'11 Oscar Wrap-Up. In a Word: Meh.

I know, I know, I know - this post is ridiculously late, so much so that it has lost the little appeal it may have had had it been posted in a timely manner. I'm sorry. I have no excuse except the youzhe - school is sucking up all my time, I swear! (More on that later.) Plus, I must admit the Oscars were just not as shiny and alluring as they usually are this year. I don't know if it was because I hadn't seen most of the nominated films (Best Picture-wise we'd only seen Inception and Toy Story 3) or because I wasn't as up to date on my entertainment reading as I'd have liked but I just wasn't feeling it this year. Call me James Franco (hi-oh!). Even my two boyfriends winning didn't light my fire much (though I will say that they both gave excellent speeches in my opinion. Nice work, fellas! I just wish Christian had been clean-shaven...). If you read the comments from the last post, you know we didn't win the RHI poll this year and I gotta say, my spirit is pretty much broken on that front. Hopes? Dashed. Even with my more relaxed approach to filling it out, I choked. I really should have taken my own advice from last year and just thrown darts at random. Clearly, I am doomed to be an Oscar pool loser for the foreseeable future. Is my life just not the saddest thing ever or what? I don't even know how I get out of bed in the morning.

If you're interested, here are the best recaps I could wrangle. I miss Defamer. *sigh* (If you only pick one, I'd go with the Television Without Pity link.)

EW.com's 20 Memorable Moments

TWoP's Best & Worst

msn.com's Best & Worst

Amazing Race 16: Week 10

The cowboys were awesome! Weehoo!!! The leg was a non-elimination leg (the third this season, which I find ridiculous - I totally agree with the recapper: why have the extra Road Block when not eliminating someone essentially renders it moot?!). Boo. Boo!

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When the race started months back, would you ever have imagined these would be the four teams remaining? You've got your brothers who can't drive stick (Dan and Jordan), the IQ-challenged pretty people (Brent and Caite), non-spring-chicken private investigators (Louie and Michael), and a pair of not-that-worldly cowboys (Jet and Cord). Okay, maybe you knew Jet and Cord would be in it until the end because they've basically rocked the race, but the rest of them? My hat is off to these underdogs, even Caite. Of course, there's hardly room for me to be impressed by Caite being the last woman standing because she's so irritatingly proud of herself. ''I'm flipping out that I'm the last girl standing,'' she said, before repeating that phrase several different ways throughout the first 15 minutes. Yes, yes, we get it. You U-turned Carol and Brandy and now you're the last woman. Bravo for making that decision purely on emotion and not on strategy. Way to go!

Tonight, teams started off flying to Shanghai, China where they had to find Zhujiajiao, which Phil tells us is ''the Venice of China.'' Did he mean a sinking, tourist-overrun city known for baccala and artichoke ends? Nope, just that both cities have canals. Dan and Jordan continued to be adorable, Dan declaring that ''I hate him just as much now as I did before,'' before Jordan replied, ''I love him a little bit more than I did before.'' I want to be their mother so I can be consumed with pride about how my boys are acting on national television. I like to imagine her bragging about her ''boys on that reality show'' who will ''ride those motorcycles they won over my dead body'' at Sabbath services in some synagogue in Long Island. We also learned Jet has a wife and 17-month old girl (um, doesn't he look 20 at max?) and Cord got engaged right before leaving for the race. Either he thought $1 million would help pay for the wedding or he thought he needed to put a ring on it because he didn't trust his lady to be alone for that long.

At the airport, Michael's thrilled at his protégés Brent and Caite, who followed his U-turn plan. They're his wolf cubs! Curious alliance, those four. Jordan, ever the wise commentator of the season, seemed to know the decision not to U-turn the consistently strong cowboys was idiotic. ''We're all going to look back and question that decision.''

Once in Zhujiajiao, the teams hit their first road block, to ''master the complex art of making noodles by hand.'' Perhaps it was the jet lag, but Brent commented on the city on canals, ''I feel like I'm in Sicily.'' Oh, who are we kidding? That wasn't jet lag. Of course, Cord wasn't any better when he questioned Jet's comment that the city was tranquil. ''Tranquil! What is that?'' Cord laughed, seemingly astonished that his brother who would use a seventh-grade spelling bee word. Oh my gravy. Anyway, the challenge was to turn a mound of dough into one kilo of noodles. When the teams completed the road block, Ping Ping, the world's smallest man (with the world's biggest cigarette habit) would give them their next clue.

And just when I was getting over the Sicily and ''tranquil'' comments, Caite and Jet jumped in with their offensive Ping Ping commentary. ''Wow! He was so adorable!'' Caite said, before saying hi to him like he was a newborn puppy and not an adult man. ''Can I take him home with me?'' Yes, Caite. I'm sure he would love that. (Secretly, I wish she would have. I would love to see Ping Ping chain smoking his way through her pageant parephenalia-filled house.) Jet wasn't any better when he said, ''If he jumped out of your trash can it would scare you to death.'' So, instead of being a little puppy, he's a raccoon? Didn't they get any sensitivity training before representing America around the world?

Jet made quick time with the noodles (Jordan commented that he's ''magical with his hands'' which made me question what's been going on during these rest stops...), and Louie channeled his Italian grandma as he twirled and flipped that dough into submission. After Jet, Caite finished a strong second, and Louie third. Only Jordan and his seemingly unmagical hands were left. ''I love you so much,'' Dan said, giving his frustrated brother a hug of encouragement. (Oy! I love these boychicks!) And soon enough, they were off too.

The next stop seemed to be pretty easy, as long as you weren't Louie and Michael trying to find the door to the fashion house that was about six inches away from the clue box. Teams had to dress a model in the clothes shown in a sketch. It's downright amazing that Jet and Cord finished this challenge, with that fascinating lack of skills differentiating boots and tights or the colors lavender and magenta. ''Do you need my tiara to help you?'' Caite said to no one in particular. Not that I should judge the power of the tiara; she got her model in the right outfit on the first try. Once Michael found the door, he unleashed his own stereotypical comment about Jordan with, ''Being the gay male that he was, he loved it. He was right in there shopping.'' Yes, Michael, all gay men love shopping. Must've been really easy to find gay perpetrators when you were on the job — just find the nearest Barney's!

Going into the final challenge (another road block! Tricky, tricky Phil!) at the Hongkou Stadium, where teams had to assemble a puzzle and then give it to people in the stands, it was cowboys, models, detectives, and then brothers. I was bracing for a last place finish for my boys. Now, normally I think teams should have to deal with whatever elements befall them, but asking them to put a puzzle together (apparently made of light paper that blows with the slightest movement of air) on an ultra-windy day seemed unnecessarily cruel. Wasn't there an indoor auditorium they could have relocated to? Cord and Brent certainly would have appreciated it since their pieces went flying the most. Of course, I did get a perverse pleasure out of watching Brent look like he was about to have a temper tantrum when his puzzle went blowin' in the wind. ''STOP!'' he yelled to the wind. Brilliant. (Incidentally, nothing on the entire season was more disturbing that the person in the stands with a face mask that had a picture of a tongue sticking out.)

Apparently, Dan and Jordan's dad unknowingly prepared them for this challenge years ago when he taught them to do the corners of puzzles and then fill in the middle, a good tip that allowed these two to pass Louie and Michael. Michael, on the other hand, seemed utterly confused by the task. ''Can we get some shooting? Kick a door in? Chase a crackhead?'' he said of the puzzle. That's for next season: Amazing Race: Alcatraz.

Now, by this time I had a realization. Two episodes left after this one. Four teams. Three teams race in the finale. So I knew it wasn't going to be an elimination leg, which made me feel a teeny bit annoyed because it seems like the extra tasks the last place teams have to do never amount to anything significant. If a team was to be eliminated, I was quite happy with Louie and Michael going home. Not because I've hated the big lugs, but I've liked watching the other teams (yes, even you, Brent and Caite) more. So, we had a predictable first place finish for Jet and Cord, a strong second for Brent and Caite, an impressive third for Dan and Jordan, and a last place spot for Louie and Michael. ''I'm sorry to tell you, you are out…out in the cold!'' that sneaky little Phil told them. No matter what the time zone, Phil still brings his funny.

Are you happy it was a non-elimination leg? Who do you want to see in the final three?

Amazing Race 16: Week 9

I. Hate. Caite. I hate her voice. I HATE her laugh. I hate her attitude. I just hate everything about her!!! Ugh. Brandy and The Other One said one mean thing about her the very first week and somehow Caite has blown that into a race-long vendetta. Gah! The cowboys had better pick up the pace and sharpen their game because they lost their lead really quickly this week. If I have to choose between the cops and the models, my brain will explode. Must... have... cowboys...

