So, when live sightings of this leg came in, I wasn't expecting much. This leg pretty much solidified the fact that the season wouldn't be going abroad. Also, this leg seemed like a copy & paste from the previous leg on Vancouver Island, which wasn't a good leg. Then came the news that this leg would include a record number of penalties, and the resulting leg we got was a bit of a mess yet also entertaining. Now I thought that the Lion King product placement was a little silly yet well incorporated, but the fact that they based an entire leg on Dora was pretty funny (Though if Dora was always going to be on Leg 5, was a South/Central American leg scrapped?). Now, I know that this season's route brought back memories of TARC 3, but doesn't mean that the racers should act like the TARC 3 racers with an abundance of penalties. I get why Lauren & Joanne took a penalty especially when they were delayed by a car crash and were the last to a needle-in-a-haystack task with about 600 less clams. At the same time, the longer teams stay at a task and know that they have a buffer, they should not be so willing to quit. This mistake is what ultimately led to the demise of Meaghan and Marie. Lastly, Dave & Irina. I don't have a problem with Dave "cheating" because it's not against the rules and teams should protect their own answers. However, the more Irina keeps quitting because she doesn't want to do anything, the more annoyed I'll get. That said, this season would not be the same without them, and I'm very interest with what's going to happen at the airport next week.
Jon doing the bungee.
Anthony had to have a Dora moment.
The bungee instructor.
James's annoyance with Anthony's digging song.
Dave making friends with the goats.
Nanaimo bars: The memorization on top of an already stressful challenge was a good addition to a standard bungee task.
Whale skeleton: It gave us frantic Trish moments and was decent.
Clams: Holy cow, this task was tough. I'm not surprised that this task led to several penalties but it's crazy that this task lasted over four hours. I have complete appreciation for the teams that were able to even endure a rising tide and still finishing second.
Caves: The actual spelunking was alright but easier than the unscrambling, which was harder than anticipated and brought out a lot of drama. Wasn't the biggest fan of James being allowed to help Anthony before they arrived at the Roadblock site.
4/5
