Honestly, I had a real problem with last night's episode. The bathroom break, yeah, but if you watched how quickly she was running before taking the bathroom break, I'm not sure that it didn't actually get them to the mat sooner. Honestly, I got the impression that the bigger issue was trying to find the mat and taking a break might have gotten their heads in the game sooner.
Speaking of trying to find things, the cheerleaders should have been gone. They spent more time trying to find this place instead of going back to the start than Kesha and Jen spent doing the second detour, and you know that there was a ton of editing. I'm guessing that the second detour took at least 1-2 hours minimum. They were back and forth trying to write down and memorize pronunciation several times.
And it was Luke who said it last night - they aren't going to put the U-turn too far away from the challenges. Everyone should have realized the same thing and looked close instead of walking for hours and hours. They seriously deserve to have been eliminated for that alone, particularly since they were told several times that it was a good idea and the teams that did so didn't show up again, did they?
Now, I'm no huge fan of Kesha and Jen's, but I really take issue with last night's episode. Basically, it got me a bit irritated. Your two detour choices are 1) go to the opera and put on a bunch of makeup and an outfit and take a bow. Not really challenging, but certainly time-consuming. Second choice 2) Go to a restaurant and memorize some chinese phrases. Honestly? Memorize chinese phrases? Now, I know that the show isn't always fair and some people have inherent advantages over other people, but this was a total non-challange for Tammy and Victor who already speak chinese natively. And between you and me, the way Victor was carrying on about how they have it in the bag because they did so well this leg...really? Do you honestly not realize that it was a non-challange for you?
I think all the other teams had the same reaction I would have had - memorizing these phrases is going to be a huge pain and take forever...I'm going to go to the opera...so while the non-challenge for Tammy and Victor already sort of ticks me off, they went and made it far worse by putting a U-turn there, so Tammy and Victor could force their stiffest competition out of the game. And thanks to the cheerleaders being such idiots, it almost didn't even work anyway, but ultimately, having to do the second challenge did cost them the game (and a possible bathroom break).
The eating challenges are always a bit tricky to call, though, because people react very differently to gag reflexes. Jen was clearly having a tough time, but having to wash each piece down with water like it was medicine she must have realized that she was going to need to go to the bathroom a lot afterwards. She said that she drank 4 bottles of water. That's a pretty decent amount of water alone to be drinking. If I drank that much liquid with a meal, I'm not sure I would even be able to stuff it all down. Of course, some of it did come back up...