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THE AMAZING RACE 4 EPISODE SUMMARIES
Season 4 Episode 1 Summary:
"You Lying Bastiges Promised Me Some Cheating"
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
I love doing kickoff episodes. It's all virgin territory. Yep. Nice and fresh and untouched and stuff. No one's been here before. It's like Madonna, singing about virginity for the very first time. There's no need for thematics; no need for histrionics, like those the late great Admiral Hymen Rickover used to indulge in breaking in wet-behind-the-ears submariners; no need to go to Virginia and back to find unsullied topics. My, that's some fine olive oil you got there. Yessiree, nothing like breaking out that plough and working through some untouched ground. And since you all know me so very well, I have no fear of offending your virgin ears with my usual outpourings of vile epithets. Like "virgin." It is a dirty word, you know.

Okay, okay, fine, I’m under control.

Bruckheimer opens up with a swooping sorta vista of what is most likely Los Angeles, since even those who don't pay any attention to the T"A""R" spoilers board know we're starting in Dodger Stadium. And, y'know, they probably wouldn't have to fly the cameras very far to get a swooping vista sorta thing going on. Since it's L.A. Where cameras live.

Oh look, it's Phil Keoghan, that guy from Boston or New Zealand or something. Hasn't he done a couple of these "amazing" "race" thingies before? He's on a circular helipad on top of a skyscraper. He's in a black turtleneck that, conveniently, hides his enormous man-boobs. In fact, I spent the whole 90 minutes of this absolutely wretched episode of this absolutely wretched show looking for evidence of Phil's man-boobs, because it's not like I had to pay attention and take notes and write a summary for you jackals or anything. In short: I find that Jerry Bruckheimer and Bertrand van Munster or Lily Munster or whatever the heck his name is have actually learned to hide Phil's boobs. I also find that Phil is no Jeff Probst.

Phil ziplines down the side of the skyscraper, an Uzi in each hand, kicks in a window, and fires a RPG-7 at Bruce Willis or Alan Rickman or somebody.

Wait. I'm confusing my Bruckheimer products. What really happens is this:

Phil pontificates: "I'm getting high, high above Los Angeles, gateway to the Western United States, as well as the gateway to Sodom and Gomorrah, home of the winter palace of Chairman Gray Davis1, a spawling cesspool of crime and sin that is America's City of Dreams, a veritable microcosm of all the evil thoughts in mens' black little hearts, hearts as black as my turtleneck, men with evil thoughts of women with boobs two and three and four and even five or six or twelve times the size of mine, especially out in the Valley where the porn flicks grow, a city so devastatingly huge that the angels, for which the city is named, must labor to remain above the seething, teeming masses of lust and corruption that constitute the vast bulk of humanity especially here in California, a city where 11 teams of regular people and two sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins await their chance to…"

Wait for it….

Brak brak brak "race," brak brak brak

One Million Dollars


Brak brak brak brak brak brak.

There. Everyone feeling at home now? Good.

Phil tells us that stretch Hummers2 are transporting these morons to Dodger Stadium. Helicopters bearing cameras, which didn't have to travel very far, chase after the two stretch Hummers3 like news choppers following O.J.

The stretch Hummers4 park, surprisingly enough, in the Dodger Stadium parking lot and begin to disgorge 11 teams and two sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins.

I guess it's time for me to introduce these lamers, huh? In the order that they are discharged (this is a very deliberate choice of verbs, for those of you who had the temerity to doubt it) from the stretch Hummers5:

Tian and Jaree are friends, "models" (I think this means they're escorts, because they sure as heck have the look and temperament for that sorta thing), and "thrillseekers." I rest my case. They are poster children for sexually transmitted diseases. They are poster children for not hanging out in dimly lit bars drinking until all members of the opposite gender look like something you want to fvck. They are poster children for slashing away all of your genitalia and never feeling a moment's sexual pleasure again for the rest of your miserable existence, and liking it. Say it with me, my long-time cherished friends: Just watching them makes it burn when I pee.

Herpes and Chlamydia are pictured at a shooting range, sitting on motorcycles, and telling us that they are adrenaline junkies who have an advantage because they're good-looking, because that will help them get rides and information and stuff. For those of you familiar with the works of Jay and Silent Bob: you wouldn't think for a second about making either of these two skank-whores abide by The Rules Of The Road. They are nas-tay, with a capital Nas. You can see the surgery scars on their ridiculously oversized boobs through their ridiculously tight sweaters.

I need to say this, just in case you're not getting it: Herpes and Chlamydia are bad people. I strongly recommend that you avoid reading portions of this summary that mention them. Really. It's for your own good.

Steve and Dave are friends and air traffic controllers from Chicago. Steve is tall, graying, fairly good-looking, but with not particularly good teeth, which spoils the whole older-guy-adonis thing he almost would have going in a different universe. Dave is the spit and image of those guys in the Saturday Night Live skits. You know. Da Bearss. Oh….heart attack! Heart attack! See? These guys here:

I loved those guys. I'm pounding my chest in memory of Robert Smigel (who is still very much alive, at this writing) right now. I hope that Smigel is watching T"A""R"4.

Steve and Dave babble about hoping to be underestimated because they're old and fat and maybe have some borderline ambiguity in their gender preferences. It is my professional reality-show basher and Web libeller opinion that it would be very, very difficult, if not impossible under mathematics, physics, and astronomy as we know them, to underestimate these guys, who are, after all, sorta old, not particularly buff, and obvious consumers of large quantities of cholesterol-laden food products (not that I think there is anything wrong with any of those very fine qualities, all of which I possess).

