The Amazing Race 35

[Knoxtnhorn 5971]

On 4/4/2024 at 8:52 PM, The Ace of Aces said:

This season blows. Terrible teams and no real travel. 

My issue is that they're only visiting Hispanic countries giving teams that speak Spanish a huge advantage.

Also, I'm still trying to figure out how the navigation/puzzle challenge could have possibly been so hard.  All but one team had the damn starting line tile bleeding off one of the sides.  The track started and ended at the same spot, the tile had to have a single road above and below it.  And it had to be on the right side as they made a large loop around to the left.  There.  3 of the 9 tiles.  Even without actually driving the track, the puzzle shouldn't have been that difficult.

[idigTexas 2284]

15 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

My issue is that they're only visiting Hispanic countries giving teams that speak Spanish a huge advantage.

This is a big issue for me as well.  Several of the teams speak Spanish, but for those who don't, it sucks.  

[The Ace of Aces 5175]

Like I posted with EP1, it’s not the Amazing Race since they barely travel.  There’s a reason they skipped airing this season originally. 

[WBT 20559]

On 4/19/2024 at 4:41 PM, Knoxtnhorn said:

My issue is that they're only visiting Hispanic countries giving teams that speak Spanish a huge advantage.

Also, I'm still trying to figure out how the navigation/puzzle challenge could have possibly been so hard.  All but one team had the damn starting line tile bleeding off one of the sides.  The track started and ended at the same spot, the tile had to have a single road above and below it.  And it had to be on the right side as they made a large loop around to the left.  There.  3 of the 9 tiles.  Even without actually driving the track, the puzzle shouldn't have been that difficult.

Yeah, it was a puzzle for a five year old.  Forget about the racetrack, just put it  together to form a closed loop.  Even if you had it rotated 90, 180, or 270 deg I'm thinking they would give it to you.

[WBT 20559]

Also I laughed my ass off at the chicks repeatedly getting trucked in the bubble soccer game

[Stringer 1438]

Also I laughed my ass off at the chicks repeatedly getting trucked in the bubble soccer game

That was a fun challenge. When Rob realized what was happening, he was like, “ok, you guys want some?”

[UTPhil2006 3801]

Need a double elim coming up to rid ourselves of these last 2 weak teams then it might get good 

[TrashMaster G 17537]

Yeah, the advantage for the Spanish-speaking teams on this season is a joke.

But, even with this, TAR is so much better than any other "reality" show out there.

[idigTexas 2284]

So Amber can't navigate, drive a stick, or do any challenge?  Vinny isn't exactly hiding his feelings about those things, but I'm sure I would have thrown her out of the car and driven to Tierra del Fuego by now.  How do you decide to go on The Amazing Race without doing anything to address your deficiencies in areas that you know are going to come into play?  And what possesses you to bring someone like that as your partner?  The fact that they are not only still in the race, but lurking near the top emphasizes how weak this cast is.  Amber is going to be completely dependent on you forever in every facet of life.  Run, Vinny.  Run!

 

This was a dream leg for Team Momma's Boy.  It was like Cliff Clavin playing Jeopardy.

 

[wild_turkey 3159]

1 hour ago, idigTexas said:

So Amber can't navigate, drive a stick, or do any challenge?  Vinny isn't exactly hiding his feelings about those things, but I'm sure I would have thrown her out of the car and driven to Tierra del Fuego by now.  How do you decide to go on The Amazing Race without doing anything to address your deficiencies in areas that you know are going to come into play?  And what possesses you to bring someone like that as your partner?  The fact that they are not only still in the race, but lurking near the top emphasizes how weak this cast is.  Amber is going to be completely dependent on you forever in every facet of life.  Run, Vinny.  Run!

I see their relationship quite the opposite. Vinny is a condescending asshole who constantly puts her down. She definitely has her insecurities and weaknesses, but he preys on those and tears her apart, then offers some half-assed encouragement like "you can do it babe" when it's already too late. 

She can't drive a stick, which I think is a fair criticism, but half the people in the history of TAR have lacked this skill. Her navigation skills seem adequate. There are definitely teams that are worse, and it doesn't seem like poor navigation has hurt Amber and Vinny at any point so far. Even other "good" teams have struggled with navigation, but they don't destroy each other over it.

