‘The Amazing Race: Australia vs. New Zealand’ episodes 8 and 9 review: The final three revealed
“The Amazing Race: Australia vs. New Zealand” is now going into its finale Monday, and you can probably go ahead and just rename this now “The Amazing Race Australia.” After losing two of their teams in the early going, the Aussies are now making up the entirety of the final three.
In all honesty, though, we were not surprised by this from the moment that Emily & Jono and John & Murray were eliminated from the competition. These were the two physically-dominant Kiwi teams, and each team left due to mistakes that could have been avoided.
At least in one case tonight, that was also true. We’ll star with Cat & Jesse, who were really just victims of a pretty terrible leg in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The city is completely gorgeous, but having two Roadblocks that were virtually the same thing? Dull. Also, every task had a heavy physical component, and there was therefore no opportunity for them to catch up by doing something else. They were never going to win, but it would have been nice to see them in the finale.
As for Carla & Hereni, they just made one silly mistake after another in the second episode this week, which took place in Argentina. The two first got a poor cab driver, and that part of it was luck; however, they completely overlooked an obvious clue at the Detour, and while they were able to make up for that and the poor traffic with the tango-themed task, they then got lost on the way to the Pit Stop. We were worried throughout this entire episode that a team would be eliminated for things out of their control (like a bad cab driver), but that ended up not being a case.
There’s no questioning to us that the second episode was stronger than the first. The only notable event in Dubrovnik, which really needed a “Game of Thrones” challenge, was seeing Daniel & Ryan shave part of their heads to get a Fast Forward, only to still not get first place for the leg.
While we do have a favorite for the final leg to be named soon, we have to say for now that this is at least an unpredictable setup for the finale. All three teams have strengths and weaknesses, and are capable of winning in the end. Episode Grades: C+ and A-.
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Photo: Seven Network