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Rob Cesternino and Jessica Liese recap Episode 6 of The Amazing Race All-Stars with special guests Max & Katie from The Amazing Race 22
Rob Cesternino (@RobCesternino) and Chief Amazing Race Correspondent Jessica Liese (@HaymakerHattie) are joined by Max (@MrMaxBichler) and Katie Bichlor (@KatherinBichler) of The Amazing Race 22 to recap episode 6 of the Amazing Race 22 “Down and Dirty” which took teams across Sri Lanka.
Who’s an All-Star?
Katie thinks that a lot of people don’t like Jen and Caroline, because they feel that they don’t do anything. She does feel that Jen and Caroline are a strong team. Jessica feels that Jen and Caroline did nothing wrong to end up in the bottom.
Katie doesn’t think the term All-Star applies because there should not be the third teams eliminated in the Race. Max thinks that Dave and Connor and Jen and Caroline earned their spots, but John and Jessica are iffy.
Katie is pulling for Dave and Connor, because they killed them with Dave on only one leg. She feels that Jen and Caroline are not top 3 material and that John and Jessica will self-destruct. Max feels that John is a smart guy, but that they are too analytical for the race and overthink things. He feels that part of the race is based on impulse and they do not have that trait and it is something that they will not be able to adapt too in the future. Katie feels that they have gotten a little better by settling for whatever position they finish as long as it’s not last instead of demanding first each time.
Standing on Their Own
Max feels that the most relaxing part of the race is the train rides, because everyone is stuck there and there is no plotting for position on the train. He also feels that it’s easier to relax the farther you get on the Race because although there is more at stake, you are more used to the Race and more confident in your abilities.
Max feels that Jen and Caroline are running the race more strategically then they did the last time and are not relying on anyone. He also feels that Dave and Connor don’t have much to improve on since they are strategic and make good decisions. Max and Katie feel that Dave got a bad edit the last time because they wanted to show the emotion behind his injury and they feel that he was as cut throat as anyone else on the race.
Katie is partial to Jen and Caroline because they were on the same season and would not have subbed them out for another team. Max feels they were a slam dunk because Bertram van Munster loves them so they were in.
Hanging with the Elephants
Max and Katie both wish that they could have done the Detour with the elephants because it was one of the rare instances that they could sit back and just admire the elephants.
Max feels that it depends on your position within the pack to determine whether or not you like the double equalization in the last leg. Katie feels that she would like it because she would know where everyone is and it didn’t really even play out because of the fact that it was a non-elimination leg and commented that there are signs that can be picked out that give away if a leg is going to be non-elimination.
Watch Phil’s Face
Katie feels that staying in the country and quick legs is an indication of a non-elimination. Max feels that you can tell if it is non-elimination by Phil’s facial expressions. During Max and Katie’s non-elimination leg, Phil did a great job of keeping it together, but the greeter was overly dramatic and they knew at that point that they were not going home. They were never really sure, but they were speculative about it until they landed on the mat. Katie was also a super fan and was able to point out the trend that there hadn’t been one to that point and it had to be that leg.
Max and Katie feel there is no chance that they would have edited out a U-Turn in Leg 5, because although it would not have effected Margie and Luke’s placement, it would have villianized another team, which the producers love as well. Although Katie is not sold, Max feels that they could use the U-Turn twice in the last five legs because it creates controlled havoc. Jessica feels there will only be one U-turn and it will be in the final five.
Max and Katie are both fans of the To Be Continued legs, because it increases the difficulty of the leg and he feels that the non-elimination legs are a bit of a letdown for every racer who wasn’t saved. He feels as a viewer, you want to see someone get eliminated. Max and Katie feel that To Be Continued Legs are more taxing on everyone from the racers to the crew, so that is why there are only one or two of them on the race.
Is There Any Way To Go But Up?
Max feels that John didn’t tell Rachel that she was doing the Taxi cab challenge wrong for humanities sake, he told her because she was about to fill one of his taxis that he wanted to get credit for. They weren’t sure if all the taxi’s that Rachel filled counted for the other teams, but John was not telling her because he wanted to help her. Max would have done the same thing John did, tell her if it benefits them.
