Recap: The Amazing Race Canada 8, Episode 5 – “Shortcuts are not the way to win the Race.”


Recap: The Amazing Race Canada 8, Episode 5 – “I’m a Human Kite.”

Teams start the fifth Leg of the Race by driving to Calgary International Airport. From here, teams will fly to Kelowna in British Columbia. Their next clue awaits them in a Chevrolet Trailblazer RS at the airport. And that clue reveals the Road Block: Who is up first?

Teams must drive to Freedom Flight School on the way to Vernon where they will sign-up at the GURU-sponsored board to determine the order will be paragliding off the side of the cliff for the Road Block.

After an overnight rest, Brendan paraglides first followed by Nella, Marika, Kathy, Tychon, Veronica and Jahmeek.

The next clue contains the next Road Block which the other team member must complete. For this Road Block, teams must head to Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre and compete in biathlon. After completing a 300-metre cross country loop on skis, teams must hit five targets at the firing range. If they miss any, they’ll have to go for another lap before trying again.

Before they can start the 2nd Road Block, Cassie & Jahmeek must complete their Speed Bump which involves sorting a pile of ski boots by size and style.

Winter Olympian Jesse moves into the lead for him and Marika and they open the next clue revealing the Detour: Ball’n or Pomme’n. In Ball’n, teams must score five points in lawn bowling against locals. In Pomme’n, teams must make five mini-apple pies.

Jesse & Marika choose Ball’n as does Franca & Nella. Brendan & Conner move into 3rd and choose the bowling as well. But they are able to score faster and move back into first. Beverley & Veronica and Jully & Kathy, meanwhile, choose Pomme’n.

Cassie & Jahmeek are able to move out of last place when Cassie manages to hit her targets before Cedric. Both teams choose the lawn bowling.

After the Detour, teams must drive themselves to Jealous Fruits Orchard. Jesse & Marika arrive at the orchards first when the brothers drive too far. Brendan & Connor and Franca & Nella arrive at the same time.

At the orchards, teams must count the exact number of cherry trees in a marked area. They will then calculate how many pounds of cherries those trees will yield using simple math.

Jesse & Marika get the correct calculation and can now find the yoga platform at Predator Ridge Resort, the Pit Stop for this Leg of the Race. The brother and sister are able to check-in as Team #1 and win a trip to London and a $2000 gift card to Marshalls. Franca & Nella finish right behind them as Team #2 with Brendan & Connor finishing 3rd after making a simple mistake with their maths.

Beverley & Veronica move into 4th. Jully & Kathy go to the wrong Jealous and arrive at the orchards after Cassie & Jahmeek who manage to check-in as Team #5.

Jully & Kathy have a bit of trouble counting the trees as they are not taking any notes. Cedric & Tychon decide to look at other answers on chalkboards and just give that answer.

Cedric & Tychon check-in at the Mat, but because they interfered with other teams’ equipment at the orchards, they have incurred a two-hour penalty.

Jully & Kathy finally get the correct answer. They check-in at the Mat. But since
Jully picked up another team’s board before asking for a check, they have also incurred a penalty.

That means Jully & Kathy are last and eliminated. Jully can’t believe she had done that and she and Katy agree that digging through crates to cheat is not the way to go.

Cedric & Tychon say shortcuts are not the way to win the Race. Jully & Kathy agree.

Episode Thoughts

Well that was an interesting episode. Up until the last few minutes, I thought the most interesting thing about this episode would be seeing what looked like two different climates or whatever in one hour. Lol

So I guess we’ll just start with the big moment. And that is of course Cedric & Tychon deciding to cheat at the task. There’s two points to discuss here. First, the actual cheating. And second, did Jully & Kathy deserve the same penalty?

With the cheating, it’s sad because at the start of the episode when the comparison to the Tims was brought up, I thought to myself, “I actually like Cedric & Tychon enough compared to the Tims.” Now, maybe not so much. I appreciate their feelings about not taking shortcuts to win the Race. (HELLO TAR32 and TARAu5!) But as soon as they did it, it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

If Jully & Kathy really spent an hour and a half at the orchards, it’s hard to think Cedric & Tychon couldn’t have finished before them without cheating.

And yes, I do consider what they did cheating. Heck, I would consider a lot of the nonsense that heavy alliances do to be cheating. As long as you complete a task without actually completing the task as described, you’re most likely cheating.

