‘The Amazing Race Canada 3’ episode 8 review: Was there an upset in Kolkata?
Over the past few legs of “The Amazing Race Canada,” it is appeared that Gino & Jesse were an unstoppable force. They’ve won multiple legs, and they even managed to almost beat Brent & Sean last week despite the two of them using their Express Pass.
So for a split second, it almost felt Wednesday night that the two favorites could have gone home! That would be a huge shocker, and it would have really changed the hierarchy of the entire season had it happened … but we’re ultimately happy that it did not.
We know that everyone likes to see Goliath taken down at some point, but we do not want to see it happen mostly as a result of luck. That’s what it would have been had they lost this time. While they did make mistakes and probably clashed more as a team than in any past leg, the real struggle for these two guys was finding a cab. Most of their struggles seem to be in finding taxis in foreign countries. In Canada, nothing can really slow them down; in other countries, they just cannot get a good ride for the life of them.
Keeping Gino & Jesse around in Kolkata also probably raises the competition level of the final legs even more, especially now that we have lost Brian & Cynthia from the race following an argumentative and slow-moving race where they simply took a little too long at most of the tasks. This was more cumulative than making just one big mistake. We liked these two in the early going and praised their authenticity, but when things are going bad for them it’s really not entertaining to watch Brian be cranky and yelling at people. It’s more uncomfortable than anything.
The rest of the leg itself was for the most part, given that we got to see everything from yoga (probably a better detour than one where you had to weave through traffic) to floral arrangements to even a few important landmarks of the era. The show continued to try to be a little more educational than its American counterpart and we appreciate that.
Probably the biggest surprise of the night was Simi & Ope, who ran a really solid leg at a time when it felt like they were dead in the water. Still, them running a very good leg only brought them fourth place, and that doesn’t bode well. Something different can be said for Dujean & Leilani, otherwise known as the one team of exes who seem to actually be getting along better as time goes. They won their second leg Wednesday, and we’re starting to like them more and more over time. They seem very nice, and Dujean’s got some funny confessionals.
The only real knock against the episode is just the location being over-used on the franchise. We’d rather see teams go to almost any country other than India, which has been done in so many different forms on so many different seasons. Since the Canadian version is limited more to major cities, we’d prefer to see them go somewhere like Cuba, which has only really been done on the Austrian version, or a few major cities in Europe. Episode Grade: B.
What did you think about this episode, and are you sad to see Brian & Cynthia go? Share with a comment, and head over here to get some more news related to “The Amazing Race Canada.” Also, you can sign up now to get some other race-worthy TV news on all we cover, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CTV.)