Amazing Race 2025 Let the Race Begin!

What a finish! I thought the brothers might have been penalized for running but they all seemed to be doing it. DH wants to go to Dubai now. 😄
The scuba dive tank was incredible. Good epi!

I loved this episode!!! A DF just came back from Dubai last month. A group of her friends went to celebrate a "Big" Birthday!!!

I was sad with who went home. I am enjoying this season.

This was a really good episode and I was sad to see them go. They both had great attitudes and truly had a strong bond.

Hadn't heard it before. Sounds like trying to find an excuse for his poor behavior.

I was bummed about Jeff & Pops. They were a great team. I loved the way their relationship played out on screen. They seem very supportive and loving towards one another and it was lovely to see that in a parent-child relationship.

They didn't seem to have some of the same issues we've seen with other parent/child teams---the parent not taking the child seriously, or there being some degree of estrangement or lack of understanding/communication prior to the race, etc. They came across almost as a best friend team, but with an added helping of fondness and mutual respect.

I saw a video he posted that said he was diagnosed with Autism after they returned from the race, and that this explains his behavior towards his wife and his other behaviors. Personally I call bullshit. What I see is a man emotionally and verbally abusing his wife on national tv. Who knows what he does behind closed doors. He also strikes me as a narcissist.

While he and his wife were searching through the hay I heard him say to her, “This is all your fault”. When their car got stuck in the mud which he’d been driving he kept repeating, “Why do bad things always happen to me?”

My guess is he read the comments of folks talking about his behavior once the race aired and looked for a way to excuse it. The video was several minutes long but I could only bear to listen to it for a minute or two.

I felt bad for both teams that were U-turned. The log challenge was grueling and then to have to do the haystack was awful. I'd be bitching too. They were gracious when Phil told them they had been eliminated and boy it brought back the memories of the haystacks years ago when Phil had to show up in the dark to tell a team they were eliminated.

I still think Jonathan is a tool.

I have a feeling that a lot of the places they ran to were closer together than it seemed, but people spent a lot of time running around searching, so it seemed like the clues were further apart than they really were.

I was surprised at some of the choices and mistakes this leg. We're getting really close to the end for people to be dropping their guard and their observation skills now.

Alyssa & Josiah noticed and recognized the "AR37" on the klek, which I *NEVER* would have noticed, and yet didn't think to even once pick that cipher up off the table?  Especially after they mentioned practicing escape rooms. Manipulating everything around you is a big part of escape rooms. (I was also astounded that Jonathan & Ana gave Alyssa & Josiah that hint---and then Alyssa & Josiah beat them to the mat. I felt like it's really late in the game to be handing out such major help willy nilly like that.

Same with Han & Holden. Holden was all "We need every bit of info first", and yet they too never fully manipulated the one tool they had at their disposal. Then they opted to run off on their own rather than wait a minute for directions? But at least they recognized that they had not been their best that leg and vowed to do better going forward.

Carson & Jack were not the least bit careful to hide what they were doing with the cipher, and therefore wound up with Han & Holden and Melinda & Erika right on their tail afterwards.

And despite running into the man from the woodcutting task (Which was SO awesome! Can you imagine--you're running around a city you never heard of in Bulgaria and suddenly see someone you recognize, who is NOT another team!) who explained the klek shop so well, they still didn't seem to get it right away when they arrived. 

And of course Melinda & Erika--oh my gosh, I was glad they came in last, because I can only imagine how bad Erika would have felt if she was the cause of them being eliminated by misreading the clue and making them incur what I imagine would have been multiple time penalties. Especially after she had been really rough on her mother earlier in the day when she felt her mom was wrong about something. I felt badly for Melinda, because she really did well in the dancing with her knowledge of Greek dance, and it was a too little, too late moment for them.

So, after I busted everyone for their mistakes, I will say that I was very impressed with everyone when it came to the dancing. Mark, obviously was going to do well. But then Ana came in with dance talent, and Melinda had knowledge of Greek dancing, and even Josiah had some non-professional dance experience. Then Carson & jack, who both groaned at the idea of dancing, still were in and out of the task quickly. So, yeah, they all wowed me there. 

Jonathon is not my favorite by any means, but anyone willing to take an honest look at their behavior, recognize it is not something they are proud of, that they are the problem and get the help to try figure it out, gets some grace from me. I know too many diagnosed as adults with ADHD and/or on the autism spectrum to doubt him. 

Have to admit I was a little disappointed in how many teams never turned over the cypher to figure it out. 

I died inside when Erika read the clue as "take taxis", kept wondering how many penalties they were racking up and was a bit relieved that they were last anyway. It would have been brutal to have the other teams come in to the finish line after them while they had to sit out a penalty (or maybe forced to run between the destinations again via bus/metro/foot?).

I loved Carson & Jack running into the wood stack guy on the bus! 

These last two legs have been great tourism ads for Bulgaria. 

I had to stay out of this thread because I was 2 weeks behind. I was glad the mother/daughter team was last, only so they wouldn't get penalized. They wouldn't have been disqualified. Instead, they would have gotten a 30 min per taxi penalty and they said in an interview after they took 4 taxis = 2 hour penalty. So that would have sucked either way.

Jonathan surprised me and my husband this week when he actually helped a team with the clues for a bit (at the decoding thing) We thought for sure he was gonna be like LATER! 


Not sure who I liked best... probably Alyssa & Josiah.

He did but I still don't think that is *that* jerk-ish. He could have just left. If I helped a team and stalled my own for a few, I'd hope they would help me later as well.

Don't get me wrong: I still can't stand the guy. lol

I agree. 

I thought this was one location where the run around and find items on a list wasn't so difficult. That's usually a challenge I swear I would never choose to do if I could avoid it because it often involves riding through crammed streets in a tuk-tuk, which can slow you down, or searching an enormous market with endless stalls, or you have to fetch the items and then arrange them somewhere just so, or deliver things to 3 different homes, etc., so this seemed much easier.

Yes, I heard either Carson or Jack say something along the line of them being nerds (his word, not mine    ) so jousting was right up their alley.