that they'll lose even when they come back. But if what is true is true and they do get a private jet, then a lot of the navigating through airports and doing that type of stuff is going to get taken away when they come back. So it might even have a an effect on how they will be performing coming back. Was there any specific racers that really for you stood out in these early episodes where you thought their performance throughout these two legs, they're the racers to look out for?

23:47 Now obviously, Ryan and Dusty is up there as one of the teams that's done extremely well, but was there anybody else outside of those two potentially that for you also look like, "Man, these guys could be Yeah, look. I thought Ryan and Dusty. I also thought Anthony and Spencer, but they didn't do as well on the second leg. but things can happen obviously, and it doesn't matter how strong a team you are if something happens that and fate just puts you down the rankings, you can't you can't help that. obviously, I think Lulu and Lala are all are just a hot mess. I love the hot mess team by the way. I love the hot mess team. If you asked me to go on The Amazing Race, right? The last person I love my brother and my sister. I'm not running the race with my brother and my sister because I get in fights with my brother and my sister. You know, like so I don't know how it would go.

24:37 Like they know you better than anyone else, but I feel like the best and I've always had this theory. Like you know, if people ask me, "What show would you like to do?" cuz I'm a massive Survivor fan. Love Survivor. I would do it definitely if the opportunity came up. But if I had a choice, The Amazing Race would be the show I'd love to do. And I'd love to do it with like one of my best mates who I know is also just an absolute killer, has got strengths in areas that I don't have strengths. But I think doing like a husband-wife duo, so good luck if you do get cast. No, no. I'm not ever going on with my husband. Ever. Ever. And I can't go on with a lot A lot of my friends' idiosyncrasies, I know they wouldn't be good on the race. So this is why I've chosen a partner who is insanely competitive like me. So yeah, I couldn't choose a close friend or sibling.

25:31 It's just It would be fireworks and mess. Just wouldn't be Yeah. It would be It would be interesting. I don't know how the fandom I'm not a I'm not at that super fandom level when it came to the Amazing Race. I don't know how people felt about the blind date edition of the Amazing Race. I thought it was a great experiment of putting two random people together and say, "Hey, you guys have got to work it out and work together." And I'm surprised they've never gone back to doing something like that because it definitely made for some great entertainment that season with some pairs that just couldn't stand each other, but had to do this thing. I know it was a great cast and how they got them all to pair up. And you know, a lot of that cast is actually really close friends to this day because they were just They were just so bizarrely put together that you know what? They've just They've just kept together and yeah, it was definitely an interesting season.

26:26 I don't think they'd do it again because I think it was just an experiment. Even though it went well. It was probably as dramatic for the producers as it were for the people that were actually doing it to try and get people not to quit when they really like some of those couples that were together just Like I remember some of them becoming really close friends and some of them just absolutely hating it and not being able to work together. But I love that season personally. Now, one of the teams that we haven't really spoken about so far is the team of Ryan and Dusty. And obviously, like I said, I mean, they've dominated these first two episodes. They have to be the favorites at this stage if the legs continue like this, they're just going to continue to dominate. They seem to be choosing the right details, which I think is very important in The Amazing Race. They chose the two details that ended up being the fastest ones.

27:16 So, it was the Diggy Bin one and it was the one where they had to throw the they had to do darts. And both of those seemed to be the faster two options, which really gave them a leg up compared to the other teams. Did you feel like this? But when I saw the artist and the Diggy Bin one, and I know the distances in London. Having you go to Big Bin, Little Bin, and Diggy Bin, and I'm thinking, oh God, I'd be totally exhausted. and then the artist one sounded easy until you had to make a puzzle. And I'm like, okay, they're putting on the ground and then transferring it up, and I'm thinking there's so much can go wrong. And obviously, things did go wrong. did you think the Diggy Bin would be faster? Yeah, I think the Diggy Bin ended up being way faster because all three teams that I think it was three or four teams that did the Diggy Bin, they ended up being the first four teams at the end of that.

28:14 And the artist one, I think where a lot of people cuz I looked at that and I thought to myself it is a complicated one because you've got to piece all these puzzles together, which is like a some artistic drawing. You've got to glue it up against a wall, and if you get it wrong, you're you know, up shit's creek without a paddle, to be honest. And that's exactly what happened to the cops, Michael and Mo, because when they got there, they just started sticking things on there before sorting it out, and it was an absolute mess at the end. They didn't even have puzzle pieces left because it was ruined because of the glue having to be put over it. But then they went to Was it Piccadilly? Which train station were they going to? Piccadilly, yeah. And you know the train stations there, some of them are immense. And to try and find one guy playing music in some of them would have been insane.

29:07 I can't there. Yeah, exactly. A lot of buskers. By the way, for anybody listening, if you wonder how Ed Sheeran became famous, playing down at Piccadilly under train stations, and that's how he got seen playing in train stations and things like that. That's not easy to find. So I would wonder if they like had, you know, paid for that space and made sure that there were less people playing or how the logistics of that would have worked for them to find it. But they seem to have found that guy very easily down there. It seemed like the teams just flew through that one. And it seemed like it was after peak hour because train stations at peak hour in London, you wouldn't even be able to see him. It's just insane. Like it gets it gets pretty intense when you're in the middle of peak hours, for sure. I can remember trying to get home sometimes after 5:00 p.m. and you couldn't like you would see four or five different trains just go past with you not being able to get into the underground trains to actually go to where you want to go.

