I feel like that happens a lot with Restaurant Wars - one side will be stacked with too many power-players and shoot themselves in the foot.

I love that this show has been on the air long enough that pop-up restaurants are now a thing that RW can take advantage of!

I am 100% rooting for Afghanimals or Tim and Marie at this point.

I'm pretty happy with Amy and Jason winning. And Travis is literally the worst.

It surprised me as to how much Marie grew on me at the end. She might be abrasive, but she was a freakin' fierce competitor. I liked Jason and Amy throughout the season so felt fine about them winning. They were a competent, nice couple, if a little bland. Travis and Nicole -- UGH.

Wow, Nicole just fell apart at the last few legs, and Travis was an asshole. Damn. I'm kinda surprised--you'd think as a doctor she'd be used to killer fatigue?? (Man, I didn't realize they had FIVE kids. Good grief. And now they all know their dad is an ass, and their mom is kind of a wet blanket)

I must agree that Marie grew on me as well. I think mostly because the bitchy gameplay is more appropriate as you get to the end...it was less appropriate earlier.

I guess I can agree with Travis that Nicole was really failing to live up to what she could do - but that's what exhaustion and sleep deprivation and jet lag can do to a mind that's otherwise sharp.

But he was unexpectedly harsh to her through it, which so Doesn't Help.

I ended up really liking Tim, who you can't argue knew exactly what he was getting himself into with teaming up with Marie. She really is one of the most competent competitors this race has seen, even if she's abrasive. He was well-matched to let her criticism roll off his (own very competent) back and not knock him of course even as it disturbed the other teams (I'm thinking of the olive-platter competition in particular).

Also, I'd like to laugh separately at asking the Alaskan taxi driver if they spoke English. Either it was a joke, or they'd just got so used to dealing with taxi drivers that didn't it's stamped into the brain checklist and they're going to do it every time they get in a taxi from now until the end of eternity.

After I spent a week in Mexico (one week!), I steeled myself the next time I went into the deli at home, to make sure I knew what I wanted to say. I forgot they would speak English there!

Marie really grew on me a lot -- not only was she great at the game, but she wasn't a dick to the cabbies, etc., just to Tim. Unless I'm forgetting something.

I'm pretty sympathetic to Nicole wrt to Killer Fatigue and Travis being terrible, but I was not impressed with her rounding up the other teams "to work as a team of six" and then immediately trying to get their one cab to take off first. If you're going to be the nice/"ethical" team, sometimes you're going to lose an advantage.

I hope that situation was compressed by the editors, so it wasn't actually that abrupt.

If you're going to be the nice/"ethical" team, sometimes you're going to lose an advantage.

They are such giant hypocrites.

And I'm not sure it was Killer Fatigue so much as belittlement fatigue. Every time Nicole started to have trouble she seemed to just shut down and be focused mostly on how nasty Travis was going to be. Ugly. (Does not surprise me that she was his student before they got married.)