...and it's that time again. Starting out with the teams, I think it's a pretty balanced field. Interesting that we get two celeb teams with Team Miss Teen South Carolina and Team Big Brother. I love that it was the manly beyond my wildest expectations brother that was the first person to recognize Miss Teen South Carolina. I am bummed as always that the cutest female contestant is always running the race with a grandparent. Maybe they'll last longer than normal.

As to the actual episode, I definitely think it was a great first leg. That might have been the most physical grueling first leg in recent memory. Have to feel sorry for the high school sweetheart who attempted it twice. Between that and finding the painting location leads ended up disappearing. Team Miss Teen South Carolina's 30 minute penalty was a really interesting look as to how close things actually are since you lose that in the editing. That said the highlight has to be Team Coach and Daughter painting the inside of the wrong house.

Man, that girl from Big Brother appears to be several dozen times dumber than the Miss America contestant who has no grasp on geography. Not only does she not know how to tell time on a clock or watch, but she doesn't even know what a "quarter after or before" an hour means. Not only does she not know that, she also apparently doesn't know that openly admitting that info on national television for no reason whatsoever would be a dumb idea. Listen, there's no need to open the vault and tell America how stupid you are right away, relax, you have plenty of time to convince everyone.

Good first leg, the whole take public transportation in LA to the airport angle was cool at first but they started out to close to the Metro/Bus stations, they should have set it up so they would have to transfer somewhere.

Well the footage is from Big Brother and when you're being filmed for 24 hours a day for a few weeks, it's a little impossible to completely self censor yourself. Plus to be perfectly honest the amount of people that have issues with analog clocks is probably mind boggling enough that I'd rather not know.

The only reason I tuned in was to see Jeff/Jordan and it's this looks like it could be pretty interesting. If Team BB gets eliminated in the next few weeks I'll probably be out, but if they can stick around and get me interested in the other teams I'll watch for the whole season most likely.

I did not realize that footage was from Big Brother. She's still pretty obviously dumb for saying that to America when she didn't have to, but the babble factor is much greater on a show like Big Brother than Amazing Race.

While I'm not usually a big fan of legs that don't involve a flight, I actually liked tonight's. The buses came across very much like the olden days of how flights were. While I bear no ill will to Team Big Brother or Team Miss Teen South Carolina, it would have been a nice throwback if they ended up vying for last place because of the mistake. BTW, the show's editing is doing no favors for the perceived IQ of Jordan or Caitlin. Though I did love the scene of Team Lesbian and Team Married Asian Couple looking at disgust because of Caitlin spitting on the ground.

I'm saddened to see grandma and my season crush go but I'm far from surprised. And is it just me or should anyone who has seen a single season of TAR learn how to drive a stick before going on the show?

Team Lesbian sucks. I really can't stand them at all.

I'm still rooting for Team BB.

I have been loving this season. Last season I was kind of disappointed that everyone was either athletic or looked like a model. This year they went back to mostly normal people, with the expection of team Big Brother and Miss. Teen South Carolina which are fun to watch because of their stupidity.

Brent and Catie going to the finish line before the detour AGAIN was a thing of beauty, and while I am not a fan of the Lesbian team at all, them being their at the finish line after calling Brent and Catie dumb was just too perfect.

As long as Team angry lesbian does not win, I will be quite happy with this season.

I loved this leg because no one ran a perfect leg except the cops. Everyone had problems which meant that no one ever seemed completely out of it and made the positions up for grab also. Plus a lot of the mistakes, i.e. wrong directions, were no-fault errors which made it that much better since they were more or less unavoidable.

Brent and Catie, more so Catie, are making it hard to find any redeemable qualities there. Knowing the average TAR crowd, I have to imagine that Catie is getting pretty hated about now. I could just feel the audience going they wish Team Big Brother was still in it after Catie's behavior toward the end of the show.

And how crazy was it that the brother's champagne pyramid didn't just come crumbling down? You would think that triple stack of single glasses was just doom waiting to happen.

