Two hours of show is quite a lot so let’s see if we can condense the analysis. It seemed that we watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good were represented by 3 teams:

Uchenna and Joyce got underway feeling good because they had made it through being marked for elimination. Uchenna said: “Having special times together helps you grow as a couple.” Joyce added: “It is the excitement that I think our relationship needs.” From the offices of SA airlines they called the travel agent where 3 teams were waiting. Mirna and Dustin got their agent to hang up on the call. The married couple had to make other arrangements out of Zanzibar. They were on the second plane out but were scheduled to join the Blondes in Frankfurt. They saw the Blondes at the German counter and Uchenna said everything was perfect until they got yanked off the flight. They were just too late. They arrived in Poland at 11:02AM in fourth place right after we had seen the Blondies finishing the leg.

They had trouble finding the palace but once they spotted “Chopin” they chose to the “Perfect Pitch” detour. Joyce knew how the piano should sound so it was fairly easy to tune it. They finished the first leg in third place. Joyce told us that they communicate well and that she relies on Uchenna.

After the emotional stop at Auschwitz, Uchenna and Joyce were first to arrive in KraKow and the theatre that was the location of an “Intersection”. They teamed up with Oswald and Danny to do the Fast Forward. All 4 teams showed sympathy for the Blondes having to wait. Nevertheless, counting the steps of Saint Mary’s Church tower and the Townhall tower enabled them to reach the Pit Stop at the Skala Castle first, tied with the two guys.

Uchenna is a very dignified man who expresses his feelings beautifully. The two work well together and have always been shown nicely. Except for some impatience at the African travel agency, we never get the feeling that they are racing. Their story has never been about the race.

Oswald and Danny left the pit stop with Oswald confiding: “Danny and I are having fun and enjoying ourselves while competing. We’re not stupid, we’re competing.” They shared a cab with the cousins, telling us they don’t have alliances, only joint ventures. At the “Holidays & Safaris” travel agency, they let Mirna take care of their arrangements because they didn’t want to be 4 aggressive people. It wasn’t the best idea! They finally were on the third plane out and arrived in second place with the cousins, only 15 minutes behind the Blondes.

Maybe Danny has talent for the piano and he hid it from Oswald but they still had trouble with the “Perfect Pitch” detour. Danny turned the tool like it was a tire iron and he tightened the string so much that he broke it! Not wanting his partner to feel too bad, Oswald also broke one! Finally, the piano player accepted their work and after flirting with the so called “eye candy”, the boys were off to the statue and their next clue. From there it was edited as a simple sprint to the Pit Stop and a second place finish. Unless Polish law requires that taxi passengers wear life jackets, Danny did a roadblock that involved a boat ride.

The racing part of the 8th leg only required making it to the Intersection in second place. From there they joined Uchenna and Joyce and the two teams arrived tied for first at the end of the leg. They gracefully gave the married couple the only price available.

Every episode starts with these two saying that they have fun but are still competitive. The race has gone very well for them. I wonder what will happen when they do have to scramble? It seems those references to being competitive is to set up their fall. They are good people and their story has been very rosy. It can’t always be that way.

Dustin and Kandice were happy to go see Chopin, well Kandice seemed to think she was going to meet him! Dustin said, more seriously: “I think this race is more challenging, everyone knows how to work every angle…All the tricks that we felt that we had, they have too.” Kandice added: “There has been times in the race where Dustin and I have said: lets hang on, lets stay in the middle. This is the point in the race where we have to step it up a notch.” While Mirna badgered the first ticket agent, they got help from the second one. Kandice commented that Mirna was rude to agents and gets them frazzled. They figured that attitude wasn’t going to help them get tickets. It worked as the Blondes’ method got them on the first flight out. They were traveling through Frankfurt and arrived in Warsaw at 9:07 the next morning where they were in first place for once.