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Hell hath no fury like a beauty contestant scorned. (And Caite, ''scorned'' means ''treated with disdain.'' Fine, Caite. ''Disdain'' means ''contempt.'' And, no, I'm not continuing. Buy a dictionary. Yes, that's that book with all the words.)

Sorry if I sound like Brandy, but I think Caite deserves some backlash. She's been full of vitriol for weeks now, and, other than this week when hatred made her unusually efficient, she seems to be advancing in the race simply because other teams mess up.

But we'll get to all the negativity later because it was an episode full of attempted cheats and insults. First, let's focus on my new favorite team: Dan and Jordan. These two have been underperforming for weeks but still providing some of my favorite commentary of the season. They're hilariously underprepared (how do you go on Amazing Race without knowing how to drive stick?) yet have managed to outlast seemingly stronger teams like Steve and Allie. And this week, the two brothers (who are always adorable in their affection for each other) managed to pull out a first-place win. And the cherry on top? They gave their motorbike-hating mama a shout-out. What mensches, those two.

So we kicked off the week in Malaysia, where the five remaining teams had to take the 400-mile bus and train trek to Singapore. Their first task was to find Allan Wu, the host of Amazing Race Asia. I wondered if he'd look like Phil, all snug pants and spiky hair. Alas, he looks like a regular tourist, sitting, reading the paper. I don't know why the sitting struck me as weird. Phil never sits. He stands, he walks, never sits. Perhaps his knees don't bend and he's been hiding this curious ailment from us for all these seasons?

On the bus to the train, Caite started in on one of her many Carol and Brandy rants by flashing an evil smile and proclaiming, ''I'm 100 percent U-turning the lesbians if we get there first.'' She seemed just a little too happy about this statement, prompting Dan to wonder, ''Because they're lesbians?'' (You go, Dan. Call her out!) Jordan also questioned the wisdom to U-turn a team that isn't a front runner, but stopped short of questioning the fact that he'd questioning Caite's wisdom.

All teams made it to the same sleeping train where germaphobe Dan looked like he was about to plotz. ''Hello, disinfectant wipes!'' he said. The other teams seemed more ready to lie down in the sleeper cars, only to rush to the door before the stop. Carol and Brandy somehow thought it was okay to ask to pass everyone, as if the other teams would all of a sudden forget they're on a race and let a competitor jump first in line. Um, nice try. But Brent's analysis was way out of line. ''Ladies get their way. Bitches don't.'' And proof that God hates misogynists came quickly enough when Caite tripped over her own feet leaving the train station.

The teams made their way to the Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore (''My kind of city — super clean!'' said the Monk-esque Dan). Dan and Jordan hot there first and wisely chose to search the outdoors for Wu, who was still sitting reading that newspaper. This may have been the smartest move they made all season because it gave them the first crack at the Fast Forward and propelled them into first place. The other teams thought Allan Wu is hiding inside the concert hall because they seemed to search every corner until they realize he might be hanging outdoors.

By the time the other teams found him, Dan and Jordan were well on their way to the Singapore Flyer, which Phil told us is a ''giant wheel of fortune.'' I half-expected a gargantuan Vanna White to harness them in. Dan and Jordan had to ride up this ginormous ferris wheel to 541 feet, exit their capsule, and walk along a metal beam to the next capsule. It looked absolutely terrifying.

''I'm so scared,'' Jordan said, uttering a complete understatement. I'm pretty sure he'd lost all blood flow to his face, and his limbs were shaking. I started to get worried that Louis and Michael (who'd left their Detour to try the Fast Forward) would get a shot because Jordan would pass out before completing the challenge. But repeating the mantra of ''A million dollars. A million dollars. You're in a race for one million dollars,'' Jordan made it across to capsule #2. ''I'm just surprised I didn't pee myself,'' he said. Dan seemed to have no problem whatsoever which was surprising if only because that metal beam can't be all that clean. ''He never ceases to amaze me. I could have run this race with anyone else but it wouldn't have been the experience I'm having with my brother,'' Jordan said. Awwww! And with that, the brothers rode over to the Marina Barrage and won his-and-his motorbikes for coming in first place. ''There is no chance either of us will step on that for a second,'' Dan said. ''Our mother would kill us,'' added Jordan. ''Are you serious?'' asked Phil, who was either afraid of losing a future sponsor or doesn't know any Jewish mothers.

But the other four teams had plenty of ground to cover. Their first task was a Detour where they could pound the drums or pound the pavement, which translated to learn how to play a drum sequence or sell ice-cream. All teams opted for the drums, which bummed me out because I was secretly dying to see who on earth would eat a slab of ice-cream between a piece of white bread. Not that I should mock. In our country, people have been known to eat fried Snickers bars, so it's not like we're on some higher culinary plane. My dreams would come true soon enough, when two teams had to sell that Singapore favorite.

''I find dancing a little bit helps me get into the rhythm,'' Caite said while learning how to play the drums from one of several completely adorable little boys. I think she thinks dancing means swaying your butt side to side, a movement the cameraperson seems all to willing to document. Perhaps she should have given Jet some dancing tips. ''Music is one of those things that doesn't come natural for us,'' said Jet, not adding that grammar can go on that unnatural list for him as well. And poor Carol was ready to bail. But no one seemed to be as bad as big Michael. ''I have absolutely no rhythm. I'm as white as white can be,'' he says. Indeed, he was devoid of rhythm and said to the obviously underage drummer, ''Thank you my friend. We're off like a prom dress.''

So Louis and Michael headed off to sell ice-cream as Brent and Caite rocked the drumming. Carol and Brandy finished after them, with no idea of the bad luck ahead. And Jet and Cord managed to score the next clue as well. ''Ice-cream from some crazy Americans!'' Michael yelled to people on the streets and quickly sold plenty of sandwiches. Michael and Louis' taxi driver bought 10 bars, which seemed shady to me, like he was magically going to get a really, really big tip at the end of the ride. Then again, the guy did spend what seemed like a long time in the bathroom at the Fast Forward parking lot so maybe he was really, really hungry.

The next stop was Istana Park, where Brent and Caite decided to U-turn Carol and Brandy. ''I want to U-turn the lesbians, and they're behind us. That's all I care about! Yay!'' She was way too excited putting up their sticker. And, indeed, Carol and Brandy were way too bitter when they saw their sticker. ''They U-turned us cause you're prettier than she is.... it shows their level of intelligence,'' Brandy said, beginning her rant about Caite's embarrassing pageant question blunder and talking about how unintelligent she is. Carol piped in every so often but mostly looked ashamed about her girlfriend's bad sportsmanship. And Brandy wasn't stopping! ''Stupid is as stupid does…it's Brent and Caite Gump!'' Come on, Brandy. No need to be so mean. To Forrest Gump.

When they went back to do the ice-cream challenge, Brandy hot little sympathy from us viewers when she snipped to Carol, ''I refuse to be in the sun.'' Yes, Brandy, prima donna demands always end well for racers.

Meanwhile, the rest of the teams made their way to the Road Block, which Phil told us looked simple but had ''the potential to drive them crazy.'' The task was counting the links in an enormous chain, and the magic number is 521. I'm not sure why Phil built it up to be such a difficult challenge because every team got it on the first try. When Michael dug out his counter from his backpack, I was virtually certain he'd fail, but he too got the right number, if not the clipboard. Wasn't there something in his backpack to get him to remember to read the clue? Once finished, Michael tried to steal Carol and Brandy's cab with a ''they'll be mean to you'' excuse. Alas, the cabbie doesn't go for it.

The final challenge in this packed episode was taking the Mega Zip on Sentosa Island. Brent and Caite were first to the 1,200 foot long zip line. ''That was wicked cool,'' Caite said after bragging to Brent that she finished before him. (Dear Caite, You're in a race against other teams, not your teammate.) And then she left us with the knowledge that she has to ''pick my wedgie.'' Thanks, Caite! They came in second, and Jet and Cord made it to the finish mat third.

We were led to believe it was a race to the finish for Louis and Michael and Carol and Brandy. But the sunlight was so different while they're racing that it's obvious that Carol and Brandy were far behind. Sure enough, they were eliminated at the mat and continued what they'd started earlier with their Brent and Caite bashing. I can't say I disagree with their assessment of Brent and Caite's collective intelligence, but they should have gotten over it. They lost, fair and square. Brent and Caite outsmarted them on this leg. And that's a fact. It's also one of the few times ''smart'' and ''Caite'' will ever appear in a sentence.

