But enough about me and my lame TV series pitch. Teams leave Winterpeg and head to PEI. Through Toronto, of course, and it seems that this is one of those episodes that actually took two days of realtime but was edited to make it look like one. Just look at the departure time of the last team, the time they spent talking in the airport and there is no way they got to PEI that same day to get all those tasks done before the sun went down. This is not the first time this has happened but I like to point it out so it looks like I'm paying attention.
So now really, enough about be and my lame "look at me, I'm a TARC superfan paying attention" (Note: someone's got a bad limp so I think someone was injured during or before the race and it has been edited in). Now, I'm really going to talk about the episode. In PEI, teams have to head to Charlottetown and find some historic house. I don't take notes so can't remember. Find the clue, then head downtown and find three tiny mice sculptures (or is that mouse sculptures?) that have tiny little clues. Classic run around with your head cut off task as teams race around downtown looking for mice. Adam and Courtney get lost and Nancy and Melissa have to do a speedbump.
Speedbump is to find a barber and cut the hair of a young girl who's donating it to those suffering from cancer. Very touching moment, a tiny bit manipulative but I was touched cause we all know someone who's suffered or passed away due to cancer. Nancy reveals that she is a breast cancer survivor so this is an emotional moment for her. And probably for a lot of viewers.
Once the Speedbump is done, Nancy and Melissa start looking for mice and instead of running around crazy like some of the other teams, they go to a hotel and get the locations of all the mice. Adam and Courtney have done the same and soon the teams that arrived at this task last are now 1 and 2. Off to some restaurants though the Cheerleaders get the classic, "turn at the blue building, you can't miss cause it's blue, then right by Bob's house, he's a good guy though I don't like his dogs..." kind of directions. Which seem to be contradicted by others who probably agree that Bob should really train his dogs cause they bark too much and scare the little kids on Halloween.
At the restaurant, it's a word scramble. Unscramble the words of the menu so you can order from the chef and serve to the customer. One would think a writer guy like me would be good at this, and I probably would be, but Gord would be better. Word scrambles aren't really word puzzles, they're visual ones so people with better visual acuity, like Gord, would do better. Anyway, Adam and Courtney get done first, followed by everyone else with Dylan and Kwame stuck in the backfield. Though Taylor helps Phil cause as we learned earlier, they have an alliance.
Next it's a detour and since no one takes the Suds side, I'm only going to talk about the Spuds. Plant four rows of potatoes to the please the farmer and you're done. Though it's a bunch of hard work, go figure farming is hard physical labour some teams are just figuring out. So they sweat and run and dig and sweat and run and get sore and tired. Which is where I saw the limping racer, as Nancy and Melissa finished the task first and drive away. Though they did argue a bit, probably the first time we've seen any team do this year. And while I'm not a huge fan of bickering teams, I do like some conflict between personalities in my reality TV. Unfortunately, the last couple of seasons of TARC have lack this kind of conflict and I think it's missed. Conflict is part of storytelling it would be nice to have some more in this show between the teams. Or between teammates. Not as much as the American show has but there can be a balance.
Anyway, Nancy and Melissa deal with their situation like adults, and move onto to the final task. I like that there was another one after the Roadblock and the Detour, not just a trip to the Pitstop. That added more intensity to the episode which I can say was probably the best one of this season. And it's a neat task where you have traverse a paint ball course, search for you clue while Zombies shoot at you. Normally, you shoot at zombies but this was a nice twist. Especially since every time you were hit resulted in one minute of penalty time. I like paintball, it's loads of fun but it's much funner (yeah that's a word don't care if you don't think it is) when you get to shoot back.
Nancy and Melissa get down first with Adam and Courtney right behind. And at the pitstop on the beach, it's the Calgary team, no wait be specific, it's the Elite Athletes who come from last place in the previous episode to first in the next. The First Responders are in second, slowly moving up, hoping to peak on the last few legs of the race. Other teams come in but the big news is that the Cheerleaders are claustrophobic, especially Leanne who seemed to suffer a panic attack from having the mask over her head. No doubt the intensity of the day got to them and this was probably tough to deal with so they quit the task. Which results in a two hour penalty which meant there was no way they were going to survive. The Coaches were not that far behind. I'm not sure why they didn't just wait a bit to calm down and then try again, but there you go. They are out.
Next week, teams head out to their second international leg, which not surprisingly is in Central America. Most international legs of TARC are either in Central or South America, or China and Southeast Asia. Hopefully we'll get a video recap in this week.