But I almost sorta like them. They're an awful long way from the most detestable reality-show contestants we've ever seen, and it's really hard to dislike a guy with a Chicago accent that sharp.

But wait…let's see…they're in their forties or fifties…they're air traffic controllers…hmm… WARNING: CONTROVERSIAL POLITICAL STATEMENT APPROACHING:

I'm afraid that these two coincidences of fact make these two gentlemen scabs.6 This is, in my humble and ingrained union labor view, unacceptable. Sorry, Steve and Dave. I really wanted to almost sorta like you.

And you, you, you, and most especially you: Get over it. My peeps were coal miners. I'd really like to care that your father once had to pay five dollars for union dues and it caused you to not get those Ambiguously Gay Duo dolls for Christmas and it turned you to the miserly life of compassionless conservatism that presently plagues you and makes you poop diamonds. But I can't. Sorry. I'm compassionless that way.

The Superfans are pictured sitting in front of the 1950s-era computers that the Federal Aviation Administration still relies on to shepherd you through the skies at 35,000 feet and 600 miles an hour. Y'know, I remember when I was a really young person paying attention to the federal government for a living (I still pay attention to the federal government for a living, although I’m now at the level where I'm paying attention to see where they may have left various tall piles of large-denomination currency laying around on tables where I can personally snatch them and convert them for my own benefit and that of my future former spouse), like back about the time a certain president fired a certain crapload of federal employees, they were talking about upgrading those computers and that software. Glad to see that, like most information technology projects, it still hasn't happened, uhm, 30 or 40 years later.

Steve and Dave are too effing insipid for me to give them nicknames. At least, nicknames that won't inspire a whole bunch of OT posts. They are shown bowling. Steve seems to think that he and his equally geezerly rib-sucking pal are going to run the whole "race" without breaking a sweat.

Okay, okay, I'll move along.

Hmm. Next are Reichen and Chip, who are a married gay couple from Beverly Hills. They have a personal vendetta against being made to feel inadequate because they tell everyone they meet on the street that they're a gay married couple. Thirdreichen and
Dolf are shown swimming and kissing and declaiming anyone who makes them feel inadequate.

They are Nazis.

Millie and Chuck have been dating for 12 years, and they are virgins, to coin a word, from Chattanooga. Vanilla and Fvck are facing a crisis, because he's afraid of commitment and she's horny. She wants to either get married or "move on," which I have identified as a euphemism for moving to Tampa and becoming a stripper/prostitute. One who isn't a virgin. One who gets laid. A lot.

Steve and Josh are a "corrections officer" and his disturbingly weird son. They are emotionally disconnected because Steve spent all of Josh's childhood beating the crap out of felons. Josh whines: "He ran a boot camp with felons in it!" The subtext here is that Josh, who is pretty much what Daria would be if she weren't a cartoon and she were a guy, resents the attention that those felons were getting. He wishes that Steve had been beating the crap out of him and sending him to showers with horny criminals who were forcibly separated from womenfolk. Daria is attempting to be funny. It is remotely possible that this will work. It may not win Steve and Daria the race, but it may entertain us.

Russell and Cindy are close friends. She wants to be more than close friends. In fact, she is pantingly, lubriciously horny. It is a tossup between her and Vanilla for Horniest Chick on T"A""R"4. I mean a dead heat. So to speak.

Russell is aloof and completely ignores the fact that this deprived, pantyless tart is rubbing her almost unnaturally moist private parts over every square inch of his body at every moment of every day, forever and ever, amen. He ignores that her every word sings his praises, her every look blesses his virtues and craves his attention.

Russell is a prick. I am a nasty, brutish, emotionally closed-off person with some extremely severe emotional problems7, and even I can see that he is one cruel, evil, manipulative, emotionally abusive son of a b!tch. Dood, toss the poor girl a bone. And I don't even like her.

I am almost in tears watching these people. Her confessional reaffirms that she really, really wants some. His reaffirms that he couldn't possibly care less and that he considers her to be the fundamental equivalent of one of his lawn gnomes. Except he might have sex with one of those.

The next limo begins to disgorge "racers."

Monica and Sheree are mothers, friends…and the wives of NFL football players (their husbands apparently play for the Atlanta Falcons, which does, technically, make them the wives of NFL football players…and let's be kind, at least their husbands don't play for the Bengals). It is not revealed which of them carries the last name of "Vick."

One of them (they are indistinguishable) suggests that their husbands (who, from the numbers on Monica's and Sheree's jerseys, are either running backs or defensive backs or both) should put on skirts and pom-poms. The reaction from NFL dressing rooms, which are presently taking a break from Steroid Thanksgiving, is unclear.

They seem like perfectly nice young women with families and relatively well-off existences. It's really a shame that their fellow contestants are going to sh!t on them so openly, mercilessly, and maliciously. Gosh. I wonder why.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Monica and Sheree are the only two openly non-Caucasian contestants? It's probably not important.

On the other hand, it's probably not like they need the money so much. Their husbands probably make enough to support their own steroid joneses.

David and Jeff are bachelors and best friends from Southern California. They are insipid. They may or may not be gay. It's none of our damn business, really. But they really are insipid and without any distinguishing or commendable factors. They, too, are indistinguishable. Way, way, way totally indistinguishable. In fact, it's hard to imagine that two human beings could be so totally indistinguishable without being mute and twins.

Which reminds me, we're missing our usual T"A""R" complement of twins. I guess Herpes and Chlamydia are as close as we're gonna get.

Anyway, David and Jeff take a moment to tell us that they're "very strategic." I have no idea what this means, precisely. They tell us that they are planners. They are shown running with surfboards, presumably to establish that they are, in fact, from Southern California.

