The Amazing Race 35: Episode 8 Review

0:01 Welcome back to the nullified take Channel on YouTube where I've got the TNT takes for you on The Amazing Race 35 episode 8 I know it's dropping really late and for those that follow the channel that are big fans of The Amazing Race I want to apologize I had Co a couple of weeks ago so that prevented me from coming on and doing the podcast that week with Michelle and then due to personal reasons this weekend I couldn't make it either and myself and Michelle couldn't find a time that would work for both of us to jump on and record so due to that for the next two episodes it's going to be a little bit different in the format I'm just going to do a one-on-one shorter form podcast with yourself for both episodes to catch up and make sure that we're covering it here on the channel and I do hope you enjoy it I haven't done many short form podcasts here on the channel for a long time now because I've got so many great hosts that have come on board that do the shows with me and even a couple of shows now that I'm not even involved in anymore that we normally don't need to do this but due to the constraints around both our schedules and the fact that I want to catch up and still do it I am doing it in this format moving forward so let's get into episode eight I finally watched it's more than a week late now and I have avoided all spoilers so I had no idea coming into this episode what actually happened and

1:21 To be honest I've got to say it probably was one of my favorite episodes up until this point beautiful country Slovenia the first time ever that The Amazing Race has gone to Slovenia which was a shock to me because I'm not a an amazing race historian like this tastan Logan who's been on the podcast before I don't remember a lot of the previous Seasons every single League that they went to so I was a little bit surprised that they haven't actually gone there before but what a beautiful country I'm sure everybody agreed when they watched that episode last week that it was an amazing country for them to go and visit driving on the road green fields on both sides and these great mountain ranges looked absolutely stunning it did remind me of New Zealand where I lived for over 15 years very similar and even in South Africa you wouldn't believe it there are some places in the Western Cape where I grew up that very much looks like it could be in Europe and it almost had that feel so it kind of was a bit nostalgic for me to see that because where I live currently in Melbourne and Australia we don't have those mountain ranges really unless you drive quite far out of the city so beautiful stunning location that they went to also on this one here what a start to the episode they do so much work a lot of the teams here they go to the travel agent

2:41 Get a B time locked in so instead of 7:30 p.m. you have the likes of Greg and John getting a 4M flight which should effectively give them a what's it five six yeah 3 and a half hour basically Head Start and you get tot and Ash Ashley and jel and Garrett somehow also on the same flight if I remember correctly no sorry Todd and Ashley and Rob and Cory also get on the same flight they managed to get on that flight and get there very early on by going on standby and then when they get there when they go into Austria they find a quicker way with trains where they have to jump on multiple trains to get into Slovenia faster than anybody else and this whole plan all this hard work kind of backfires on them because one of the connecting trains ends up being late and that is the story of traveling my friends like if you go out there and travel if you're a traveler yourself if you've got a f minute layover like they had it was a risk to begin with especially with trains they can be late all the time and they had to make a calculated decision to go back but the amazing Rays producers must have loved this because it gave them a lot of content early on in the episode to focus on so they can fill these longer episodes I've said

4:01 A few times that for me in some of the episodes for The Amazing Race it hasn't necessarily translated into better TV where we just see all of the roadblocks or the detours being longer and the same thing like I didn't feel like I was being stimulated by all these different things happening but there was so much going on in this episode that the hour just flew by when I was watching it because so much action was going there I was thinking to myself there's just no way that a scripted could have been able to put this together like only reality TV can deliver in such a way because as all of these teams get back together they're obviously shocked because the second half getting there they thought they were that far behind that there was no chance for them to catch up and they're all on the same train going into Slovenia which is amazing for that to happen by the way love trains them being on an overnight train obviously didn't have beds from what I could see so they must have been sleeping on those chair probably wouldn't have been or seats I should say probably wouldn't have been the most comfortable I assume train ride going in there and obviously being an overnight train you don't see a lot of the sort of scenery which they missed out on but they would obviously more for make more than make up for this when they actually get to Slovenia so obviously there they catch

