TARNalysis Power Rankings: Week Five

While I unfortunately wasn’t quick enough to do this for the first four weeks, here’s a new feature here at Cultural Learnings. While you can catch full race recaps over at McNutt Against the Music, I’ll be doing Power Rankings; based on their position at the beginning of the race (Green), their Detour stats (Both Start/End), their Roadblock Stats (Both Start/End) and then their position at the end of the leg, these stats will also include past performance and general thoughts and notes regarding the team. So, without further adieu, here are this week’s TARNalysis Power Rankings.

1. Danny and Oswald
These two may have ended up 4^th, but it was simply a problem of picking the wrong detour option. They struggled with the first task, having trouble working with one another, but bounced back extremely quickly and worked well together for the remainder of the leg. Despite their low finish in this particular episode, I think they’re still in the most powerful position in the race.

2. Teri and Ian
These two have been under the radar for quite some time, and one could assume that they lucked their way into their 3^rd place finish by stumbling upon the easier detour option. But, in the end these two remain competent racers with strong performances both behind them and ahead of them.

3. Charla and Mirna
They likely won’t be here for long, but a 1^st place finish can’t be ignored. They used strong skills navigating to the detour to work their way into position, and then picked the right detour to waltz into 1^st place. Still, they’re weak, and will fall back again.

4. Eric and Danielle
Despite some strong performances recently, these two took a hefty dive into 6^th place. In the end, though, they raced well until some bad navigation and a poor detour choice sent them to the back of the pack. They’ll bounce back, even with Danielle having a few issues here or there. Eric was also a little confrontational with the Guidos, and made a few “Queen” and “Weirdo” remarks towards them, which certainly don’t do him any favours. That said, to be entirely fair, the Guidos were being a little antagonistic themselves.

5. Joe and Bill
These two got out of the gates quickly, heading into the Roadblock and the Detour in impressive positions. However, they weren’t able to pull it together in the end, and they continue to antagonize other teams to little effect. As I noted above, their fight with Eric was patently ridiculous (Patent pending). For speeding and almost passing them, even though they weren’t actually driving, you’re going to throw a fit? That’s as bad as Charla/Mirna attacking Rob and Amber for lying. It’s a race, and they need to occasionally get off their high horse. That said, they didn’t deserve to be disparaged as they were.

6. Dustin/Kandice
They might have finished 2^nd, but they struggled all lef to pull it together. They missed the bag at the first task, went into the Roadblock last, and made a wrong turn on the way to the Detour. Other than picking the right option at the very end, they just didn’t pull it together.

7. Uchenna and Joyce
Two straight extremely low finishes, general confusion on most tasks, and being marked for elimination next week? This makes for an easy last place finisher in this week’s power rankings.