Recap: The Amazing Race Canada 9, Episode 4 – “That was a little joke.”

Recap: The Amazing Race Canada 9, Episode 4 – This Ugly Duckling is Now a Swan

The 4th Leg begins around noon by telling teams to drive a Chevy Trailblazer RS to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry to Vancouver Island. The other teams are shocked to see Jermaine & Justin strut their way onto the ferry.

Upon arrival in Nanaimo, teams must drive 80km to Malahat Skywalk where they must use the Expedia app on Samsung Galaxy Folds to book a hotel for the night and tickets to the Skywalk for tomorrow morning.

And in the morning, teams must use a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra to take photos of ten driftwood animal sculptures located around the base of the Skywalk tower. Teams may use a Desjardins Assist to only photograph five wooden animals if they wish.

Derek & Jaspal and Gracie & Lily end up pointing each other to sculptures each have missed. Ty & Kat and Ben & Anwar do the same and they end up leaving first. Derpal, Tyler & Kayleen, Shayla & Joel and Gracie & Lily finish next followed by Jermaine & Justin, leaving Deven & Amanda in last.

Teams must now drive 40km to Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria which is supposedly celebrating the release of the Disney film Haunted Mansion. Teams will celebrate too by using a Samsung Galaxy Fold to watch the film’s trailer, introduced by Tiffany Haddish, spotting ten potential replica props they might see inside the castle. They will then search the castle and memorize which rooms they find the props in. Finally, they will head outside to a floorplan of the castle and correctly match the locations of the props to get the next clue.

While other teams just pick out random things they see in the trailer, Derpal go out to see the list of things they need to look for and go back inside to search the mansion specifically for them.

Derpal’s decision pays off as they are first to finish. Ty & Kat, Gracie & Lily and Tyler & Kayleen are next to complete the Haunted Mansion promo followed by Ben & Anwar.

Meanwhile, Jermaine & Justin finish and open the next clue which reveals a Speed Bump. They must head to Bug Zoo in Victoria where they must eat a pint of vanilla ice cream while each having a tarantula sit on their arm. They spend not five minutes here as they scarf down the ice cream in two spoonfuls each while gleefully joking about being quitters last Leg.

Back at the Disney Haunted Mansion promo, Shayla & Joel pass on their 5th attempt while Deven & Amanda are still in last.

The next clue reveals a Face Off. Teams must head to Colville Park in Esquimalt and join the Canadian Scottish Regiment in pitching a ten-person bell tent. Teams will take command and get help from soldiers who will only respond to their direct orders. The team who correctly pitches their tent first moves on.

Gracie & Lily end up arriving at the Face Off in 2nd and they manage to order their cadets around better than Derek & Jaspal. Derpal then beat Ty & Kat who beat Tyler & Kayleen who beat Ben & Anwar who lose to Jermaine & Justin. Ben & Anwar beat Shayla & Joel who beat Deven & Amanda who must now wait out a ten-minute penalty.

Teams must now drive 35km to Sooke. One team member will get on a paddleboard while their partner somehow guides them looking for three luggage tags that make up one of ten awesome Expedia trips. When they’ve collected all three tags, they will get the last clue.

Lily gets on the paddle board, but Derek finds the correct tags first. Gracie decides to change their trip to something else since they already found tags for that trip instead.

Derek & Jaspal head to the Pit Stop on the sandbar known as Whiffin Spit Park and officially check-in as Team #1, winning a trip to the Bahamas. Gracie & Lily settle for 2nd followed by Tyler & Kayleen and Ty & Kat.

On the way to Sooke, Shayla & Joel need to stop for directions. That allows Deven & Amanda to catch up.

Jon excitedly checks Jermaine & Justin in as Team #5 while Ben & Anwar take 6th.

It’s down to the last two teams with Joel and Amanda in the water. It’s a neck-neck Race. But Deven & Amanda get their tags first and it is enough to get them to the Pit Stop as Team #7. That means Shayla & Joel are last and sadly eliminated.

