Got around to watching it on-demand tonight, and I have some thoughts. As much as I loved taking a trip down memory lane in Athens (having explored Monasteriki Square on my business trip, walking the olive tree-lined streets below the Acropolis, and trekking up to it), this is by far the weakest episode in all aspects of the race. Like in other recent past seasons, I don't like this takeover of open-conversation U-Turn events encroaching on the race. Not a fan of teams idling around when the whole purpose is traveling and running a race, and it felt like they were being held captive by the new Double U-Turn mechanism by openly admitting to "burning a vote". First time I felt the need to fast forward (➤➤) through when we could've gotten more of Athens. There was no need for wasting 20 minutes on this.
The tasks were relatively rudimentary, and as someone who is not a huge fan of the street begging tasks, the lineup fell flat on arrival. The Detour was lopsided with the laterna takers whizzing by thanks to locals giving 10 euros right out of the gate and the olive shop being a lot more elusive and more methodical to complete. The "boulder" could have had better execution - I feel like it's on par with the chicken costume from the last leg. The Roadblock, although surprisingly lethal to a dominant team, was rather straightforward and not that difficult, considering a lot of American sorority/fraternity organizations and U.S. high school and collegiate math regularly utilize Greek lowercase letters.
The moment Jack & Chelsie finally got out of their slump, made their highest placement yet, and Adam & Joseph and Izzy & Paige came trailing in and Phil said, "The three teams who were not U-Turned" felt really backhanded - as if over 95% of teams not U-Turned didn't make it through? I'm happy Jag & Jas could break a record of being the first team U-Turned to win the same leg, but this leg felt like such a letdown that it cast a large shadow over moments like these.
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