Am I being too harsh on Caite? Do you love Dan and Jordan as much as I do? Will you miss Carol and Brandy?

Amazing Race 16: Week 8

Dag gummit the cowboys did it! Weehoo!!! I gotta say, I had no hope whatsoever of the cowboys pulling it out but they were AWESOME! I am so glad they balanced brooms on their noses as kids. :o) (I'm sure Robert knew they were okay because I didn't pitch a fit about watching the episode like I normally do when the people I like don't do well... but too bad. I had to look!) If only Brent and Caite had gone home - she. drives. me. crazy. Crazy! Soooo whiny, I cannot stand her voice for one more moment. Please-oh-please, Amazing Race Gods, make Caite's glittery headband go rogue and squeeze her so tightly she has to drop out. Please.

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One profession trumps all others in cinema history: the noble art of driving a cab. You've got Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, the best New York movie ever made, and Michael Mann's Collateral, the best Los Angeles movie ever made. Bruce Willis had his best role and worst hair playing the air-cabbie protagonist in The Fifth Element. And then, of course, there's the single most important film to come out of Hollywood in the '80s: D.C. Cab.

I was meditating on these great films during last night's episode of The Amazing Race, which formed an hourlong ode to the impressive skill and cruel power of cab drivers. Every team's performance last night was due, in small and large parts, to how talented their drivers were. Some cabbies knew the quickest route to everywhere in Penang. Some cabbies were loyal. Some cabbies got lost. And one cabbie picked a deeply inappropriate time to stop for gas. Michael put it best: ''One bad cab driver can cost you a million dollars.'' Before the night was over, one bad cab driver kind of did.

First, though, let's take a close look at the comeback kids:

Jet and Cord
Next to Louie and Michael, the Cowboys are probably the most charming team in the Race. And whereas the Detectives are talented at deploying their charm as a weapon, Jet and Cord just seem like a genial pair of dudes. They keep finding themselves in ever-more-exotic environs, and they get by on luck, pluck, and a basic faith in human decency. In France they looked lost, though, and in the Seychelles they started to seem a bit lazy.

Last night proved validating for the Cowbro Faithful, despite a shaky start. Coming off a last-place finish, Jet and Cord seemed just a little bit nervous. On the 21-hour flight through Dubai to Penang, they played Optimist/Pessimist. ''We're tied for sixth,'' said Jet. ''And first,'' argued Cord. Cord was proven wrong almost immediately, as the brothers were the last team to find a taxi to the Snake Temple. (Snakes… why did it have to be snakes?) Jet: ''How do you say fast in Malaysian?'' Cord: ''Fast.''

At the Snake Temple, teams had a choice between two challenges that emphasized Malaysia's diverse culture: Buddhist Tradition or Chinese Custom. The Buddhist Tradition was a classic feat of strength: carrying 12 giant incense sticks up 150 steps and lighting them on fire. The Chinese Custom was just the opposite, a classic equilibrium test: Teams would have to balance the tall Chingay flagpoles on their forehead and carry them across an esplanade. (Aside: Phil Keoghan's accent is always face-meltingly awesome, but there was something especially wonderful about the way he pronounced ''esplanade.'')

Viewers, which challenge would you have chosen? I definitely would've gone for the incense sticks, but the Flagpole challenge was a clear spoiler — a challenge that could either take a minute or an hour. When the Cowboys were the only team to make a move for the Flagpoles, I figured it would be their Waterloo. When they couldn't find a cab (their first driver abandoned them), I got even more anxious.

But then! An older-looking driver picked them up, and while other teams were struggling through traffic (more on them soon), their driver sped them over to the esplanade. Cord carried the Flag across the field like it was his job, and Jet wasn't too shabby either. The brothers explained that they used to balance brooms on their nose when they were kids. Parents: Next time your kid asks for an Xbox, give them a broom. You'll be doing them a favor.

That quick finish put the Cowboys in fine position, but they still had a Speed Bump to deal with after their last-place showing. They had to jet over to a tropical spice garden, find a lady preparing spice teas, determine which tea was made from the crushed spice, and then deliver the tea to a meditating guru.

The purposeful slowness of this challenge — tea, meditation, pretty garden, giant swing — could have derailed a lesser team. But the Cowboys have a peculiar ability to keep their emotions in check. Cord's sinuses were closed, but Jet still figured that he had picked the right tea. The Guru on the Giant Swing shook his head. The brothers didn't freak — they just ran back down to the lady and picked up another tea. The Guru on the Giant Swing nodded happily. Cord shook his hand. Can Cord be an ambassador to somewhere?

By this point, the Cowboys were several hundred furlongs ahead of the other teams. They polished off a perfect game day with the Road Block, which completed the Diversity Triangle with a Hindu ritual. Jet had to smash up some coconuts to find one with a bright-neon interior. After that, he successfully designed an offering (''This is my first time for arts and crafts,'' he explained.)

Cord looked on. He was wearing Jet's black hat over his own white hat, which seemed to suggest that the Cowboys have found a perfect yin-yang good-evil balance in their approach to the game. (Aside: I acknowledge that Cord's hat is actually more light-brownish. But it makes more symbolic sense if the hat is white.) (Second Aside: If Jet and Cord win, I think they should be required to fight each other for ultimate victory, just like when you beat Double Dragon with two players.)

Carol and Brandy arrived at Teluk Bahang just in time to see the Cowboys speed off to victory. ''How did they get so far ahead?'' they asked. Their reaction reminded me a little bit of the recurring phrase in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: ''Who are those guys?''

The Savage Detectives and The Brainless Beauties vs. Team Haterade
I don't know how I missed it last week, but the ''Previously On'' montage at the start of last night's episode showed a shudder-inducing fist bump between the Detectives and the Models. Turns out that there's a genuine Race-crush going on between the two teams. ''They're good kids, they're respectful,'' said Michael, clearly gone crazy from dehydration. ''I call them the Daddies,'' said Caite.

We saw the teams do some bonding. Brent pointed to Louie's snake tattoo. ''That's St. Michael killing the devil there,'' said Louie. I went to Catholic school growing up, and I well remember learning about the Michael versus Satan grudge match when we learned about the Book of Revelations. Getting really metaphorical, Louie said: ''The serpent is Carol.'' Last week, I was a bit surprised to hear the Detectives throw so much vitriol in Carol and Brandy's direction. But looking through the message boards, it seems like quite a few viewers share Caite's view of the girlfriends. My heart belongs to Team John Ford, but I have to say that I'm a slight fan of Carol and Brandy. Yes, they're a bit hoity-toity, but if they're only real crime is being mean to rude airheads. I say, that is a crime worth applauding! Plus, they're pretty much the only team left in the Race who actually has any travel experience.

I suspect that the Detectives were playing up the hate to win over Brent and Caite. To the camera, they admitted that they were mostly just anxious about that travel experience: ''Everywhere we go, they speak a little bit of the language.'' Really, it just looks like the Detectives are playing the Dating Models like puppets — they've got Caite all excited to ''U-Turn the BLEEP out of them.''

The Detectives are playing a smart game — we also saw Michael lend Steve some underwear. But they were caught in a Malaysian traffic jam on the way to the Buddhist Temple. That meant that the first two teams to start carrying incense sticks were Team BC and Team CB. Carol said, adorably: ''How are your eyebrows? They're about to get singed.'' Brandy said, even more adorably: ''Why do I always pick these physical tasks?'' Come on, people, what's not to love?

It was enjoyable how the two rival teams kept passing each other on the stairway without ever looking each other in the eye. Brandy was tired kept taking breaks, so Brent and Caite jumped ahead. When the two teams were about halfway finished, Michael and Louie finally arrived. ''The Daddy Cops are here!'' said Caite. '' I wish God would turn on the air conditioning,'' said Brent.

Michael managed to carry up three or four sticks at a time. Louie carried one and had some bad-sounding cough fits. ''Cardioman is back!'' said Michael cheerfully. ''My cardio,'' Louie explained, ''I don't even want to talk about it.'' That's between you and your doctor, Admiral Mustache.

Several times at the Incense Stick temple, Caite yelled, ''We caught up to the lesbians!'' She always makes the word ''lesbians'' sound vaguely offensive. The God of Taxi Drivers clearly agrees with me, because karma was instantaneous: although Brent and Caite were the first team to leave the Temple, their cab driver took them to what looked like a dairy farm in the mountains. Caite: ''I think this is the wrong place.'' Brent: ''We're just gonna check and see.'' Caite: ''Don't freak out on me!'' Meanwhile, Carol and Brandy surged ahead. Take that, Team Heterosexual!

