The Worst Shall Be First

... 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 Schroeder family being the last team to reach the pit stop and the fourth team to be eliminated from the Family Edition of the show. The pit stop was located at Preservation Hall in the French Quarter of New Orleans (pre-Katrina ... I wonder how accurate the name ‘Preservation Hall’ ended up being post-Katrina?!).

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 2. (Click here for Part 1.)

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 Paolo Family
3. The Linz Family
4. The Godlewski Family
5. The Weaver Family
6. 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 Paolo Family


It’s frickin’ hilarious that the Paolo family ended up doing the tandem bungee jumps for the Fast Forward. Like the Gaghans, I honestly thought Marion and DJ wouldn’t go through with it. I was mighty surprised (and begrudgingly impressed) that they did. I wouldn’t have tipped it. And how funny it is that the Paolos – of all teams – are the family to take out the only Fast Forward on the entire race for this series?! So they finally came first. Will they be able to maintain their lead next week? (Hot tip: No.) It was actually disturbing (in her face-to-camera interviews) that Marion said she felt it was her duty to take the punches (not literally), and that having DJ hug her and tell her he loves her at the end of the race would be her ideal outcome. That brought tears to our eyes! Here she is, rough as guts and arguing with the best of them, and deep down inside it’s easy to forget that she’s still a woman who wants to be loved by her arrogant family. It was amusing that even Sharon, one of the nastier Godlewski girls – who aren’t afraid of the odd verbal stoush, themselves! – tapped DJ on the shoulder at one point and told him he was mean to his mother! It seemed to do the trick, too. He sheepishly denied that he was “that mean”, and seemed to watch himself a bit more after that. It couldn’t have been scripted any better (hmm, maybe it was) when DJ was partnered up with Marion for the bungee jump. Marion was the brave one (I am still amazed by this), and DJ was the girly-girl-girl who screamed like a seven-year-old girly-girl, whose Girl Scout cookies have just been stolen by a ferocious bear (who enjoys eating girly-girl-girls for breakfast). That was pretty funny. The fact that they’re in the lead guarantees that they’ll be in next week’s episode at least (hopefully more), but I’d prefer the Paolos were eliminated if it came down to them or the Gaghans (or the Weavers, actually).




2. The Weaver Family


I was very impressed with the Weavers in this episode. They are constantly the butt of wild accusations and unfair exaggeration/rumour/untruths, which would all boil down to intimidation and slander in the real world. And from the ad we saw for next week’s show, it would appear that the Linz family (or it could be someone else) takes some very deliberate steps to hamper the Weaver’s chances of finishing the leg. Seeing that in the ad made my blood boil, so I’m really not going to enjoy watching that part of the next episode (and I’ll be hopping mad if those cruel actions actually do lead to the Weavers’ elimination). I’d love to see the bullies penalised for it, but that’s probably not going to happen (depending on what it is the bullying team in question ends up doing), and besides: Car rallies are built on trickery and mayhem. (But this isn’t, strictly speaking, a car rally. As much as I enjoy drawing the parallel.) The Weavers had a moment of glory when they showed up the Linz family for the bitter and vindictive bad sports that they are, by telling them off for heckling Rolly at the baseball field. It’s true that the Weavers were cheering everyone on, while the Linzes were being cruel and poor sportsmen. The Weavers showed what they were made of in that moment. (The fact that the Linzes later bitched about the incident, grossly misrepresenting what they and the Weavers had said, only made them even more distasteful in the long run.) If not for the Fast Forward, the Weavers would have come first this leg. They’ve had a very impressive track record, considering the members of their team and their apparent physical abilities (at least at first glance). I hope the race is giving them a heightened sense of self-worth and purpose after the loss of their husband/father, even if the way they are referred to by the other teams is a disgrace (all except the Gaghans and Paolos, interestingly!).




3. The Bransen Family


This family barely registered as a blip on my radar during this episode. They didn’t make my notes at all. Maybe they’ve got to be mooning someone to be of any interest. How sad. To be fair, I should point out that they’re also doing very well (dark horse, perhaps?) to be consistently arriving in the top few places each leg (for a few episodes now). They might be a team to watch. If they ever do anything noteworthy (that involves keeping their pants pulled up, that is).




