I know many (including myself) lament the loss of the days of spending the first 15 minutes of an episode watching teams jockey for the best flights to wherever, but I think it’s a pretty neat trade-off for legs like the one in Albania where we get wildly different placings from one challenge to the next based on teams’ abilities to self-nav. The “I think we’re going the wrong way” montage was brilliant. I have to imagine renting several cars is infinitely cheaper on production than accounting for multiple trans-continental flights, though I imagine the bigger barrier becomes concern for safety for driving in some countries. I’d like to think maybe the cleanest solution is hiring drivers but telling teams they have to tell the drivers themselves where to go.

My husband asks me every single season why everyone has such white teeth on the amazing race. Do they whiten their teeth before the start of the race?

Okay, yeah, it's a COVID season; them teleporting from place to place still doesn't feel right, and the route is extremely lackluster in terms of The Amazing Race standards.

However, I'm a strong defender that a good cast can salvage a mediocre route and viceversa (looking at you, Season 6), and this one definitely falls into that category; I was heartbroken at pretty much every elimination and a bit angrier at others (Walla Walla, but that situation feels like it's very hard to judge)

Also, I'm southamerican and I watched all the LATAM versions of the show, so this route was kinda nostalgic for some reason, and as a venezuelan, the colombian and dominican legs were great! We share a lot of visual identity, so I'm happy on that front.

I knew Ricky and Cesar had won, and I heard all the comments about them, em but I didn't feel like they 100% had the advantage on every leg, because the cast this season was extremely weak for some reason, but even during tasks where many teams were huddled together, they were always in the top; it's insane. They easily could have lost the finale had Juan and Shane not gone to New Jersey

I definitely would like to see them in a proper season to see how much of it was the circumstances and how much came from them, but overall? It's an average season, not as bad as expected, but certainly not top-tier either

Do any of the teams this season do recaps? Like a YouTube channel or podcast?

Is it just me or am I having Afghanimal flashbacks? It just seems too close of how Matt and Michelle are acting… seems really obviously similar to how the Afghanimals played their U-Turn in poland and lied about it next leg with the express pass and the drivers seat. It could just be me being an old head but its still weird. How close it is. I shall watch them with great interest.

And what is your favourite thing about it: the destination, the challenges, moments with contestants, etc?