‘The Amazing Race Canada 4’ episode 4 review: A comeback and a close call
There are several things to enjoy about this season of “The Amazing Race Canada” at present, but one of the biggest ones may be that there is a true sense of unpredictability. While we think personally that Steph & Kristen are the best team going through four legs, we have seen three different winners, and a two-time leg winner in Jillian & Emmett almost go home in Vietnam.
The winners of Tuesday night’s leg were Kelly & Kate in what may be one of the more impressive showings we’ve seen from a team we previously discounted as contenders. We questioned their killer instinct, but we’re happy to be proven wrong that they can win a fairly challenging leg. They were able to tap into their language skills for the karaoke task at the Detour, and that proved be a huge asset for them in breaking from the rest of the pack. More importantly, they soldiered on in the motorcycle-repair Roadblock, a task they were not suited for, and never got frustrated or upset. Handling weaknesses is so much more critical to going far in this show than handling strengths. While we’re not forgetting about their early struggles or them finishing last in a non-elimination leg, this week proved they have upside.
On the flip side, this week also showed the vulnerabilities of Jillian & Emmett when neither Detour task required much in the way of stamina or strength, which are two of their greatest attributes. They probably should’ve never left the karaoke Detour since it seemed based on other teams like it was the easier choice. Switching Detours, which is something you always want to avoid for time reasons, was bad enough on its own. They were very lucky thanks to the structure of this episode, since Anne & Tanya never could make up the ground they needed to after their previous struggles. They seemed to complete the tasks faster, but started off in last place by a pretty large margin.
While more praise must be given to Steph & Kristen (2nd place) for their consistency, our worried about them hiding their Express Pass came home to roost tonight when they had to give Frankie & Amy the second Express Pass in front of Joel & Ashley at the Pit Stop. They didn’t get a chance to during the leg, and how two separate teams know they were lying. Everyone already knew that the two were great racers; now, they also know that they’re great liars, which could make them twice as dangerous moving forward this season.
Overall, we give this leg of the race a thumbs-up since it did have some fun challenges in it, there were multiple places for teams to mess up, and we had a nice rearrangement of the pecking order. The only problem here was that the elimination could be seen coming from a mile away, which probably does further accentuate the importance of equalizers every now and then. Grade: B+.
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