Lots of folks praying on the sort-of-big finale (call me a heretic, but I'm totally okay with a one-hour final show instead of a two-hour block that makes me stay up late on a school night) of the race tonight. When the umpteenth mention of praying or the race's outcome being "in God's hands" came up, I turned to Tim and said, "Yeah, God is REALLY concerned about who wins this thing." Good grief...
But a team did win (yay, God!), and it was the team I was hoping would cross the finish line first, even if I can't honestly say I was rooting for them. (How does one root for such blandness? It's like rooting for Cream of Wheat. With heroin and hair product sprinkled on top.) All that really mattered to me was that Rob & Kimberly did not win--perhaps now they'll slink off together to some forgotten corner of suburbia, get married, and spend their days screaming at each other and their poor children.
And Team Single Mom gave it a good try, but the "Secret Weapon: Orly" maneuver really was too good to be true (I don't know if they would have made it on the Charles de Gaulle flight anyway). I wonder how far behind they really were at the end. And I wonder how long the skinny ugly one made "that face" on their flight from Paris. You just know she was rude to some flight attendants.
There was a teaser for the TAR All-Stars show, coming next February. Gotta be honest--I don't think I'm watching it, mainly because I don't feel like dealing with Rob & Amber yet again (two Survivors and two TARs? Give me a break).
Who would have predicted that Team Single Mom and not team Beauty Queen would be the first-ever all-female team in the top three of the race? I'm not a fan of either pair, but I just thought the BQs had the physical edge and would somehow squeak their way into the finals because of that. Live and learn, I guess.
I thought this was a very "true colors" leg: the skinnier/uglier of the single moms* being a bee-yotch and making that awful pursed-lip face now to everyone, including her own partner; the BQs showing an ugly bit of desperation in their quest to get on the mat first; Rob and Kimberly being shouty and heinous (okay, nothing new there), and the Junkie Models being...well, being kind of bland and rational and mellowly (is that a word?) competitive about everything. I wish I could be rooting for a more colorful team, but they're really the only option now, aren't they?
*Don't even try to call me out for this--I just don't pay close enough attention to know the difference between Lyn & Karlyn, Dustin & Kandice, or Tyler & James. It's all a big blur of faces, colorful locals, and ticket counters to me, folks.
Max is unavailable to recap this week's Amazing Race, so you're stuck with me. This episode nearly killed me, it was so exciting! I could not BELIEVE Team Bitchy Moms were in first place at one point. Interesting that they do know how to read a map, and do know how to race; apparently they just didn't feel like it before. Whether a conscious decision or not, their choice to participate in that ludicrous Six-Pack mentality totally worked for them. The other two teams (Cho Brothers and David/Mary) basically eliminated themselves by always standing around and waiting for the Moms. Sneaky. In other news, I wonder what Rob did in a previous life to piss off the Car Gods? I mean, really. I still find Team Junkie extremely dull. Team Beauty Queen ran the worst leg they've ever ran - sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. They deserved last place. I was thrilled they hit the last non-elimination leg, though. They need to beat the Moms. Those women are nasty, and the poorest sports I've seen on this show in quite a while. I want them to lose. When they were in the lead, all they talked about was Yielding the Beauty Queens. Then, when the tables turned and the Beauty Queens Yielded them, it's all about bad karma. What-the-eff-ever. I wish I just could have seen their faces when the BQs walked into the Pit Stop.
Amazing Race: All Stars is confirmed. Also confirmed: the participation of the extremely overexposed Rob and Amber. Sigh. Oh well. After the debacle of Big Brother: All Stars, my expectations are low. [via]
Look, those pageant girls have probably been in worse opening numbers than those "rap" auditions, but seriously--can the Ukranian hip-hop scene ever recover its street cred? I think NYET. Yo.
So the Cho Bros. go, and while they were the only team left in the race that I could root for with some degree of enthusiasm, I have to agree with the folks who say that their passivity and mewling indecisiveness had no place on a competitive show like this one. We all can appreciate a team that refuses to get cutthroat, but these guys had turned into not just doormats, but that weird weavy-sticky net-stuff you put under a doormat to keep it from slipping. And that, uh, the doormats make fun of. Or something. Man, I lost control of that metaphor before it even began...Anyway, wuss city, y'all.