30:04 So definitely I think it was in the middle of the night cuz the first leg was a was an evening leg where the next one obviously was the day leg where they, you know, they said, "Oh, now you can see London in the day." So they had an excuse to be there for a for a second day for the for the second leg as well. but very interesting actually a month before it was actually getting dark about 4:30-ish anyway. So they probably arrived around then anyway. so they wouldn't have gone too late. Yeah. Yeah, no I don't think probably not. And I mean obviously the final pit stop on this one here in this leg is going to be at the museum. I've never actually been to that museum because when I was there, I was way too young to appreciate it and I'm kind of like gutted when I saw the picture of it with the dinosaur fossil and then I'm like, man, I need to when I go back to London, which I'll definitely have that on my list.

30:58 I'd love to go to France in 2023 for the Rugby World Cup, but something I do with my friends. Let's hope that we can travel by 2023 again because I miss traveling. I definitely need to make sure that if I go back to London, I go make a pit stop there myself, you know? Did you enjoy it? Yes, amazing museum. It's the best museum. I love it. I made a point of going there this last time because I've been many years ago and it's just got so much great old stuff in it and I love old stuff. Yeah. one thing I wanted to pick up Hang on, what did Kelly just say? Kelly said, how did the teams not realize that it was a puzzle straight away when they were doing the puzzle because there was a lot of them that went into that. I think there was a few that probably started picking up that I think Penn and Kim were the first two to put them down and start sorting them out and then obviously other races would have seen, "Hey, they're doing something before they're actually just putting it up there." And it was it was quite interesting to see different teams attack this differently.

31:59 It was a straightforward you know, thing to do, but a lot of people seem to get it wrong. I think if you are a survivor fan, you would have known that was a puzzle straight away. If you've if you watch things with puzzles, I mean, it's just given, but yeah. That's what Hera says, "Blind date season gave us team fun." I love team fun. Good team fun. Love team fun. what I wanted to say, you know, when it first started the flight attendants thought people would underestimate them underestimate them as a team and first off when I saw when I saw them as a team, I didn't think they would be underestimated, so I don't know why they think they would be underestimated. as a team of flight attendants, I would be wary of them more than underestimating them.

32:50 So I just thought that was a weird thing for them to say. something else I wanted to talk about was Ryan in jail for 10 years. Crazy. So he is going to be someone to look out for, I think, because if you have been in jail for 10 years and you have lost 10 years of your life, you are going to do everything with as much passion and energy as you possibly can to make up for lost time. Yeah, I mean, when I heard that story, I can't even comprehend. I mean, he was like 18 or 19 when he went to jail. So that means he was like 28, 29 when he got out of it. Can you imagine like losing your 20s? Like I mean, your 20s are supposed to be the time of your life where you're having fun, you're going out to bars, you're going out to go dance, you know, you're living life, you're traveling the world, and that got sort of taken away from him.

33:43 Luckily, you know, obviously he got out of jail and was exonerated from what happened, but such a dramatic experience to go through, and you know, hats off to someone like Dusty who remained friends with him, continued to believe in him. It's easy today when one person, like you mentioned with Akbar, you know, one person says, "Oh, you know, he's a terrible person." Everybody just pounces. That's just the society we live in today. Like we just pounce on this one person. And for someone like Dusty to stand by his friend, like that's true friendship. That's a great friendship that they had for years and years as being kids, doing the same together. They are, without a doubt, the team to look out for, not just based on the performance that they had over these first two legs. definitely because of the friendship that they have, definitely because of the experience that Ryan has gone through as well. they seem really grounded.

34:33 I would be very wary of what this team can do in this season. Mhm. Exactly. Exactly. No, for me, another team that I wanted to talk about, another hot mess team, right? Let's talk about some of the fun ones. So, we spoke about the twins a little bit. Caro, I don't know if I'm saying this right. Caro and Ray, like there was a definite conflict that started happening in the second leg between these two, where Ray was down there with Penn. They were trying to sort through the mail. They were trying to get the clue. He and Penn overthink they overthought about like what was going on. I probably I looked at that and I thought to myself, I could see myself making a similar mistake, cuz I do sometimes think to myself, it can't be that easy. I'll figure something out and I'm like, nah, this there's got to be an extra trick to this thing here. However We made it more Yeah. However, I would have taken it, gone back to where you had to go, and open it and see, and then come back.

35:26 I wouldn't have kept searching. I would have just taken it, run with it. Not stayed there. What? I don't understand. Absolute insanity when you've got another team Anthony telling you this is the right thing, and they're like, nah, he's dodgy. The way you said it is dodgy. We can't trust him. You know, just super paranoid. and it ended up being that they lost so much time, and Caro, rightfully, was a little bit annoyed by the fact that it took long. Like, let her have her moment, right? Like you said, we're doing a race here. It's a million dollars, but he was really upset with her because of that, and you could see it. Even when they were doing the cake challenge, and they were going in there to do the cakes, and they got the cakes, and she was so happy, and she wanted to give him a hug and celebrate, and he was just like, nah, his body language was like, nah, I'm not engaging. And she was like, oh, really?

