The Amazing Race

Oh man, it is way too early on the race for people to be freaking out to this extent. Good leg, especially with melony vengeance followed by the insane wine-balancing task.

Wow, that was a challenging leg. The clue for the Detour was very deceptive in its simple wording, so I'm not surprised that so many teams initially picked the watermelons to try. And the Roadblock was insane! I was surprised that there was only one team that went through all of their allotted bottles given the amount of movement that they had to do with the bottle on their head.

Rachel of Brendon/Rachel is far too annoying so early in the race. Even Flo took a while to warm up to truly get awful and reach meltdown mode. Rachel has already whined and cried at some point during the last two legs. I am tired of her already.

At least Elliott and Andrew are now free to reunite with their long-lost brother, Brian Austin Green.

Could someone slap Rachel, like, a lot? Whiny histrionics that would sound right at home coming out of a 5-year-old's mouth are not cute, honey. SHUT UP.

Nice poker face on Phil at the mat making Bopper & Mark wait through a moment with the other guys before non-eliminating them. Bopper looks like Eric Pierpoint.

When Rachel was whining to Brendon about how she wanted to quit, I very badly wanted Phil to immediately swoop in and eliminate them on the spot. I feel bad for all of the pairs that weren't selected to compete this season because these two wastes of space had to be included in the cast.

What was with all of the Santas during the latest leg? I found this very amusing.

Yeah the santas seemed to be a random accident but it was funny as shit. I am also not a Big Brother watcher but Brendon and Rachel are almost intolerable to watch. It's not even good TV, so how did they get on TAR?

My favorite part of the episode was Bopper reading the clue for Turin and being excited to finally go to a tropical destination. You spent yesterday in South America sweating balls while stacking watermelons and are going to a city that hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics. Yeah.

punkysdilemma wrote:Bopper looks like Eric Pierpoint.

Man, all these years and it's STILL jarring to me to see the AlienNation people with hair. (I still love you, George Francisco!)

I am also not a Big Brother watcher but Brendon and Rachel are almost intolerable to watch. It's not even good TV, so how did they get on TAR?

I'm pretty sure this can be summed up with one little word: CBS. Didn't she win? (I have never watched it either.)

She is really unbelievable and I still can't figure out how much of it is for the camera and how much of it is real, and if it is for the camera, what on earth the purpose is, and if it isn't, what in the hell is wrong with her. She basically threatened to kill herself because she was tired of walking back and forth tasting bites of salami. I've heard of killer fatigue, but this is ridiculous. *rimshot* (And also like three episodes in.)

I really don't like Army Helicopter Guy either. Has anyone else seen Idiocracy? (I just watched it for the first time like a week ago so it's on my brain.) The cops in the future overuse words like "individual" and "situation" and "particular" and "determine" to COPS-parodying comic effect, and that's what he reminds me of. He can't say anything in normal English. Oh, AND he's an asshole. (I'm not wild about her either, but at least she stands up to him.)

Even though I can't stand the Big Brother duo, I also can't stand the Eva Longoria-esque woman and her partner who do nothing but cattily shit on them all the time. Can you people learn to be goddamn adults and mind your business, PLEASE?

That was the most amusingly non-badass Fast Forward ever. And yes, the coincidental Santa convention was awesome.

Even though I can't stand the Big Brother duo, I also can't stand the Eva Longoria-esque woman and her partner who do nothing but cattily shit on them all the time. Can you people learn to be goddamn adults and mind your business, PLEASE?

OMG yes. They get on my damn nerves about as much as Rachel.

Honestly my feelingsabout half of the teams is SHUT THE FUCK UP AND RAAAAAAAAAAACE!! These people need to learn to bitch, moan and argue while RAAAAACING at the same time.

Again loving the Bopper and Mark geography. Sounds like Africa! And poor Mark. We've seen and yelled at plenty of people who join the race and can't swim or drive a stick but have we ever seen someone who gets carsick do the race? I feel so bad for him.

And last week's epi, I went to Neuschwanstein (sp?) castle. They all said it was beautiful but it really isn't. It was amazing and ornate but I think Ludwig bought what he could afford (and no one else could back then so therefore it was impressive) and slapped it together. Honestly it was tacky in the overdoneness of it all but I understood why everybody ooohed and ahhhed. It was impressive but clashy clashy. One room that really impressed me was a room that had hundreds of portraits of women. Back then portrait painters got money when the client was happy with the job so they made all the portraits look beautiful even if the subject matter wasn't. Except for hair color the women all looked exactly alike and beautiful. There's one portrait in the entire room of a woman who wanted a faithful portrait and the tour sits there until someone finds it and points it out to the group. Once you see it you realize that those portrait makers were smart cookies.