Amanda and Chris, have been dating for 5 years. They are from South Dakota, and they expect us and the other contestants to believe that they are simpleton Midwestern naifs. Amanda is wearing pigtails and an exceptionally lovely (and tight) pink t-shirt. Excuse me, I need to compose myself.

Okay, I'm composed. At least for the moment. I would be inclined to objectify her8, except for some stuff that we'll go into later.

Kelly and Jon are recently engaged and describe themselves as Type A personalities. They admit that they are going to act like the Bickersons. Kelly is a vivacious redhead. I would kinda like her, except I married one of those. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Debra and Steve are married, and are parents. Not to put too fine a point on this, but they're pretty damn fat. In fact, they're way too fat to be competing in a thing that requires any motion other than the motion from the couch to the refrigerator.

I don't mean to be cruel. I am not, after all, a small person. I am probably what you would call, in a charitable moment, pretty gosh-darned husky. If you were my future former spouse, you would call me pretty damn hefty. You would probably not call me morbidly obese. But I ain't tiny.

Debra is morbidly obese. Steve may as well be. I am not amused; I am merely reporting. These people have the same chance of getting through a leg of this race as I have of getting a stretch hummer from Mandy.

Jon and Al are best friends and circus clowns.

Sigh.

I was talking to the aforementioned future former spouse today. She watched the show. She suggests that the next edition of T"A""R" include abstinent alcoholics, gay pedophile priests, bestial sheepherders, androgynous android attorneys, necrophiliac morticians, and absolutely no people who could possibly be construed as "regular." I suggested that she immediately write to Bruckheimer and claim royalties.

Hmm. I reckon I ought to advance the plot a bit here, seeing as I'm at six pages in Word and I'm maybe four minutes into this here show. That's four out of ninety, kids. Sorry. I'm fascinated with my own writing that way.

So Phil strides to the edge of the helipad and ziplines off, guns blazing…no, wait, he walks anticlimatically down a staircase. Damn. For some reason, before he does this, the teams are already filing into, surprisingly, Dodger Stadium. I sense manipulative editing. Never seen that on T"A""R" before. Never seen Bruckheimer do it, either. I am appalled. Yea, verily.

So Phil mysteriously appears in Dodger Stadium and there is a whole lot of braking about 13 legs in the race and 9 eliminations and some tasks along the way and clues on baggage and just go fvcking "race" now, would you ferchrissake? Phil's man-boobs ensure that everyone understands the "elimination" concept. More braking about:

One million dollars.

Phil gets the contestants all peppy and fired up. The Atlanta Falcons, in black skirts with black pom-poms and red-rimmed eyes and homicidal rages, perform various cheers that would, in truth, look a lot better performed by even, say, the Duke cheerleaders (it is a very, very sad fact that Duke has absolutely the hottest cheerleaders in the ACC. This is a source of neverending shame for those of us in states that, say, border our nation's capital and have state school mascots that strongly resemble--that, in fact, are--turtles. But at least it's not like Dukies can play basketball or anything.)

The contestants sprint he!! for leather toward their luggage. One contestant rips a clue from the hand of another. The Clue Bus directs them to some mall in Milan, Italy via LAX and one of only three flights on different airlines. A significant number of them express mortal surprise that they are going to have to travel to a country other than the United States. They are given a whopping $200 to cover booze and hookers on the way. The eternal T"A""R" ritual commences, in which friends, lovers, husbands, wives, complementary social diseases, and other forms of teammates bark rudely at one another without regard for decency or common freaking sense.

The contestants begin to pile into SUVs in the Dodger Stadium parking lot. The SUVs are Mercedes ML320s. Just thought you'd like to know. CBS sure wants you to.

Cue theme: stirring T"A""R" music ensues. We get the usual contestants footage, both casual and contrived, interspersed with footage of T"A""R"s past. Ooh. I'm all stirred and stuff.

A very confusing sequence follows, in which 11 teams and two sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins are simultaneously following each other and trying to lose each other despite giant green signs all over every freeway in LA that point the way to LAX.

Thirdreichen and Dolf are particularly aggressive about trying to lose their inferiors; other teams are just doing their level best to follow someone…anyone.

Every Single Contestant is doing a mad freak at this point. Many teams have trouble exiting the parking lot, particularly the utterly indistinguishable David and Jeff. Several teams immediately mark Thirdreichen and Dolf as members of the California Nazi Party and attempt to follow them to the Nuremburg neighborhood of LA.

Herpes and Chlamydia are having dire difficulty with their SUV hatch; it won't close.

Kelly shrieks at Jon to be calm. Amanda is incredibly hyper; every third word from her mouth sounds remarkably like "fvck." Every vehicle on every road in Southern California is personally in her damn way. She barks at them that they "fvcking suck." Chris confesses that she's an evil dominatrix with a world domination fetish and a desire to enslave humanity.

I want her. I will break her. Oh yes I will.

Vanilla and Fvck are sweating, clenched, repressed. Vanilla is shaky and breathy. Fvck's jaw is set like the granite side of a mountain. Wonder what's up with them?

Various losers are still having trouble getting out of the parking lot.

Herpes and Chlamydia are still have terrible trouble with the hatch of their vehicle. They get a replacement SUV but no time credit. Don't worry, they're not gonna miss their flight or their appointment at the clinic. Because remember, kids:

The Guido Rule states that no team will ever again be allowed to fall 24 hours behind the pack. It. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Thirdreichen and Dolf have "five on their tail." They do not seem to be disappointed. A confessional reveals various things I didn't want to know about who's on top and who…well…I think you get that joke.

Cindy is lubricating all over her team's vehicle; in a confessional, she tells us yet again what a fabulous human being Russell is. Russell tells us that he doesn't know who this chick is.

