The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episodes 4 and 5 of The Amazing Race Series 8 - Family Edition (TAR 8), do not read any further!


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The last TAR 8 episode we saw here in Australia ended with the Aiello family being the last team to reach the pit stop and the third team to be eliminated from the Family Edition of the show. The pit stop was located at space shuttle Pathfinder in the US Space and Rocket Center.

Because this episode was aired back-to-back in Australia with the episode that followed, I will post a separate post for each episode. This is Part 1. (Click here for Part 2.)

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the race:

1. The Bransen Family
2. The Linz Family
3. The Schroeder Family
4. The Godlewski Family
5. The Weaver Family
6. The Paolo Family
7. The Gaghan Family


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the pit stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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1. The Bransen Family


It seemed to me that this leg of the race was slanted heavily in favour of whichever teams were already in the lead when they started out. There wasn't much an an 'equaliser' this time for the teams at the back of the pack to have a half-decent chance of catching up to the teams who were enjoying a healthy headstart anyway. That's not normal for TAR. Apart from the fact that they easily coasted into a back-to-back win on this leg, the only thing worth noting was that one of the carbon-copy daughters mooned the Linz family (of all families to choose!) out the window of their van. Naturally, this only proved to excite the Linz boys. But as Wifey said, “I’d never moon anyone with my father there!” But the Bransens all thought it was hilarious, and it led to a few recurring gags along the same lines (one of which had father Wally even suggesting to his daughters that they do it again on the later – crazy!). Phil’s question to the Linzes at the end that there was a full moon out today was great. That man can do no wrong.




2. The Paolo Family


Moving from sixth to second place was pretty impressive, no matter what I may think of this family. And although I don’t like the Paolos at all, I don’t want to see them eliminated yet. They’re too much fun to watch. The arguments between DJ and his mother Marion in this episode were intense and hinted at a dangerously imbalanced mindset within the family. It’s not a healthy relationship if you’re arguing that much! Just move out, kid. Get some counselling. Breathe. And, just to be sure things are okay ‘upstairs’, best not to go on an intense thirty-day reality TV show where you race other families around the world/country under immense pressure and stress. Doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. (Number of times the father has stood up for his wife to his insolent sons: Still nil.) The thunderstorm that appeared as they finished their lap around the speedway was cah-razy! Good thing the Weavers weren’t still there ... it all would have seemed like a horror movie to them.




3. The Linz Family


When the Bransen chick mooned the Linz family, one of the guys (who I also struggle to tell apart) lent out their van’s window and lifted his top to show them his bare chest, before yelling out, “Now it’s your turn!”. Despite everything, I thought this was a somewhat amusing response to a slightly unusual event (considering the Bransen girls were travelling with their father, after all). The guys in this team are pretty much a bunch of meatheads who are clearly at home on an American Gridiron football field. Rough and blokey. There wasn’t much to say about them here.




4. The Godlewski Family


I must say, when the Paolo family is working smarter than you are, you’ve got problems! Missing the BP service station (shameless plug, but after giving away four lifetime refills in the previous episode, fair enough!) was embarrassing enough, but that crying fit one of them had in the car was just nuts. I kinda think four women setting out on a race such as this is a risky move (as far as mood swings go).




5. The Weaver Family


It was another tough leg for the Weavers (emotionally), and yet another leg where they proved themselves to be greater than the sum of their parts by doing surprisingly well. They again kept at the head of their second-half of the pack, and even managed to deal with what really must have been a terribly difficult thing to do – visiting a car race track (and be led to believe they’d be driving in a car, to boot) when the father of the family died in a race car accident a year earlier. Putting aside the snide comments by the other teams for a moment, that would have been horrifying for the family. And I think it was kinda mean of the producers to knowingly arrange for that detour specifically for the Weaver family (let’s be honest – they did it for the drama it’d cause, which is pretty heartless). Still, they pushed through it and hopefully managed to deal with a few personal demons along the way.




6. The Gaghan Family


Carissa is a gun! The father, Bill, is also brilliant (in fact, they all are), and he showed this when he directed them to go another way to the speedway, beating the Paolo family who were ahead of them at the time. Despite Carissa not being able to pedal on that wacky bike thing (and son Billy presumably being able to achieve very little as well), they seemed to scoot through that challenge as quickly as anyone, and didn’t fall behind. Both parents are really fit and don’t mind pushing things to the limit. They’re also remarkably well-mannered and good-natured, considering the stresses, frustrations and sleep-deprived children in the team. Compare them to just about any other team. These guys are the clear favourites in terms of who ‘deserves’ it most. I don’t want them to be eliminated.