4. The Linz Family


I’ve gone off these guys now, based entirely on the way they treat the Weaver family. I don’t care if you, the readers/viewers, do dislike the Weavers ... picking on them and victimising them the way the Linz family in particular has been doing is just not on. I can’t explain in words suitable for publication on this family-friendly blog exactly how much I despise the kind of behaviour we’ve been witnessing the Linz, Schroeder and Godlewski family (as well as the Bransens, to a lesser extent) dish out to the Weavers – both to their faces, and (moreso) behind their backs. How cowardly, weak, mean-spirited, and evil. What black hearts they must have. I understand they’re all in a race against each other, but they’ve befriended each other easily enough (and not really gotten close to the Paolo or Gaghan families without having to be so disgusting in their treatment of them), so where did this spiteful hatred come from? It’s unjustifiable and is completely shameful. True ‘jock’ attitude. And if we take the religious viewpoint and suggest that the Weavers’ faith has anything to do with why they’ve been ostricised from the majority of the group, then that just boils down to good old-fashioned discrimination. I’m pretty sure America touts on about how tolerant they are ... but then we see examples of how a generally well-meaning family – who are part of the nation’s MAJORITY – can be treated as second-class scum by the venomous and atrociously-behaved few. I pity the people who treat others that way; it shows how shallow and angry they are inside. I have nothing more to say about these people.




5. The Gaghan Family


I was very happy when the Gaghans appeared at the top of those stairs and met Phil on the mat before the Godlewski girls! Once DJ and Marion had finally taken their leap of girly-girl-girl screams, I felt sure that the Gaghans were going to be in last place. In fact, by all rights they should have been. I’m not sure exactly what they did right (or what the Godlewski family did wrong) to enable them to be safe from the curse of last place. Maybe choosing the instruments detour when they’re such great runners or just their excellent navigation skills coming to the fore again, I don’t know. Maybe it had something to do with Carissa (I’d like to think that’s gonna be it!). Whatever it was, they were spared the ‘give me all your money and possessions’ thing, which may have been too much for the kiddies. Or not (they’re pretty robust). They live to race another day; that’s all I care about. And considering how brilliantly they’ve performed on the race so far, it’s surprisingly that they’ve rated so lowly in most legs. I hope they get a chance to move further up the pack soon and avoid elimination.




6. The Godlewski Family: SAFE!


Without a doubt, the Godlewski and Linz families are at their ugliest when they focus all their energy on hating and back-stabbing the Weaver family. The fact that the Weaver woman told the Linzes’ boat driver to go slow is nothing on a race such as this. And I know that makes me sound like a hypocrite in light of what I said above about what clearly amounts to someone’s retaliation for that ‘crime’, but I really think they’re different things. One was done out of competitiveness (and in front of them; presumably half-jokingly), and the other (although I haven’t seen it yet!) was done out of downright maliciousness and revenge. I bet there’s nothing ‘playful’ about the action of cruelty that gets carried out on the Weavers in the next episode. The Godlewski girls were sucked into the Linzes’ evil game this week, and because the two teams were working together for much of the leg, they now share a common ‘enemy’. The two amusing things while both teams collected their musical instruments was that the boys ended carrying most of the eight instruments the two teams needed between them, and the comment by eldest sister Michelle, “We’re gonna make Tricia (the youngest sister) make out with one of you guys,” presumably by way of payment for their assistance. Not that it ended up helping them very much – despite high-tailing it out of the blues club well before the Gaghans arrived, the latter teams was able to overtake the girls between there and the pit stop, and the girls were only saved by the first pre-determined non-elimination round of the season. How do we trust that it was pre-determined? Look at where they are. Every non-elimination round leave our battling team with no money and forced to beg for cash from an impoverished community. It makes it that much harder. It will be interesting to see how many times her three older sisters volunteer Tricia’s kissing skills in return for some money next week. As they approached the pit stop, the Godlewskis seemed to sense that they were going to be the last team to arrive, so they began putting all their clothes on over everything else. Soon, they were billowed up like balloons and looked quite ridiculous (but amusing). And then Phil greeted them, told them they were last-but-safe, took their excess baggage (of which there was very little not already on them), and asked, “Did you know it was illegal in Panama to wear underpants on top of underpants on top of your pants?” I kept rewinding the tape so I could hear him say it again and again and again!




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Last week's tips:

First Team: The Gaghan family. (Wrong)
Last Team: The Paolo family. (Wrong - very wrong!)
Yield? No. Correct!
Fast Forward? Yes. Correct! (I reasoned they’d probably end the second of the double episodes with the non-elimination, to act as a teaser for next week ... it works better that way than the other way around.)
Elimination Week? No. Correct!
Biggest Argument: The Paolo family. Correct!
Smartest Team: The Weaver family. Hmm, I’m gonna say: Correct! again.


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Next week's tips:

First Team: The Gaghan family.
Last Team: The Linz family (wishful thinking?).
Yield? Yes.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? Yes.
Biggest Argument: The Paolo family.
Smartest Team: The Gaghan family.


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