36:16 You know, that type of thing. So, I agree with one of our Kelly here in the chat saying that she predicts that they might not be together anymore. They might be the team that potentially does not even come back because there was such a big gap. They've only been together for 7 months up until this point. And long distance as well. And long distance. Yeah, like I mean, so many red flags, right? Mhm. Yeah, I really think they're one of the teams that don't come back. yeah, I have no idea who the other one would be. Yeah, I mean be sad. It would be sad. Like I mean, we obviously want to see as many of the racers come back as possible and compete. And obviously, none of us know exactly what's happening. I've heard rumors that one of the teams might not come back. And I would not be surprised if they do end up being that team, but definitely a bit of a hot mess team.

37:10 I don't think they're winning this season. They don't have the Cody and Jessica magic coming into the season, meeting on a reality TV show. I mean, there was a different connection between those two that just worked so well in that season for them to be able to come in and dominate on that show as well. Another one of these groups, while we're going through them, that I really enjoyed this episode and I can relate to them very much as Arun and Natalia. Love the dad-daughter duos on the on The Amazing Race. And also, you know, Arun being a first generation immigrant, I'm an immigrant to New Zealand, you know, from South Africa originally. I've lived in a few different places in the world. I can understand the struggle of having to restart in a different country, working your way up. And I can really relate to them based on that. And they do look like they just have such a great father-daughter connection between the two of them, where they're not afraid to give each other a bit of stick on the race, either.

38:06 I know, I agree. And I love that. I love parent-child duos on the race, no matter if it's mother-son or mother-daughter sometimes gets a bit argumentative. But if it's, you know, opposite sex, father and daughter or mother and son, I love those. I just love the way they interact. Yeah, and it was it was fun to see them working together throughout the whole race, you know, Arun going to the detour and I think it was the flight attendants that came up to them ask I can't remember who the team was who came up to them and said, "Which one are you doing?" And they were going to do the other one and he's like, "I hope you don't get it." When she walked off, you know, I loved that little bit of attitude. Obviously, he hopes that cuz he wants to make sure that he gets there before them, but this second leg again, we've got two different options here where they end up going for the one where they've got to do the throwing of the darts and the other one was doing the cakes.

39:05 If you were in the race situation, we're going into this thing to give away in a team, what do you tell me? Like, Chris, I want to do this one. My opinion Which one, Kay? I would've been darts. I would've been like, let's do the darts. You know why? Dart I like darts. I mean, I grew up in pubs, so I have played darts. however, if you are shaking and you want to do something quick and fast, you're not always going to be on target like you would if you were just literally having a beer in a pub. Oh, let's just shoot one. You know, you're going to be stressed. And I think I'd find the cakes a lot easier. But God, we've been the opposite so far. Yeah, I like I mean, listen, I could do the cakes. I just think that it wouldn't come natural to me. And if I was with a partner that felt very uncomfortable in doing the darts cuz they just don't have the aim, then let's not even try it because you only have three attempts each to both get a bull's-eye and it resets if both don't get it in three attempts.

40:07 That makes it a lot more difficult. And I was very impressed by the teams that got through that as quickly as they did. So, from memory, it was Ryan and Dusty, Connie and Sam, and I believe Arun and Natalia got through that. And they were again, because they managed to do it, they were teams one, two, and three for that week. So, they seemed to do the quicker one of the two. So, it shows you that doing the cakes must have taken a lot of time. And it obviously didn't help that half of the cast didn't know who was in the European Union. Exactly. It doesn't help that you're putting Great Britain in there and you're putting Norway in there because a lot of them had to start over. So, and then, you know what? Because there weren't a partitioned areas for them, the ones who got it wrong came back down, people saw what they got wrong, and then people were just amending it. Or actually, if they came in late, they were just doing the two correct ones.

41:00 So, in that respect, I think they should have had partitioned areas. because some people did benefit from others misfortune. I wish they showed us as the viewers more of the choices that were out there for the cakes cuz we only saw like a select few. I was like, I would understand why they struggled so much to get two countries. Like, was there only a few legitimate choices there? Like, I would have liked to have seen all of the choices that were available cuz they were example cakes that they there? I saw the South African flag. I was like, South Africa is definitely not a part of the European Union, but I would have laughed if anybody thought that it was, you know. at least they didn't get that wrong. I think a lot of a lot of people don't know a lot of flags. it's not something that people learn.

41:51 It's just something that you need to know, really. Yeah, I mean, I recognize quite a few of them, but they were sweeping across them so fast, I'd have to pause and go back and have a good look. Mark is saying that Jamaica was in there as well. I didn't even notice Jamaica. And a lot of people went for the French and German cake. So, that's another reason why I wanted to know like is there Spain not there Portugal like is there no other options like was there only like a few different but like you said maybe those are the ones that people would know people would know the French flag they would know the German flag because it's big and popular flags to know. And it's funny the Norway one was due to Anthony having a Norway jacket and he's like well I got the jacket that's enough logic for me to put Norway down as the as a country that's in the EU which to me was hilarious to see.