I know, I couldn't believe that the brothers decided to make the champagne pyramid. I thought for sure that was doom when they started to pour. The biggest mistake is when team Big Brother decided to make the pyramid. The brothers lost such position because that challenge took way too long, you know they were not going to be smart enough to build the pyramid, and even if they did figure it out Brent and Catie would have been long gone.

I'm not a fan of Catie, but I must admit watching her and her boyfriend struggle is always entertaining. She really is just dumb and spoiled, and I can totally see how she flubbed up her pageant question that made her a star. Going on the Amazing Race is not going to help her PR like she thought.

What I love about this season is I can still see any team winning the whole thing, except Brent and Catie. I think they are going to be gone after this Sunday.

A little late on this one.

This episode was a pretty good one. I had never heard of the island they went too, and for someone who considers themselves a geography buff, that was a pleasant surprise.

This trend of teams messing up their challenges is amusing and suspenseful. There still is not a team that has jumped out ahead as THE dominant team.

I'm so glad the Cowboys got saved. I was as giddy as can be when it looked like the Angry Lesbians were going to be gone, then felt dejected when the Cowboys messed up and came in last.

Speaking of the Cowboys, they have been falling apart. They started out so strong and have been steadily falling behind.

So Brent and Catie are my favorite team now.

They get points for eliminating the Lesbians, but the Lesbians were 100% correct in calling them stupid for U-Turning them. It would have been much better spent on a strong team like the Cops or the Cowboys.

I can agree with it may not have been best strategy but I can see why they did it. The lesbians were ruining the fun of the game for everyone and I think that goes a long way with some people.

The thing is on The Amazing Race the "strong team" idea just doesn't hold that much weight simply because there are too many variables to factor in. Also winning legs isn't that big of a thing because there are plenty of teams that have won legs and yet are no longer racing. Consistency is a far bigger threat than domination on The Amazing Race.

That said I just love that it never dawned on the lesbians that their behavior is what got them into the mess as they continued to do exactly what got them u-turned in the first place.

Some numbers prior to the latest leg:

Cowboys avg. placement: 2.875
Lesbians avg. placement: 3.875
Cops avg. placement: 4.5

Lesbians look like a better play to u-turn than the Cops, but the Cops placement is skewed by starting 9/9/8. After that, the Cops had finishes of 1/1/1/4/3.


Going into last night, the Cops and Cowboys won 6 of the 8 legs.

Historically, no female/female team has won, and the Lesbians weren't exactly blowing everyone away. Sure, they were rubbing teams the wrong way, but (if I was racing) I'd rather keep them around, (possibly) get rid of a stronger team, then work on finishing ahead of the Lesbians (which may have been a problem for Brent/Caite anyway, since they weren't setting the world on fire, either). Race with your head, not your heart.

"We're gonna u-turn the fuck out of them"

Adorable.

I wouldn't have u-turned the cowboys simply because they're streaky. They're the team, besides Brent and Catie, most likely to majorly screw up. Daniel and Jordan are just kinda there. That leaves the cops and the lesbians. The cops probably are the strongest team at the moment outside of possibly a foot race, no offense Louie. As to the lesbians, they weren't a very strong team but they also made very few mistakes. Of note they were the only team that actually had a member that knew who Allan Wu was. Plus Brent and Catie are just looking to come into third place going into the final leg. I think they'd have a better chance doing that against Daniel and Jordan than the lesbians.



You just have to love the childlike glee that she says it.

I want the brothers or the Cowboys to win at at this point. Preferably the Cowboys..on horses..while dragging another team.

Wow the lesbians are a couple of bitter hags aren't they? I'm so glad they got eliminated.

That sure ended up being a pretty terrible season. Even with them going away from starting exactly 12 hours after they checked in, they still weren't able to create any close finishes and the most exciting part of the final leg was jockeying for position on the plane.

Way too many, "same place two legs in a row" legs. I'd prefer either "this isn't the end of the leg" episodes or "roadblock before the flight" legs. I was hoping the finale would be a close race not an edited to be close race but no luck there. I don't know if the show might be getting burned out but I think this easily was a season of really boring challenges.