Going to meet “Chopin”, Dustin was happy since she plays the piano and Chopin is her favorite. They found the Czapski Palace and opted for the “Chopin: Perfect Pitch” detour. “This is going to be fun” said Dustin. Showing her skills, Dustin quickly tuned the piano and got their next clue, a music partition with the title “Jan III Sobiesky Lazienki.” Their taxi driver brought them to the statue of the Polish King. From there, a roadblock wasn’t shown and the girls ran to the Pit Stop in first place. Phil greeted them with the remark that they could be the first female team to win the race. Kandice said they needed to stay focused but that “the Blondies are back on the board.”

The 8th leg had the girls on the first bus to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. All teams showed respect for such a solemn occasion. The ride to the next clue left them in 3rd place when their driver got lost on the way to Krakow’ theatre. “Good thing we weren’t fighting for last” said Kandice, not knowing that the upcoming intersection would soon have them doing just that.The “Intersection”, in effect, constituted a 4 hour yield for the girls. They said it sucked but still handled it with a smile. They would’ve prefered to team up with the Guidos, the cousins were their last choice. Even so, when Charla and Mirna showed up first, they teamed up with them and kept encouraging their new teammates.

The 4 girls had trouble completing the “Eat it up” detour. Despite starting before the other two teams who had looked for the “Roll It” detour first. After being sick, Dustin thanked Eric for his announcement of “Ladies and Gentlement, Miss California.” They had to wait for Charla to finish. They found the way the cousins interacted with each other funny. “They bark at each other” said Kandice. When it was over, they were tied for last.

The Blondes finally read a clue correctly and were first to spot the designated cars. A taxi showed them the way to the Skala Castle. Kandice said: “Today has not been an easy one” but they still had their smiles. Dustin did the roadblock, put on the knight’s armor and escorted her horse to the castle without difficulty. They finished third afterall.

Whether a leg goes perfectly as their 7th one went, or they are thrown a surprise twist that penalizes them like in the 8th, the girls always have a smile. That is the way the race should be run. They do have snarky comments and even if some see them as mean, it doesn’t feel like that is the editor’s intent. It feels like they want the viewers to see them as worthy racers. Certainly not lovable as the other two “Good” teams but still better than the rest. Are they our winners? They have a more complete edit than the other two good teams but All-Stars editions rarely have good endings.

That leaves us with The Bad…
Eric and Danielle are feeling the stress of the race. Danielle said: “I want to put my opinion in sometimes but he gets snippy.” They arrived at the same travel agency after the Blondes had already left but the first two teams were still trying to improve their situation. Eric wanted to go to another agency, Danielle threw a fit: “It’s like talking to a five year old, your personality is irritating, I’m surprised Jeremy didn’t kill you.” They stayed a while then decided to go look elsewhere. Eventually, they wound up at the airport with the prearranged tickets, supposed to arrive the next day at 11:25AM. They went to the airport where the argument continued. They were on the same plane as the Guidos who they tried to hide from. Danielle wanted them eliminated.

The two remaining teams got stuck in Kilimanjaro. Despite many pleas and even Joe’s bell (!!) the KLM flight didn’t let them board. Eric figured they had to be 3 days behind the other teams and it would be between them and the Guidos. They agreed to meet and wait until they hit the ground in Poland to resume the competition. They were edited as leaving Frankfurt at the time Charla and Mirna reached the pitstop. Despite Eric having some problems and breaking a string, they finished the “Perfect Pitch” detour faster than the Guidos with the “Perfect Angle.” They reached the pit stop in 5th. The first 2 teams had already started the 8th leg! Eric still thinks they can win but they have to be with everybody else. Danielle was relieved to still be in it.

The start of the 8th leg had Eric telling us that: “Danielle is not as focused on the race as she should be. She’s not used to the stress. On the last race, with her and Dani, they were just screwing around. I’m more intense when it comes to this stuff.” The wait for the bus was the occasion to argue on their budget. Danielle wanted a coffee but Eric didn’t want to spend any money. They screamed at each other for quite a while in another pityful display.

At the Intersection, Danielle was afraid she couldn’t eat all the sausage, so that caused the two teams to look for the “Roll It” detour. Once they changed back to the “Eat it” detour and they sat down with the Guidos, it was actually Eric who had the most trouble getting finished. The four cleaned their plate before Charla.