5:21 Up with all the teams they go into the Congress square and everybody for the first time in a long time are caught up together they're all in first place they run out have to get their cars and immediately you get a little bit of a snippet here that this is going to be a tough leg for Morgan and Lena because Lena ends up struggling with stick shift and this is one of those things that it's happened for years and years on The Amazing Race I think they on purpose get people who are not used to driving stick shift and I know that you know I've gotten comfortable over the years living in Australia and previously in New Zealand when it comes to driving automatics but in South Africa stick shift is the most common vehicles that you get like you almost don't get automatic Vehicles so I learned how to drive on a stick shift and it's kind of like riding a bike it's easier to go from driving a stick shift to a manual than what it is or an automatic I should say than what it is from an automatic to go back to a stick shift like if you started on automatic I hope that made sense it made sense in my head but you could see that they were going to struggle and they showed us that plus they also showed us all of this emotional content from back home they talked about their cousin I believe it was that grew up with them and the medical episode that she went through which means that she can't do a lot of the things that she used to do they got quite emotional about it and one of the reasons one of the motivations for them to

6:41 Go out there and do this race was so that they could watch it with the cousin because she could still watch TV it's one of the few things she can still enjoy which kind of makes you just want to you know get more behind them but in The Amazing Race it kind of felt like this was the kiss of death because why are we suddenly seeing this back story this content which would make me now worried about anybody else that we haven't seen some backstory about if they were to get it suddenly they're probably next to go but for the majority of this episode there was one team that was struggling and I know that I had some people on the channel when I did my recap and live review of The Challenge last week come on to that live that I did with Kahuna and they said Chris you need to do the Amazing Race when are you going to do the Amazing Race we need to hear you talk about the Amazing Race and I know why they wanted to do it they were trying to set me up you know who you are Nikki you know who you are Chris but I love the fact that you both wanted to hear my reaction on Anna on Annalie and how she did almost said Ashley always get this confused but anyways I know that you wanted me to talk about it because I've been backing anal the whole time saying she's just competitive she's got that fighting Spirit

8:01 She's a strong woman she's fighting and I know I've annoyed you and I did it on purpose a few times here on the channel but she had a bad episode like really bad from the point where they were trying to get to this first I guess checkpoint and they got lost and very quickly shed a meltdown about being last they're going to lose they're not going to get it and she was a bit of a Debbie Downer like this whole episode it's hard to look at that and say oh okay I can defend her mindset because I'm all about positivity but I also can put myself in the shoes of someone that is going through the kind of stress that I don't think we as viewers really appreciate like it's going to make you do things and say things that you normally wouldn't do in your day-to-day life and her being very negative with her dad obviously almost quitting it was very hard to watch and I'm sure for her looking back at this it would have been hard to watch like it wouldn't be something she's proud of and I kind of felt bad that this moment that she went through that it got caught on camera and it was on International Global TV where everybody can see her having one of her low moments because if you look yourself in the mirror

9:22 And you say you've never had those moments in life like it's never happened I just don't believe you like if everybody has their ups and their downs but normally it doesn't get recorded or shown on TV and she had that moment was it good no I can admit to that but like I said everybody can go through it and there was this part of me that was thinking when this episode was playing I'm like Yep they're going home but when they finally got to the roadblock and you saw Morgan still sitting down there and her talking you know to anal and saying it's not over until it's over you've got to keep fighting and I was like how strange would it be and ironic would it be if they were the ones to kick them out because it showed Humanity actually in that moment they were competitors but she still didn't want analy to go down this negative spiral and there's been a lot of camaraderie from these different Amazing Race teams you even see it later on with Jill and Garrett when they get to the housekeeping I guess detour and they also try and keep them positive it's not their benefit to do that at all like if they were strategic they would just be like not doing that but I guess it's hard when you see someone else the humanity in you come out when you see someone else struggle out there and she

