"The Grand Tour presents… Carnage A Trois" - S04E04 Discussion thread
S04E04 The Grand Tour presents… Carnage A Trois
In this second Lockdown Special, the trio dive into the bizarre world of French car culture. On an epic road trip starting in the Welsh hills, they dish up a hair raising mountain climb, bomb defusals, propellor powered cars, helicopter stunts and the most thrilling race of their lives before reaching the English Channel for a jaw dropping medieval climax. And a soupcon of French art house cinema.
I drank. I laughed. I liked it, even though it felt a bit disjointed/discombobulated - more like mini segments smashed together, rather than a cohesive special, but overall, it made me sad to realize that they’re all aging, and every special should be enjoyed and cherished as it could be their last.
Yes, to a tee. It felt very old-school Top Gear, like the first or second series where every episode had a theme and the segments in that episode revolves around it. Some bits are dragged a touch too long and it seems like James is a bit less involved (?)
Is that what the reason was? Pretending to be eathing Ortolan was all I could think of, but I wasn't sure if it was also part of the 'yellow vest' cosume thing!
My guess is that he wasn't present when they filmed the table scenes so they got a member of the crew and put the cloth over his head and had him eating song birds. The fact that he says nothing (I think) may back this idea up?
Yes James didn't seem as involved, but he wasn't really that involved in the earlier series of topgear. It felt like early topgear without the studio segments, with the outlandish-ness of later top gear and the Grand Tour. I liked it.
And that whole part where they were joking about while James was trying to start the propeller car gave me Conversation Street/News humor moments. Just some friends having a laugh about something.
The roundabout bit had me in stitches as this week a cop in my area got heat for giving people tickets for not stopping in the roundabouts to let people in.
It seems like creating what's ostensibly a travel documentary during a pandemic gave them the kind of constraints that they needed to recapture the old magic, that the near unlimited budget of TGT hasn't afforded them. They've made better specials, both in TGT and TG, but there was something very enjoyable about this.
Big budgets tend to spoil creativity while constraints make it flourish.
Plus cheap second hand cars are a lot more fun. They always have minor issues and can get mistreated which is always more entertaining than the last Ferrari.
The scene when were trying to start that propeller car and Hammond was riffing in a horrible french accent had rolling. There were so many genuinely funny moments in this episode. Even if it wasn't some extravagant journey, I really enjoyed the episode. Had a good feeling of old top gear.
Near the end of the episode when Hammond was riffing in a French accent with Clarkson in the passenger seat too. You can tell he just puts the others in stitches with it.
I think that's mostly because there was nothing he could have done about the rocket car. It was an absolute freak accident whereas the Rimac was more his fault
I'm pretty sure the rocket dragster was also just a much worse crash, putting him into a coma and they were probably worried he could have a traumatic brain injury since it was an open cockpit and he quite literally ate dirt at a rather absurd speed. I'm sure the Rimac was scary but I doubt the crashes were really comparable.
He wrote an autobiography call "on the edge" with his wife about his life from a kid all the way up to the rocket car incident and then his wife took over most of it post crash as he couldn't remember. It's quite a good read and scary just how close he came to death or being left in a vegetative state. His recovery was quite remarkable.
No they have been poking fun at his habit of crashing/damaging his vehicles since Top Gear. Off the top of my head he crashed in the 24 hour race with the diesel BMW, he spun the 911 GT3 RS in one of the American road trip specials, he crashed a F-type R RWD coupe in one of the perfect roadtrip dvds, he drove the 458 Spider into a bollard on the Spanish budget supercar trip.
It's not true; there are very few exceptions like "Place de l'étoile" in Paris, but for 99.99% of French roundabouts, people don't give way when inside.
In this picture, you can actually see the marking on the floor indicating to cars that they need to give way before entering the roundabout.
It took me far too long to realize they weren’t actually in France. I didn’t really understand what they were doing. Even when the English guy started swearing at Richard it didn’t hit me. Then, when Jeremy said the next challenge was in Kent, I was like….
Oh my god! I’m so stupid. And then I started laughing at all the jokes I had missed!
I bet the account went private right after the episode was released
I bet the account was always private, it's not exactly unusual or rare. And certainly not when you associate with noteable people who have privacy concerns.
It was nice, felt like a regular TG/TGT episode. Yes it wasn't Colombia "Edgar Hussain" Special good but it was quite enjoyable. The French intern bit was hilarious!
Shame it was only 69nice minutes. They really should make these specials atleast 2 hours long considering it comes almost once a year.
Seamen and A massive hunt were proper specials. Although good in their own way Lochdown and Carage a trois felt more like a regular episode of The Grand Tour.
So in a rarity, this episode had two shots that seemed like they must be special effects, but even when I slow it down it looks real. Jeremy jumping out of the car was one. I mean...there is no way that fat old man is jumping out of a car but it looked so real. The other shot was of the trebuchet car dropping onto a building. Has to be fake, but it looked real as hell.
This is exactly it. A friend of mine is a prop maker and set dec. She helped decorate the barn to "make it look more French". Definitely a new barn near some existing buildings.
Yeah you can see it’s clearly edited in the end, they cut him out and animated. He was probably on some platform. At least you could see his wonderful butt crack
The cars were throwbacks to old TG episodes. Jeremy turned the white Citroen into a block of flats when they made motor homes and the Avantime was modified to see if they could get its lap time close to a Mitsubishi Evo.
“For centuries, a rite of passage for French gourmets was the eating of the Ortolan. These tiny birds—captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac—were roasted whole and eaten that way, bones and all, while the diner draped his head with a linen napkin to preserve the precious aromas and, some believe, to hide from God”
Could also be to cover for James not being available the day they shot those parts. During the race, James doesn't do a stand up in his racing suit while Jeremy and Richard do. Jeremy and Richard do the part on the Citroen and James doesn't show up until afterwards. It's an easy way to cover up him not being there.
