And these are not just some random comments that I'm picking, I went to the TAR facebook page and look at comments with most likes on the more recent posts. So people are actually highly supporting these ideas
And yeah.... The whole energy is as if Mallory left the bag intentionally and Mark is this piece of angel whose not-so-good actions can be set aside.
Ugh, I'm not gonna say anything new that hasn't already been said on this board, but I just don't get how those stupid (they totally are, sorry for being offensive) commenters can not see that
a) Mark could have left his bag like some past racers (Steve & Allie TAR16) did;
b) other teams would obviously be willing to help Mark if he had no clothes or sth;
c) Mark & Mallory checked in only ~10mins after YouTube, so the bag incident didn't really doom them, the detour did (WHICH IS STILL SEEN AS A FAULT OF MALLORY'S );
d) Mark refused to hussle even when he had got his bag back and Mallory tried running to the detour to catch up. And that was for literally.no.reason.
And to clear it all out, yeah, I was also (and still am!!) a great supporter of Mopper, though not a die hard fan. But my patience has seriously run out with these comments..
I don't even want to go on the Facebook page, it'll just annoy me more.
As for your points:
I'll cover A & B as one) - YES!!! Mallory had the passports, Marks medication and the money. The only things they NEEDED to continue. If Marks passport was in the bag then yea, of course they'd go back for it (But god help Mallory for the abuse she would've got if that had happened)
If you think back to BJ & Tyler, by Leg 8 or 9 they were running with no clothes, flipflops and a plastic bag with whatever belongings they had left, and what happened? THEY WON THE RACE!!! Mark & Mallory wouldn't have even needed to win the whole race, just that leg, (which would have been likely) coz they would've won enough money to buy another Backpack, and probably replace everything that was in it. And as you say, all the other teams were so supportive that none of them would have refused to help Mark out when it came to giving him clothes.
HOWEVER having said that, in their interview on RHAP Mark says that the backpack belonged to a previous winner of the race (he thought it would be good luck as it was the bag they used) and he felt it was his duty to return it to them. But come on, they won the race, they have the money to buy another bloody pack!!!
C) - The detour was their demise. They arrived before two teams, and Mark just hadn't the motivation to give it his all. He was fed up with Mallory, and the whole Leg by the time they got there. There was even a point where they were only one away and it fell about 1/10 of an inch from Marks foot!!! I feel bad for both of them here because it was no way Mallory's fault alone that they lost, but there were multiple times they could have got that clue, just a little bit more effort from Marks behalf and they would have got it.
I posted this in last weeks episode thread so thought I'd paste it here as it seems relevant - Mallory said in the RHAP interview that the demonstrators they chose were sooo relaxed and didn't seem to care whether they got the challenge finished or not. She then said that once Youtube and John & Jess finished, they changed demonstrators and got the clue straight away!
I went back and re-watched the detour, and the demonstrators they're with when they finish the task are different from the ones they first choose. (The ones they change too were the ones that John & Jess were with)
It just wasn't their day, but I truly believe this was Mark & Mallory's Leg. If they hadn't had the communication problems this would've been their Leg for the taking. D) - Speaks for itself.
I'm just sick of all the "casual / new" viewers bashing Mallory. I wanted Mallory & Mark to stay in the race just as much, if not more, than all those FB users, but they're gone and there's nothing we can do now. They can lay the blame all they want, but it's not going to bring them back.
If only they didn't have tunnel vision and see the while picture, like us at RFF.