As far as completing challenges, Amber has mostly been fine and it's very difficult to do anything well when your partner is constantly telling you how stupid and shitty you are. Imagine spending a day with your spouse, having to assemble things, navigate a foreign city, perform music routines, and your wife spends the entire day calling you pathetic, slow, and stupid, all on television for the world to see. How can anyone be expected to do well in those circumstances? She should leave his ass.

I don't even particularly like Amber, but I think Vinny is a narcissistic piece of shit. If they split up, I would fully expect him to find another insecure and emotionally vulnerable partner and treat her like shit.

Edited April 26 by wild_turkey

[WBT 20559]

3 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Her navigation skills seem adequate

Hmmm...

He is pretty awful though

[TrashMaster G 17537]

52 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I see their relationship quite the opposite. Vinny is a condescending asshole who constantly puts her down. She definitely has her insecurities and weaknesses, but he preys on those and tears her apart, then offers some half-assed encouragement like "you can do it babe" when it's already too late. 

She can't drive a stick, which I think is a fair criticism, but half the people in the history of TAR have lacked this skill. Her navigation skills seem adequate. There are definitely teams that are worse, and it doesn't seem like poor navigation has hurt Amber and Vinny at any point so far. Even other "good" teams have struggled with navigation, but they don't destroy each other over it.

As far as completing challenges, Amber has mostly been fine and it's very difficult to do anything well when your partner is constantly telling you how stupid and shitty you are. Imagine spending a day with your spouse, having to assemble things, navigate a foreign city, perform music routines, and your wife spends the entire day calling you pathetic, slow, and stupid, all on television for the world to see. How can anyone be expected to do well in those circumstances? She should leave his ass.

I don't even particularly like Amber, but I think Vinny is a narcissistic piece of shit. If they split up, I would fully expect him to find another insecure and emotionally vulnerable partner and treat her like shit.

He is an asshole.  She is beaten down.

I hope they have broken up by now.

[UTPhil2006 3801]

10 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

He is an asshole.  She is beaten down.

I hope they have broken up by now.

Someone above looked it up and said they’re still together 

[Stringer 1438]

Yeah, Vinny’s language is Abuser 101. Whatever confidence she had, he has beaten out of her through the way he talks to her.

[wild_turkey 3159]

1 minute ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Someone above looked it up and said they’re still together 

I had looked it up. I usually like to know more about the cast members so I found this site that gives a pretty good breakdown, including IG info for everyone:

https://thedirect.com/article/the-amazing-race-2024-cast-contestants-season-36-photos

On their IG pages, they both appeared to be aspiring influencers, Vinny moreso than Amber. He had posts and videos about getting out of student loan debt, becoming an entrepreneur, flexing his arms in scrubs in ridiculous poses, and generally looking like a narcissistic asshat. Their accounts both still featured each other, and called themselves The Dream Team, so I interpreted that as them being together.

When I was watching this episode last night, I looked at their IG again mid-episode and saw lots of fresh comments from TAR fans, telling Amber to leave his ass. People basically started comment bombing all of their old posts on both accounts, saying what an asshole Vinny is.

I just looked again and both accounts are now private, which is...quite funny. Aspiring influencers now have private accounts. Probably in damage control mode, or perhaps the breakup is happening as we speak.

[TrashMaster G 17537]

24 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I had looked it up. I usually like to know more about the cast members so I found this site that gives a pretty good breakdown, including IG info for everyone:

https://thedirect.com/article/the-amazing-race-2024-cast-contestants-season-36-photos

On their IG pages, they both appeared to be aspiring influencers, Vinny moreso than Amber. He had posts and videos about getting out of student loan debt, becoming an entrepreneur, flexing his arms in scrubs in ridiculous poses, and generally looking like a narcissistic asshat. Their accounts both still featured each other, and called themselves The Dream Team, so I interpreted that as them being together.

When I was watching this episode last night, I looked at their IG again mid-episode and saw lots of fresh comments from TAR fans, telling Amber to leave his ass. People basically started comment bombing all of their old posts on both accounts, saying what an asshole Vinny is.

I just looked again and both accounts are now private, which is...quite funny. Aspiring influencers now have private accounts. Probably in damage control mode, or perhaps the breakup is happening as we speak.

I'm hoping they are "together" through the airing so that it helps their (his) online presence.

Hopefully, she's done with his stupid ass.

[idigTexas 2284]

I was obviously too hard on Amber, and I agree that I did not put enough blame on what impact Vinny's abuse has on her, but damn it's frustrating when people go on the race unprepared.  If you can't drive a stick or navigate yourself out of a wet paper bag, then TAR probably isn't for you, even in a watered down low-travel season.  