Carol crushed a few dozen coconuts and finally found one with the bright-colored interior. Louie crushed exactly two coconuts before finding his own. Because the universe demands a balance, that left Caite to crush a few hundred coconuts. And by god, did she crush them. Die, coconuts, die! I'm officially amending my desert-island fantasy: instead of me and Jessica Alba fighting merman zombies with cricket bats, it's me and Caite crushing coconuts on Brent's concrete head.

Oh, I kid. As much as I've been poking fun at Team Superficial, they clearly possess a kind of idiot-savant genius for this race. After their enemies Brandy and Carol raced off for a second-place finish, and their friends/puppetmasters the Detectives zoomed off for third, Caite finally found a coconut with a neon interior. It was bright pink, the color of her soul. She looked positively serene setting her Hindu offering into the waves.

I keep saying that they're going to be kicked off, but Caite and Brent keep on surprising us. I can't really figure out what their secret is. They're rude to the locals, they can barely speak English, and their teammate chemistry is pretty toxic. But somehow, they make it work. Not to get too heavy with the allusions, but the Dating Models bear a striking resemblance to the titular couple in Roman Polanski's 1971 version of Macbeth.

Team Brothers vs. Team Bring-Your-Daughter-To-Work-Day
Steve raced one hell of a race. I had a sense of foreboding at the start of the episode, though, when we saw him and Allie enjoying a nice idyll (paid for by 7-Up) on the beach. It looked uncannily like Ben and Kate's breakfast on the beach from Lost, which fans might recall marked the beginning of the worst story arc on that show.

I've given Steve most of the credit for the team's success, so now I have to lay the blame squarely on his shoulders. He made a whole series of mistakes during last night's episode, but if you could point to the one decision that really set him on the road to ruin, it was the choice to bow to peer pressure. He initially declared to Allie that they'd go for the Flagpole challenge, but he seemed to get anxious when he noticed that everyone else was heading to the Buddhist Temple. He told his cabbie to follow the Brothers.

I don't have any feelings either way about the Brothers. Maybe it's because we haven't heard very much about them. We know that Jordan loves The Amazing Race, and we know that Jordan is the one with the bandanna, and that's about it. They seem to me like consummate middle-of-the-pack racers, and sure enough, last night they got caught in a push-pull race-to-the-bottom with Steve and Allie.

When Steve and Allie decided to beat the traffic by walking, Jordan and Dan followed them. That left both teams struggling up the hillside, while the Detectives sped along. Steve had told their cabbie to follow them, which he did. Hooray! JorDaniel followed their cab on foot, which meant that both teams ended up in the wrong place. The Brothers tried to swoop Steve's cabbie, but the cabbie was loyal. Unfortunately, the cabbie also had no clue where he was going. And this led to Steve's second crucial mistake of the day. He opted to make a break for the Flagpole challenge, despite Allie's protestations. Turns out that Allie was right to be shrill: She couldn't balance a flagpole to save her life. (In fairness, Steve didn't seem to have much luck with it, either.) Daddy and Daughter then hopped into another taxi.

Jordan and Dan had a terrible night, too. We've seen before that the Brothers have a tendency to be a little bit too hasty, and that tendency was on full display last night. First, the Brothers sent their proclaimed ''Best Driver in Malaysia'' away. Later, Jordan forgot to build the floating part of his miniature offering. Dan was upset: ''Read. The. Clue.'' Jordan: ''I'm such an idiot.'' Listen, the Models have pulled some boneheaded moves, too, but they at least seem to be getting marginally smarter week-to-week.

Despite some last-minute surges by their helpful taxi-man, Steve and Allie came in last. Steve claimed that being on the Race was more important to him than his World Series ring. He also made every woman in the audience cry when he noted of Allie, ''I still look at her as my five-year-old little girl.''

Viewers, I thought last night's episode was one of the most exciting of the season. The Cowboys had a perfect game. The Detectives are laying the groundwork for some delicious underhanded shenanigans. There's rivalry between Team BC and Team CB is set to explode at any moment. At this point, I think we're shaping up for a Cowboys vs. Detectives finale, with Brandy and Carol as possible spoilers. But with only five teams left, I have to ponder: could Team Superficial actually win this thing? And if so, does that indicate that it is actually okay to judge a book by its cover?

By the way: we here at EW.com have heard the people sing, and they are singing, ''Get rid of that Mama Weaver Picture!'' Sound off in the comment boards if you have an opinion about whose picture you would like to adorn our Amazing Race All About page. It could be a former contestant, or a current contestant, or the Afro-Eurasian landmass, or the Phil Keoghan's cruelly handsome face.

Amazing Race 16: Week 7

Ugh. Sunday's episode should've been awesome - Brent and Caite and Brandy and The Other One both had rotten luck and I was giddy with glee watching them drive their oxes back and forth. (Especially since I was super pissed that B and C went from last to first in a matter of moments! Stupid faraway exotic locale with limited flights.) But then the cowboys were boneheads not once but twice and it made me sad. Will they be able to survive their Speed Bump next week? Oh, my gravy I hope so!!!

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The Race switched hemispheres last night, and the trip south turned the game upside-down. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, the last would become first. Black would turn into white. Pigs would fly. Hell would turn into a popular ski resort. And the phrase ''Currently in First Place'' would float onscreen underneath the pouty faces of Brent and Caite.

The promos for last night's episode made light fun of the teams' various pronunciations of ''Seychelles.'' My favorite was how Jet and Cord made it rhyme with ''Achilles,'' though I also admired how Caite said it with a bizarro-Spanish inflection. (It sounded a bit like ''Say-HYELL-ays.'') All the racers were set to depart on the same airplane. We saw the Cowboys and the Detectives set off to find food at the airport, which seems like the first tactical error in a rough day. All the other teams managed to book themselves precise seats in the airplane. Team Dating Models were up in front in row 7, followed by Steve and Allie in row 15 and JorDaniel in Row 15.

That meant Brent and Caite were the first to find the clue waiting for them in the island of Mahe. It was a day of island-hopping. The six teams would be flying by helicopter to La Digue. The first three teams flew off immediately; the next three would have to wait an hour for the copters to return. That left Team Detective, Team Cowboy, and Team Adorable Squabbling way in back. ''The three strongest teams were in fourth, fifth, and sixth,'' Carol said.

Now, that's not quite fair. The Detectives are a proven quantity, but a winning streak doesn't mean much in this game. The Cowboys are lovable but erratic. And Brandy and Carol didn't exactly dominate Europe. Plus, Carol was discounting Steve, who might be the best all-around player this season.

But without a doubt, it was weird seeing Brent and Caite in first. They both rejoiced in their own particular ways: Brent started talking like an idiot savant from a Terrence Malick movie — ''The views are sick. It's like something from a postcard'' — and Caite ignored him and started making battle plans. ''I just wanna get the mean lesbians out," she said.

The competition choice was between Turtle Toddle or Ox Trot. Given the amount of alcohol-related competitions this season, I was hoping ''Turtle Toddle'' would involve getting a century-old tortoise drunk on rice wine. But unfortunately, the game was just luring a century-old tortoise across a marker, and then carrying a mountain of bananas to the fruit merchant. Ox Trot was, I think, the clear choice here: load a cart with coconuts and drive an ox cart to the harbor. Everyone knows that oxen are more obedient than tortoises! Snooty tortoises, they think their ability to outlive the rest of existence makes them sooo cooool.

Brent declared that Team Plastic would ride an ox cart. Dan and Jordan followed suit. Steve made an aggressive move when he chose the shelled centenarian. ''I never met an ox that I could trust,'' he said darkly. ''Turtles are cool, man.'' Allie discovered some kind of turtle-whispering skills, and charmed their hero in a half-shell over the finish line. Steve: ''That's what her mom does to me all the time. Maybe with a beer or something.'' If season 16 of The Amazing Race had its own drinking game, ''someone mentions how much Steve likes beer'' would be worth a shot of tequila.

Props to the cameraperson covering Caite and Brent on this episode: he or she got a pair of awesome shots, first of the Detectives' helicoper flying over the models' pretty heads and then of the telltale coconut they left behind. Here's what Brent and Caite said to each other as they drove away, still in first place:

''You're a dummy!''
''You're a dummy!''
''You're a friggin idiot!''
''You're a friggin idiot!''

Their ox rebelled against all the inanity and stopped in his tracks. A little ways behind them, Dan and Jordan named their ox Box, in honor of their father's company. Box apparently found this charming and sped up.