At the same time, after TAR32 and even more so TARC7, at least half of the blame has to go to the show. I said during TARC7 especially, if it becomes more advantageous to quit a task rather than actually complete it, then there’s something wrong with the task itself and how it was designed.

An easy solution here would have been to either direct teams to erase their chalkboards or leave their chalkboards with the lady checking their answer. Why return the boards to the crates which were all next to each other if not to entice other teams to just look at the other teams’ boards. It’s a bit similar to Dave’s antics last season when he just looked over at someone’s answer at a Road Block. But he didn’t get a penalty for it, if I remember correctly. And now I remember that it might have been the same Leg as the mass quitting at the clams. What a gross episode. One of the worst episodes and Legs in Amazing Race history. Any TAR.

Anyway! I could probably keep going about cheating and shortcuts. Heck, teams did a “shortcut” at that sandwich task this season with no penalty.

Which brings us to the other point. Did Jully & Kathy deserve the same penalty as Cedric & Tychon? Based on what we saw in the episode, it doesn’t seem like Jully & Kathy just copied the answer or even used what was written on the other board to help them get the correct answer on their own. Jully simply picked it up and looked at it, but had no effect on their answer.

I can understand that no one but Jully & Kathy can know for sure if they did cheat. Which can support the show giving them a penalty. But at the same time, there is such an obvious difference between what Jully did and what Cedric & Tychon did. The father and son actually dug through other crates and copied the answer. Didn’t even do any calculations or any counting at all.

So in that sense, no, Jully & Kathy absolutely do not deserve the same penalty. It would be interesting if there were rules in the additional info for the task that strictly prohibited teams from touching other teams’ stuff. But using the words “interfering” makes it seem like teams were sabotaging another team. Not cheating and copying answers.

Which again, brings us to the discussion about what difference is that to when teams just give each other answers or even complete tasks for each other. Just because it’s consensual? Ugh. It’s things like that really support the idea that the Race has declined so much over the last couple of years. And honestly, it has nothing to do with budget.

Moving on though, the rest of the Leg could’ve been okay. We had a sorta-Switchback to the infamous Road Block from season 2. I actually don’t remember much about it except the mother from the mother/son team struggled and they were eliminated because of it.

But both Road Blocks and the Detour were pretty good even though we didn’t get too much placement fluctuation.

Like I mentioned earlier, it was so interesting to see two different weathers in one episode. (lol “different weathers”… you know what I mean) It wasn’t even just going from snow to sun. But having some teams in the snow at the same time as other teams were doing stuff in a sunny, snow-less location was just a fascinating contrast that is rarely, if ever seen on TAR.

Overall, this could’ve been a great episode had it not been for that stumble at the end. Something like that can really bring the mood down. And it’s unfortunate.

Speaking of unfortunate, I can’t even imagine what random twist they’re coming up with next week by bringing back the COVID teams. That’s some Network Ten TARAu nonsense lol Did they really quarantine them for two Legs and waited until they were negative to bring them back? Lol okay.

My Subjective Team Rankings

Well, after this week, Cedric & Tychon have to be my least favorite team now. I know they must regret what they did. But they still did it. Like I said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Tims. So the comparison made me like Cedric & Tychon a little bit more. It’s just too bad that they had to go with the easy shortcut instead of Racing hard as they have actually been doing so far until that point.

Meanwhile, the sibling alliance dominated for a 2nd Leg in a row. I hope that actually doesn’t continue because it would really make things boring. (At least, more boring than usual for TARC lol) At least they’re not giving each other answers or holding each other’s hands every minute.

I quite like Beverley & Veronica as “underdogs,” relatively speaking now. And seeing Cassie & Jahmeek able to finally move up a bit was great.

It’s really too bad how Jully & Kathy got eliminated. They were actually doing so well until the counting. So it was great to see and made their elimination even tougher.

4 thoughts on “Recap: The Amazing Race Canada 8, Episode 5 – “Shortcuts are not the way to win the Race.”

  1. IIRC there’s was a similar incident in TAR Canada season 3 where Gino & Jesse copied off of Brent & Sean and yet the edit portrayed Brent & Sean as idiots for not erasing the answers. Makes the whole series’ view on this type of “tactic” confusing.

    1. I went to read my recap after that clam task/Dave cheating debacle of am episode and I remember now that Jon basically applauded the teams for quitting the task. So I guess they don’t mind teams not caring about adhering to the directions/rules they set out for tasks. Unless there’s some kind of favoritism involved. 🙊

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