Team Single Mom has to go next (because they're just awful people), and then Rob & Kimberly (because I want to see them get close to victory--but not too close--before it is snatched away from them), and then Team Beauty Queen (because they have a secret shadiness that is not a credit to my beloved Miss America system), and that leaves...Team Junkie Model.
So it's come to this: I am rooting for junkie models to win the race. Just when I thought rooting for hippies was as low as I could go....
Awesome pictures below--many thanks, freakgirl! I can only add to the chorus of folks in the comments calling for the elimination (if not the forceful slapping, which would also be fun to watch) of Team Single Mom. I've grown accustomed to being ashamed of my home state, but...sigh. Just when you think we're pulling ahead of Mississippi, along come those bee-yotches. The Cho Bros. are starting to look a bit silly in their continuing alliance there, don't you think?
Oh, and I would totally soil my undergarments at the prospect of a FACE-DOWN rappel experience. I'll just leave it at that.
Watch your back, Phil! The deadest eyes in the history of the Race
I'm filling in for Max this week, so I apologize in advance for the short recap. Sadly, this week on TAR, we lost Team Kentucky. Why couldn't it have been Alabama, WHY? Ah, well. We did get the pleasure of seeing Team Junkie and Rob/Kimberly have to choke down some cow lips. I enjoyed their suffering immensely. At this point, I'm rooting for Team Beauty Queen, although they could certainly dial it down a bit. "You're Asian; we can go make paper!" The hell?
The answer: a lot. I think the Cho Bros. got closest to it, but even then I'm not sure if they got it just right. Of course, I'm not one to throw stones--until last night, I thought it was in the Caribbean.
But let's talk about the race. More specifically, let's talk about how ready I am for Team Single Mom to go the hell back to Alabama. Actually, I only want the skinnier, uglier one (Karlyn?) to go back, since she's the one who gets on my nerves the most, what with the faces and the eye-rolling and the ridiculous "talk to the hand" gestures. I guess the gum-cracking comes next week. Listen, if I wanted to see that kind of unwarranted attitude-based mess on a regular basis, I would have become a public school teacher. Oh, wait...
Seriously, though, they need to go, with the always-pleasant Rob and Kimberly on their heels. I wouldn't even shed any tears over Team Beauty Queen (or, as I now call them, Team Um...Maybe You Should Have Those Freckles Looked At, Honey) heading back. Ultimately, I would love to see a final three made up of the Cho Bros., Team Kentucky, and Team Junkie Model (who knew they'd end up being so...not unpleasant?). This means, of course, that these will be the next three teams to be eliminated.
Hey, speaking of--Team Kentucky: luckiest team in the world or what? I was so happy that they ended up in yet another non-elimination leg. The freaking universe is rooting for them, yo! They need to ditch the ridiculous "Six-Pack" traveling strategy, though. Talk about a disaster in the making. Not only is it based on some really generous assumptions about human nature, but it can only slow them down when they need to be focused on staying in the lead or damn close to it.
Just when my faith in the benevolence of the universe had been shaken by the totally unwarranted victory of a smelly, mulleted, gross-necked, egomaniacal hipster a-hole on Project Runway (I can't even talk about it, much less link to it, I'm so disgusted), along comes something to put everything back in order, at least temporarily. Yes, Peter and Sarah are out of the race! Even better, they are out in spectacularly embarrassing fashion, getting lost and finishing well after everyone else has come and gone on the mat. Oh, Peter, how I laughed and laughed at you, especially as Sarah pointed out how she had realized that you were lacking a few key qualities--namely kindness and compassion--that most folks appreciate in, you know, a human being. I suppose that's the silver lining here--Sarah is finally free from her weirdo svengali/passive-aggressive cheerleader/all-around creepy boyfriend. (If you find out that they stayed together or reunited, don't tell me. I don't want to know.)
The other truly joyful moment last night (one without a dose of schadenfreude): seeing Team Hillbilly make an inspiring "worst to first" run, thanks to some extraordinarily generous efforts on the part of the Cho brothers, whose stock just jumped about a thousand points in my book. Unless I missed something, they did what they did out of total selflessness, with no ulterior motives--unusual and refreshing even for this, allegedly the "kindest" of all reality shows. Good for them and good for Team Hillbilly--it would be great to see them in the final two, wouldn't it?
