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Fun Fact: I rearranged the order a little, which invalidated one of my spoilers since there's now only one episode repeated here that was in the last batch - sorry.

#82 - Pat/Brenda Visit The Wrong Foucault's Pendulum (TAR1, Ep 3)


It's hard to place too much blame on Pat/Brenda for not knowing how to race, since they'd only completed one full leg at this point (by skipping Leg 2 with the Fast Forward). And how were they to know there were two Foucault's Pendulums? Well, I can't blame them for going to wrong the location - but I can blame them for wasting lots of time wandering around it despite the fact that no other teams there were there even though everyone had to be bunched at the entrance (not to mention the face there was an alternative Detour option that would have been much smarter to switch to once they realised they were in the wrong place).

I probably would have given them the benefit of the doubt and left them off the list but they also fucked up at the train-station - despite having arrived early enough to take the 1:15 train, they got tickets for a 3pm. And instead of getting on the early train and trying to deal with the consequences, they waited the hour and forty-five minutes, which was enough to get them eliminated.

#81 - Only Ken/Gerard Book Taxis (TAR3, Ep 11)


A pretty forgotten moment, but a potentially fatal one.

Leaving the Singapore pitstop, Ken/Gerard smartly book a cab under their name to meet them as soon as they left. Derek/Drew, who left ahead of them, attempted to steal it but failed because they're "not good at lying to people" - but Ken/Gerard actually booked two cabs, but both under Ken's name in order to make sure the Wonder Twins wouldn't be able to get ahead of them (which is some of the best moves I've seen in the show, but that'd be a different list...). This resulted in them running off on their own and having to run into a group of Singaporean girls who called a cab on their mobile (and I'm pretty sure the second cab that was meant for Derek/Drew ended up going to Teri/Ian since they found one right outside the hotel).

Ken/Gerard's lead gave them a chance to get onto a flight to Kuala Lumpur that evening - luckily for the other teams, there was enough for an airport bunching for everyone to catch up. But the potential damage is enough for it to get a pretty high placement on the 'almost disastrous but inconsequential' part of the list.

#80 - Chos & Bama Pussy Out (TAR10, Ep 5)


This Detour was a typical form of what the TWoP recaps called the Tortoise vs. Hare (back in the early seasons when they were good, instead of essays on why Millie should be burnt at the stake and why Boston Rob needs a knighthood). These tasks offer a choice between a scary quick jolt or a harmless but time-consuming task - but since most teams always went for the exhilirating tasks, they've thankfully declined in number, only to make a random reappearance in TAR10.

Due to the kind of interesting airport shennanigans totally absent from the last two seasons, the Chos and Bama ended up in India in a respectable 3rd and 4th place, and about the make the choice between Wild Things and Wild Rice.Karlyn's said "I don't wanna wrestle an alligator" and since she was a big coward, they attempted to fill a large kolam pattern with coloured rice.

What makes this worse than some of the other Detour switches is that a) The Chos decided to accept Karlyn's fears and go with them to clearly the slower Detour b) They wasted a huge amount of time starting it until they realised it would take forever (I get the irony that I'm complaining about a team attempting a Detour instead of turning back immediately, considering the Kynt/Vyxin entry was about the exact opposite scenario, but that's only because the Detours were clearly weighted differently and this one was obviously going to take a long time).

This is about the same place in the ranking you could arguably include 'Flo Wants To Do The Slopes' Detour, though I decided not to include it since at least that Detour did require the teams to face a genuine fear. Not being willing to get within the radius of an animal in a heavily security controlled environment on a national TV show is just dumb.

The Wild Rice Detour is also home to another dumb move that just missed out of showing up on the list: David/Mary, despite being in last place, try to somehow catch up with Tyler/James instead of risking the faster alligator task, which I only removed since I couldn't find out how far away from each other the Detours were (though tbh a smart racer should have chosen Wild Things anyway).

#79 - Mojo Only Get One Crayfish (TAR9, Ep 9)


The entry on the list I have the least to say about (since I didn't even remember it when I looked over my notes).

The least famous of the two "getting only one thing when supposed to get two" incidents, this was a mistake in the Perth Detour that's pretty much explained by the title. This caused them to bleed time that could have led to their elimination, but thankfully the awful Fran/Barry got screwed over by a heroic taxi-driver and Mojo survived long enough to fuel the Hippie drama that culminated the best Final 4 elimination episode ever* (*that wasn't part of TAR1 orTAR3)

#78 - Rob Throws Tomatoes (TAR10, Ep 12)

For some reason, every post-Family Edition seemed to have a female racer whose meltdown got compared to Flo. "zomg Monica carrying the swordfish = Flo 2.0.!", "zomg Danielle carrying newspapers = Flo 2.0.!" etc but the most entertaining freakouts came from Kimberly. For most of the time, she was a tough, feisty, loveable driven woman - but her in the proximity of horses and she would freak out. For a while, it was easy to assume that horses were the only thing that could break her down, until we eventually saw her unfavourable reaction to being pelted by tomatoes.