Episode Thoughts

My goodness, not even TARPHDME does this many Samsung tasks. Or any sponsor product placement tasks, tbh. I usually have no problem with product placement, but TARC has been quite obvious and seemingly obsessive about it this season. They must really need the money. Because there was definitely no finesse in how they integrate sponsors into the Racecourse.

Product placement tasks usually don’t feel intrusive. But having every Leg and even entire Legs be mainly sponsored tasks, it makes the Race feel very contrived and fake. If that make sense.

So that made this episode quite a cringey hour. And it didn’t help that we still had to see Jermaine & Justin laughing it up like they didn’t just give up last Leg and got an underserved reprieve. Actually, they seemed like they were proud of it. The other teams were happy to see Jermaine & Justin again. But I was definitely not. They left the Pit Start 13 minutes after Ben & Anwar? Absolutely absurd. Like I said last week, I would’ve just canceled the Non-Elimination and put them out of our misery. Find a loophole to do that in the contracts. lol

Anyway, the tasks themselves maybe had good ideas hidden somewhere deep down. But together really made for a very linear Leg.

I thought the Expedia app booking was going to be the episode’s only product placement. But boy was I wrong lol

Taking photos with their Samsung phones was fine. But then they shouldn’t have done the Samsung part of the bungee if they already had this task. Instead it feels repetitive, even though this Samsung task was much better than the pointless part of the bungee.

Then there’s the Haunted Mansion promo. Promoting Disney’s summer movie is nothing new on TARC of course. But what was the actual point of the task other than that? Why not give the teams the list of items then if teams could just go look at it outside. Or did the show not anticipate teams were going to do that. What’s the point of watching the trailer and writing down random items? Have them watch the trailer, sure. But looking for props in it? Absolutely pointless. And so the way they executed the task felt really dumb.

With the Face Off, thank goodness it wasn’t a sports task. But then again, this task was actually really bad for a Face Off too. You basically just had to do it twice so you knew what to do. And it’s not clear, but the other teams probably saw and heard the leading teams do the task anyway. So they knew what to do. Just a pointless task and an even more pointless penalty (unless it took 10 minutes to actually pitch the tent in the first place, showing even more how bad the task was).

Finally, the Expedia paddleboard task was basically a Road Block. Why not make it one then? It would’ve at least made things more interesting if one team member was forced to do it over the other.

Also, what was the point of the paddleboard if teams just waded through the water anyway? Wind or not, force teams to stay on the paddleboard. That’s the whole point of paddleboard tasks! Seeing teams struggle to stay afloat. Not just wading through the water to each tag. But perhaps we might even have seen more quitting if that were the case. So maybe that was the reason the task sucked? lol

Not only that, but teams shouldn’t have been allowed to switch trips once they chose one. It’s like the Haunted Mansion task. You could just go see what tags were close by and you already found instead of choosing one and sticking to that decision. You chose the trip, that’s part of your luck whether or not the tags are easy to find.

Does TAR Canada suddenly not know how to design challenges anymore?

Such a strange Leg. Probably one of the cringiest Legs ever on TARC. And there have been plenty.

And oh brother. The dumb Pass returns next week. Woohoo. Not.

Team Thoughts

Too bad about Shayla & Joel. They seemed like nice peoples and I wished they had been able to get themselves out of the back of the pack. Leg design certainly didn’t help. But their elimination is even more annoying considering it means the quitters are still in it.

I certainly hope Derek & Jaspal, Gracie & Lily, Tyler & Kayleen and Ty & Kat are not our final four. Because it seems quite obvious that they are the top contenders so far. And it’s only Leg 4. So if they dominate the rest of the Race, I don’t know if that will be any bit enjoyable. Especially since some of their personalities can grate.

Ben & Anwar is definitely a team I will be rooting for to make it to the end. They are the underdog at this point and I always enjoy a good underdog team. I think they’re poised for a breakout Leg. At least I hope!

Deven & Amanda are alright. But they also have been trailing most of the Race. And if the Legs continue like they are, then it might be difficult for them to find an opportunity to move ahead.

And the quitters. I just hope they will be next eliminated. And I will wish for that every week until they finally are. Hopefully the wait won’t take us all the way to the Final Leg.