#Surprise replacements ahead after shutdown!

Tonight, The Amazing Race season 33 episode 3 found itself with a tremendous challenge: Having to announce a production shutdown. This season started to film in early 2020 at the start of the global pandemic and because of this, there was an immense challenge: How do you tell the teams? How do you sort all of this out?

For most of the episode, it honestly felt like a standard episode of the show: There was a leg in Scotland that featured funny tasks and a lot of the same stuff we’ve seen on the franchise for quite some time. You had conflicts, people getting lost, an even an elimination in the end.

Yet, at the conclusion of the hour show host Phil Keoghan gathered everyone up and broke the news to them that for the first time ever, they were suspending production in order to ensure everyone’s safety. It was presented not as a somber moment, but rather a chance for everyone to regroup. We do understand not wanting to showcase the seriousness and fear of the moment, especially after what so many of us have gone through. It was a stark contrast to how Big Brother Canada had to handle their shutdown in real time almost two years ago. There was hope and, honestly, we all need a little bit of that.

The end of the episode teased that the race kicked back off this past fall in Switzerland, a different place than where they last were. Also, the lineup of teams is a little bit different! Phil Keoghan mentioned that there are some “replacements” featuring familiar faces, and we wonder if that means some already-eliminated teams are now getting a chance to come back into it. Could Michael & Moe come back alongside Arun & Natalia? One team that could be gone is Caro & Ray, given that the two split up prior to production restarting.

Who is for sure returning?

We break that down further over at the link here, as well as dive into who is gone!

What did you think about how The Amazing Race handled the production shutdown for season 33?

Be sure to let us know in the comments! Once you do that, stick around for all sorts of other updates you don’t want to miss. (Photo: CBS.)