10:42 Reached out with the olive branch and kept her kind of motivated but I feel like analy was just down the spiral and it was a lot of time for them to make up at that point because you know they were dead last getting into there having gotten completely lost going to the roadblock but let's talk a little a little bit about the roadblock the road block they had to go on these gliders and fly over a lake and then there was numbers on the lake that they had to spot and decipher and you couldn't have picked I think a better challenge to do or a roadblock to do than this one I've been on many planes in my life the smaller ones are always the ones that are like the ones that freak me out the most cuz you feel a lot more of the turbulence when you go on them would have been interesting to know from those and you know if we get any of the races listening to this that actually did it if they could feel the turbulence being in it because they said it was perfect conditions for gliding but they get into this glider and Jill and Garrett I believe were the first two up there with Greg and John and Robin Cory kind of on their heels but Garrett being the one who took it he got the numbers 1991 and when the question was asked when was Slovenia First

12:03 Independent when did they get their independence the answer was 1991 which I'll be honest put my hand up I had no idea when Slovenia gained independence I would have probably thought it would have been a lot longer than that as well doing I guess 11 like somewhere in the 11 what was it 1199 or something like that he put down that's very early though I don't know if would have gone that early I would have probably gone 991 to be honest but I didn't know the answer prior to seeing it and most people got it Garrett didn't get it in his first attempt in the second attempt going up they actually noticed that there was a little arrow that showed where you should start which was nice I didn't spot it the first time but yeah that allowed for Rob and Cory to shoot by with Rob getting it the first time you also got the brothers Greg and John they got it the first time and they were out of there a really fun scenes scene there with Todd and Ashley getting to the road block and Todd being told you know ex basketball player you're too tall you're way too much you can't do it so Ashley had to do it and then him being so jealous about the fact that he couldn't do it like if you ever wanted to get on a glider I feel like The Amazing Race is the time that you definitely want to do it like they probably go through even more safety inspections

13:23 Than ever to make sure that everybody is safe because this is going to be a TV show and the you don't want something to happen on your watch when you're recording a show like this so it would have been an amazing experience being up there the water crystal blue like just this very vibrant blue color the mountains and everything like this is kind of why you would want to race The Amazing Race for an experience like this there like sensory overload really with all the beauty that you could see in this episode within Slovenia and any case so they those are the team to get out of there pretty quickly and then obviously you've got the teams towards the end that struggle and like I said analie when they finally got there she just gets her dad to do it because she feels like they're that far behind she's too in her own mind to be able to do it and he steps up I've been impressed by Steve all the time his ability like he does get to the point where he's frustrated with her but obviously he controls it really well and he's a dad like he wants her to thrive and do well but it's a awkward situation to be in right and he steps up every single time he just does it gets it done and they're out of their last we get to the next part of this which is where

14:44 They get to the ski field I believe it was the planica Nordic Center and funny thing that I noticed here as they were're driving to the plantic center is that Robin and chelse follows the brothers Greg and John and they did that in the previous episode as well I feel like you know that they almost got lost towards the end because they lost Greg and John as Greg and John got away from them and that put them even further back in the pack there's you can't always follow people and rely on that like listen I don't blame you if you're struggling and it's not your strength do what you need to do to stay in the race makes sense but your Luck's going to run out at some point and then the problem is you haven't practiced that skill over legs so if you suddenly have to do it by yourself you may get found out because you don't have the muscle memory or the experience of having done it on the race so I'm going to be very interested to see if Robin and Chelsea can continue to follow people or if they're going to find their own way Todd and Ashley are the first people to arrive to the plan planet natic center and have the perfect opportunity to go for the express pass only the second Express Pass here of the race and they're running the wrong direction completely missing the flags now I know

