New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

To recap: Last week’s episode was a non-elimination leg. I am not a fan of non-elimination legs. Ergo, I was not a fan of last week’s episode. I try every season to be a "glass half full" kind of guy through the duration of the season, but I can’t even convince myself that our current season is anything other than a disappointment team-wise.

As tempting as it may be to give one team the top ranking, make the other mediocre teams tied for second (or rather second-to-last) and one team last place, I will resist the temptation and give you my power rankings heading into the seventh episode.

1. Bates & Anthony: Our hockey brothers have achieved a perfect storm of racing this season – be strong, work as a team and fly under the radar. First, they are easily the most physically capable team remaining. Second, as brothers, they clearly know what buttons to push on their teammate, but six legs in and I don’t think either of them has even raised their voice toward the other. Finally, and most shockingly, they have somehow deflected the attention of the other racers away from themselves. How can the teams legitimately look at Sock ‘er Moms Mona & Beth and YouTube’s Joey & Meghan and think, “Man, if I get a chance to U-Turn ANY team, I am picking one of those two and not the big strapping hockey players that have ended up in first at least twice so far.”? For achieving that feat I give Bates & Anthony the top ranking. They are the only team that I truly think deserves to win. If they are somehow knocked out of the Race before the finale, Phil should just cancel the remaining legs and keep the million dollars himself.

2. Pam & Winnie: Our best friends could and should just draft off Bates & Anthony all the way to the final three. By virtue of simply being better than the other C-students left on the Race, Pam & Winnie get the second ranking. While they did capture first a couple of legs ago, the girls haven’t done much that screams “IN IT TO WIN IT!!!” It is more like “in it because we just haven’t been eliminated yet.” There seems to be an unofficial alliance between them and the hockey brothers, so they definitely have that working for them. Unfortunately, the longer they stay in the Race means more screen time and thus far that’s equating to me not liking them more with every minute. My distaste for their personalities makes it hard to rank them so high but such is this season.

3. Max & Katie: Team Cape Fear are newlyweds with marital strife in the near future if their Speed Bump is difficult at all. I know that it seems like a leap that the team facing an extra task (meaning they are firmly in last place) is still ranked third. Well, these are my opinion-based rankings and even with being saddled with an extra task, Max & Katie come across as more capable than the other teams. Also, considering the history of Speed Bumps on the Race, the task will be a slight time-consumer that will only delay them by a few minutes before catching up to and passing another team…cough cough…Chuck & Wynona.

Continued:       1       2