While TAR9 is lambasted for its random-luck tasks, they were at least a lot fairer than the TAR10 ones which ranged either from the ridiculously impossible (the salt-shaker one that almost? everyone quit) to the ridiculously easy (the tomatoes). The simplicity of the task guaranteed that the two teams who chose it ended up in first and second - and basically doomed the BQs (whose wise decision to avoid the luck task in Mauritius backfired here)

However, it could have easily gone horrible wrong since, due to frustration at having fruit thrown at him, Rob kept throwing tomatoes back in the crowd. Tomatoes which could have very easily contained the winning clues.

Once again, Kimberly had the right reaction, which is why she was my favourite person in the Final 8:
ROB: "I'm getting hit by tomatoes"
KIM: "Well, who cares?"

#77 - Kim/Leslie Haggle (TAR1, Ep 2)

I've bitched a lot about how taxis can affect the outcome of the race - this is one of the only taxi incidents that led to an elimination that was entirely avoidable. Despite being right next to the pitstop, instead of settling the bill, Kelly/Christie 1.0. decided it was more important to try to save a couple of francs than to actually finish the leg, so demanded exact change from their driver then kept hasselling him by asking for his name. This led to Nancy/Emily and Lenny/Karyn finishing ahead of them (if editing is to be believed - I

To quote them "You know what I'm about to say...we're the dumbest people in America" (which is a funnier statement considering they were in France). And their "That's the stupid tunnel...for stupid people" would have made for a great episode title.

In recent seasons, most teams check-in first, then go back to pay their cabbies, which I'd like to think was Kim/Leslie's contribution to racing history.

#76 - David/Jeff's Entire Korea Leg (TAR4, Ep 10)


It always makes me sad when a team fucks up so horribly then gets spared by an NEL while stronger teams get eliminated because of taxi-luck (see also Mark/Michael and Christie/Jodi/Mel/Mike) - and this is one of the biggest examples of terrible racing that made absolutely no difference because of the predictable NEL placement of the first 4 seasons.

Most people forget how badly the Goats raced here because it's one of the most tedious episodes ever, which is notable only for shots of the Korean border and men in their underwear, neither of which interest me.

Anyways, the teams had to travel to a random hole in the ice (and why would anyone hate TAR4 with destinations like that?) somewhere in South Korea. While Kelly/Jon and Reichen/Chimp took their own taxis, Jon/Al and David/Jeff decided to share one - while this saved money, it also bunched them together. This turned out to be fatal, as the upcoming Roadblock was of the 'first come, first served' variety - David/Jeff coming in 3rd and the Clowns last.

Despite having obtained a minor lead, do the Goats take the taxi and drive off, giving us a chance to watch the Clowns cry in the middle of a random snowcap? No! So instead of guaranteeing they wouldn't be last, they bleed 15 minutes so they can all get in the same taxi and tie for last in a horrible ChoBroic move.

THEN, deciding to split taxis, the Goats decide to be the one to move - which let the Clowns drive ahead while David/Jeff were stuck unloading, loading and telling the driver where to go, costing them even more time

This would be enough to put them high on the stupidity list as it is but then they got to the subway and jumped on the wrong train. Then instead of getting on the right train, they ran outside and wasted time getting another cab. THEN they travelled to the extreme eating Detour but pussied out immediately, bleeding even more time.

Like a few other entries, if this happened in any later season, it'd be much higher up, but since this was such an undeniably difficult leg where basically everyone messed up (3 teams assumed the subway would be quicker than the busy streets but Kelly/Jon ended up first at the cluebox), that's enough to stop it being much higher.

#75 - Tammy/Victor Don't U-Turn Margie/Luke (TAR14, Ep 11)


The U-Turn and Yield often makes smart teams ignore the most obvious strategic decision in order to attack the team they like the least (hi dere, everyone vs. Weavers) - other than TAR7 and arguably TAR11, they've been grossly misused, even by the eventual winners.