16:04 That this was frustrating for them and probably watching it again they were so annoyed at how they could have missed it and people at home probably looking at and saying how can they miss that I feel like it's hard one of those things again when you're in the race and you're running like your brain's not functioning like it normally probably would and you're under pressure you like every minute counts like let's go somewhere let's see where we get up here but it was a bad mistake for sure because Robin Cory gets there in second place notices it starts running up the stairs and it was interesting to see Cory in his mind go through all the risks associated with doing this because he thought if his dad couldn't do it then they were going to be at a disadvantage of having gone up the stairs and he would have been gassed for the rest of the whole leg and obviously Rob being a bit of a bigger boy himself this is not his Jam like you know he's built for I think all of the puzzly stuff or getting into the roadblocks or doing a detour he's good at most but I don't think that running is his game or endurance is his game that's not really what he's sign up for and where he's going to Excel and it gives Todd and Ashley that opportunity to chase them which they decide to do and then sort of gives up halfway into it Todd wanted to pull out but Ashley I felt like was like let's give it a go and again we talk about Ashley having a bad

17:24 Moment they were also experiencing some frustration with each other in the race at that point and to me it was amazing to see how Todd and asley went down and then Greg and John got there they're pretty athletic and they're potentially going to run up and then they also give up halfway which clearly shows that it looked probably like it was a lot easier than what it is when you actually get onto the stairs and then you're like a quarter into it and you're like ah this is this is taking too long I'm not going to catch them and it was interesting to see Cory actually explained when they got to that midsection it was a little bit of a flat bit with more stairs and probably if Greg and John kept going they would have beaten them but Robin Cory gets it done they get the express pass here in this episode which is going to give them a massive Advantage for the rest of the show because now they can strategically choose when to use it I didn't hear and you might need to comment on this comment section Below in regards to how long the express pass will last them because you know the first one was like I think three leagues so this one's probably another three leagues as well I'm assuming but a massive advantage to have and getting to the top having this great zipline down what a beautiful view going now that zipline and I love zipline so I would have been all for it like again like imagine this you go on a glider

18:45 And then straight after that you get out the zip line which Rob got to experience I think that's pretty cool but for those that continue on and that decide to pull out of it they go the cross country ski route and they have to go with skis uphill to get their next clue to The Detour and I've done some skiing and I've done some snowboarding I prefer snowboarding when it comes to snowboarding or skiing but even though skiing for a lot of people is easier and I do feel like it's easier than snowboarding for me I don't know I've skateboarded when I was young and things like that done a little bit of Surfing I'm definitely not going to say I'm good at surfing but a little bit at skateboarding so snowboarding was the most natural thing for me to pick up and I think I annoyed a lot of my friends the first time I did it because it was quite late in life like some of them have snowboarded a lot longer than me and I picked it up pretty quickly but even though I've done skiing I've never gone uphill with a ski so that was kind of weird for me to see and probably would have been a lot of work on your back and your you know sort of abs and things like that as you're trying to pull and get up there so I wasn't surprised when some teams like Lena for instance even though she skied before struggled going up there because I think like it was an endurance Fitness

20:05 Thing as well trying to get up there the thing that kind of stands out for me in this is that as they go through this like Robin Cory made up a ton of time really caught up with a lot of teams even on the way to the detour and so forth but at this point you still see the likes of Todd and Ashley and Greg and John kind of get up there first and then they have to decide between two detour they can choose to do field work or they can choose to do housew work and fieldwork was where they had to put the ha together hay ba or not even Bales but just had to like stack hail up on a rack and housework ended up being they had to build a beeh house and decorate some paintings on it on the outside but before we get into that I want to talk about the fact that when stepen anley gets there and they're obviously last and they see Morgan and Lena heading off ahead of them and some of the other teams they go and do the first part first and they know where they want to go for the detour but then as they come back down they're like maybe we should just go for the express pass everybody has P us already but let's take this chance and they run past both of them by the way not just one of them equally to blame

