So, what did we learn from the five eliminated teams on After the Race, the one-hour special that aired Tuesday on CTV?
Some things we already knew – Rex and Bob can charm the pants off a Soviet border guard (maybe Rex has a story he could share?), Nicole is an awesome mom who never gives up, Cormac isn’t down with the #hotmom hashtag, seeing Sean separating his shoulder is just as cringe-worthy the sixth time around – but some new tidbits about the 11 teams competing on the second season of The Amazing Race Canada came to light on the special.
Here are five:
1. Laura and Jackie are better people than the rest of us paddling around in the snark pool. They don’t begrudge Olympians Meaghan and Natalie their multiple wins. “I feel like they are Canadian heroes. To see them in this light, really, they should be winning as much as they did,” Laura said. “Those were really, really tough legs.”
Nicole did allow that it was frustrating seeing the gold-medal winners in the front of the pack so much. That said, the eliminated teams were apparently high-fiving each other when they saw footage of the Golden Girls tanking in the hockey challenge and finishing the leg in fifth, according to host James Duthie.
2. Michel and Pierre are in it to win it, no matter what. “They had said to us at one point, ‘We are willing to do anything in this Race, anything. And even dirty plays,’ ” Nicole said. “So, we saw that. For them to get the Express Pass was disappointing.” This, of course, leads to a replay of the twins actively misleading Mickey and Pete on the streets of Macau. But not everyone has a hate-on for the brothers. “They’re not sitting here, so,” Jackie pointed out.
3. For all the talk of playing nice, some teams were working on an alliance targeting the Golden Girls. Cormac said he and his mom, Bob and Rex and Alain and Audrey talked about working together. “We wanted someone to take down Meg and Natalie, at least for one leg,” Cormac said. Bob added that on the return trip from Hong Kong, the three teams strategized in Vancouver about how to play a possible U-Turn.
James Duthie then points out that Sukhi and Jinder are the one team the rest of the field loves to actively dislike, given the siblings’ “help us, help us, help us!” chatter. Laura and Jackie, however, said they think highly of the pair. (See point No. 1)
4. That trip up the ramp Nabeela took at the dock at CFB Esquimalt? She got up and kept running, but it took eight stitches to close the gash on her knee once medics got a look at it. And that was only after her teammate Shahla had to get medical help after half her body went numb during the water-tank challenge. Props, ladies!
5. The Golden Girls, Mickey and Pete and Michel and Pierre are leading the contest that awards the most-voted-for team free gas for a year at Petro-Canada. What, where are Bob and Rex? Oh, that’s right: they took the penalty. Ba-da-boom! Thanks, folks, I’ll be here all month! Try the veal!
As for the exclusive preview of the rest of the season? Best I can tell, those are hits from next week’s episode, when The Amazing Race Canada heads to Normandy. Speaking of which, come back next week for my behind-the-scenes stories on running the Race in France. I tagged along with the cast and crew during filming and have the scoop on what you don’t see on TV.