Vanilla and Fvck continue to look very tight. She says that if he doesn't propose soon, she's gonna cut him off. Golly, they're tight-looking, clenched, repressed. Wonder what's up with them?

Amanda continues to b!tch at anything that moves. She clearly learned her vocabulary from…uhm…well, me.

Steve and Dave approach the airport and discuss their choice of airlines: Swissair, Luftwaffe, and KLM. I love it when these things write themselves.

Let us now digress to Steve in the tower at O'Hare:

Steve: Luftwaffe 401, turn right and descend to 900 feet for strafing run.

Lufthansa Pilot: Luftwaffe? Vas is los?

Steve: Luftwaffe 401, you will respect mah authoritah.

Okay, we're cruising down some freeway in LA. Predictably, a motorcycle cop pulls up in between several teams' vehicles. Is someone about to get pulled over?

No. This grandstanding idiot piece-o-crap LA cop wants to lead this camera-laden procession to the airport.

Unbefvckinglieveable.

Thirdreichen instructs Dolf, or maybe it's the other way around because come to think of it, they're pretty completely indistinguishable in their own right, in how to park the car in the assigned space in the assigned lot so that all ground and side clearances are in ordnung.

People try to follow the instructions as they converge on the designated LAX parking lot. I haven't actually driven to LAX in…well…forever, actually, because the last time I was at LAX I was too young to have a drivers' license, but I'm guessing that it's fairly challenging to find a particular parking lot at LAX, and that's one of the ways the city and county of Los Angeles make some money, because it's probably pretty challenging when you're trying to leave the airport, too. That's a lot of donated vehicles in a place like LA.

Russell makes an illegal left. Cindy relubricates and begins shrieking in ecstasy and celebration. By the way, I kinda feel for Russell if he doesn't actually start doing this chick, because she's got guns like baby pythons and she's gonna kick his a$$ back to the Stone Age if he doesn't start putting out, and soon. My personal opinion is that, the fact that I intensely dislike Cindy notwithstanding, he'll deserve it.

Daria and Prison Dad pull in and exult that they are in view of the terminal. Daria reminds Prison Dad that there will be a lot of walking on this trip. Daria bootcamps Prison Dad into submission, marching him to the terminal in quick-time.

The Clowns make a screaming turn into an exit ramp, because any mode of transportation more participative than being shot out of a cannon is way too much for them. Vanilla and Fvck, who are tailgating them, freak. Again. Wonder what's up with them?

Insipid and Insipider, who I think are named David and Jeff, who live here, are lost. In LA. Where they live. I am filled with foreboding. This sort of thing has a huge statistical linkage with "winning" T"A""R". Huge, I tell you.

Meanwhile, The Large Persons Who Smell Like Imminent Demise are also lost. And stuck in traffic. But it was really nice of Bruckheimer to cast them, so none of the teams that actually have a snowball's chance in Hell face any prospect of elimination in the first episode.

Herpes and Chlamydia stop at a bodega to ask directions. The owner gets most cranky with them, because they're too busy trying to show him their enhanced breastage to actually listen to him when he tells them how to get to LAX. They fail to comprehend several more times, before we cut to…

Thirdreichen and Dolf, who also live here, and are also lost, and we cut to...

The Clowns, who exult wildly as if they had just won the Super Bowl by beating the 1958 Giants, all because they…uhm…found a parking lot.

The teams converge on the terminal. There are three flights, and they're leaving at slightly spaced out times, and arriving at Milan (after connections) at slightly more spaced out scheduled times. It is time for two tired T"A""R" cliches, The Transportation Terminal Mob Scene and the Random Contestant Shuffling Matrix. Phil patiently explains to us the entire flight schedules of Swissair, KLM, and the Luftwaffe (what, you didn't expect me to let that one go, did you?).

Meanwhile, back in the parking lot, Thirdreichen and Dolf have…uhm…found the parking lot. They board a bus. Jon and Kelly are on it. Thirdreichen and Dolf and Jon and Kelly greet each other gleefully. They are happy to see each other. The bus pauses to allow Monica and Sheree to board. All of these Nazis, two of whom are Californian and two of whom are, apparently, Floridian, scream at the bus driver to not let Monica and Sheree on the bus. The driver quite rudely slows, then resumes his progress to the terminal. He should be fired. Kelly reminds Jon that he's being a jacka$$ and a pig and that the inexorable winds of karma will fry his soul brown and crispy like bacon and that he'll deserve it. Jon is baffled by this.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Monica and Sheree are the only two openly non-Caucasian contestants? It's probably not important.

Various contestants converge on various ticket counters. Inexplicably, some teams go straight to the KLM counter, even though they all know bloody well that the KLM flight is the last to depart.

Thirdreichen and Dolf, predictably, attempt to obtain tickets on Lufthansa. Vanilla and Fvck and Amanda and Chris, who have inexplicably allied, shut them out. I immediately suspect two things:

1. Thirdreichen and Dolf are being made to feel inadequate because they told everyone, back in Dodger Stadium, that they are a Leather Biker Nazi Gay SS Married Couple.

2. Amanda and Chris are really going to regret their choice of an alliance some day.

The Superfans cut the line with the assistance of Daria and Prison Dad, because Daria has made a simply incredible leap of logic and decided that air traffic controllers know more than anyone else in the world about how airlines work, and would therefore make good allies. Daria will prove to be good at improbable leaps of logic.

This line-cutting activity has the effect of cutting off Monica and Sheree, who appear to be perfectly nice people and completely non-threatening, as reality-TV contestants go, from any chance of making either of the first two flights.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Monica and Sheree are the only two openly non-Caucasian contestants? It's probably not important.