While I’m here, I must also thank a reader by the name of Alison Rutledge, who sent me a link to a series of online posts Carissa Gaghan has been writing (or ‘wrote’, actually) for the TAR episodes as each one originally aired in the US. Ally, although you sent me the link, when it started to load (before I’d seen this double episode I’m currently reviewing) I noticed that it was for an episode I was yet to see, so I quickly closed it down to avoid anything being ‘spoilt’. I won’t say which episode it was for, in case that also indicates how far the Gaghans go in the race, but I’ll keep the link and check the whole thing out after the series finishes airing (I realise this may be unnecessary precaution, but I really don’t want to risk having it all spoilt for me). Alison notes that the weekly commentary from Carissa is called “Carissa Explains It All”, and “it’s rather wonderful”. I have no doubt that it would be, because Carissa is an absolute gem. If anyone else wants to check it out and doesn’t mind the possible spoiler element of the commentaries (for Australian viewers), this is the link in question. Thanks again, Alison. :)




7. The Schroeder Family: ELIMINATED!


My goodness, this family just fell apart in this episode! And they didn’t exactly come out smelling like roses, either. From daughter Stassi announcing at the start that they were the underdogs (an unusual statement for the team starting out in third place to make), to the continual and really nasty Weaver family-bashing comments all throughout the leg, the Schroeders didn’t appeal to me at all in this episode. When father Mark made the disatraous decision to disregard what the Sheriff told them about the Colonel Motorhome Park place they were looking for (“No. It wouldn’t be that easy.”), he set off a chain reaction that had Stassi in hysterics and loathing him with a passion. The only time they were united was when they shared their mutual hatred of the Weavers ... and even then, Stassi went so far that Mark had to tell her, “You’re being nasty and it’s ugly”. Stop and think about this for a second. Two things I want to say, here. First ... Stassi, if your Dad is the one telling you you’re being so cruel about someone else that you’re coming across as a really ugly person, then I’d say you’ve got a major problem on your hands – you’d better sit up and take notice! You must really have an anger issue for him to be calling you on it. And second ... Mark, I wonder where she gets that from. Stassi’s crazy crying at the motorhome park, saying that she didn’t want to be “with the Florida family” (the Weavers) was so spoilt-child and irrational (not to mention misplaced cruelty, because the Weavers actually aren’t guilty of all the supposed ‘crimes’ that have been unfairly attributed to them, IMHO), that Wifey snapped angrily at the television, “Oh, piss off, Veruca Salt!” It was a good thing we were watching the show on tape, because I had to stop the tape for five minutes while I laughed myself silly. Char, the ‘evil stepmom’ burst into tears when they heard they’d been eliminated, and Wifey (still angry with the family as a whole) scoffed at them. But I could at least understand why such a let-down after everything the family had been through (on all legs of the race so far) would result in a stress release such as crying. I didn’t begrudge her that response. And Mark went a long way towards redeeming himself as a person by taking on the blame of the group’s demise himself ... which was done with far more grace and sincerity than Denny Rogers’ humble-pie-eating attempt when his family took a bullet a couple of weeks ago.


(In case you’re wondering, the ‘Good’ family was the Gaghans, the ‘Bad’ family was the Paolos, and the ‘Ugly’ family was definitely the Schroeders.)



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Last week's tips:

First Team: The Linz family. (Wrong)
Last Team: The Bransen family. (Wrong)
Yield? No. Correct!
Fast Forward? Yes. (Wrong) (I actually changed my mind about this before the episode aired – and told Wifey so – but am committed to this prediction so I’ll wear it.)
Elimination Week? Yes. Correct!
Biggest Argument: The Godlewski family. (Wrong)
Smartest Team: The Gaghan family. Tough one to call, because the Paolos moved so far up the ladder (but through dumb luck alone?), while the Gaghans even outsmarted the Paolos at one point ... and the only incident of the Paolos outsmarting anyone (the Godlewski family) was really due to the Godlewskis’ own error more than anything the Paolos did right. I’m going to say: Correct! (Object if you wish.)


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Next week's tips:

It might seem unfair to you that I watched two episodes in a row and an claiming to have made predictions from one to the next, but when I saw that it was a double episode and realised I’d need to give predictions for the second, I wrote these predictions down in my notes (before either episode in the two-parter had aired, making it harder to make predictions for the second one, as I didn’t know who - if anyone – would be eliminated in the first ep), and I reproduce those predictions in all their gory details here. Believe me if you will, doubt me if you wish.

First Team: The Gaghan family.
Last Team: The Paolo family.
Yield? No.
Fast Forward? Yes.
Elimination Week? No.
Biggest Argument: The Paolo family.
Smartest Team: The Weaver family.


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