42:43 Yeah, I know. Funny. Just do something because oh I know that flag let's just put it in anyway. But yeah. Yeah. It was very strange. But I love how the guy who was judging them actually only made only made one team go back. the what is it what are their names? Hold sorry which one? Holden and his wife Pyn Holden and Pyn Yes. No, what are their surnames? I can't remember. I can't remember their surnames. I think it's like Holderness something like that. yeah because they had drips going down the side. So I thought well that was good. He didn't let everyone through. Mind you And it was funny flowers falling off the side that he went okay. And it was it was funny cuz Pyn was being pedantic about finding the right clue reading the letters on the you know all the different mail that was coming in or maybe we need to know how many misses there is or how many letters start with an A and then you get to the cake he's like don't worry about it like it's complete opposite.

43:47 So it's either he learned from the one challenge to the next challenge or Yeah. his mind is really all over the place like he says you know he does have ADHD and that can sometimes bother him but he can also get very focused or stuck on something. So it could also be because of that he probably over thought the specific one that you know he had to go and do which I was quite you know, I was sad that we didn't see two different roadblocks in these first two tiers cuz roadblock personally for me is the my favorite challenge because it challenges these teams to individually do well as well. Like you can't hide like both people have to be competent for you to get through this race until the end. And I hope that you know, obviously the first for whatever reason in the design in that first leg we didn't have it, but we did get it in the second leg. So obviously we'll have it moving forward. There was something missing.

44:38 We have a lot of we have a lot of marks on the group in the Amazing Race fans group. the I think it's Mark Carroll who said it. There was another task which they didn't show. and it was before the pit stop and it was they had to run up this huge thing in London. It wasn't a building that I know. It was just this really bizarre structure and that was another thing that they had to do. Now, I'm not sure if that was a roadblock or a detour. but that's something that was left out and sometimes they leave these things out because it doesn't change the order of the teams. but sometimes it's fun to see something like that, but they just don't have the time. Yeah, that's fair enough. I mean, they've got to make a show that's going to be appealing, but they had like 2 hours or like an hour and a half for this one I guess, but it was two episodes in one.

45:29 So they still had to get through two legs. So logistically probably it was something that they found a little bit difficult to balance. so we ended up losing the cops here. how did you feel about losing the cops in these two episodes? Like did you like them coming in? Like I know Chris Dickson who's in the chat has spoken to me a few times offline saying it was one of the teams that he was really rooting for this season cuz he did his preseason looking into the cast members. I've got to say they were super likable from what I could tell. They're very likable and Yeah. it was a toss-up for me. I thought actually Lulu and Lala were going because that one of the interviews they did right at the end, they said, "No, I thought they weren't going because they said, 'Oh, we won't do that next time.' Meaning bickering and having a fight.

46:21 And I'm thinking, "Oh, well, if they're not doing that next time and they've done this interview after they've checked in, then that they're going ahead." So, I sort of had this idea that they were going to go and then they weren't going to go because of the interview and I thought, "Oh, the cops are going." But, they're all such likable teams that I think it would have been sad for anyone to go. I mean, it's always sad the first episode for people to go. unless it was season 27, which I really enjoyed that team going first. Yeah. otherwise, you know, it's always sad. They're such nice guys. Yeah, 100%. I was I was sad to see them go. I mean, obviously it came down to one mistake made on that specific artist, you know, putting the posters up, getting it ripped. I felt so bad because we all know that anyone can make a mistake on any day and we could have been robbed from a seeing a great team do this race.

47:14 There was one couple or group and I don't know if you remember this or not that said that they didn't have much experience traveling. It was something that was actually on the show. Do you remember who that group was or the duo was that said that cuz that would be a duo that I would be interested and sort of seeing how they progress throughout cuz it's tough to do these things if you haven't traveled a lot. it was someone who hadn't traveled. it was the Let me get their name right. That's right. If you can't get it, then we'll do the live chat will definitely remember. Got a list of notes. When it's the first episode, I'm like, "Oh, this is getting I'm hoping Logan doesn't watch this part because this will be points down for not knowing all the names. That's okay. I thought I was going to be the one forgetting the names. husband and his wife, they said they hadn't traveled.

48:07 I'm pretty sure they traveled much. They hadn't been out of America. It's Akbar and Sherri, right? Is it Is it those two or is it Kim and Penn? Yeah, so Akbar and Sherri, they I think that reminds me they're probably the ones that haven't traveled a lot, which makes sense cuz you'd imagine Kim and Penn would be well-traveled. They just look like a couple that have been around. they're an interesting duo. We haven't spoken much about them. There was one moment this episode to me that was very controversial that I did not like seeing on the camera. And I Listen, if Penn's listening to this, I'm not calling people out. I'm not saying he's a bad person because of this. Everybody's different, but I found it to be strange him kissing the queen. Like I was like you can't like just because it's an old lady, you can't just kiss someone. Like you know what I mean on the show. Like these personal boundaries. Like if someone came up to you did one of these You did one of these roadblocks, and you're sitting there and this guy just comes up to you and gives you a kiss.