I should also point out that Prison Dad is extremely amused by this behavior. Prison Dad and his little b!tch son Daria must immediately die and go to the pits of Hell. They are, along with Thirdreichen and Dolf and Jon and Kelly and Herpes and Chlamydia and Vanilla and Fvck, very bad people. Amanda and Chris would be very bad people, but at this point in the show I really still kinda want to do her, so I'm not in a position to make that judgement just yet. Bear with me.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Monica and Sheree are the only two openly non-Caucasian contestants? It's probably not important.

One of them points out that "cheaters never win, and they cheated." Well. If that's cheating, I'm Satan. Oh…uhm…wait. Okay, if that's cheating, I'm a fat balding middle-aged white guy. Oh…uhm…wait. Okay, okay, I got it. If that's cheating, I'm Jeff Probst.

There, that worked. Let me just say to all of you, my dear friends, that if you promise me cheating, you'd just best deliver. I have a special place reserved for Jerry Bruckheimer and Lily Munster. I think you know what I'm saying here.

There's a lot of other braking at ticket counters. We don't care. We must advance the plot. I will summarize the flight rosters in a moment, which will not matter, because I'm not giving up anything by telling you that none of the planes are going to crash. I know you're distressed. Believe me, I was too.

Herpes and Chlamydia are bickering.

The Swissair flight leaves, with Prison Dad and Daria, The Clowns, Kelly and Jon, and the Superfans aboard. I repeat: it will not crash.

The Luftwaffe flight leaves, with Amanda and Chris, Vanilla and Fvck, and Russell and Cindy's Libido aboard. It, too, will not crash.

The KLM plane sits meaningfully at the gate. David and Jeff join the Nazi Party and team up with Thirdreichen and Dolf, clearly unaware of exactly what Thirdreichen and Dolf mean by "teaming up." Herpes and Chlamydia bicker some more over how many sex toys and garters one of them packed. The Damned blather about nothing.

KLM takes off, with David and Jeff, Thirdreichen and Dolf, Herpes and Chlamydia, Monica and Sheree, and The Damned riding the wooden-shoe skies. Oddly enough, it will become the third plane of this episode not to crash.

Oh my. We are on our twelfth single-spaced page of a Word document, and we have just now arrived at the:

Commercials:

A rotten screaming baby for the JC Penney 1-Day-Only sale, which I am missing as I labor to write this, damn you all, even though I'm not a woman and the commercial clearly implies that I ought to be one if I'm going to this sale; Sarah Jessica Parker gloating about her Garnier Nutrisse hair color, which product holds color from root to tip (I'm too tired…you make the joke); various vegetables and fruits conspire to build a house in a field in a valley in a….oh, it's for Kraft salad dressing, which comes in various trendy flavors, some of which are no doubt plagued by cilantro; a ladder and an orange tree and some guy talking to oranges, which will notionally become a product called Simply Orange; Tylenol 8-hour, which has two layers and causes things to explode into a montage of one-second clips of people doing various sporty things; a bunch of on-screen quotes, coupled with flashing lights, which in addition to causing me to have a seizure is intended to compel me to purchase some Mitsubishi vehicle; some notionally cute kid and his unseen but Pizzone-gobbling parents; a very bad child dropping stuff, for…oh, cripes…another sexist rant about the JC Penney 1-Day-Only sale, this does not bode well; CBS, for 48 Hours, and CSI, and the new CBS fall lineup, which features Joe Pantoliano, some chick named Amber, but not our Amber, Mark Harmon, and Randy Quaid, all of whom, with the exception of the fabulously versatile (snort) Mr. Pantoliano, actually need jobs, and some other CSI ripoff that doesn't have any name stars, but it's a CSI ripoff, so CBS will milk it anyway; and some guy from CSI with a PSA about how important it is to frighten your children.

And we're back, with a map, a green radar-looking thing, and the usual T"A""R" blather about how bloody important and meaningful all this here is, followed by a clinical listing of which team is on which flight. Phil flaunts his foreign-accent credentials during this listing, referring to my personal favorite contestant as "Amander." Phil had better watch his a$$, because I still want her.

So after some more braking, we're at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuel II in Milan. Phil is in a leather and sheepskin jacket and a white turtleneck that, again, artfully conceals his giant honking man-boobs.

The Swissair flight is delayed, and it and the Luftwaffe are only 10 minutes apart. Contestants pile out of airplanes, run through an Italian airport, and sadly, are most emphatically not gunned down by twitchy carabinieri. This, coupled with the rather blatant lack of plane crashes, truly diminishes the entertainment value of this program, at least for me.

Jon and his perky redheaded friend Kelly have been here before. They think this gives them an advantage.

Prison Dad hasn't travelled much, and thinks he's therefore at a disadvantage. He is, but it's because he's a stupid brutish gloating racist pig who's spent most of his career humilating other humans, not because of his lack of travel.

The Clowns brak about the glory that is them. The Superfans indulge the time-honored T"A""R" ritual of haggling with a taxi driver in the middle of a fvcking race around the fvcking world for

One million dollars

This drives me completely fvcking insane. Yeah, better save a few euros, we're not sure what hookers cost here.

The first task introduces the contestants to the next edition of the T"A""R" Random Contestant Shuffling Matrix, which involves searching the Galleria for hidden charter bus tickets for buses to nowhere. The buses are, of course, limited in capacity, and one bus leaves at 2 AM, another at 4 AM, and another at 6 AM. Once a team (or pair of sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins) claims a pair of tickets, they can't exchange it for another. This leads to some confusion, because some of the tickets are hidden in places where they're hard to spot, let alone read.