21:25 For this but both of them run past the flag and specifically misses out that it is already closed like it's been somebody already won the express pass and when they had to go up that stairs I thought they were done for like I still thought there was hope up until this point I'm like they're a pretty good team when it comes to actually doing detours or roadblocks and things like that they get through them really fast where they've struggled in recent episodes have been trying to navigate their way and yeah I thought it was done because even for Steve getting up those stairs he was struggling he was out of breath so many times have watched the season thinking Steve's going to pass out even when he got to the top of this thing he asked for water and he's like is there water around like can I hydrate the color of red on his face was insane I don't know how he stayed in the game but they get to at least go down the zip line they don't have to walk down the stairs again which I'm glad that they had that opportunity because that would have been brutal and head off to the detour now talking about the detour field work and housew work I'm not going to lie like I've done some farming in my life believe it or not I'm not in that industry like I work in corporate now but growing up my granddad was a farmer

22:45 My uncle was a farmer so I spent a lot of times holidays and things like that on farms you know driving tractors working with hay bales and things like that my brother kind of had the same reaction that a lot of people have on this episode where he got allergic to Hay Bales and would it really badly sneeze all those kind of things and my brother between the two of us he's the one who loves farming the most so I feel like it's like imagine being allergic to something that you enjoy and that's exactly what happened to him as well and it kind of reminded me of my sort of childhood growing up on farms and also I don't know if I told this story before but when I lived in America I actually worked in both Texas and South Dakota and a lot of what I did in that time was farm work I did a lot of farm work while I was doing my overseas experience traveling as a youngster so I've never seen Bales stacked in the way that they did in Slovenia which was interesting I'm used to the hail Bales and putting them in storage and things like that but it was interesting to see I'm pretty sure like out of the two it would have been the easier one to do and I probably would have preferred it but obviously you've got to do what your partner is comfortable with as well but it felt like it could be a lot easier if you could just get through it and bust it out which clearly Rob and Cory did a good job because they caught up to a bunch of teams Greg and John

24:06 Struggled they were there first and got overtaken by at least two teams I believe both Robin Cory and Todd and Ashley overtook them in this section Todd and Ashley did a phenomenal job catching up as well Morgan and Lena on purpose going next to Rob and Cory so that they can kind of paac themselves with them did a pretty good job at this it's after this that things went haywire for them because and Chelsea ended up being the last two to get out of there and it was very interesting to see that they were on their own in the opposite end and nobody actually went to go work close to them does it mean that they didn't trust Robin and Chelsea to do it right so they couldn't copy off them or did it mean that they didn't want to spend time talking to them because Robin and Chelsea is so laser focused on the game they've not necessarily made friends out there I just found it interesting from a social Dynamic you know that no one else was close to them and the rest of the teams were all sort of huddled together so they were all the ones that did the field work and then housework ended up being I believe only two teams julan Garrett who got there first and then Steven annal and jul and Garrett they did end up getting out of there before step eny even though they overla which was surprising in itself because Stephen Andy went up this Express Pass staircase and as they leave annal who I don't know it was it was it was just

25:26 Very like I said a difficult episode to watch an even though I get it like you can go through some tough times it was difficult saying oh this is the last time we'll see each other I don't know if she just said it because she was feeling sorry for herself or she wanted sympathy from them but obviously they do the nice thing there and say hey stay in the game it's not over until it's over you still race which obviously by the end of this episode makes sense because they didn't get eliminated but as julan Garett goes away they again lose or forget their notepad there which previously was the fanny pack they're not getting it together they're still making the same mistake over and over they decide to turn around and go get it because they plan on being there at the end and needing the notebook now imagine if they come back in the final episode and they have a memory Challenge and they've got all these notes and it's the reason they win then this would be the move of the season for them to go back it's probably worth it like I think my memory is shot sometimes as well so I would need the notes that I've written going back but that leaves the an there at the final hurdle to overcome and they do get out of there pretty effectively they had a system with analie doing all the painting and the dad doing all of the assembly they get out of there and they feel like they still got a chance because julan Garett had to come back and then left so they kind of felt like they could catch up

