Melissa Deni Talks The Amazing Race Season 38 Ep 3
RHAP: We Know Reality TV
Friends of Rob Has a Podcast
4.7 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Host Mike Bloom welcomes Melissa Deni, fan-favorite Big Brother analyst and lifelong Amazing Race viewer, for a dive into one of the most strategic and chaotic seasons yet. This “incredibly Big Brother-based” edition of The Amazing Race 38 has transformed the globe-trotting competition into a social strategy game—and Melissa has takes.
Melissa admits the season has “exceeded my expectations,” praising how alliances and gameplay echo Big Brother’s best seasons. She and Mike dissect the rise of the Train Wreck Alliance—a three-team pact between Natalie Negrotti, Stephanie Negrotti, and Joseph Abdin that shared directions, gifted a birthday win, and deflected attention in true Big Brother fashion. Melissa especially loves that the alliance members—known more for personality than cutthroat gameplay—are unexpectedly thriving strategically.
They also break down standout team performances: Jag and Jas Bains’ near-perfect dominance; Natalie and Stephanie Negrotti’s surprising physical and tactical strength; and Taylor Hale and Kyland Young’s puzzling ninth-place stumble after early promise. Melissa laments the loss of Matt and Megan Turner, her favorite “fun-quote team,” while applauding Kat Dunn and Alex Romo for their kindness and chemistry.
Along the way, Mike and Melissa unpack Amazing Race mechanics—the Roadblock quota rule, post-leg isolation policy, and the “Driver’s Seat” twist that mirrors a Big Brother Head of Household power. As the Race heads to Budapest, Melissa is rooting for more personality-driven casting in future seasons—and maybe even a return for Zach Rance.
The Amazing Race is back — and this time, the cast is full of familiar faces from the Big Brother house! Mike Bloom and Melissa Deni break down episode three.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, everybody. Mike Bloom here back with another special Amazing Race 38 podcast, |
| 0:20.4 | where we are checking in emphasis on |
| 0:22.7 | check considering the past couple of weeks of the Amazing Race 38 with a member of the Big |
| 0:27.9 | brother community to get their thoughts on this incredibly Big Brother based season of the Amazing |
| 0:34.1 | race but based it is not there's a lot of complex things to get into. |
| 0:38.0 | And I'm so excited to welcome this person in because she is a cornerstone of Big Brother |
| 0:44.3 | coverage here on R-A-JP. |
| 0:46.1 | And I am very intrigued to get not only her amazing race thoughts, but how the two are mixing |
| 0:51.5 | right now, but it is the one, the only Melissa Denny. |
| 0:55.5 | Hi, I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. I was like, I was, I was hoping at the |
| 1:01.9 | end of the finale of Big Brother, I was like, I hope I kept to come on and talk about amazing race. |
| 1:06.9 | So, uh, I'm, I'm very excited to talk about it. Well, yeah, talk to me a bit more about that. |
| 1:12.4 | I guess to start, obviously people know about your experience with Big Brother. |
| 1:16.5 | I think to a certain extent, people know your experience with Survivor. |
| 1:19.5 | I don't think people know about myself included, your history with the amazing race. |
| 1:23.5 | Do you have a history? |
| 1:24.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:25.4 | I started watching it season one. |
| 1:28.4 | Once again, like this is like, it's funny because now I can use this. It's like, yeah, I started watching it season one for Survivor, Big Brother, amazing race, like all of these shows. Yeah, it's the biggest hipster claim you could ever have in your life. I know. It's great. Like, I love to be able to say that. But like literally, it's, I start to think about it. And I'm like, this is kind of insane. |
| 2:17.9 | My family was like obsessed with reality TV when it came out. So like, or when it started. So it was like all type, all reality shows. Like any show you can think of. It was like, yeah, we watched season one. Like, yeah, we started from the beginning because we were like crazy. So it was like a big part of my family, like as I was growing up. And so amazing race, though, I will say that like that's one of the shows where I kind of go in and out of it. Like so I haven't seen every single season, but I have come like in and out, especially when Big Brother players are on it. I'm like, you know, I'll watch it. |
| 2:19.1 | And I'm very excited about it. And I love the show. |
| 2:20.3 | And, um, but yeah, this season I'm very excited about, um, |
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