49:02 Like I mean, to me that was just a little bit strange, but I do know that they want to make good TV. You can see that they're playing it up for the cameras. Oh my gosh, it's so much. so much. The way they look at the camera and their expressions. They have it down. They know what they're saying. They know what they're doing at any given point. and one thing that she said which really made me angry, she said, "We are the middle-aged mom and dad who should be in carpool right now." No. No, you shouldn't be in carpool right now because you have a life. You are a person. You That is part of you. Yeah, you might have to pick up your kids, but you shouldn't have to be doing that. I It rubs me up.

49:52 Stereotypes. Stereotypes. about me, but women who decide they have to be something because of how they wants them to be have to seen it makes me so angry because you can be whoever you want to be. You have certain jobs to do, but you should never have to be that person who has to do that thing at that time. You have responsibilities, but you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do in this world. You shouldn't be pigeonholed. And I'm hoping she doesn't make any more statements like that because that really I have in caps riled me up. I wrote down the whole quote. I don't I don't want to hate on anybody this season too much, but I get the annoyance with that. I get that also they come from a different generation where people felt differently maybe about things, but I agree with you.

50:45 No one should be told or pigeonholed into doing that. I see it too much. That's probably for a whole different podcast. Like we could talk for an hour about the stereotypes that are out there that are being put on a lot of different people just like you said based on the fact that she's a woman, she's got kids doesn't mean that she has to do this. And you know, if she wants to be a stay-at-home mom, that's okay as well. If she doesn't like what do you want? Do what you want to do as an individual. Don't let the hive mind decide for you what you should be in life basically. That's my rant when it comes to that. So I hear you on that. Chris Nixon here in the live says how funny was it on a lighter note when Penn fell over in the episode and they were going on about the fact that being older on the race can be a little bit of a disadvantage and they really made him look as old as possible when that was happening as well. And everything went everywhere. She's going, "You okay?" I probably wouldn't have said, "Are you okay?" I would have yelled, "Get up!

51:37 Keep running!" Move your ass. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was it was it was definitely a funny moment. My spidey senses cuz I've watched too many reality TV shows in my life, you know, it's a I wear it like a badge of honor. and I can now predict sometimes by just seeing how a show's edited, when certain things get said, like there's always foreshadowing that happens, like they do these things for a reason. I found it very interesting that Phil said to them, "You should do this for the older people, like you can't have the young people win all the time." And I was like, "Are they the winning team? Are we getting spoiled? Who's going to bloody win this season already?" He wouldn't know that right on the first leg, but I was like, "Yes, Phil. Yes, this is what we want. This is what we want.

52:28 We don't want the young teams winning all the time." I'm like, "I love it. Where did that come out of? It just came out of left field." Yeah, 100% It was it was interesting. Like obviously he wouldn't have known it at the time, but they'll know what to show and what not to show. Like for instance, it was quite interesting to me that when a bunch of the teams came together to the not so much a pit stop in the bus, which I found strange in the beginning. I was like, "What the hell is this? Are we going to have a pit stop in a bus? Like what are we doing?" Like I don't in the bus like on Harry Potter. Like we've had some we've had some weird pit stops in the past, like I know like on boats and stuff, but it normally it just works better. Like I mean, there's no space in the bus, like it looks cramped in and I was wondering is like does Phil not want to stand outside cuz it's raining? And he'd rather be driving inside of the bus.

53:18 Cameramen that cuz that's quite narrow up there. They've got to have the cameraman, the sound guy, who else was there? And then the tea pourer is at the back of the bus, who by the way did not look real because her skin was just alabaster. And I said to my daughter at one point, "Is she Is that a mannequin?" And then she moved and I'm like, "Oh my god, no, it's a real person." Yeah, that was it was interesting. Well, I was going to I was going to say what I found interesting is that they showed most of the teams getting there together, but there was a bunch of them that were sort of clustered together. They were all sitting with Phil separately. He gave them the tea, sent them obviously on their way. We didn't see that cuz they left that out until the last team got there. The one team we did not see anything from talking to him was Caro and Ray, and they had that big argument. They weren't getting along. So, I was wondering if Phil maybe they said something that wasn't good.

54:10 They're like, "Ah, we're just going to leave this out of the We'll leave it on the cutting floor. We don't want it to be there." But because I've watched so many of these seasons, like I pick up on these little things. Like what's being shown, what's not being shown, and I found that quite interesting. They probably weren't cooperative enough to actually have anything that was worth to show showing, you know? If they were still in a mood and he was still being quiet, they probably didn't have, you know, anything good. Yeah, for sure. How did you feel about the fact that we've got a you know, one of these cuz for me personally, I'm a big fan of having I'm not a big fan of having the non-elimination legs personally. I know we've had some like I mean I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I'm a massive BJ and Tyler fan, and they definitely, if I remember correctly, benefited quite a bit from their season doing it. And my Amazing Race knowledge is definitely not up to scratch cuz I haven't seen that season in a very long time.