Kelly and Jon get to the box first, and start looking for tickets. Kelly indulges the time-honored T"A""R" ritual of calling someone she loves an idiot. Oh yeah, it's hot lovin' tonight for Kelly and Jon.

Kelly and Jon and Russell and Cindy's Libido all hastily grab tickets and will end up on bus number two.

Digression: damn, Amanda is so hot. I will break her. Oh yes I will.

The sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins find some tix for the first bus; they lead Chris and Amanda to them, having firmly allied with the only other team in the game that does not appear to them to be Satan-worshippers. Huge error--we all know better, don't we, kids? Well, at least we know better about Amanda. Have I mentioned that I will break her?

90 minutes later, the third plane lands without crashing. More contestants run through the airport. One of The Damned falls flat on its face and members of other teams trample it cruelly.

The Insipid Ones and the California Nazi Gay SS reaffirm their alliance, although Thirdreichen and Dolf are concerned about what will happen when they drop their drawers and let them know what an alliance really is. There is some shouting and achtunging and information sharing and that verb really creeped me out so I think I'm about done with this sequence. These four idiots, alone among all teams, decide that the train, which stops at every other city in Italy on its way into Milan, will be faster than a taxi. Besides, it'll save money. That's important.

Daria finds some 2 AM bus tickets, and the Superfans alertly tail him to the same location and secure the last 2 AM tickets.

The Unambiguously Gay Alliance sits on the train whining about how everyone told them the train, which is stationary, is faster. Meanwhile, taxis jockey through the freeways of Milan, unimpeded by anything resembling traffic. Taxi jockeying is another popular T"A""R" ritual. Teams exult as they gain precious meaningless seconds over each other; Herpes and Chlamydia b!tch about getting the slow taxi, not quite understanding that the guy can't really drive particularly fast when Chlamydia is licking him like that.

The taxi people, of course, arrive first. The Damned find 6 AM tickets. Monica and Sheree whine their way through the plaza, looking for people who speak English. Daria pops up and helps them find 4 AM tickets, somehow believing that this makes up for his earlier attempts to impede this perfectly non-threatening duo, not realizing that it doesn't make up for the fact that his teammate, of whose loins he is the fruit, is a stupid brutish gloating racist pig who's spent most of his career humilating other humans. Daria covers his piggery by pointing out that Herpes and Chlamydia have fake t!ts. Thanks, Daria. We hadn't noticed.

The train finally arrives. Thirdreichen and Dolf look very, very mean, and very, very German. I do not ever wish to spend time in a pit in their basement.

Commercials

Neutrogena, which bores me; People yakking about S'mores, for Hershey; Swansons is coughing up free dinners; Allegra 180 is vastly superior to all other similar medications and in fact burns their villages and sows their earths with salt; an african pygmy hedgehog crawls up a guy's leg (it was just mentioned to me that it would be a lot more disturbing if the guy didn't dance around screeching when a pygmy hedgehog (which can never be buggered) scampered up his leg), for T-mobile (have I mentioned that I'd cheerfully do Catherine Z. Jones?); Sears; a number of depressed persons, who are, by the end of the commercial, cured by Paxil CR, remarkably without aid of therapy (and speaking of sexism, see Paxil CR's ad in "Marie Claire," whoever she is and wherever she puts ads); CBS, for A Time To Kill, AFI's Heroes and Villains Say The Cutest Things, hosted by Ahnold his own self, and a Simon Cowell reality show called Cupid, in which a woman's best friends pick her a bachelor; something about a car, for Acura; Orlando, for Orlando; lots of cash, for Kia; and My Local News.

Okay, we're back, in Milan, it's night, all 12 teams are awaiting for their buses. Monica and Sheree and Thirdreichen and Dolf all get rooms. The Damned cheap out, Lord knows why, because even if they could afford hookers, hookers would have nothing to do with them. The Insipid spend the 50 euros for a room, too. The Damned change their minds, but by the time the line gets around to them, there are no more rooms. Thirdreichen and Dolf let The Damned share their room, because they're going to go wander the streets of Milan looking for converts. The Damned crack jokes about Thirdreichen and Dolf being gay, which is funny, because the Gay Married Nazi Bike Patrol is still dithering about whether or not to tell their fellow contestants the obvious. The Damned are overcome by remorse for their petty evil, and they hate themselves, especially the male Damned, who cries. The female Damned mocks him. I'm not touched.

Russell and Cindy's Libido whine about how cold it is outside, in Europe, in winter. They ask a police officer if they can loiter. Incredibly, the police officer is not bothered by Americans wanting to loiter in his piazza. Russell and Cindy's Libido inexplicably start to bicker. Over nothing. Names are called. Libidos are damaged.

Contestants begin to queue for buses. It's 2 AM. They have no idea where they're going, which will end up being somewhere in the Dolomites, which mountain range I have always loved in a prurient sorta way. I have an urge to call one of my friends "you dolomite bastige."

It being the mountains in winter, it is cold and snowy and stuff up there.

The first bus carries The Superfans, Amanda (sigh) and Chris, Daria, a stupid brutish gloating racist pig who's spent most of his career humilating other humans, and two sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins. The second bus will carry Kelly and Jon, Russell and Cindy's Libido, The Clowns, and Monica and Sheree. The third bus will carry The Damned, The Unambiguously Gay and About-To-Be-Gay Alliance, and a pair of allied social diseases. The buses are spaced two hours apart.