Steve and Allie arrived at the fruit merchant first, covered in banana gunk. They were sent off to a boat. Success! Except then they realized they had left their backpacks behind. Failure! Meanwhile, Brent and Caite arrived at the harbor. Success! The fruit merchant took one look at the models' cart and said, ''It's not enough coconuts.'' Failure!

The two teams each dealt with strife in their own way. Steve joked with Allie about how she didn't need makeup, and then noted, ''It'll make us faster, that's for sure.'' Brent threw a fit and announced that he was going to go home and cry about it: ''I quit. I quit. I quit.'' Viewers, he lies!

While Brent and Caite were going backwards, the stragglers arrived on La Digue. The Detectives and the Cowboys both chose Ox Trot. Cord: ''Usually we're loading feed, instead of whatever these things are.'' Brandy and Carol chose the tortoise thing, which turned out badly (their tortoise wouldn't move) and then turned out badly-er (he would only move in the wrong direction.) They also ended up piling coconuts in the ox cart.

Far, far in the lead, Steve dived down to a submerged case of bottles. (Phil charmingly explained the rules of the competition while talking underwater. Is hosting The Amazing Race the coolest job in show business?) Inside of the bottle was some kind of map that had to be assembled — the show seemed to purposefully hide the map-assembly part, probably because it was a little bit silly (as we saw, one team found their way to the pit stop without even putting the map together.)

''My dad is a great swimmer,'' said Allie. ''When he goes to the gym, he'll swim for like an hour.'' Viewers, I've been a bit tough on Allie, and I realize that it's only because her papa-teammate seems like such a one-man band. Like, what can't this man do? (Okay, he can't make the Indians win the pennant, but maybe he just needs the right players.) Steve and Allie finished first for the day, and got lots of 7-themed presents from 7-Up. Phil: ''7-Up is giving you $7,000 each! And all the 7-Up you can drink!'' Allie: ''God has a plan!''

Jordan and Daniel (who everyone in the Race refers to as ''The Brothers,'' indicating that not even their fellow players can tell them apart) arrived in second place. Not bad for a team that many people (myself included) had been discounting.

Louie and Michael were making good time. So were Jet and Cord, although we saw them leave a coconut behind. Carol and Brandy made a point of checking, and they still left a coconut behind. That meant half the teams in the Race ran afoul of the Telltale Coconut. I have to say, this was a bit dispiriting — it didn't seem that hard to do a spot-check. But I enjoyed the random guy whose job was to stand by the Telltale Coconut and point. The fruit merchant, for his part, seemed to grin wider and wider when he told teams they didn't have enough coconuts.

The Cowboys responded with a nonchalant ''oh, my gravy,'' and turned around. Brandy and Carol took it harder. Carol: ''I think when you threw some in…'' Brandy: ''When I threw some in?'' Jet and Cord seemed to brighten when they passed the ladies. ''There's still hope, man! There's still hope!''

Brent and Caite got their latest bit of good luck when their boat passed the Detectives' boat. Brent dived for Team Superficial, while Michael dived for Team Bogart. They decided to do a superhero team-up when they hit the shore (though Louie looked like he was about to drown in two feet of water for a second there). Said Caite: ''There's more strategy. We wanted them to make it.''

Hmmm, but who was being strategic here? The teams arrived right behind each other, models in third and detectives in fourth. Phil played some Question Master with them. We learned that Team Model likes the Detectives and the Cowboys, but that (apparently) no one likes Brandy and Carol. Michael said, vaguely, ''You wanna be negative, be somewhere else.'' I suspect that Louie and Michael were playing up the hatred to appease Brent and Caite. Caite said, ''They just keep being mean to me,'' still upset by a ''tiara joke.'' (''Um, I've only been in, like, three pageants,'' said she.) Brent nodded. ''It's pretty anonymous amongst the teams.'' Phil's response gave last night's episode its title: ''Anonymous?''

Jet and Cord were cruising for an easy fifth place. Cord was even kind enough to offer the ship's captain his bottle. Read the directions, guys! They left the bottle behind, swam to the shore of Praslin Island, and found Phil Keoghan using only their sense of smell. They laughed a little bit as Phil flashed them a quizzical expression. For me, the moment of the night was the look on Cord's face as Phil explained to them that they would have to swim back to the ship, get the bottle, and then return. The music got crazy. Like, industrial-rock crazy.

They had to swim about 300 yards or so, and they were halfway there when Carol and Brandy showed up. Said Cord, for the second time in the episode, ''I'm not giving up until Phil says you have to go!'' I'm a big Cowboy fan — with Jeff gone, they're the season's reigning one-liner kings — so I thought this climax was a genuine nailbiter. Race, Cowboys, race! Race for your life, Charlie Brown!

Well, the Cowboys lost, but Phil didn't send them home. I'm always a bit suspicious of the non-elimination episodes (funny how it's usually the most viewer-friendly teams who benefit, huh?) but I breathed a little sigh of relief. The Cowbros will have to do a speed bump next week, but they took the news in stride. ''Champions aren't necessarily the people who ride the most bulls,'' said Jet. ''They're the people that get bucked off and still pick themselves up.''

''When you hit bottom, the only place to go is up,'' concluded Jet. ''You should write a country song,'' said his brother.

As for the standings, I'm inclined to think that we'll be back to Detectives vs. Steve next week, but I'm intrigued to see what Jordan and Daniel can do with a big lead. Since it's always possible that a blind one-legged man walking across a desert planet will find a wormhole leading to a dimension made of water, I suppose it's vaguely possible that Brent and Caite will accidentally do something right (or at least not do too many things wrong).

At this point, the only team who I've really had my faith shaken in is the Cowboys. I figured that a trip to slightly-less metropolitan surroundings would do them good. But they had to go backwards twice this week, just like last week's ''we went to the wrong town again'' mishap on the French freeway. I still think they have the best attitude of any of the teams. But attitude only goes so far. Right?

How'd you like the episode, Racers? Were you surprised to see that Cord didn't keep his hat on when he went swimming? Do you agree that Steve is just crushing it this season? Are your hearts warming to Brent and Caite? Are you confused by all the Carol/Brandy haterade, or do you think that ''tiara'' comment will come back to haunt them? And is it just me, or does Brent look exactly like Finn, Meadow's boyfriend from The Sopranos?

Amazing Race 16: Weeks 5 & 6

Oh my goodness! As I started to dive into this week's recap, I realized that I completely forgot to post last week's! Sorry (Robert and John)! I must admit I did read it myself in a timely fashion but I think my actually being busy at work coupled with it being one of the most boring recaps in history allowed it to slip through the cracks. So, without further ado, here's the recap to last week's episode:

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Wow. Do you think when the teams signed up for this season of Amazing Race they knew they'd be ''shot at'' or have to crawl under ''barbed wire'' that could tear their skin apart? Holy waiver! No, I'm joking. The family-hour version of World War I looked more like a Nickelodeon take on battle, with really messy piles of dirt blowing everywhere and wire about as dangerous as that Pamela Anderson movie. Which is not to say this week wasn't a battle because it was.

And kudos to the show because by halfway through the episode I thought we were going to see the exact same results as last week with Jeff and Jordan headed home. But, you never know when that Travelocity gnome will show his dark side and someone will forget to pick up a clue and someone else will get U-turned. Okay, the gnome had nothing to do with it, but he scares me anyway.

Let's go pre-war when the teams were on a bus headed to a secret location. Joe and Heidi were in the back, Joe's knee on a vat of ice. ''The race has put a toll on my leg,'' he said. ''I've been running with one leg.'' Um, did he see season 10? Someone named Sarah ring a bell? That's called running the race with one leg. But I can't really diss Joe so much because he actually redeemed himself as a decent guy tonight. Not sure why he insisted on being a jerk every other week, but the hobbled knee made him a lot kinder to Heidi. Even Heidi went on about their ''unconditional love and patience toward each other.'' Too bad everyone didn't feel that unconditional love for them. And by everyone I mean Louie and Michael.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Teams got off the bus and headed to Saint Menehould where they had to find a boulangerie and buy a fresh baguette. Okay. Yum. How good did those loaves look? Kind of loved Steve and Allie and their bread banter about which one of them did or did not know what a baguette was. Now that Berty Van M. is actually showing them for more than 1.2 seconds an episode, they're proving to be one of the most adorable racing couples ever on the show. They're funny, competent, charming, and supportive. And, by the looks of the past few weeks, they're going to be around much longer.

A few other teams have a hard time wrapping their heads around the word ''baguette.'' It's not that hard a word to master, guys. Haven't you ever been to Au Bon Pain? Jet calls it something like ''bay-gou-ette'' and I'm instantly understanding why French people don't like when Americans speak their language.