Okay, universe, just get crackin' on taking out Rob and Kimberly. You can do it--you're on a roll!
I know that it's pretty much a given that at least one of the couples in each season of the race will be all "Ewww...this country smells bad" and make the viewers ashamed to be Americans/humans/alive. But still, it's always a little bit of an eye-rolling shock when it happens, and I have to say that hearing someone say they are ready to be with the "rich people" was a little more stomach-churning than even I was prepared for. I'm really sorry for my language, y'all, but Kimberly--you are a straight up dumbass. (I had a harsher word for her there originally, but I didn't want to offend anybody.)
That aside, I think Peter crossed the line from "creepy" into "gross" during this leg of the race, and watching him drag the beauty queens into his aura of grossness (nobody makes fun of Team Hillbilly unless it's with love, yo!) made me dislike him even more than I already did.
On the plus side, I have to say that I like the new "non-elimination punishment" the producers have dreamed up. What do you guys think? My theory is that it's a result of feedback from viewers who probably found it a little tasteless to put make attractive (usually) white (usually) Americans beg for money and help in countries where people live every day in serious, life-threatening poverty. Like I said, though, just a theory. And whatever caused it, I'm happy for anything that keeps those "Daddy's Little Devils" and "Mama's Little Angels" t-shirts on my screen for another week. When is CBS.com going to start selling those?
...or whatever it was that the Single Moms heard instead of "Hydrofoil Harbor." Maybe they're just going partially deaf for (let's all say it together) their kids. I suppose it was hard to focus on what was coming out of the loudspeaker at that park--the sound of Rob's negative energy and stupidity ("I am through talking to foreigners") sucking all of the joy out of the world must be pretty distracting at times. In fact, it made it hard to focus on the entire episode, since all I could think was how much I loathe him (and people like him, and women like Kimberly who stay with guys like him, and so on). Needless to say, watching them come in first place did not exactly make for a perfect end to my Sunday evening.
But enough about them--I did like getting to see the beautiful Vietnam scenery again (hey Phil, call it "lush" one more time), I always like some cab driver-based tension, and it's nice to watch as Sarah slowly starts figuring out that Peter might just be a total weirdo. Dave and Mary remain too cute to be believed, the Single Moms continue to swing between "doin' it for the kids" and "she deserved to get cut for breaking in front of us" (nice!), and the Manicures...well, even I was a little impressed by the whole get-out-of-the-boat-and-pull maneuver (very Jack LaLanne!), but I gotta be honest: I won't miss the jazz-hands deployment every five minutes.
That was Tim's reply when Team Manicure noted that Team Beauty Queen wouldn't be winning any kindness pageants anytime soon...I'm still pulling for those girls in the race, though. They're so pretty, they just have to win! (I keed, I keed...)
Anyway, kind of a so-so leg of the race this time, though there seemed to be a real maze motif going on throughout the challenges--way to work it, editors! I guess we should be glad that Team The Dad Who Cries Because His Daughter Is a Lesbian didn't end up in some Vietnamese debtor's prison, though it's not like it would have changed the outcome. Speaking of the outcome, that was a real nail-biter of a 30-minute penalty for the Manicures, wasn't it? Seriously, would you have imagined that so many teams would run in within a half-hour window? I would have been pooping in the paddy out of sheer nervousness. But when the Manicures and the Single Moms and the Hillbillies all had their little moment at the end around the mat, you know your little liberal heart got a little warmer and fuzzier, didn't it? Gays! Minorities! Disenfranchised Red-Staters! It was almost too perfect.
Dear CBS: Thank you for a brief respite from the awfulness of Rob and Kimberly. How come when those two fight, I want to set them (or myself) on fire, but when Team Hillbilly argues ("I'm goin' to get angry!") I just think it's precious?
Dear CBS: Please please please tell me that, based on next week's preview, Kimberly swats the ever-lovin' fire out of Rob with an oar.
Boy, if it isn't the taxi drivers messing things up on TAR, it's those silly animals, right? Unruly, easily-spooked beasts of burden seemed to be a recurring theme in Mongolia--a location that I may have to add to my "places I don't want to go after seeing them on The Amazing Race" list. Then again, I do love a yurt...
