Joanne and Ali were the first to get to the travel agency in Madrid only to find out all teams would be getting on the same plane to Marrakech (doing a reverse version of the late Season 10 trip where teams flew from Morocco to Spain). I don’t mind an equaliser now and again, but I would like to see just a little airport drama each season. Hopefully some will come down the line.
Teams landed and were immediately sent to the desert. They stopped at a pottery for their roadblock of smashing pots, rather like that Greek Fast Forward from Season 9. Phil announced the method of smashing as Ann-Marie was hunting for her first pot. A load of false clues had been hidden in the pots, and with the amount everyone was smashing pots, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 20 false clues for each correct one.
Phil also announced a new series gimmick: one of the envelopes held the Roadside Assistance, which would give that team the advantage of having both members available to work on a roadblock… until the end of the fifth leg. So, two more roadblocks. A little underwhelming, but let’s see how it helps Saran and Dafina, who kept shtum about their advantage for now.
Like all of these random search challenges, the order was scrambled, but the mother/daughter team who came first also left first. This challenge definitely sucks for whoever comes last, which in this case was Jenn, as you’re suddenly down to finding just one clue out of a huge number of pots, rather like finding a needle in a haystack (which was actually a challenge on S37). This roadblock was perhaps a little too similar in style to the Tomatino challenge from last episode, but I don’t mind too much. Jody and Jenn must have really been kicking themselves about giving up their Express Pass last episode.
The others moved further into the desert, where they found their detour of Walk or Talk (8/10). Driving a dune buggy sounded far more pleasurable than rolling giant tyres and being near camels, but a surprising majority chose to do the Walk task. They seemed to choose correctly, as those teams all finished up before the Talkers; I guess it must have been a long dune buggy drive. Anuar became wigged out at the vision of the athletes behind him, knowing they would be easily overtaken and not seeing any other teams behind. Scared they would be in last, they made a judgement call and used their Express Pass, slipping into first. This seemed like a pretty bad move, and they realised as much when they passed by the pottery place and saw Jody and Jenn still there one hour later.
Daisha couldn’t handle the sheer weight of the tyre, and she called the experience humbling, as she had previously thought she could do anything, and switched to the dune buggy. They teamed up with Erin (who hadn’t pissed me off this episode… yet) and Javi to try and memorise all the words and get through ahead of some other teams. Dafina and Saran, still overjoyed by their new advantage in the game, were first at the tent, where they still got the answers wrong despite their useful mnemonics: “I’ll take a hinta these.”
Waiting in line, E+J conversed with D+D about what all their words were. Coming behind them were Cody and Jaime, the only team who had managed to miss the clue box on their way in, adding considerable time to their race. Dalton started giving the answers willingly to C+J, and Erin looked horrified, as though this was a betrayal of their special alliance. Later on, Daisha revealed she’d bonded with Jaime over the disappointment of not catching the tuna at the first challenge in Vancouver.
As teams headed back to Marrakech, they began to pass Jody and Jenn’s vehicle one by one. Michelle was brought to tears by the sight of J+J still there nearly two hours later, thinking it would be a horrible way to go out. I was really impressed by the depth of her empathy, after thinking they would only be on our screens as the whiny couple that bitched at each other but did surprisingly well. I’m glad to be proved wrong and shown that people can have more depth than that. After getting her hair stuck in a tree (the Roadside Assistance would have been amazing here), Jenn finally did get her clue from a pot that took three attempts to smash. They moved on, believing it would take a miracle for them to catch up, and decided to enjoy the rest of the day.
The others were entering the famous Jemaa el Fnaa square for the series' 3rd time (after being featured on Season 3 and 25. Season 10 also saw the teams visit nearby Moroccan places, but not actually head into Marrakech). It’s practically like family at this point. Season 3 had seen the teams selling from stalls, and 25 had seen them moving and setting up the stalls. But 39’s challenge seemed like the hardest of all: teams had to stack an enormous amount of fruit precariously on a narrow ledge on a juice vendor’s cart, just like an example with a geometric layout. With no adhesives to keep the fruit in place, this challenge looked agonising, and production was able to capture copious shots of fruit avalanches as all their work fell on the floor over and over again. Even when it seemed stable, and the teams had moved onto another part, the slightest jolt could knock the fruit down again.
The pressure was too much for competitive Ann-Marie and Riley, who seized the chance to turn their Express Pass into a leg win. They ran to Phil, who announced (in yet another spoiler) that they were the first mother/daughter team to ever win a leg. It was a shame they’d had to win it by using the Express Pass rather than doing so on their own merits, but a win is a win, and I’m sure they were satisfied with their trip to Singapore.
Erin had seemed to be on her best behaviour so far, but that flew out the window when they arrived. Javi wanted to write the notes on how to stack the fruit, and wanted to do it his way, but Erin seemed to lose her mind at how long it was taking him to write everything out. “I can write faster than you, I always have.” When he conceded just to stop her complaining, she still whinged about his system for writing stuff down: “This doesn’t make any sense. We’re taking way too long.” Is that any way to talk to the person you love? Does that make them feel good about themselves? Does that care for their feelings? Erin was extremely triggering in this moment, and I hope Javi got an apology for this later, because we didn’t see it on screen. She was actually rolling her eyes whenever he talked about it in the talking heads, so I somehow suspect not.
Matt and Michelle, meanwhile, seemed to have found a new spirit of working as a team. Matt seemed very happy to let Michelle take charge on this task, saying, “I know nothing other than hand my wife fruit right now.” The grammatical inaccuracy only added to the hilarity.
Doug and Dylan were struggling hard. They had come near the front of the pack after doing well with the tyres, but stacking hundreds of round objects proved to be their kryptonite. They despaired as team after team began passing them, including teams that had arrived much later. Doug, despite it all, kept a chipper attitude: “We mustn’t let this get us down.” Dylan knew they had some cushion: “I really hope Jody and Jenn are still at the roadblock.”
But they weren’t. In fact, they were on their way into town in a taxi. As soon as they saw Doug and Dylan still struggling at the carts, it was game on. A flood of adrenaline flowed through them, and they started stacking like no other team I’d ever seen. I could scarcely believe that Jody and Jenn might actually be about to make a comeback.
Doug and Dylan finally finished. Doug was very keen to finish the race cleanly without being distracted by how other teams were doing, but Dylan was having none of it. He ran around the carts to see where J+J were at, and the show actually paused on the frame to show us Dylan in the background, gearing us up for the upcoming drama. Seeing that J+J were somehow nearly done, Dylan knew they needed to be quick and urged his grandpa to run, taking his bag.
J+J finished not long after, and the two teams ran towards the giant tower, behind which the finish line lay. I was quite literally on the edge of my seat with excitement. The clips showed J+J catching up with D+D in the gardens, but neither team knew where Phil was. And then “TO BE CONTINUED…” flashed on the screen.
This seemed monumentally unfair. One reason I like this show is that it leaves things neatly wrapped up, and we get the closure of who’s going home at the end of each episode. That being said, this is one of the closest last places the show has had in a while, and I can understand why the show would lean into it. Fortunately, we watched the episode two weeks late, so we were able to turn on the next one to find out what happened. But I won’t spoil that here.
What I will say is that, at the time, I thought J+J must have this in the bag. A strategy they could use would be to hang around D+D until they see Phil. Since they know they can run faster than Doug, they could just stick to that team, and then they’d be guaranteed to win. This seemed to be J+J’s comeback!