Eric lost time thinking the cabbies were taking them to the castle and then he couldn’t find the parked cars. Later, he missed the sign for the castle. Despite all that, the Guidos were always behind so he wasn’t worried about finishing last.

Eric and Danielle do not form a team. They do not even agree on tom correct the problem. Eric isn’t showing signs that he is accepting Danielle as an equal racer. It is getting late for that to happen. Can they win as a fractured team? It has happened before. They would need to have the cousins shown as negatively as they were in these two legs for the rest of the race. It certainly is a possibility!

…and The Ugly
Charla and Mirna (I sure know how to pick’em!) started off with Mirna saying: “We love the feeling of being in first place but it’s almost better to be under the radar than having all these people see you as a threat.” They harrased the poor ticket agent, ordering her to “concentrate, my friend, don’t share with them. I’m going to have a heart attack, I need emergency help. She’s so slow.” It lasted over 7 hours before they got the 3rd flight out, going through Amsterdam. They arrived in Warsaw at 9:22AM with the Cha-cha boys, not knowing that they were tied for 2nd.

The detour wasn’t pretty to watch. Charla didn’t know anything about a piano, neither of them had a musical ear and they harrased the pianist to say the piano was tuned when it obviously wasn’t. Charla suggested: “One is loose, why don’t we turn them all?” Finally, they changed for the “Marie Curie: Perfect Angle” detour. Traveling through the streets of Warsaw with a mannequin, they got lost and no one was coming to their help. “We must be the plague…I don’t want to be around these people” said Mirna. Finally, a woman guided them to the “Panoramik Laboratory”. After a few tries, the cousins were able to read the clue on the X-Ray of the mannequin. For those counting roadblocks done, we saw Mirna with a red Life jacket. They finally reached the Pit Stop after sunset with a tired Phil telling them they were 4th.

Charla and Mirna left at 4:50AM while Uchenna and Joyce had left at 2:26AM. The cousins lost more than 2 1/2hours from the detour to the pit stop. They were on the second bus to Auschwitz, 4 hours behind the front runners.

At the “Eat it” detour, Mirna tried to psych the other teams out by telling them the sausage tasted like poop. Charla grossed everyone out by forcing herself to throw up. She was the last of the 8 players to finish her sausages.

We saw Mirna having car problems as Joe had suggested. This time, she couldn’t pull the hand brake. They needed the help of a taxi driver and asked him to escort them to the castle. We once more witnessed Mirna’s terrible attitude, screaming and crying at the taxi driver who demanded more money than she had. “God, get me out of this country” said Mirna. She then berated her cousin for not having the clue and the map ready.
“What are you good for?”
“I don’t do anything” said Charla.
“Am I supposed to do everything?” asked Mirna.
“No, you’re just supposed to yell at me. You’re doing everything, you’re right” responded Charla.

Seeing Charla, dressed in a suit of armor, guiding a horse was hilarious. Despite her falls and her troubles, the cousins finished 4th.

This team had a terrible couple of legs. They would make horrible winners even if they do what editing shows they should do. The only good thing of this leg is that they didn’t quit despite the ordeal. It shouldn’t be enough to portray them as worthy winners of All-Stars but look how quickly the appreciation for them rose after two good legs. It will be interesting to see how they are portrayed in the next legs.

Joe and Bill, despite their moving comments at Auschwitz, would have been in the bad category. Do you really think you can call a plane with a bell? Using their brainpower to beat their competition would have been nice but looking around for the bus ticket dispenser even better. They also didn’t read the drive yourself clue and stopped to buy a map rather than paying a cab. Finally, they didn’t spot the castle and had to turn back.

The stop at Auschwitz was very moving. Dustin and Kandice talked about imagining the people coming out of the train to their deaths. Uchenna talked about the generations and their ideas that were wiped out. Oswald and Danny talked about growing up in a totalitarian regime. Charla and Mirna reminded us of the Armenian genocide. Eric and Danielle said their fights were insignificant in comparison. Joe and Bill saying how terrible it would be to be persecuted for who you were. It was very well handled as a moment to reflect, not to race.