But when it came to speaking in tongues, the award of the night has to go to Brent and Caite. Brent's brilliant moment would come later, but when embarking on this leg Caite says, ''We're doing everything great. We like to think that we know where we're going when we really don't so we need to stop being so hard at it.'' I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it's still a notch more coherent than her Miss Teen USA days, so I guess we should applaud her.

Poor Jeff and Jordan left seemingly hours later than the rest of the teams and they didn't get off to a good start. Jordan couldn't seem to figure out traffic circles, Jeff couldn't seem to figure out why Jordan couldn't figure things out. When they finally made it to the boulangerie, Jeff looked so confused I was worried he'd eat that carbo-clue bite by bite. Thankfully, he figured out the ol' ''Clue baked in the bread!'' concept.

Of course, by this time plenty of the teams are at the detour at Le Main des Massiges. Teams had to decide between ''In the trenches'' or ''Under fire.'' It's so obvious that ''Under Fire'' (crawl under ''barbed wire'' to retrieve a clue, crawl back) is much easier than ''In the trenches'' (decode message using Morse Code). Sure enough, all the teams go that route. It looked like it should look kinda scary, with the ''soldiers'' flying those cool vintage planes and firing things and sitting in dugouts. But of course, all the people that get to do cool stuff are the paid extras. Crawling to get the clue is just a drag and one that gave Louie quite a hard time. (Maybe Louie is not such a badass cop after all. Michael compared the race to being detectives earlier by saying ''We might get some sleep. We might not. You don't get to wash your clothes. You go dirty. We live that life every day.'' Maybe so Michael, but your buddy almost passed out from a little belly crawl and some dirt in his face.)

The other teams seemed to fare better than Louie (except for relentless gripers Brandy and Carol). Joe had no problem assuming the position because of past experience. ''At home, I play horsey with the kids so that's the position I'm in a lot.'' And now, let's all thank the heavens the phrase ''with the kids'' was in that sentence. Jordan got into role-playing, even asking some extra if he's okay, as if they're in battle together, and Caite seemed psyched for the ab workout.

When Louie and Michael easily finished first, they didn't seem to think twice about using the blind U-turn (which is totally not blind because they were the first team so it was obvious who was doing it). ''I didn't come here to make friends,'' Michael said. Sure enough, he put up Joe and Heidi's sticker (after debating whether to U-turn Steve and Allie) and we were given a flashback of Joe saying he wasn't threatened by the other teams.

As predicted, the Morse code challenge was really damn hard and Joe and Heidi, who now had to complete their second detour, kept getting the stern soldier's ''no'' when they came up with ''vive la liberty'' (which, hello, is half English and half French) and ''Vive la victoire.'' Things were looking bleak.

But, oh yeah, there was still Jeff and Jordan. And never overestimate the intelligence of Brent and Caite!

Jeff and Jordan completed their ''Speed Bump'' which was basically fixing up part of the trench, a task they seemed to complete in 3.2 seconds. As they were finishing, I was saying out loud to my TV, ''Don't do the Morse code! Don't do the Morse code!'' I got even more worried when Jeff told Jordan it was up to her to choose which detour task they'd do. Thankfully, she went for ''under fire'' and we were treated to Jeff's awesome instruction of how to climb under ''barbed wire.'' ''Put your boobs on the ground and drag ‘em over to here.'' Hear that, women of the military? When they finally finished the task Jeff had my favorite line of the night when he said, ''Is the war over cause of this message or cause it took us so long to get here?'' I was starting to give up hope that Jeff and Jordan were going to make it to the finals. She just didn't seem to want it as badly as Jeff did. She's the Dan of the couple and Jeff is the Jordan. Boy, Jordan. Sorry, that was confusing.

But let's pause for a moment for a line of idiocy from Brent who was trying to figure out what it meant to ''walk south,'' as it was written on the clue. ''I wonder if they meant just south like a direction or just south as in like go that direction.'' Um, what?

Eventually, all teams stuck on their faux mustaches, put on their awesome turn-of-the-century gear, and got on their 1903-esque bikes (except for poor Joe and Heidi who were huddled in a little nook holding each other and crying as if they just lost their entire battalion) to ride to the pit stop. I could've done without the crotch shot of Louie getting into his biking gear, but you have to admit that he and Michael ran a great race this week and they deserved to come in first. ''We're representing law enforcement all around the world,'' Michael said, which is admirable, except that he had a fake mustache hanging off his face.

Steve and Allie stayed strong, coming in second. Jet and Cord arrived third because Jordan and Dan didn't hustle. Carol and Brandy miraculously arrived fifth and brainiacs Brent and Caite came in sixth.

I can't deny that I'm happy that Jeff and Jordan have lived to see another week. But I did feel bad when Joe and Heidi couldn't even finish their task. At least there's dignity in finishing the leg but coming in too late to earn a spot on the next leg. There's little to cheer about when Phil has to come to you, long after the sun has set, to tell you that you've been booted because you can't tell your dashes from your dots.

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Now! On to this week's recap! It's definitely better than the previous (there was a LOT to work with this week so a stinky recap would've really sucked) and while I appreciate the recapper hating on Caite (because I wanted to punch her in the mouth yesterday - good GRIEF is she annoying!), I thought more would be made of not one but two teams thinking Joan of Arc had something to do with animals. C'mon, people! You are doing nothing for America's reputation abroad (especially when you keep complaining about French people... in France... not speaking English well. Gah!). This episode really made my brain hurt. Oh, and if the cowboys don't get it together and do better next week I will be very upset. Oh, my gravy they are too sweet! They have to get back into the top 2 because I don't want to have to root for Steve and Allie or Brandy and the-one-whose-name-I-never-remember. I won't!

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The Champagne province of northeastern France has seen its share of great battles. Way back in year 451, the Romans, the Visigoths, and the Franks did a superhero team-up to defeat Attila and his Fighting Huns. A thousand years later, France and England fought over Champagne; a century after that, the region saw a knock-down drag-out fight between the Catholics and the Huguenots. On last night's episode of The Amazing Race, Champagne was the setting of still another great conflict: the terrifying battle between Team Newly Dating and Team Dating Models to decide who would be the most blockheaded pair of human beings in the history of traveling.

Okay, I'm being a little bit harsh on Jordan and Jeff. The dearly departed CBS Reality All-Stars never seemed to find any traction on Race, but at least they had a robust sense of humor. When Jordan kept on insisting that Joan of Arc was the man who built a ship for the animals, Jeff softly said, ''That was Noah,'' and followed that up with a Jim Halpert-esque wink to us viewers: ''I wonder why we're in last.'' Sure, the Big Brother couple had a minor touch of travel ADD. In this episode, we saw them get distracted by some kind of S&M fashion shop, which is probably just the French version of Macy's. But it was the first time that Jordan ever traveled outside of America (and perhaps outside, period). Who can blame them for being a bit overwhelmed?

You know who's not overwhelmed? The freakin' Detectives. Riding high off of two straight first-place finishes, Louie and Michael were feeling fat and sassy when they started the day at 7:47 am. Louie: ''The other teams are like chickens with their heads cut off.'' Michael: ''We're gonna own this continent.'' (Careful, Michael, you're not the first guy to say that.) The first instruction was pretty straightforward. The teams had to drive 37 miles to Reims, France, a city liberated by Joan of Arc. There, they had to find a statue of Saint Joan in front of a Gothic cathedral, where a lady playing a singing saw would hand them their next clue. (If you're like me, your first question was: Wait, since when can saws sing?)

Steve and Allie were the next to leave. Last night's episode finally illuminated the secret genius of their team: Steve is insanely good at doing absolutely everything, and Allie is extremely good at staring blankly into space and saying mouth-words. Allie: ''Maybe Jeanne d'Arc is actually Arc de Joan, like Arc de Triomphe is Ark of… Triomphe.'' Jet and Cord talked adorably about trying to find a 7-11 in Verdun to ask for directions; Brandy and Carol talked adorably about the wonders of French living. ''Little country house here. Little flat in Paris,'' said Brandy. Dear Bravo: I've got a charming fish-out-of-water reality show for you!

Quick Trivia: How do you pronounce Reims? The Detectives called it ''Reems,'' the Cowboys called it ''Rayms,'' and the Brent & Caite Toxic Revolution called it ''Rems.'' (The answer, according to my sources, is actually ''Rance.'')