55:03 But I normally like the episodes where you get to a point and he's like, "Psych, it's not the end. You got to keep running." I like those ones. But it dropped quite early here this season. Are you happy about the fact that we got to see this so early? And in hindsight, do you think that they moved it up earlier because there was uncertainty on what would happen with the race and how many teams would potentially still be in the race? Do you think they thought that far ahead because obviously they would have had some ideas to what was going on around this time thinking, "Well, things might change. We need to stay up to date with what's going on with this virus that's out there in the world." You know what? I don't know what they were thinking, obviously, but normally the non-elimination legs are put into the race and they are set before they go off on their first leg. So, they know when every non-elimination leg is.

55:56 However, it could be argued this isn't a non-elimination leg. He didn't call it that. And with my old podcasting team, we've had many an argument over a keep racing leg not being a non-elimination leg or if it is. I know that Bertram at the time they did have the whole race scoped out as they always do, but he was ringing around. I've read a couple of interviews. He was ringing around to try and he can get into any country he wants, most of them. I know Cuba he can't, but a few things he countries he can't. But, he was trying to get out of the Asian countries. There were some Asian countries on the on the legs ahead, and he was trying to figure out how to get them out and put another country in. so, maybe this was put in at the last minute.

56:50 It could be. and you know what? They shut down the whole thing next episode anyway. Mhm. Cuz I could they found out it was just wasn't viable. It wasn't safe. Mhm. That's interesting. I'm very interested to know if they're going to have another non-elimination because of just the unprecedented circumstances. Cuz they might think in their heads like, "Listen, it's going to be difficult enough to make sure that we get all these teams together." There's a big reason why The Amazing Race have not done They have done a few All-Stars seasons. They don't do returnee seasons as often as some other reality TV shows out there because couples who used to be together, they're no longer together. people who used to be able to they cycle or whatever they were doing in life had just matched and they could do it together. They can't do the show again on a different season.

57:40 It's really logistically difficult to get people together and keep them together to do something like this race. there's a high likelihood I think next episode we see a non another non-elimination. Like, you know, someone gets saved and they say, "Listen, we're just not going to we're going to keep everybody intact. This is unprecedented. We can come back and do the race at a later time." Do you think that's a possibility? I think it's a possibility. I know only seven teams come back, though. So, if one does go out next episode, then that means two don't come back. Seven two are out, two don't come back, seven come back. So. Well, so this there's 10 teams in the race now, so that would mean three teams don't come back. So. Oh, yeah, there's 10 now. There were 11. Yes, correct. Yeah. So, if there's 10 teams now and six comes back, then that means like there's So, let's say they go do go down to nine and sorry, and seven you said came back, then there's two times team teams that won't come back.

58:37 And I think a lot of it would have to do with the fact that when they come back, there would be conversation about, you know, between people like, "Do we want to risk being away doing this thing with what's going on in the world? Do we want to travel?" And I could fully understand why some people might say, well, it could be more than one reason like we said, some people might not even be together anymore, but they might just say it's not worth the risk of traveling with this thing not being fully resolved out there in the world yet. So, I can very easily see that and obviously the race is going to be very different, which we'll talk about on those episodes. there's going to be certain things like we saw with Phil on the beach in the beginning there, no one on the beach. It was It was a bit eerie seeing that. So, I'm going to be interested to see how they're going to balance it and make the show still really engaging for us as fans cuz we're kind of used to having that backdrop of people moving around. Like there was this one scene, I think it might have been in Trafalgar Square or somewhere in one of the squares where Phil was talking or walking to the camera and there's one lady walk past him in the back and turn around and she just looks straight at him in the camera and did not look away.

59:34 And it was one of the most random funny things that I saw on it and she's like, "I'm on TV. What's happening?" You know, and we want to see stuff like that, you know? No. No. and I know Phil said he didn't want to just add in a lot of non-elimination legs to make up for the fact that only seven are returning. So, will they have the same amount of episodes this season? I don't know. I don't know how they figured it out, but at least they figured it out and they've done it. So, at least there's a chance to watch and they didn't They actually recorded it before Delta really took off at the end of last year. So, I think they would have felt safe because it was in that safe period. You know, they started to think about doing it September-ish.

1:00:25 And they were in that sort of we were in that honeymoon phase of COVID where everyone was feeling okay, we can get back to normal. So, I think a lot of the people would have thought, "Yes, okay." Yeah, Marcus is saying Me applying this year, you know, before it was before Omicron came out and even now, you know, I get my booster on Monday. I'm like, "Yeah, cast me. Let me at it. I don't care. Put me on." I just want to get I just want to get out. Like, listen, I hear you on that. Like, we in New Zealand, we've been in lock lockdown for so long. I just want to spread my legs. I want to be able to travel again. I love traveling so much. So, I hear you on it. Like, if it was up to me, I'd just take the risk, you know, bite the bullet, go out there and have the trip of your lifetime. and just do this thing, you know? Marcus here in the live stream says that Phil said in the preseason interview with Ahab that when they left there were nine people and seven of them returned.

