So I recently-ish rewatched the season and so my thoughts are slightly updated. As a top 3 season of mine pre-rewatch this is a season of reality tv that I hold near and dear to my heart.
I think above all else what makes this season SHINE is how amazing the cast is, particularly the eventual final 4/5. Every team in the final 4 is LEGENDARY and the fact that two of those teams are M/M pairings goes to show the strength of the casting. The course and events of the race were good in itself but what makes this season special are the inter-team interactions that mainly involved these 4 teams which includes:
-The anti-wonder twin alliance and the subsequent ken and gerard/derek and drew alliance.
-Flo vs Teri and Ian
-Flo and Drew
-Flo & zac following ken and gerard that one leg leading to an amazing Flo meltdown < 3
-Andre and Damon latching onto the brothers alliance
-Flo inadvertently eliminating derek and drew < 3
After watching the lifeless Tar premiere yesterday where it felt almost like each team was running the race alone is like the complete opposite of tar3 where there was camaraderie, rivalry, and romance between teams EVERY leg of the race. However that does not mean that there was ANY lack of intra-team drama. While I could write huge ass writeups for EACH of the final 4 (with a decent amount of positive words for the 5th place team too) the true STAR of the season has left her impact on the series to the point where the mention of her name still sends facebook fans into a tailspin:
Her Vietnam breakdown (a brief snippet of which is pictured above in action) is EASILY a top 5 reality tv meltdown of all time. there is 0 coincidence that she is the most mentioned racer in the list of inter-team moments. She provided the most inter/intra team moments to the point where she has FIVE (5) episode quotes and still WON after threatening to quit around 24 hours prior. By FAR my favorite amazing race winner ever and quite possibly my favorite reality tv winner still after all of these years.
In all, Tar 3 served MOMENTS (inter/intra team drama, dieselgate, heave penalty elim, oh brother vs johnvito and jill footrace, flo eliminating derek and drew in an ironic twist of fate, andre and damon taken into custody), an amazing route (as a miami resident with half my family from mexico city and half my family from london i am still in AWE @ the Miami>Mexico City>London start), a GODLY cast (ken and gerard arguably the best male team ever, flo + zac my favorite f/m team, and teri/ian and derek and drew both overall top 10/20 material), an amazing boot order where the shitstain contestants are an afterthought by the end of the season (aaron and arianne) and an ABSOLUTELY GODLY final 4/final 3/winner.
Apart from some legs that get a bit slow (aaron and arianne/andre and damon boot eps) the race just feels like an epic ADVENTURE from start to finish. i am 100% biased but this is easily a top 10 season of reality tv ever for me and its just legendary from start to finish.