Anyway, we were worried we were getting a two-part leg last night when the show passed the 47-minute mark and no pit stop had been mentioned. Then we finally saw it--the mat was simply close to the final challenge, which is probably a sign that the producers were hoping for a footrace. Unfortunately, that wasn't hapening, as Team Spirit had a "stupid day" ("Just the day?" Tim asked) and got too turned around and flustered to squeak out a last-minute comeback. I have to be honest--I wish they would have pulled it off, because Team Single Mom landed near the top of my s**t list last night: I'm over the "doing this for my daughter" baloney, the "that was one of our angels" baloney, and the "screw them, we're in it to win" baloney. All of those attitudes are fine on their own, but they don't make for a very good mix (I wonder if they really wanted their daughters to see mommy completely ignoring and dismissing a stranded team). Here's hoping a wall-scaling challenge does them in very soon.
The top of the aforementioned poo list, though, is occupied by Rob & Kimberly. Hate them. HATE THEM.
In other news: Team Hillbilly is still awkwardly charming, Team Manicure is still cringe-worthy (please stop making a show tune out of everything, okay?), and Peter and Sarah are...well, they're just creepy as hell, aren't they?
Phil looked good, though--good color scheme and the sweater/jacket combo worked, even though it would have seemed like a disaster on paper. And I know it's cruel, but when Team Junkie Model had the breakdown on the side of the road, I kept muttering, "Looks like they picked the wrong week to quit [insert drug abuse reference here]." Come on--I had to say it.
It can only be a good thing that in this house, where we have two TiVos running practically non-stop, we try to watch The Amazing Race on (gasp) the same night that it is actually aired. Talk about an honor! And Tim and I weren't disappointed by last night's premiere of TAR 10. There were teams to love, teams to hate, teams to cringe over, and good ol' Phil taking us through it all. Plus an eating challenge! (I love them; Tim literally hides his eyes when they're on because he gets so grossed out).
It's too early, I suppose, to start talking about strategies and sportsmanship--so let's just get right down to it and start praisin' and hatin'! (Note: All team nicknames are provisional--I eagerly anticipate seeing funnier and meaner ones pop up in the comments to be adopted for later use.)
We like Team Beauty Queen (um, in this house, that's a given--plus, we saw them compete in Vegas last January), Team Hillbilly (especially the wide-eyed and thrilled-to-be-out-of-Kentucky wife), and Team Single Mom.
We're neither here nor there on Team Smart Brothers, Team "I Love My Gay Daughter!" and Team Rehab. We were worried the ex-junkie models would be a repeat of Team Himbo from last time, but right now it seems like their main flaw is going too be a tendency to lapse into that ultra-annoying 12-step speak every time they talk about challenges and whatnot.
We are actively praying for the elimination of Team, uh, Generic Stupid Bickering Couple (dear CBS: please, no more annoying couples who go on the show to see if their relationship is ready for "the next step"), Team Manicure (I'm sorry, but they make Alex & Lynn from a few seasons ago seem positively butch), Team Cheerleader, and Team "She can run a triathalon but she can't stand in line?" (Seriously, Sarah, not to be insensitive, but you need to decide whether you're going to be all "I am as strong as anyone else" or "I need to pre-board, please" and stick with it before you piss everybody off).
We thought Team Karma (hey, they said it on the show) had potential, and boy, wasn't Arti seriously pretty? As for the first team eliminated (not even going to try for any nicknames here, although I liked how another team called them "the beards"), good riddance. Their attitude wasn't really making me warm up to them.
Speaking of that, what do we think of the whole "now you can be eliminated ANY TIME" twist? I need to see it in action a little more, but as long as it works like it did last night (i.e. takes out a team that I don't care for), I'm not losing any sleep over it.
So overall a good episode and a good start to what I hope will be another fun and nail-biting, scream-at-the-TV season. Your thoughts?
[Unless someone else is doing one--Michael, you there?--there will probably not be a "Phil's Phashion Corner" here every week. Besides, you know the drill: Phil should leave his shirts untucked, rock some rollneck sweaters, and he needs to tell the world where he gets some of those great, if sadly form-fitting at times, pants.]