Raised by wolves wrote:I went to Neuschwanstein (sp?) castle. They all said it was beautiful but it really isn't. It was amazing and ornate but I think Ludwig bought what he could afford (and no one else could back then so therefore it was impressive) and slapped it together. Honestly it was tacky in the overdoneness of it all but I understood why everybody ooohed and ahhhed.

That is exactly what Hearst Castle is like, heh. Too much money and lots of space to cram it in.

Happy to get rid of an all-male team because I am sexist and don't like it when young male teams keep winning this game.

The helicopter thing would have freaked me out. No thanks, Race.

I've got to say that there are teams that annoy me (Big Brother, divorcees), but no one that I hate beyond measure this year, which speaks to good casting. And I realize it's becoming a bit of a reality show trope to have the "country bumpkins see the world" (even as far back as the original Real World), but I love the joy and just sense of having fun that Mark and Bopper are having as they do this. I got tears from laughter last night as they and the border guards were cleaning the oil-bath guys. Great show this year.

What a bunch of whiny little idiots. Ugh.

Agreed. I did not like the focus on drama between teams in the latest episode. This show is usually light on that stuff, which I found refreshing.

It's tough to find a team to root for this season. Most of them have at least one assy member, and Jamie and Nary are straight-up boring, so I'm cheering for Mark and Bopper partly by default.

The music editors last night were on fire. "Ride of the Valkyries" for Dave's first try with the taxi, and baseball music played Indian-style? Hilarious. Hearing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" played on sitar was a highlight of my week. Also cricket-playing Phil.

And that Bollywood dance music is going to be lodged in my brain for quite a while, after hearing it eleventy-million times. Poor Mark. I read elsewhere that they brought in the medics to look at him during the Roadblock. Blonde Rachel rocked that dance, it was fun to watch her.

I really want Mark and Bopper to stick around so I have someone to root for during the last few episodes, but their prospects for lasting to the very end don't look good especially given the events of the latest leg. That choreographer was a little harsh on Mark during the Roadblock. According to the editing, during his 11th attempt at the dance, the only thing he messed up on was his foot positioning at the end, and he got dinged for that and had to do it again. It got a little uncomfortable watching him try the dance again and again only to tire himself out so much.

Dave's repeated "Listen to your freakin' husband!" to Rachel during the Detour made me want to punch him in the face. That and the ogling of the female greeter at the mat.

Goddamniiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttt!!!

Only redeeming part of this episode (besides Bopper and Mark's general delightfulness): The border patrol dudes making fun of Army Helicopter Guy. Who really is the worst.

To me Art and JJ are the worst because they have talked just as much shit about women as Dave and are more outspokenly douchetastic about everything else. Everyone who doesn't think the way they do and does something that might impact Art and JJ negatively is "stupid, lazy, non-strategic, and doesn't have the balls," etc. I mean Rachel annoys me but I can't blame her for not shaving her head when she knew that M/B were so far behind and had a Speed Bump that even doing the FF wouldn't necessarily save them, so B/R still were competitive without having to do it.. I don't have an attachment to my hair and I wouldn't do it for a chance to have a chance to win a million dollars in the circumstances that B/R found themselves in. The thing that annoys me about the challenge is that people make a hell of a lot more assumptions/judgments about women who have shaved heads than men, so the comment that she didn't have the balls was even more annoying to me. I mean I think Joyce looked fabulous before and after but I don't blame Rachel and the model who refused to do it, either.

I will say if Rachel is paying $500 for those extensions than she should probably call the BBB cause girl is getting ripped the hell off.

Oh man, I have to root for Brenden and Rachel now. I like the other Rachel, but Dave is awful. Ralph is awful; Vanessa even more awful (also, she thinks she's cute and bullies who think they're cute set off a primordial instinct that makes me panic and hide in the bathroom for all of 8th grade gym class, OMG...) But Art and JJ are THE WORST.

I really don't understand JJ's hissy over Rachel passing on the fast forward. It doesn't affect you, dummy! If anything, it helps you. I wish tetanus on him.