Having made the Final 4 with the 2 teams they'd bonded with in the flight to Switzerland (plus, the only remaining team who took the alternative route), nice-but-boring Tanny/Victor's language advantage in the Beijing leg made them the only team to intentionally try the 'Recite Mandarin Food Orders' Detour, which turned out to be faster and nearest to the U-Turn. While all three other teams wandered aimlessly (or wanted to quit challenging tasks like applying make-up stfu Luke), Tammy/Victor reached the U-Turn had a choice:

a) U-Turn the only team never in danger of elimination, consisting of the only other strong young guy left (who is also an allegedly huge race fan who has been studying for the final leg since Day 1)
b) U-Turn the trailing bottom-feeders whose spirit they'd seen be broken in the last Detour

Here's their excuse of why they did it:
Which sounds a bit to be like they were pissy about Kisha/Jen outrunning them and robbing them of some lame prizes.

Of the U-Turn/Yield "mistakes" made by the winners, this one's the least egregious since their assumptions about Luke choking under pressure turned out to be right. But if Luke wasn't a simpleton, the lead Margie/Luke accumulated in the pig-haul could have easily cost them a million dollars.

Fun Fact: This would have been much higher if Margie/Luke reached the U-Turn first (since apparently teams can use a Blind U-Turn and a regular U-Turn ) since they would have targeted Kisha/Jen for daring to not respond positively to being elbowed in the face by a blithering douche.

#74 - BJ/Tyler Don't Yield the Frats (TAR9, Ep 10)


Appropriately, this topic came up in the Popularity Poll thread - I personally don't think it was a hugely stupid move, but it was certainly a risky one.

Here's their official explanaton:

BJ & Tyler: Our rivalry with Mojo began when we saw them walk over to our car and pretend to leave us money in Oman. It was so pointless. If you're not going to leave money, fine, but why go over to our car and pretend to? Then, after their complicity in "cabgate," we decided we would yield them, if it was strategically advantageous.
[cut to a different interview]
BJ: And it turns out the reason they did that is because Eric had already told them at one point that we wanted to yield them, which wasn't necessarily true. So then, in that same leg, when we were in Perth - or, at the beginning of the next leg, when Eric and Jeremy canceled our cabs, and then we were in a cab and Joseph came up and said, "Hey - get out of our cab, wait for your own" - all the while knowing that we weren't going to have our own cab coming. We were just like, "Man, that's it - if we hit the yield before them, we're gonna yield them." And it became pretty dramatic when we got there just feet ahead of them. And there was a moment of, "Are we really gonna do this?" But at that point, we were thinking it was gonna be between us and them for first place. Because Eric and Jeremy weren't there yet, Ray and Yolanda weren't there yet - for all we knew, they could be lost in Australia somewhere. So it was like - well, if we want to get first place in this leg, which is always what we were trying to do, our best strategy is to yield MoJo. Plus, we promised we were gonna do it, anyway.
Tyler: We didn't want to go back on our word [cut] But also, we were kind of having fun...[cut]
BJ: Yeah, and we wanted to have the full experience of being on The Amazing Race. Getting a Fast Forward, getting not-eliminated, and getting to yield someone.

If you know you have a team against you, Yielding them makes sense. And yielding a team in second makes more sense on an NEL with the original penalty - if you know it's an NEL, play for first, if it's not, just try to not be eliminated. It's not like they actually fucked up the rest of the leg, they just got caught up in a badly balanced Detour

#73 - Tyler/James & Romberly Don't Yield The Blondes (TAR10, Ep 11)


Speaking of obvious NELs and missed opportunity Yields, this is a much worse case - the "lose your possessions" penalty never made much difference, except costing the teams a little sleep and a little pride. But the powerful 30 minute penalty, which had already claimed David/Mary as a victim earlier in the season, was a different story meant this was by far the worst of the "Yields that never were" (well, second-worst, but the other entry's much higher up)

Since Tyler/James had no personality, almost all of their airtime that wasn't taken up by them saying "dude" was spent talking about the Blondies. In fact, they started the episode saying that their ideal Final 3 would be them, Romberly and Bama (which was unsurprisingly, not the audience's choice).

So why did they decide to not use the last Yield on the race - despite having no alliance with the BQs, or for there to be any way they could get their revenge? Fuck knows. And none of the post-show interviews that I skimmed through to make this entry mentioned it either.

If the BQs didn't get lost, it would have been particularly fatal for Romberly after their car broke down, which would have left them without an olive-pressing station at the Detour, forcing them to wait for another team to finish, almost guaranteeing them last place.

Spoilers for some of the next 10 (I will switch to more regular quick updates of 5 soon, probably once it gets down to the Top 40-50)