So we're up in the Sodomites, in the town of Cortina D'Ampezzo, where it's cold and snowy and we have to ride a chair lift to the top of Cinque Torri, a mountain, where we will find that we are about to embark on A Detour, which will involve either climbing up some rocks and crossing a rickety steel cable rescue bridge reminiscent of that bridge in Holy Grail and ziplining down to the bottom, or using some locator beacon to find the keys to a snowmobile to drive to the next marker. Of course, they're all afraid of heights, except the ones who aren't. Hey, good idea to go on an adventure "race" show, dweebs.

Oh, by the way, it's absolutely freaking gorgeous in the Dolomites, and for once in his miserable, worthless producer life, Jerry Bruckheimer actually does a decent job of showing us some scenery instead of focusing on airplanes and trains and buses and pedicabs, the stupid useless Hollywood Ho-bag. But I'm previously discoursed on what an a$$hat Jerry Bruckheimer is and how Our Lord and Savior Mark Burnett completely and hopelessly outclasses Bruckheimer in this regard, so I'll STFU and let you enjoy the Dolomites now.

Of course, they all cross the bridge and take the zipline and congratulate themselves for being such wonderful persons. Chris whines about how cool he is. Amanda freaks, which is the first tiny little crack in my desire to do things with and to her. Vanilla is freaking. Fvck is freaking. This is because they are both freaks and virginity is not good for you. They climb, they zip, they whine. Amanda and Chris are in first place, but we don't care, because we're only 45 minutes into the show. They all slog down to the chair lift, a very nasty hike, and make their way to the pit stop.

We cut back to the second bus, because nothing exciting will happen at the pit stop. And to the third bus, which is even more boring and annoying, because everyone on it is whining about how doomed they all are. One would hope, under these circumstances, for the bus to plunge off some snow-covered cliff and into an Alpine (Dolomitian?) ravine, but of course, no such luck, so we cut to The Superfans, who continue to whine about how disadvantaged they are because they're old and they like ribs.

Commercials:

A graven image of Mom in a spinning class, for Royal Caribbean, and my favorite ad campaign, involving the song about Iggy Pop's heroin addiction and how that makes cruise ships fun, which commercial series never fails to show up when I write one of these, and aren't you happy about that?; someone's direly horrible vacation pix, for Kodak's disposable digital camera; a bunch of horses and someone called Medieval Knievel, for Diet Dr. Pepper; Star whatsherface, for Payless Shoes; George Costanza, for KFC which has not yet, surprisingly and unfortunately, choked off his last coronary artery; Minwax, for itself; the earth, for Clarinex, which causes side effects similar to sugar pill, including fireworks and group happiness; a family squabbling over breakfast, for Quaker's version of Pop Tarts; CBS (A Time to Kill, and the fall lineup that includes another excreble Jerry Bruckheimer show about things too dead for CSI).

We're back, as The Superfans pant their way up a rock face and squirm down the zipline, b!tching all the way. They self-congratulate.

The second bus disgorges; Monica and Sheree contemplate the fast forward. My roommate's cell phone ringer sucks.

Back at the lead, Amanda and Chris are bickering. She's cussing, they're both whining, and the virgins take over the lead.

Monica and Sheree go fo the fast forward; it appears that it will do them no good whatsoever. Everyone else on the second bus piles into taxis.

Chris actually calls Amanda "Flo". They bicker. They call each other names. I now longer want to do Amanda, although I will admit that she has a cute nose. Meanwhile, the virgins talk about how Vanilla's relentless energy (wonder what's up with that?), as Chris apologizes to Amanda for being such a relentless, barking prick.

Monica and Sheree have some trouble with the whole fast forward thing, but eventually get it and take off for the pit stop. Bruckheimer haplessly attempts to create some suspense and make us believe that they have a chance in hell of beating to the pit stop three teams and two sad little seething, teeming, repressed, highly explosive and unpredictable virgins who arrived in town two hours ahead of them.

The virgins let Amanda and Chris and Daria and his brutish racist pig of a father catch up. They decide to be an alliance.

The Superfans are having trouble getting back down the mountain. They're falling, a lot. Dave hurts his knee, a lot. They need rescue.

Commercials:

The same damn screaming baby, for the same damn JC Penney sale; guys in black shirts and sweats, for Lipitor, which I think is a fine pharmaceutical that has, in fact, kept me personally from pounding my chest and screaming "heart attack! heart attack!"; X-2; steak, for Applebee's, which I believe I have previously categorized as the absolute bottom of the pit of hellish chain restaurants; Neutrogena again, because it leaves you feeling like you just had a spa facial, and I must say, any commercial that mentions facials is a lot less boring than one that doesn't, but I think they're talking about the wrong kinda facials; Phil Jackson playing California scratchoffs for Amex, in a relatively timely commercial that makes fun of the Lakers' recent failure to avoid choking on their own vomit; something very, very odd, with androids, for Degree; the bad child dropping sh!t AGAIN, for JC Penney, and I think Pooh and I are about to go have a word now; CBS, for Dave; the Hyundai Sonata; a stacked VW, for Ikea; My Local News, featuring America's only anchorperson of Indian ancestry, Gurvir Dhindsa, in some absolutely horrible pinkish dress that is supposed to evoke something, but I'm damned if I know what.

And we're back, as the Superfans whinge some more about Dave's injury and the snow-covered mountain. "It hurts like hell, Steve". They get down the mountain somehow. I'm not sure what Steve is supposed to prescribe for Dave's pain, because there seems to be a rather dramatic dearth of both aspirin and large piles of ribs on this here mountain.

Back at the ranch, the virgins, Amanda and Chris, Daria, and his evil must-die pig of a father agree to arrive at the pit stop at the same time. They all win a Hawaiian vacation, compliments of American Airlines' Web site. However, American is going to make Vanilla and Fvck share a room. Or at least make her share a room with somebody.