Steve and Allie were the first to arrive at the Joan of Arc statue, and so they were the first to receive a champagne cork from the Singing Saw Lady. The cork sent them to Leclerc Briant, in Epernay. The Detectives and the Cowboys arrived soon after. ''You know there's a town about forty miles down the road called Champagne?'' exclaimed Cord. Dan and Jordan arrived fourth at the statue, but they managed an impressive surge, and were the first to arrive at Epernay. (Steve and Allie were caught in a roundabout, and the Cowboys drove half a country in the wrong direction.)

''How do you make champagne? Is it like wine, and then you add club soda?'' asked Jordan. (Or maybe it was Dan? Let's just call them ''Jordaniel.'') Phil gave us a fifty-second history of the sparkling wine, and then explained the challenge: teams would rappel ''down in the aging caverns of winery'' to search for a specially marked bottle. Then, ''like officers in Napoleon's army,'' they would saber off the cork of the bottle. (I have actually done this. It is awesome.) The Detectives arrived second, followed by Steve and Allie. (Said Michael: ''Steve, this is your kind of place!'')

Meanwhile, several miles away and several brain cells removed, Brent and Caite further demonstrated the deplorable state of American education. ''Joan of Arc is a guy,'' said Caite, although unlike Jordan, she backtracked just in time: ''Never mind, just kidding. I was thinking of someone else.'' The models arrived in Reims, where Brent insisted that every statue of a woman was a statue of Joan of Arc. ''You seem to have one of those attitudes right now,'' said Caite when Brent started to sound frustrated. ''You need to stop with your attitude.'' When they got back in the car after finally asking for directions, Caite complained, ''You scooted the chair further back.'' Caite, I think I speak for America when I say: Would you turn six, please?

Brandy endured the rappelling challenge: ''Somehow, I get all the height things.'' Carol: ''Hopefully, she finds it quickly. Hopefully, she's not in a piss-a-- mood when she gets back up here.'' The Cowboys were the fifth to arrive: ''That's not good, we started out in third.''

At this point, there was a massive rumble in the game that rocked half the teams in the race. The direction was simple: ''Taittinger La Marquetterie,'' a chateau in the countryside. Unfortunately, half the teams were misdirected; when they asked for directions to ''Taittinger,'' the French people sent them to the headquarters of Taittinger, a champagne company, back in Reims. (Dear Amazing Race producers: I love you, you tricky rat bastards.) The ramifications were serious: Jordaniel's brief moment in the number one spot ended and the Cowboys put the cherry on top of a miserably day of competition by going to their second wrong town.

The Detectives caught a lucky break: They found an utterly charming French couple who tried to explain the way to the chateau, and then just asked, ''Would you like us to take you?'' (''We are professional cop followers,'' Louie said.) Actually, scratch that. I've been saying a lot this season that the Detectives have gotten lucky, but I'm starting to think that they genuinely have a skill for (A) picking the right foreigners to ask directions to, (B) knowing how to ask for the right directions (i.e., not just yelling ''Taittinger? Taittinger!'' in every French person's direction) and (C) utterly charming those foreigners in the process. Remember how every woman in Los Angeles wanted to sleep with Bogart in The Big Sleep? It's like that. Plus a mustache.

Steve and Allie caught a not-so-lucky break; right as they pulled into Taittinger headquarters, Steve hit something and totally wrecked the right bumper of his Mercedes. (Aside: You have to love how the same Taittinger employee told every Racer the same thing: ''This isn't La Marquetterie. La Marquetterie is a castle. Like a big mansion.'') When the car was making some funny bad sounds, Steve pulled over to the side of the French freeway for some battlefield medicine. Allie threw a predictable fit: ''Dad! You're not gonna rip it!'' But Steve triumphed, with a little pre-race aid from his spouse: ''Duct tape. My wife, before I left, says you can fix anything with duct tape.''

At the REAL Taittinger, the Detectives arrived first. The challenge choice was Tower or Terra. Tower: Use 680 champagne glasses to build a tower 15 levels high with only one glass on top, and then fill it with champagne. Terra: Search a square kilometer for a cluster of grapes marked with race colors. Gotta say, for me, this would've been a no-brainer. I'm a World Series Jenga player (or would be, if such a thing existed), but the notion of balancing almost seven hundred fragile glasses seems nearly impossible.

Michael had the same idea: ''I'm a bull in a china shop. He's a bull in a china shop.'' Yet again, the pair of gumshoes proved that they earned their Detectives' License: ''Eagle Eye'' Michael tracked down the grapes. Dan and Jordan, who arrived in second place at the Chateau, went with the Tower: ''When you have a luck challenge and a skill challenge, you go with skill. It should be easy, after all the bar and bat mitzvahs we've been to.''

In a day that saw a lot of ups and downs for the brothers, this would prove to be a pivotal mistake. It just took a long darn time to stack all those glasses up. While they stacked, Carol and Brandy passed them by. (Brandy to Carol: ''You have the best eyes ever.'') So did Steve and Allie — yes, Steve found the telltale grapes. Is Allie just Steve's imaginary friend?

That put the Detectives in first place for the third week in a row. (Enjoy Cancun, boys!) Phil, who apparently found himself a pet mime, congratulated them. Europa has been good to these two. Meanwhile, Carol and Brandy jumped into second place for the day, and in what amounted to the most blockheaded move of the episode, Brent and Caite squandered their lead over the Cowboys by following Carol and Brandy away from the Chateau… before they had even performed the Detour challenge! ''We actually caught up to the lesbians!'' squawked Caite.

This led to the hilarious moment when B & C arrived for their second-place win, and Caite had to just mumble to Phil, ''We didn't get a clue for the detour.'' Phil's pet mime looked confused and a little bit sad about her cluelessness. ''Damn, I wanna get the stupid lesbians out now,'' said Caite. ''I hate them.'' What a charmer this girl is! Quick, Government, can you revoke her citizenship while she's out of the country?

Steve and Allie arrived third. Steve smiled, and said, ''I hope you guys are insured.'' The look on Phil's face was hilarious; it seemed to say, ''Laugh it up, Steve. Guess what: The cost of that bumper is coming out of your hide!''

Caite and Brent returned to the Chateau, still doing eerily well in the game despite their partial lobotomies. The Cowboys were still recovering from the faux-Taittinger confusion, and Jordaniel were taking their time building the most beautiful Champagne Pyramid in history. Ken and Barbie, this was your moment! Seize the day! Become useful! Alas, the Model Couple chose this point to implode. Brent, reasoning logically that ''the glasses could break and fall,'' opted to ''look for Terra.'' Caite said something like, ''Blah blah blah Brent, blah blah blah Stupid,'' and refused to look for the grapes.

While she was pouting, the Cowboys rolled in, found a set of marked grapes, and rolled out. Brent, exasperated, said, ''I'll follow you. Where do you wanna go, baby?''

Caite: ''All your decisions are usually wrong.''

Brent: ''You push the blame onto everybody.''

Snip-snap! They opted to build the pyramid, and they arrived just in time to admire Jordaniel completing their masterpiece. It was pretty nifty. Somehow, the brothers ended up with three extra glasses at the end, and they managed to stack four cups on top of each other at the top. The brothers had to work together to empty ''the gigantic humungous bucket of a bottle'' into the pyramid. (I think that bottle was a Jeroboam of wine, but it might have been a Nebuchadnezzar: collect them all.) Dan and Jordan celebrated by drinking a little bit of champagne. Mmmm, fizzy!

The visual was pretty beautiful. Brent and Caite don't see beauty unless it's in a mirror, so they quickly descended into squabbling. Brent: ''I might as well let you do it. You're Ms. Perfect.'' Caite: ''I know. That's why you date me.'' They actually managed to build the pyramid, but while Brent was mid-pour, the glasses fell. Now THAT was an awesome visual. Schadenfreude!

Back to the grapes went Caite and Brent… and that's how, completely by accident, they ended Jordan and Jeff's chances. J&J arrived at the Chateau and saw the Models searching for grapes. Jeff: ''Maybe we should do the thing, because they can't find it.'' Viewers, is it just me, or do you think that Jordan and Jeff would have been better served to go grape-hunting?

But no, they tried (and failed) to build the pyramid. Caite and Brent manage to find the marked grape, and zipped over to Phil. He held up six fingers. Caite: ''Fi… Six!'' How can someone who looks so much like a young Britney Spears be so airheaded? Don't answer that.

That left Jeff and Jordan running around with flashlights in the middle of a field of grapes. Jeff had one last hilarious one-liner: ''What are we doing this for? To teach kids to stay in school?'' Double J: you will be missed. Phil summed it up rather adroitly to the couple: ''Maybe now you guys will get some time to be alone.''

