There was a lot of complaints pre-race of the production heading to Nainamo after Yellowknife. In the past few season of the race, Leg 5 was the first international one. No so much for Season 7. But the race did not suffer for not going International. I wish TARC would do more but I do understand the reasons why (budget, Telefilm and other government grants). But if production would do more legs and tasks like this leg (and the Yellowknife one), no one would really over complain. Much like the Yellowknife leg, these task really showcased the Nainamo/East Coast of Vancouver Island area. It really is a beautiful spot of the country and having the teams fly in via floatplane is a great way to start that off. I also enjoyed some of the background of the teams, offering more character for some teams we haven't seen as much yet, epecially Sam and Sarah. The Dora task was okay, cute with the "Backpack, backpack" comments from Anthony and James. Who knew Swipper would make an appearance but more on that later.
The bunjee and swing task had the potential to be generic but having the added touch of teams having to memorize the ingredients for Nainamo bars was the perfect added element. I've done a couple of these height tasks before and it is really hard to stay focused on something else when you know you're about to fall a long distance on a bungee chord or swingline. Though I think the distraction of memorizing something for 60 seconds could held with the jitters. Still, a great tasks that some teams had difficulty with.
The Speed Bump was okay, not too hard but not too easy. But also a good way to see more dynamic between the moms. But then came one of the toughest tasks in TARC history: Clamageddon. Everyone who's seen the show, knows what the task entailed so I won't get into details save to say butter clams are hard to find. I really love this kind of task which entails a lot of work but just cause you're physically strong doesn't mean you're going to get through it faster. Very hard tasks also have a tendency to bring out a racer's true personality traits; the good ones and the bad ones. For example, during one leg, you may have heard teams shout they would not give it up because of whatever reason. But when the going gets really tough, they give up. And Dave and Irina's 'Fuck this shit, we're out of here' attitude could have consequences. If no other team quit that task, and then worked together to get the Goats on Roof clue, they would have been out. Though the shots of everyone struggling as they dug for clams while Irina stood there like some kind of princess was a classic scene. I can see why she irritates people but I can't help but enjoy it. I'm actually hoping that they make it to the last leg and during the final task, she gets it before everyone else and they win the season. Heads would explode and I would love to witness that. It's about time TARC had a solid villain. The Quebec Brothers from Season 2 were close but no one had drawn the ire of fans like Dave and Irina. We'll cover more later one.
As you may have noticed, every team that completed that clam task, and there only three, landed on the mat ahead of all the other teams that quit. So the lessons to be learned is that you really have to think hard before quitting a task and taking a penalty (especially a Detour or RB cause that's four hours instead of two), and, it rarely pays off to quit a task and take a penalty after another team does. Three teams got really lucky someone quit after they did. I don't think I would ever quit a TARC task in on the show because time and time again shows that it rarely pays off. Even if you make it through that one leg, it can hurt you in the end. Or give you a false sense of security that you can quit again.
As I said, teams were quite lucky and no one was more lucky that Dave that one of the mom's made a major error by leaving her correct answer just sitting there for anyone to see. I know fans are angry that Dave did that ('Swiper no swiping!' I wish someone would have said.) but I would have done the same thing; I just would have been a bit more circumspect in how I dealt with it. I would have pretended I got it on my own and then moved on. I wouldn't be surprised if other racers had seen it that they would done the same thing. Actually, I would have got it pretty quick because I've been to that area a couple of times and would have known Goats on Roof. Like James or was it Anthony who did and help A and T at that task because they were helped at the clams. (It's good to help follow racers at certain points in the race but then you have to let that go. I think Dave and Irina's biggest problem is not the sneakiness and all that, which is fine, but how they do it. Keeping themselves apart and not interacting in a positive way with other teams is never a good idea. Neither is being so cocky about it. But he can't help it cause it's part of his profession. It's always best to be friendly, sometimes work with teams but also play a hard and competitive game). But one thing I don't see discussed is that Dave did already have a disadvantage going into the task. Most of the other racers struggled with the word search style task so imagine trying that task when English is your second language, which it was for Dave.
Oh yeah, I must note that CTV/Bell Media should take more flak for that task than Dave. Having Huawei as sponsor for "Canada's Favourite Summertime Adventure isn't a good idea at this time. Because of the extradition situation with the Huawei CFO, Canadians of all types are getting hit hard by retalitory tactics by the Chinese government in response to Canada following our own rules of law and long serving treaties with long term allies. They may have made the sponsorship deal earlier on but it should have been dropped before the season started. Also, I wonder if production took in the timing of the tides for the clam digging task, or did they assume it wouldn't take as long as it really did.
Still, this was on hell of an episode, one of the best in TARC history. This last two legs have really brought up the "great TV" quotient of this season and here's hoping it continues and Season becomes one of the best.