By the way, American is presently at the bottom of the rotation of Landru's Perpetual Rotation of U.S. airlines, that once-fine company (in which I hold a considerable number of frequent flyer miles) having recently both lied, outrageously, blatantly, and proveably, to its employee unions prior to a crucial vote on terms concessions while simultaneously paying out unconscionably huge bonuses to its ludicrously incompetent executives, and pretty much strip-searched a close friend of mine who happens to look not quite Caucasian, causing him to miss his AA flight, and then putting him on runaround standby for two days, and then extorting a hundred bucks from him for the privilege of completing a trip for which he had already paid AA an extortionary fare. Then they did it to him again on the way home. Fly Delta.

Okay, this summary is making me very tired and I'm sure it's doing the same to you, so let's get skippy here.

Everyone else is gonna climb and zip. Kelly freaks on it, but does it anyway. I'm sure she's all actualized and sh!t.

Monica and Sheree arrive fourth, disproving my earlier conclusion that the Fast Forward did them no good, because The Superfans arrive fifth. Dave attempts to slip Phil some tongue. Phil recoils. Choke on some ribs, have a heart attack, cheer for da Bearss.

Other second-tier teams climb, zip, and descend into the hellish nightmare of a large snowfield on the way back to the chairlift.

The Bus of the Doomed arrives. Herpes and Chlamydia call a taxi, then step into a a trattoria, where a guy tries to pick them up by offering free coffee. It works, of course. Herpes is forced to interrupt the blow job she's enthusiastically giving the trattoria guy when the taxi arrives.

Kelly and Jon arrive sixth; Jon and Al arrive seventh and don red noses. I almost thought I could stand them, until that moment. Russell and Cindy's Libido arrive eighth.

Much is made of The Insipid, The Damned, and The Whores arriving and going through the stations of T"A""R". Thirdreichen and Dolf complete the tasks relatively effortlessly, having apparently beaten everyone into unconsciousness getting out of the bus. The Insipid also open up a lead on The Damned and The Whores. An attempt is made to convince us that Herpes and Chlamydia will actually finish behind The Damned. This notion is immediately put to rest as The Damned creep across the wire bridge as the Whores kick, beat, and cattleprod them to move faster.

Commercials:

Alavert bores me; "3", a "10" takeoff, for Diet Dr. Pepper; George Costanza, who has not slumped over since the last KFC commercial, for KFC, again; older folk taking a walk, followed by younger folk, for the diamond manufacturers' conspiracy (I know, last time I promised you a rant on this, but this is long, you're bored, and I'm tired…another time, kidlets); dirty dishes and a stupid husbandlike guy, for Dawn Power Dissolver; some colorful woman floating in a pool and a waterfall, for some Whirlpool washing machine at Lowe's; that damned african pygmy hedgehog, which can never be buggered, again; and CBS, for CSI, next, and for JAG.

So The Damned creep across the cables, as Steve affirms Debra. Herpes and Chlamydia b!tch mercilessly. One of them helps push the female Damned over the edge. The Damned let The Whores pass them, which will prove fatal, although it was quite inevitable.

The Insipid think that they're getting a snowmobile, and they're too stupid to figure out why they can't have one, even though there are 12 freaking snowmobiles there. They begin to slog downward.

Thirdreichen and Dolf arrive ninth.

Herpes and Chlamydia bicker relentlessly, because one of them is a smoker and both of them have….well, never mind. They're whores. Use your imagination.

The Insipid whine about the altitude. The Whores catch a taxi ahead of The Damned but behind The Insipid, who arrive tenth. There is some attempt at suspense during the taxi rides, even though it's painfully obvious that the Whores caught a taxi way before The Damned. The Whores arrive eleventh.

Many hours later, to sappy music, The Damned get eliminated. They are quite happy and upright and mature about it. They had a good time. It is actually quite sweet and touching. The Damned are fine people. But losers nonetheless. And we fade to:

Commercials:

That stupid disposal kodak digital camera, again; oh goody, yeast infections, for Monistat; S'mores and Hershey, again; the Pizzone, again; African-Americans are, surprisingly, not only allowed but, apparently, encouraged, to rent cars from Enterprise in a commercial that smacks of being related to the settlement of some legal action; the Love Boat-themed Old Navy commercial, and I SO wouldn't do morgan fairchild; and CBS for the Tonys, which will apparently be hosted by a guy named Hugh Jackoff.

Next week on The "Amazing" "Race":

The contestants go Italian snow rafting, but Kelly and John don't take the rafts; cliched gondolas are dragged howling from the Venetian vaults; and something about masks and Herpes and Chlamydia. Fill in your own joke here.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Sorry about the length of this one, kids.

1 No, Dawg's butt doesn't taste all that good, but even Dawg deserves a shoutout now and again, peeps.

2 Pooh honey? Can I have a stretch hummer, baby? I'll make it up to you. You know I will.

3 No. Really. I'll make it worth your while. You know I will.

4 Not you, my darling Poohdle? Okay. Your choice. Buggy? You do know I'll make it worth your while. I mean really worth your while.

5 Fine, Buggy. No worries. You know I still love you, just as I love my darling Poohdle. But I am now forced to love both of you just an itsy bit less than the alluring, bedazzling, creamy, and delightful Mandy. C'mon, Mandy, honey. I know that you, of all my many beloved Basher babes, none of whom I love more than you, and all of whom, except for you, I'm just toying with, know I'll make it worth your while.

6 Hi TechNoir honey. How's you?

7 No, really, Mandy. Totally worth your while.

8 Outfrontgirl! Where the heck you been, girlfriend?


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