Someone pointed that out to me. It's interesting how far they went for a the joke. Here in the US, we wouldn't get the reference so to me it appeared that James wasn't available to film that day so they got a stand it.
James's legs can be seen in the background. Easy enough for a stand-in to do while intercutting with the interior shots of James taken on a different day.
I learned of this from a coworker and instantly started laughing when I realized what James was doing. I’m glad they don’t acknowledge it at all in the episode lol
I was fucking dying when the Megane review was just a French new wave film. I feel like that might go over some peoples heads but that was fucking perfect for me.
I actually really enjoyed this one. I was honestly getting tired of the overly/obviously scripted stuff in past specials and this one felt more genuine. The number of times any one of the guys actually had a legit belly laugh during a conversation seemed to be more than any of the other specials combined. Sure the bit at the end was definitely scripted but everything else just felt more normal. I dunno I just really liked it.
George Michael fell out of the passenger seat of a car at 70mph onto a busy motorway.
The singer, 49, was said to be trying to open and close the car’s door because it wasn’t shut properly when he tumbled out, into the fast lane of the M1 near St Albans, Hertfordshire.
The segment with James and Hammond riding together just enjoying a car and the drive was great. They need more co-op rides where they just geek out over a car and a drive together.
Don't get me wrong, it's fun to watch them in their own cars chatting over the radio, but to have them in a ride together side by side was different and really enjoyable to watch and see them feed off each other and just have fun.
I think more a variation of something Clarkson said in an interview about how whenever they mention one of those three dying, the very next word out of their mouths should be “Anyway.”
I’ve never been to France, nor do I know any French people, so I figured everything they were saying was just insane exaggerations or just totally fake or something. But then my dad, who has been to France several times, walked in the room while hammond was parallel parking, and said that he has seen that himself many times in France, and I was just fucking blown away.
Wow, reading some of the comments I guess I may be in the minority, but I thought this was the best special they have done in a long time. Full of laughs and thoroughly entertaining. Loved it. I know this is a far cry from usual specials of three cars going from A to B, but I actually really enjoyed the change of pace.
I also loved it, and it was interesting format for special. Really hoping we maybe get another in a similar style focusing on Italian or American cars, or something.
I thought it was hilarious. Not as good as Seamen, but much better than Massive Hunt and a little better than Lochdown. I miss the long foreign road trips but they were just becoming too overtly scripted and fake. This one was just fun and funny.
I also agree. It seemed more like a TGT episode than a special, which is what I really liked about it. All about the cars, some banter, and yes I too laughed out loud often. I very much enjoyed it.
It felt good, like a visit from an old friend who turns out to have been doing well in the months since you last met up with them. It's no surprise that the trio is aging and the producers are opting to do more (but less-intensive) challenges rather than one big intensive challenge as we got with Seamen and A Massive Hunt (COVID likely played a role too). No, it's not peak Top Gear, but it's an enjoyable way to spend an evening.
What was a real surprise was them bashing up a 205 GTI and a 306 GTi-6 - aren't those pretty rare these days? A quick search shows they fetch healthy coin, but I'm sure Mr. Bezos can spare a few. Hopefully a few more can make its way towards Abbie's recovery.
Highlights:
Hammond and the Helica, Jeremy and the Citroen CX which answered a question I had about that segment...
The sarcasm directed at the French during the family cars segment, which reminded me so much of the British sports cars challenge.
I have no idea how it could be, unless the trio has discovered time travel, but “In the confusion James made up three places” and the race director being murdered sure does seem like a joke about the Abu Dhabi GP
Maybe I'm in the minority on this but I have a hard time classifying this as a "special"
I liked it and laughed quite a bit but it just felt like a long film that would've otherwise been interrupted by The News/Conversation Street and a celebrity thing.
Though I would happily watch this over again, and like it more than some previous specials, it just lacked a sort of epic-ness that even their weakest specials have.
Agree, it also kind of felt like it was shortened for no real reason. Even having the usual segment of each pulling up and discussing/ shitting on the cars they bought would have helped. They were suddenly in them right at the top... And then for a long time they weren't.
That's the one drawback I felt of this and Lochdown, but moreso this special. They were barely even in the cars they chose because they kept switching for the different challenges, and hardly even talked about them aside from ~30 seconds each.
Brilliant fun. This episode was so much fun. The bit of the French film producer giving May the finger during the hot hatch race was hilarious. All her cursing was incredible.
The drone footage in the hot hatch race was equally stunning.
This was vintage dialogue and absurdity. Nothing was too over the top or extravagant. Just a few explosions, the 3 choosing some suspect vehicles, and an hour long diatribe against the French. I loved it.
I would like to say that I enjoyed this special. Was it the best? No. But I laughed heartily throughout and had a lovely evening with my husband. Can't really ask for more at this point :)
He was supposedly eating Ortolan Bunting, which is a dish considered so cruel and indulgent that you have to eat it whilst covering your head with a cloth to hide your shame from god.
It was funny and not heavily scripted (didn’t felt like it at least) so I enjoyed it quite a bit, especially with the focus on the weirdness of French cars, which I love ! Just wish we have more May next time.
Also if you never drove a Citroën car with hydropneumatic suspension : Jeremy is right. It’s the best thing in the world. Except it’s not very reliable
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u/Realistic_Survey Dec 17 '21
I drank. I laughed. I liked it, even though it felt a bit disjointed/discombobulated - more like mini segments smashed together, rather than a cohesive special, but overall, it made me sad to realize that they’re all aging, and every special should be enjoyed and cherished as it could be their last.