I am embarrassed for them at how they are being edited, and I have to assume that reality is worse than what we are being shown.  Perhaps I should have suggested that Amber kick Vinny out of the car and drive herself to Tierra del Fuego, but one, she can't drive a stick, and two, she would have ended up in Canada.  

[TrashMaster G 17537]

Amber not admitting and apologizing when she was dead wrong about where they left the car was annoying.

[wild_turkey 3159]

25 minutes ago, idigTexas said:

I was obviously too hard on Amber, and I agree that I did not put enough blame on what impact Vinny's abuse has on her, but damn it's frustrating when people go on the race unprepared.

I definitely agree with the bolded part. I personally can't drive a stick, but if I applied for TAR, the first thing I would do is rent a stick shift and force myself to drive it for a month or longer. I also don't understand how some people can be so incredibly out of shape physically on this show.

That said, there have been countless teams and contestants that struggle with the above, but very few reach the level of verbal abuse than Vinny inflicts on Amber. She says this is a test run for marriage. I think it's pretty obvious how that marriage would go. Any time Vinny perceives that Amber as done something less than perfect for the sake of their family, he would tear her apart.

I'm willing to excuse a lot of her shortcomings at this point. Your brain can't function well when your partner is in your head, constantly criticizing you. You spend more time thinking about their criticism and replaying those failures or discussions in your mind, and it's hard to do simple things like remember where you parked a car. She wasn't strong to begin with, but he's fucked her up.

[The Ace of Aces 5175]

Losing your crew is an impressive feat of shitty driving. 
 

And Vinny needs to be beaten. 

[UTPhil2006 3801]

“Can’t keep finishing in the middle of the pack”

….finishes in the middle of the pack 

[Stringer 1438]

It kind of seems like it should be the responsibility of the crew to follow the racers. Am I wrong?

Seems real shitty that they lost because their crew didn’t exit at the same place in the roundabout. Maybe the team did it wrong and the crew couldn’t follow them (whether due to traffic or traffic laws) but they should be able to track and catch up quickly. Tough way to go out.

[TrashMaster G 17537]

1 hour ago, Stringer said:

It kind of seems like it should be the responsibility of the crew to follow the racers. Am I wrong?

Seems real shitty that they lost because their crew didn’t exit at the same place in the roundabout. Maybe the team did it wrong and the crew couldn’t follow them (whether due to traffic or traffic laws) but they should be able to track and catch up quickly. Tough way to go out.

I feel the same, but I think the mistake the team made was not pulling over right after they saw that they lost the crew.

[idigTexas 2284]

5 hours ago, TrashMaster G said:

I feel the same, but I think the mistake the team made was not pulling over right after they saw that they lost the crew.

This.  And it's a bit ironic that Team Momma's Boy lost due to navigation/driving instead of sucking at a physical challenge or a medical issue.  I'm surprised more of the teams did not do the seaweed task.  It seemed obvious to me that it was by far the quickest, even if the pilots made it look easier than it was.  

[wild_turkey 3159]

I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I like Danny and Angie, but the way they got eliminated leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth and reflects poorly on TAR production. I’ve been watching this show for about 20 years and can’t ever remember a team being penalized for a camera crew getting lost.

Post-race interviews say they waited for 90 minutes and the crew never showed up so they were eventually assigned a new crew. That’s completely ridiculous. Even if we say that Angie committed a driving error, that should at most warrant a 15 minute penalty. The crew should know the location of the next detour and know to meet them there. Interviews also suggest that TAR production was meeting at the pit stop to figure out how to handle it, then decided to eliminate them. It’s like watching a football game end on a terrible call. Hopefully TAR makes changes so this is never again a factor.

This was otherwise a fairly boring leg. Cleaning up sargassum seemed like the obvious choice in the detour but only the pilots chose that and it paid off big.

[UTPhil2006 3801]

Season pretty much going chalk 

[Herpa Derpa 6122]

5 hours ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Season pretty much going chalk 

Yep. Should be a good finale. Only pair left that is really weak is the Toxic Twins. Which means one of the other three teams will get eliminated next week because that's just how it goes. My money is on Rod and Tish to slip up.