1:01:21 So, that answers our question. There would be a team that is going to be eliminated next week. Now, Michelle, if you were a betting person, and I don't know if you if you are a betting person or not, I do bet on the Melbourne Cup once a year. Oh, there we go. So, you know, if you were you know, if this was the Melbourne Cup for you, if it was that level of excitement, which I believe it might be close because, you know, it is The Amazing Race, and I know how close that is to your heart. who I do buy merchandise. There we go. That is next level. That is I love it. I love the representation. Oh, there's more than that for next level. I don't tell people all the next level cuz they think I'm insane. Do you have some What Do you have like memorabilia? Have you bought memorabilia from any of the seasons? No, but I do I do talk to quite a few of the racers. and I don't I have this persona that goes out there, and I don't know what I don't know what it is, but all of a sudden a random racer or survivor will friend request me on Facebook, and I'm like, "What the hell?

1:02:25 I'm just a person. I'm nobody." And they'll friend request me. So, yeah, I just I have this thing, and I've got I've got stuff. I've got a buff, and I've got I've got a throw rug. I've got a bag. Oh, and Phil, many years ago, made luggage. Now, it was in it was in the USA, and I needed this luggage because it's Phil's luggage. And because he's such a traveler, he had all these nifty things in the luggage, like a pocket for wet Like, if you've gone swimming on your last day before you get on the plane, there's a pocket for your swimmers to go into. He had all this nifty stuff. Now, I couldn't afford to get the suitcases sent over. So, I got the weekend bags. So, I've got three weekend bags here. My husband's like, "What the hell have you ordered?" And I just ordered them. So, I've got all this random stuff.

1:03:17 And CBS doesn't mail out stuff all the time because they don't always mail to Australia. So, sometimes I have to go through an American company and there was one of these times that they weren't mailing stuff out and they had they were selling the bum bags. if any Americans watch this, they're called fanny packs. they were selling the bum bags and I really wanted one and they weren't sending and then next minute they went they didn't sell them anymore. They went off the stock list and I'm I was I'm devastated that I don't have a bum bag. Oh, no. Wait I really want one. So you said that there's quite a few racers that have, you know, sort of befriended you over the years. Obviously, being an admin on The Amazing Race fan page does help with that being out there. Like Chris said, you're known as the blonde admin on The Amazing Race fan page.

1:04:09 Who would be your ultimate Amazing Race partner? Like if you had to pitch, you know, we've got Sandra Diaz-Twine coming over to Australian Survivor as someone of, you know, a US invasion of Australian Survivor. What's your pitch to the producers here in Australia? Like you're like, "Hey, cast me with this person who's a legend from The Amazing Race and I'll get them on from the US." Who would that person be? Yeah. Justin Green team. Justin Green team. And he knows it. He knows that he's the one He is like gung-ho. he knows it. He's a he's a super fan. You need a you need a super fan racer. yeah. Yeah. And if you had one person from this season, based off the first two episodes that we've seen, who would be the person you'd want to be a partner of yours?

1:05:01 I'll go first cuz I'm putting you on the spot here. And I might get it wrong. I might get it wrong here. I feel like I'm going to get it wrong because they're twins. But I'll go for the twin that was doing the tough love to the other twin cuz I feel like I would need someone on the race to kick my ass at times cuz I'll be like you know like you know like Tony Vlachos in Amazing Race I'm sorry in Survivor Winners at War where he was like doing something else and Sandra was keeping him on track. I would need tough love on the race. It's like Chris focus. This is what we doing it next. So I'll go with whichever one of those twins was the tough love one. I'll go with her. I'm looking at my list. I'm looking at my list. Who do I want? Who do I want? okay, I either want Ryan. Yep. Just for who he is because he would be up there or either Anthony or Spencer.

1:05:57 One of those. Yeah. I think it's all it's all sort of picks but you know obviously myself and Lulu or Lala we'd still win, you know, because she would just she would just motivate me to run that much harder in the race. So you know but yeah I think you guys could probably get second if we if we had these partners and we had to run. listen is there anything of this episode of The Amazing Race that we didn't get into? Anything that stood out for you that you wanted to talk about? everyone there in the chat is there anything that you guys felt like we didn't address or get into? Let us know now towards the end of this podcast here and if we didn't get to it we'll definitely make sure that we'll ask some more questions or bring some of the questions in. I did see a few people here on the chat saying that we should do this on the Facebook group live as well. I really want to try and grow the No Diff channel on YouTube.

1:06:48 So please if you're listening to this live subscribe. Make sure that you let us know that you like this type of content so I can persuade Michelle to come back. Like you can see we've only got 58. Like I need to at least get a thousand subscribers to get Michelle to do this again for next season. So you'll help me out tremendously but maybe we'll drop this episode if we can figure out how to drop it late on the Facebook group, we'll drop it on there for people if they want to see it. They can have a look at it as well and see if they would like to follow this content and hopefully they'll join us on the Nullified Take channel as we start recapping more and more of these types of shows. Michelle, I've given you a bit of time to think about it. Is there anything else that we have not touched on for this episode that you wanted to talk about? No, all the notes that I wrote we actually talked about. So, yeah, it's good. Chris Dickson says, "Can we talk about Michelle's don't switch on detours role?" Nobody switched on the detours this episode.

