Bunching Annoyances

Mrs. X has been complaining about the bunching aspect of The Amazing Race this season and for the first time, I really agree with her. In this particular episode, the teams bunched up so many times that the team that was eliminated was just because they made one little mistake at the end. But aside from that, you should never have an instance of having three teams check in at the same time when there are only five teams left. Realistically, Adam and Rebecca should have been eliminated, or there should have been some other way of spacing out the teams by the detour after extra bunching. But instead, we had it come down to the wrestlers falling behind because Lori left her ticket at the base. It was an unsatisfying episode in my opinion.

Next week it appears to me that they are going to Singapore and I don’t think it’ll matter who finishes last because it will be the last non-elimination leg of the race. I don’t know how the deck will be stacked for the final run, but I expect Adam and Rebecca to finally get eliminated at final four unless one of the other teams makes a major boneheaded mistake. After that, it’s a complete toss up as to wins. Both Freddie and Kendra and Hayden and Aaron are a bit dysfunctional, but they’ve been able to avoid mistakes in certain legs of the race. I think the stress of the race is finally starting to get to Chris and Jon (more Jon than Chris), but they might be able to hold it together to win the race. They’ve been a bit underdeveloped in terms of character, but I think that’s mostly due to a lack of dysfunction between them. With so many other teams giving you high drama by infighting, it doesn’t leave you with as much time to develop a team that’s not fighting with itself. Whether that leads to a situation like the Goats of season 4 found themselves in, I don’t know. But I think they won’t make a mistake like that.

So I guess I’m still picking Chris and Jon to win with Hayden and Aaron second and Freddie and Kendra third. But all of those teams could easily displace one another with their style of play.