Katie doesn’t like Brenchel as Racers. In terms of their race performance, Max summed it up by saying “Is there any way to go but up?” in reference to their previous performance on the race.
According to Max and Katie, winning a car is not all it is cracked up to be on the Race because you still need to pay taxes on it. They ended up selling both of the Fords they won on their race, and ended up making some money on them.
Name That Tune!
Max feels that the recorder challenge with the Wiseman may come back in a future leg of the race, and feels that there was more to it then what we could see. Katie feels that the Wiseman task was only to take up space in the episode and they needed something else.
In the SkyBar task, Katie would have switched tasks before attempting to get other teams to quit, because it would have been stupid to take the time penalty and leave it all to the taxi ride with only two teams left. Max feels it was their pride that kept them doing the task, because there is no way they should have stayed as long as they did.
Needle in a Sandcastle
Katie feels that the hardest task she did on the race was the Sandcastles. Although it may have looked easier on TV, the fact that they got to that point where they were at was excruciating. After the fact, the producers pointed out that Katie may have missed three clues in the sand.
Max and Katie feel the fact that they limit teams to detour choices is fair because it is laid out in the clue how many teams can participate in each task. Max can see how it would be perceived as unfair because usually the better task is the one with the limitations, but its part of the game. Katie put it simply, “You should have gotten there first.”
Max and Katie feel there will be one Fast Forward and one U-Turn. Jessica feels that they would be more likely to edit out a Fast Forward that didn’t get used then a U-Turn that didn’t get used.
Jessica would love to see more of the needle in a haystack challenges, but Katie would not like to see them back.
Goats and Snakes and Afganimals, oh my!
Out of the Afganimals, Dave and Connor and the Cowboys, Max and Katie believe that the Cowboys would be eliminated first, although they believe that those three would be the final three.
Max and Katie are fans of the Afganimals. Max would not like to race with them, but he enjoys watching them. He thinks their noise level would be too annoying for them. They felt that during their Race, team YouTube was the loud mouths. They feel that you didn’t get to see the annoying side of Team YouTube during this race because they didn’t last too long, but if you wanted to see it you can follow him on YouTube.
Katie would not want to work with a live snake during a challenge. She would like to work with cute animals though. Max worked with animals a lot and feels that working with some of them is a little bit like a contradiction. During the goat challenge in his season, the clues tell you to be nice to the animals, yet you are trying to pin them in a cage.
No Mistakes, or Villains
Max feels that the team in the back of the pack is most likely to race mistake free because you need to be and everything is on the line and there is less margin of error. Katie feels that you can smell the victory and you just start rushing.
Max and Katie feel it is harder to be a villain on All-Stars because everyone knows everyone, and even if you don’t know them personally, you have seen them race so you feel like you know them. Katie adds that you can’t really mess with people since everyone knows what’s going on.
Max and Katie feel that the Globetrotters will not be able to go the distance, because so many things are awkward because of their size. They have to squeeze the team along with a sound and video guy into a cab, and that gets awkward. Max had fun watching Big Easy in the Tuk Tuk.
Bye Bye Bopper, Hello Chuck’s Hair!
If Max had left his backpack, he would have left it. They had a situation in Bali where they may have left their backpacks, and they had their passports, so they would have kept racing. They did not end up losing their backpacks though. Katie sympathizes with the situation because they didn’t really know each other and they didn’t have a relationship.
Max and Katie wishes that they had called an alternate team to replace Bopper and Mark, because they just go together and it didn’t feel right sending in Mark and Mallory.
If Max couldn’t make it on the race, Katie would choose Marie from TAR 23. If Katie couldn’t make the race, Max would choose Chuck, because they got along really well although they were so different.
There is no Amazing Race next week, so the Amazing Race coverage will be back in two weeks. Join us Wednesday night for Survivor Know-It-Alls with Stephen Fishbach as well as an Exit Interview and Morett Cast on Thursday. There will also be a How I Met Your Mother series finale podcast on Post Show Recaps.
Special Thanks to Michael Shaheen for The Amazing Race Recap
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