26:46 The next part they had to go up with skyscraper and they had this climb of 230 ft with a spiraling staircase so we spoke about this with Michelle previously where I said I don't feel like they're running up a lot of stairs this season boy were we wrong they're back in Europe and the stairs are back and you can just tell Rob was not happy when he had to go up there and even though Rob and Cory were like so far ahead they somehow messed up the navigation getting there maybe it was because Cory had to stop and use some of that I don't know it was like kths or something that he had that helped him with the allergic reaction he was having because of the hay But ultimately Todd and Ashley and the brothers Greg and John they are the first ones to actually arrive at the skyscraper and Todd and asley being the more or not Tod and Ashley Greg and John being the two more athletic guys apparently they do get beaten by Todd and Ashley going up the staircase which may have been strategic where they thought this is not the pit stop it didn't say race to the pit stop so let's preserve our energy and just stay with them probably was and as they go down Greg and John make the Strategic decision to stay close to Todd and Ashley so they can just run past them when they get to the pit stop taking first place winning an amazing trip to Namibia I've never been to Namibia it is the neighboring country of

28:07 South Africa where I was born I'd love to go to Namibia I think to go do the sound Dunes there see the wild life would be amazing so I think Greg and John's going to have an amazing time but it was brutal that they won this right in front of Todd of Todd and Ashley man if I thought an asley I'd be like these bastards for winning in front of me brutal to see great finish though for Todd and Ashley there may have even been their best don't have the stats in front of me but I know they've always been there or thereabouts in the top but this was a really good finish Greg and John I believe getting their third maybe finish in the first place at this point which is great for them they're starting to really become a team that could win this thing and they also have that belief now that they can win it Cory and Rob gets in third place but what a leg for them they've got the express pass safely tucked away this is going to be very vital for them in the future julan Garrett getting in fourth place not bad for a team that started in last place coming into this leg with Robin and Chelsea at fifth still doing very solid work and then the most amazing thing happens here like Steven anley somehow gets to the staircase going out the skyscraper first before Morgan and Lena and the dad sticks in there Steve he gets it done gets up there they go down the

29:28 And somehow they managed to beat Morgan and Lena showing that they must have had the worst time at navigating to the skyscraper and they were really struggling because they were I believe maybe in like fifth place or fourth maybe even like fourth place when they left the hay so a really bad finish for them I know that some people are fans of them some people weren't fans of them on the channel I don't think there's much to dislike about them I really felt you know even though they didn't win this story had a great conclusion in the sense that they have found a way to work together yes they get annoyed with each other their sisters brothers and sisters fight that's a thing that happens let's be let's be real let's just be honest about it but they kind of found a way to respect each other and see how they can work together in the future and that was their Journey this season sad to see them go but every single Lake someone's going to go home and this time it was them and Steven anal kind of stayed in there I'm not overly upset about it even though anal has had a rough episode because this gives her an opportunity to redeem herself if she continues to spiral down this way it's not going to look good it's going to continue to be really bad and a lot of fans out there are going to come for her because she's having her weakest moment on screen

30:48 And a lot of people watching this they can't wait for people to mess up so they're going to be like see I told you told you she's a bad person so I hope she gets it together I hope she realizes how close she was to going home and just tries to enjoy this with her dad moving forward in the game like having a competitive spirit is good but there's also a point in time where it can become toxic and it may just have gotten there you know and I can say this from a good place I'm one of the most competitive people you'll ever meet I love competing at stuff I love sports you don't want to play me at board games and I've been at that where I'm like okay Chris you got to chill it you've become too competitive you know put down the dice Chris don't play Monopoly but anyways that's my thoughts and my takes here on this episode of The Amazing Race I hope you enjoyed it's a little bit different compared to what I normally do but I at least wanted to make sure I did recap it and caught up on the episode so I will drop another episode in 24 hours so if you do like the content please consider subscribing hitting the notification Bell putting a like and then commenting below what did you like about the episode what do you think about my thoughts do you agree do you disagree

32:08 I really appreciate all the support for everybody that's watching this Channel and I'll catch you guys next time bye