1:07:40 So, they must have listened to your podcast. There was a There was a chance. I think the dad said to the daughter at one point, "Should we switch?" And she said, "No." And I'm like, "No!" yeah, my rule is never switch. Never switch on a detour. Yeah, I feel like unless you're just that horrible at it and you're like, man, but then you've got to make that decision very early on. Like, don't spend hour or 2 hours and then switch cuz I feel like that very rarely works out really well for races in any case. also here Brown Sugar Brown Superhero says that, "How do you like the new production graphics?" as well. I didn't actually notice it so much to be honest with you. Michelle, did you notice the change in graphics? thought they were quite similar. If there was anything different, it must have been very minor.

1:08:31 It's looks similar to last season. How is it different, Brown Superhero? Yeah, I did I didn't notice the difference so much, but it but it's also been such a long time since the previous season that I can't even remember exactly. Like, I haven't watched that season again. I can't remember from one to the other how much different it is, but I definitely did notice that we didn't see Did you see any hashtags? There was no like #20 #anything like that's completely gone and that's something that we've got we've gotten used to because it gives us like team fun or team this like we get to know the teams and it helps definitely with podcast cuz you can say hey team fun if you remember or forget the names like the 20s is 20s for me, you know. Yeah, exactly. I mean I know that when Kai and I applied for this season we gave ourselves a hashtag and we had it written on the back of our t-shirts because it's been such a big thing to have a hashtag.

1:09:26 Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyways, I don't think there's any other life questions here. Guys, if you do get to this point of the podcast, we thank you for listening to this. We had a lot of fun doing this. Michelle sadly is not going to be here for episode two and three, I believe, for the recaps. she's got some other things to do, but she will be back from episode four. I will have a great or potentially even two great co-hosts on different two episodes here as we do episode two and three, which I do know you guys will enjoy hearing their insights as well. so definitely stick around for that. so Michelle, we're kind of doing What was that twist that they had the one season where the partners had to like mix up it was in Jessica and Cody's season where they had to like split up and work with other partners? I know. It was a nightmare. It was just a nightmare. I can't remember it's I remember them being in sand and dust and switching partners and it just didn't work.

1:10:21 It was just really annoying. not want to Cody was like I don't want to work with this person. I just want to be with Jessica. Like I just got out of the Big Brother house. I don't trust anybody. I just want to be with Jessica. Kind of like he had that mindset. I thought it was an interesting twist. What would have made it really shocking is if they said and I think Cody would have quit that season. You're now locked into these partners for at least two legs. So if you get lost, you're eliminated and if your previous partner is eliminated, you're now locked in with this person for the rest of the season. That would have been such a hot mess twist. So not fair, especially if you're put with someone who's incompetent. And then you've got to try and do stuff with them. Yeah, I'm not endorsing it, but I'm not endorsing it. But I'm just saying it would have been it would have been an interesting concept, you know. One thing we have to give The Amazing Race is that they do stick true to a tested formula.

1:11:12 They don't mess around with it as much as some other shows have done in the past. Like they do stick to what they've got. Like they've tried little things here and there, but it doesn't change the fundamentals of the game too much. Yeah, and Phil has said that recently that yeah, it's fun to change things up like the other reality shows do, but he likes and the production team likes to keep it pretty pure, just add in a few things here and there, but keep the basic premise going. Yeah. So, Brown Superhero here says new graphics are streamlined. You need to watch it again. Bertram spent the CBS money for updated graphics. I'll have to have another look at that. Yeah, we'll definitely have a look at that. I didn't I didn't notice that either. But once again, this was a lot of fun to do with you, Michelle. This is the first time that we've recapped The Amazing Race together. I hope you had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun talking to you about this first episode of The Amazing Race and I look forward I'm very sad that I'm going to lose you here for two episode recaps, but I look forward to having you back on from episode four moving forward.

1:12:14 I know most people here probably know who you are. They know where they can follow you. but is there anything else you want to plug while you've got the opportunity? Anything people should be aware of that you're working on at the moment? no, I'm not working on anything no nothing. I don't have any other podcasts or anything coming out at the moment at all. Archangel, thank you so much for joining in on the live stream and everybody else that joined in the live stream as well. It was a lot of fun having you guys here. I hope you do join us next week at the same time as we do our episode recap of episode two. and I will let Michelle go so she can get back to her life over there. Probably Well, you don't have to mark anything at the moment. It's great being a teacher at this time of the year. Well, it's holidays. I'm not doing anything. I'm just playing on internet, you know? Hey, that can be a lot of fun as well.

1:13:06 You know what? I'll probably go and write down the new Survivor cast for Australia, so I'll get into that next. Yeah, 100%. Well, it's been fun having you guys here. Look out if you are a fan of The Challenge, we will be doing a recap of The Challenge All Stars on the Nullified Take channel. It will be done in a partnership with the Angel Cake Entertainment channel on YouTube and also Reality Realness, who's also doing recaps on The Amazing Race. It is in my recommended channels for other awesome YouTube channels on my page, so have a look at them as well if you want some more content on The Amazing Race as well. I think that's a few points as well for us there at the end of this. And we'll see next week how we did. Like, I kind of feel nervous. I don't know where we're going to end up. Hopefully, we're not last. Yeah, hopefully. Bye. And on that note, see you.