Well, crappity crap crap. I don't like any of the final four teams. Makes next week a lot less stressful, I guess. It seems like there's going to be some kind of kerfuffle at the finish line, unless the editing monkeys are messing with us (again).

I did like the elephants. Yay for elephants getting all prettied up!

The Speed Bumps this season have been pretty time-consuming. Maybe they got complaints about things like "sit on a block of ice for 15 minutes."

I will say if Rachel is paying $500 for those extensions than she should probably call the BBB cause girl is getting ripped the hell off.

You speak truth.

woolhat wrote:Vanessa even more awful (also, she thinks she's cute and bullies who think they're cute set off a primordial instinct that makes me panic and hide in the bathroom for all of 8th grade gym class, OMG...)

Dude, for real. I have such a kneejerk reaction to her and her smirking I can't even tell you. Also, talk about self-obsessed; she makes fun of Rachel for her dorky green ensemble/sequins, but she is SO studied in her presentation of herself. "People think I'm a bimbo, big eyes, big boobs, but I'm tough." I'm surprised she didn't add "skinny" to that list. Yes, you're defying expectations and stereotypes all over the place; congratulations. Apparently on the mat during the manufactured (seriously, stop it, Race) confrontation with Rachel she said that she would have shaved her hair and went on about how cancer patients have to deal with that and blah blah. I do not believe for a hot second that she would have done it, or that she wouldn't have made gleeful fun of Rachel for the rest of the Race if Rachel had.

Rachel is clearly a mess, but infuriatingly enough I think they are the most sympathetic team left for me. Really, though, I would prefer they just shut the Race down at this point and locked all these people in a room to bitch at each other forever and filmed it, because that's what they all seem to want, and then took the film and put it ostentatiously into a bag with "$$$ HOLLYWOOD $$$" and pictures of clapperboards and megaphones and stars on it, and then set it on fire and buried it in a field somewhere while the rest of us got to watch some freaking PLEASANT PEOPLE do this show. Ugh.

I HATE ART AND JJ SO MUCH. Okay, I feel better now. But Vanessa is also terrible. When Rachel called her out on the nose job thing, and instead of apologizing right off the bat she said, "well, you should have gotten a nose job before you got your boobs done, it's just good sense" -- paraphrasing -- and then smiled like this was the funniest, cleverest line ever, I was just OUT. That is a bitch move, and no one thinks it's cute. EXCEPT HER.

I think I have to root for Brenden and Rachel. I mean, there is NO WAY they will win, I don't think. But I have some weird residual fondness from seeing both of them so much on Big Brother. They feel like fairly irritating but essentially well-meaning relatives to me at this point, whereas every other team has at least one person I would like to shove.

I've never had anything for loathing for Big Brother Rachel ... until last night, when she tearfully said "I know that (Joyce) shaved her head, but she was skinny and pretty." I had no idea Rachel was so insecure about her looks.

I find everyone distasteful and I think Type-A Dave is going to browbeat his wife all the way to the finish mat. Oh boy, two hours of that!

They need to remember that people like Team ChaChaCha were some of the most popular people ever to run this race, because they were *nice* and *seemed to enjoy things* and *didn't spend all their time bitching about other teams*. Buh.

What was up with Phil milking the drama between Brendon/Rachel and Ralph/Vanessa on the mat? This show is better than that. If Brendon/Rachel had miscounted their wheelbarrows of manure, they wouldn't have been allowed to complete the Detour. Vanessa looked like a complete asshole and idiot revealing her suspicions. That whole conversation was just unpleasant to watch and emphasized how casting has really dropped the ball this season.

I'm bummed that Mark and Bopper are out. I was hoping that the Fast Forward would save them, but was not tricked by the episode editing at the end. I will miss Bopper's cackling laugh the most. After he had his head shaved, he looked a lot like Bryan Cranston.

Rachel's reasoning for not doing the Fast Forward was idiotic. Why pass up a guaranteed spot in the final four not to mention a prize for finishing first and a chance to relax for the rest of the leg while the other teams finish? If her hair is mostly extensions, she can easily get them replaced (but hopefully with ones that look like they are actually worth $500). I have to give her credit for the briefness of this tantrum, but she clearly has some serious issues with her appearance.

A reminder for anyone (like me, until recently!) who didn't know that tonight is a two hour finale.

That was a lot of fail for a final 3. But I'm really glad Art and J.J. didn't win.