We return to Meredith and Maria's now-happy car, in which they're very chipper until they have to pay a toll. "I hope I don't stall out at the toll," Maria says. And then she stalls out at the toll. If I were Maria, I would have thrown a wad of money at the attendant, yelled "SORRY!," and barreled through, just hoping they'd overlook it. They're probably too busy with drug traffickers to chase toll runners, don't you think?
Oslo-Fern points out on a sign where Lena and Kristy are supposed to turn. Kris and Jon see the sign, too. And then Kris, bless her blonde heart, interviews that, "as a geography major," she knows where stuff is and how to get to it. I bet she has a t-shirt that says, "Geography Majors Do It With A Lot Of Latitude." They spot the ski jump from a distance, all lit up.
Both the girls and Kris and Jon get there and rip the clue, which turns out to be a Roadblock clue that says, "Who's ready to perform an Olympian feat?" Phil materializes at this point to explain that a Roadblock is still a task that only one person may perform. But! The Roadblock ain't what it used to be. Unlike in previous races in which it was perfectly possible to drag a Flo-batross all the way around the damn world on the strength of your singular will, now no team member can do more than six Roadblocks. Basically, you have to split them (roughly) if you want to be around for the entire race. In theory, this means that you should imagine twelve or so Roadblock tasks, and you should imagine dividing them in half according to which of your team members would be more suited to them, and decide by guessing whether a particular task is more likely to be in one half or the other. But it also matters what your placement is and where you are in the race. It will ultimately turn out, for instance, that it doesn't really matter who does this Roadblock, especially for the lead teams, because of the way the bunching works out. So you can not only give your weaker person the easier Roadblocks, you can protect yourself by giving your weaker person the Roadblocks where you don't need the win so much. Just another way that smart play can benefit you, and that is nothing but good news. Also, it gives me another thing to overanalyze. Aren't we all glad? Anyone?









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