This episode definitely had more of the personalities and seemed more Race-like, in general.
My Episode 2 Thoughts
Tasks:
The detour (Dash/Splash) was a no-brainer, which goes against the point of having an either/or, at no point did we see any team give a thought towards doing Dash, rightly so. It would have been interesting to have had, say, Splash or Crash, with the two options being to find and count the water sellers (and maybe there would have been more of them, or harder to find) as one option, and the pot carrying as the other.
The lemon roadblock was interesting and showcased some local culture, as did the goat hide task, reminiscent of TAR 25.
Overall, the night leg was fun to watch, and I enjoyed the rapid placement change throughout the leg.
Thoughts on Teams (in no particular order)
Heath and Toni - man, does this team have some bad luck moments. Next week looks like it'll be brutal for them. Heath sounded like he was dying after the lemon roadblock. I love Toni's soft accent, it almost sounds British.
Sam and Stu - I loved how they described themselves as "the dictionary definition of two Aussie blokes" and Sam killed at the roadblock.
Angel and Frankie - At first, when they got all "our third team member is Jesus" at the pit start, I was like...yeah, hard pass. But then they got really competitive and it obviously paid off for them. I think they're going to be a team we're going to love to hate.
Sam and Alex - their schtick is getting annoying and old really fast, but to tell you the truth, if I were on TAR I would probably be freaking out just as much as they are. You can tell they're super fans.
Crystal and Reem - surprisingly competent! I thought that it was BS that they made them do the pot cart task again, because unless the clue said that they needed to do it all in one trip, I don't see what they did wrong, and had they been able to do that, they might have finished higher. Still, impressed with Reem's Arabic and how unfazed they were by everything.
Stu and Glennon - I liked that we learned about their back story, and they seemed like good guys, what little we saw of them.
Morgan and Lilli - I don't know why I saw them as the second coming of Dustin/Kandice, maybe just by looks alone, but they did not seem like the quickest ones out there. We didn't see enough of them to know for sure though, just that they were consistently towards the back of the group. I was a little annoyed that the producers never showed us exactly why they had to redo the pots task (did they not have enough? it was never really specified)
Kathy and Chace - They came off as a little cocky at first "we're lawyers and we know how to do things" then cut to everyone else finishing the Splash task before them. Props to them, especially Chace, for using their French to their advantage.
Lauren and Steph - I really liked them! Lauren in particular as the "ginja ninja" (I believe) killed the lemon challenge. They seem to have a sweet connection and are very focused.
Bren and Anja - These two were probably two of the biggest casting mistakes in any version. They should have been on a show called "The Amazing Toddle Around The World Pointing At Small Animals, Making a Mess, and Criticizing Things" Show. Anja (the taller one, I believe) contributed next to nothing; at least Bren did the lemon roadblock without making too big of a deal about it and acknowledged that unlike her partner, she wasn't instantly opposed to the goat task. I mean, it wasn't like you had to slaughter the goats yourselves, you just had to touch a part of their body that was already long dead, and you were given gloves too. I feel like the only other team in any edition that refused to do a task due to ideology was Israel 2, when Anaelle/Akiva refused to participate in the Buddhist ceremony in Thailand, and had to wait until the next team completed it before they could continue (which I thought was a much fairer deal than just 30 minute penalty). I mean, even Kat (Nat/Kat) in TAR USA ate meat at the FF; true, she ended up winning a million dollars, but I'm sure she didn't regret it because that's what she signed up for. Even though I root for FF teams, their constant vegan monologue was tiresome; they never seemed to be in a rush; and were firmly in last the entire race, with the exception of being among the first teams to arrive at the market before they screwed it all up. I could tell by Reem's exasperated reaction when they asked her where the clue was ("It's back there, I really don't know how else to help you guys") that they didn't seem to be cut out for the race in more ways than one.
I do wonder, however, if/how it would've been different if Bren/Anja and Paul/Rachel had been in the opposite starting groups - would P/R have managed to brave through the sour lemons and the goat hide vats, and would B/A have stepped it up without an animal-related task and in a place that was not as confusing to navigate?
Next episode looks INSANE, and I am super excited to see what happens once we have 18 teams in the mix. I wonder how they'll do the opening credits??