[WBT 20559]

Bartolo Colon looked like he could still give you 5 in a spot start

[UTPhil2006 3801]

Pretty predictable final episode. Fairly yawner of a season 

[Texzilla588 769]

Uhh how do you drive to fucking Delaware before you say “I wonder if I’m going the right way”? Stupid.

[Herpa Derpa 6122]

9 hours ago, Texzilla588 said:

Uhh how do you drive to fucking Delaware before you say “I wonder if I’m going the right way”? Stupid.

New Jersey and you do it by driving over the river. Philly is on the border. But still stupid.

 

Nice luck to have the final leg in your hometown. Fair season given the pandemic restrictions at the time of filming.

[idigTexas 2284]

7 hours ago, Herpa Derpa said:

Nice luck to have the final leg in your hometown and all other countries being Spanish-speaking.  

Fixed it.  I think they likely would have won regardless, but would have been interesting to see them have to deal with instruction in Cantonese or taxi driver that only speaks Urdu.  

Edited May 17 by idigTexas

[The Ace of Aces 5175]

Glad ks over. Next season should actually be worldwide. 

[TrashMaster G 17537]

On 5/17/2024 at 5:48 AM, Herpa Derpa said:

Nice luck to have the final leg in your hometown. Fair season given the pandemic restrictions at the time of filming.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

You GOTTA be fucking kidding me.

What a complete joke. Way too much advantage for one team. 

[wild_turkey 3159]

I don’t like Vinny and Amber so I’m a little biased, but that was a really odd proposal. Two people that don’t appear to like or respect each other, their interviews always seem to be them trying to convince themselves they are actually a good fit, and then bam, marriage proposal. I give it 3 years. And watching them fail at making cocktails, I would never let either one give me anesthesia.

[wild_turkey 3159]

This entire season was weird but I don’t ever remember the last 2 legs being combined into a 90 minute episode. Especially after having 90 minutes per leg all season long, to suddenly cut that time in half made both legs feel extremely short and rushed. It’s like TAR just wanted it to be over.

Also weird to spend the entire race in Central and South America, then suddenly teleport everyone to cold ass Philly. They could’ve at least ended it on U.S. soil in either the USVI or Puerto Rico.

The final leg challenges were pretty lame, and it was a rare instance where they didn’t have a memory challenge involving all of the previous legs.

[TrashMaster G 17537]

16 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

This entire season was weird but I don’t ever remember the last 2 legs being combined into a 90 minute episode. Especially after having 90 minutes per leg all season long, to suddenly cut that time in half made both legs feel extremely short and rushed. It’s like TAR just wanted it to be over.

Also weird to spend the entire race in Central and South America, then suddenly teleport everyone to cold ass Philly. They could’ve at least ended it on U.S. soil in either the USVI or Puerto Rico.

The final leg challenges were pretty lame, and it was a rare instance where they didn’t have a memory challenge involving all of the previous legs.

It was a low-rent season, all around.

They should have left it sitting on the shelf where it was.

[Scraps 13560]

I know most of this has already been gone over, but I finally got around to finishing this shit cause i lost interest with about 6 ep to go.

Vinny fucking sucks and those two should be divorced within like 3 years

Most all of the challenges seemed very basic and not very difficult. Make 6 drinks, catch a ball, run a mascot course for 5 yr olds, make a flag, make a bell puzzle. Like where was a full challenge recap challenge at end of most seasons that fucks people up.

Agreed with the language advantage and really the living in Philly advantage being bullshit.

Glad this one is over. Hopefully next one has bettet shit/teams.

[TrashMaster G 17537]

21 minutes ago, Scraps said:

I know most of this has already been gone over, but I finally got around to finishing this shit cause i lost interest with about 6 ep to go.

Vinny fucking sucks and those two should be divorced within like 3 years

Most all of the challenges seemed very basic and not very difficult. Make 6 drinks, catch a ball, run a mascot course for 5 yr olds, make a flag, make a bell puzzle. Like where was a full challenge recap challenge at end of most seasons that fucks people up.

Agreed with the language advantage and really the living in Philly advantage being bullshit.

Glad this one is over. Hopefully next one has bettet shit/teams.

The last one that was recorded and that aired last fall was pretty good.

[Herpa Derpa 6122]

1 hour ago, Scraps said:

Glad this one is over. Hopefully next one has bettet shit/teams.

Began filming new season in May. Start in LA, spotted in Japan, Hong Kong and Portugal with finish in Miami.  Should be a good one but won't air until next Spring. No clue on teams.