Spoilers forward for the sequence premiere of Vacation spot X on NBC, accessible streaming now with a Peacock subscription.
Summer season has come to the 2025 TV schedule, which signifies that NBC switched from The Voice Season 27 finale over to the Season 20 premiere of America’s Acquired Expertise and the debut of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Vacation spot X for Tuesday nights. Whereas the actor is probably going greatest identified these days for enjoying Negan within the forged of The Strolling Useless‘s world, he is now the host of the brand new unscripted journey competitors present that is taking contestants all throughout Europe within the pursuit of $250,000.
I will admit it – I wasn’t actually invested within the premiere for a lot of the hour, however oddly sufficient, my daring ultimate guess being fully fallacious is what makes me need to tune in once more.
Why I Wasn’t Loving Vacation spot X
Maybe as a result of I used to be coming off of two hours of the very simple America’s Acquired Expertise, however Vacation spot X struck me as fairly convoluted from the beginning. The primary ten contestants had been loaded onto a bus that may most likely be a nightmare for any claustrophobes on the market, and pushed throughout a thriller nation whereas gathering clues about what “Vacation spot X” is. On the finish, an unfortunate handful of contestants needed to head to the Map Room to position a pin closest to the place they thought they had been.
There have been fancy goggles that had been principally blindfolds, cash with symbols, and a chase by the streets of a village that felt very Wonderful Race to me. My sticking level was that the areas that had been used as clues had been all truly distant from Rome, which was alleged to be Vacation spot X. The areas they acquired to see had been in Italy, however they had been by no means truly taken to Rome earlier than they needed to lock of their guesses.
Truthfully, for a wholesome chunk of the premiere, my hottest take was that I hoped the poor figurine store had been staged for the present as a result of the 2 racing contestants principally destroyed the place searching for the suitable Pinocchio doll. Plus, I will come clear – I am usually not nice at guessing in competitors exhibits. I am fairly ineffective at The Masked Singer. Jeopardy? Any day. Vacation spot X? I wasn’t feeling it. Profitable my grade college geography bee was a LONG time in the past.
What Hooked Me
One would suppose that my standard failures at fixing clues like on The Masked Singer would imply I used to be pissed off by how spectacularly fallacious I used to be in my guess for what Vacation spot X was on the finish of the premiere, however that is not the case. Satisfied as I used to be that the primary Vacation spot X would not be as apparent as Rome, the coin with a “J” surrounded by a coronary heart that one crew recognized as a clue about William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet gave me the reply to the place the contestants had been… or so I assumed for the remainder of the episode, anyway.
Let me nerd out right here for a minute, as a result of as an alternative of assuming that the Romeo and Juliet clue was as simple as pointing to Rome – a.okay.a. the primary syllable of the title – I assumed again to the opening traces of the particular play penned by Shakespeare, which had been:
“Two households, each alike in dignity,
In honest Verona, the place we lay our scene,
From historical grudge break to new mutiny,
The place civil blood makes civil fingers unclean.”
Clearly, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was tricking viewers into considering Vacation spot X was Rome, when the situation was clearly Verona! I used to be assured sufficient that I even neglected different clues pointing towards the precise capital of Italy, and actually went exhausting on assuming that the present was being trickier than it truly was.
And you already know what? I had enjoyable being fallacious, and was so very fallacious that I may chuckle at myself and watch the promo for the following episode eagerly. Plus, Large Brother vet Josh Martinez made essentially the most of being the primary contestant eradicated by asserting to the remainder of the opponents that “Rick is a snake” and all people ought to watch their again round him.
Contemplating that Mack had been essentially the most wily of the premiere, Josh dropping the Rick bombshell was a doozy of a solution to finish the episode. Was he proper that Rick, the dad of the group, had been setting him as much as guess Milan as an alternative of Rome? I am unable to say, though I made a decision to keep watch over him as soon as he recognized “Luigi” as one of many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Whether or not or not Rick is a snake, good on the previous Large Brother winner for stirring the pot earlier than leaving the bus.
So, I will likely be tuning in for an additional episode of Vacation spot X, as a result of dang it – or, to cite Biggy, “dadgum” – I need to get a riddle proper and never twist one single clue into some type of Shakespearean conspiracy. Is that what Vacation spot X was going for within the premiere? Virtually definitely not, and I am guessing a lot of the viewers appropriately named Rome as the reply as an alternative of flashing again to highschool English class.
Discover out the place the remaining contestants are headed subsequent with new episodes of Vacation spot X on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, following America’s Acquired Expertise. You too can stream subsequent day on Peacock.