How did you feel about last night's trip through Champagne, viewers? The Detectives have certainly owned Europe, but I wonder if they'll lose their way when the race moves on to slightly more exotic locations. (I'm pretty sure the Cowboys will have the opposite reaction: after some tough days navigating the back roads of Western Europe, they'll probably surge ahead when things get a bit more rural.)

I'm getting a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race vibe from Brandy and Carol; without necessarily being awesome competitors, they seem pretty good at staying in neutral while other teams implode around them. My money's not on Jordan and Dan; I get the vibe that they're a bit too hasty. That can be a good thing: it means they follow their instincts. But it also means they follow a pretty French girl's directions, without checking to make sure there isn't more than one place in France called ''Taittinger.'' Steve, of course, might just be the best player in the game this season. If only he didn't have that daughter-sized weight on his shoulders…

As for Caite and Brent… well, I think the betting game here isn't ''are they going to win'' but ''is their relationship going to survive another episode?'' What did you think of last night's episode, viewers? Do you think Carol and Brandy are beginning a mid-game surge, or did they just luck out when everyone went in the wrong direction? Were you, like me, waiting for Jet and Cord to turn to the statue of Saint Joan and say, ''How d'you do there, Ms. Of Arc!'' Between the Champagne trip to France and the Beer-themed trip to Germany, can a vodka-heavy trip to Russia be far behind? And is ''Cathy Drone'' the most hilarious thing you've heard this week?

Amazing Race 16: Week 4

Sorry for the delay on the recap but Robert didn't get home from Portland til late Tuesday night and we didn't get a chance to watch Sunday's episode until last night. And I couldn't very well add pithy comments to the recap when I hadn't yet seen the episode, now could I?

So, here in week 4 I can say that I am liking the cowboys more and more all the time (they're darn talented - did you see how well they did with the soccer challenge even though they've never played soccer?! Oh, and I had no idea that cowboy hats were so tight they'd stay on while bungee jumping... Geez!), I do NOT understand how the stupid friggin' detectives got into 2nd place right off the bat and I'm so bummed for Jeff that Jordan is THE MOST WORTHLESS PARTNER IN THE HISTORY OF THE RACE. Seriously. She's driving me insane.

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I'm filling in for Jessica Shaw this week, and brother, did I luck out! I spent six months studying abroad in Germany, so I was loving last night's sauerkraut-infused episode. Jet and Cord did not share my excitement: the move from South America to Central Europe definitely put Team Cowboy off balance. Early in the episode, perhaps anticipating the trouble they'd soon be having with subways and beer halls, Cord told his partner, ''There's cities all over the world, Jet. We're from the country. We can't tell.''

The Brothers McCoy charmed a travel agent with some broken Spanish, and landed on the same flight as the Detectives. Detectives and Cowboys are usually natural enemies, like the mongoose and the rhino. But Louie and Michael seem to have a real affection for the Oklahoma Kids. On another flight, Carol and Brandy affirmed their new devotion to not freaking out all over each other: ''You get two strong-willed women together, and they think they're right… the word for the day is RESPECTFUL.'' Dan confirmed what some of us were already expecting, admitting that he doesn't like traveling; he's on the show because Jordan loves Race, and ''I saw an opportunity to help my brother achieve his dream.'' So, just so we're clear, people named Jordan always get what they want. Thanks for the lesson, TV!

The Cowboys and the Detectives arrived at the Bahnhof mere minutes ahead of the stragglers. ''Man, I just watched the movie where the lady fell off in the tracks,'' said Jet. Or was it Cord? I can't quite tell them apart, except by the color of their hats. (Is the one wearing the black hat the bad guy?) The stragglers were told by the helpful ticket-taker that the train was leaving in three minutes. Brent and Caite got lost (this is Be Kind to Airheads month, so I should point out that the Frankurt train station was designed by Dr. Caligari.) The stragglers all missed the train by just a few seconds. German trains always leave on time. Thanks for another lesson, TV!

In Hamburg, the teams had to find a street called Jungfernstieg, which roughly translates as ''young distant path'' according to my internet translator. It was Intersection time: two teams had to merge, and one person from each team had to go bungee jumping. ''City and country are gonna work together today!'' said Michael, patting Jet on the back. Jet, for his part, admitted that he wouldn't have been able to find the subway without Michael: ''When we say Metro, that means City.''

The other alliances were interesting, and seemed to point toward future tension. Joe and Heidi paired up with Steve and Allie. Heidi: ''They come from a good family, we come from a good family.'' Dan, on Carol: ''She's like the lesbian aunt I never had.'' Jordan and Jeff reached the Intersection point right before Brent and Caite arrived attractively in last place. ''Brent and Caite are like our alliance,'' said Jeff. How can I put the awfulness of the JJ/BC alliance in geopolitical terms? It's as if Luxembourg and Lichtenstein teamed up and bragged that they could totally kick Monaco's butt.

Brent explained to the camera, ''Caite lived in New York for awhile; I got a feeling she can figure the subway out.'' Jordan was equally confident in Caite's ability to navigate Hamburg's U-Bahn. Cut to: Caite, marveling at all the pretty colors on the subway map and getting on a car going in the wrong direction. ''The metro is not too specific about which places it goes to,'' said Caite. Yes, as we all know, the Germans are an imprecise species, preferring ambiguity to cold hard facts. How else could there be so many German poets and so few German engineers?

Jet and Michael arrived at the 150-foot bungee jump. ''You will lose your hat, I think,'' said the Bungee professional. Jet insisted that it would stay on. He was right: the hat didn't leave his head, even when he was hanging upside down. Jet, my boy, you just broke the laws of physics! ''I've just proved to the world that you can bungee jump with a hat on,'' said Jet, sounding like he'd just discovered penicillin. ''That was scarier than any door I've ever kicked,'' said Michael, clearly angling for his own A&E reality show.

The rest of the bungee jumps were pretty perfunctory, except for Brandy's screeching, I'm-gonna-die performance. (Further cementing the alliance, Dan managed to help keep her calm: ''We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. I've got you.'')

The next instruction: find the statue of Germany's first Emperor. Or, as Michael yelled at a taxi driver, ''We're looking for Kaiser Wilhelm!'' (Just don't mention the war!) The Cowboys made a serious mistake: instead of springing for a Mercedes taxi, they attempted to take the subway. This decision seemed to send them into a tailspin for a few hours. In the meantime, the Detectives arrived at the statue first, and got to choose between two challenges: sports and eating. Or, as Phil put it, ''Germany's two greatest traditions: soccer and sauerkraut!''

The soccer challenge was fairly straightforward and impossibly difficult: hit five targets from the penalty-kick area. Wisely, the Detectives chose the Sauerkraut: As a band played the Sauerkraut Polka, they had to finish a mountain of Sauerkraut. If they didn't polish it off before the song ended, they had to start all over again. ''I've eaten things as big as Jet and Cord,'' bragged Michael. They quickly housed the dish. Said Louie, handlebar mustache still damp with sour cabbage, ''I imagined it was pasta, and that was it.''

Somewhere in all this confusion, Father-daughter team Steve and Allie leaped into second place. This episode did nothing to solve the conundrum that Jessica pointed out last week: Who are these mysterious people who keep on acing all the challenges? More to the point: Is Steve secretly owning this season? On the soccer field, Steve knocked down the soccer targets one after the other.

The Brothers McCoy showed up at the soccer stadium full of all-American bravado; neither of them had ever played soccer before. ''Ah, cleats. Sweet!'' exclaimed Jet. ''What I've seen on TV is all I know,'' said Cord. Somehow, they managed to totally rock the soccer competition. (There's a possibly apocryphal story about the POW soccer movie Victory that, during filming, Sylvester Stallone challenged best-soccer-player-ever Pelé to a round of penalty kicks, reasoning that soccer was not actually a real sport. Suffice it to say that Stallone did not have the McCoys' natural talent.)

Louie and Michael arrived at Haifischbar (Shark Bar) for the mandatory drinking competition: a two-liter glass boot of beer. Michael mostly ceded drinking duties to Louie: ''It was so good to see him chugging that beer.'' They were quickly off to the final stop of the night: Beatles-Platz, a monument honoring the Beatles, and The Indra, the bar where the Fab Four first hit it big playing American pop songs. (Fun fact: The Beatles had such a big following in Germany that they actually re-recorded some of their most popular songs in German. Don't tell me you haven't heard ''Komme Gib Mir Deine Hand''? [<-- Lauren's note: I have. I actgually have it on CD. I'm a dork.])

At the back of the pack, in the land of beautiful people, Barbie Caite was getting mad at Ken Brent. ''I'm sick and tired of getting lost!'' she screamed. Somehow, they weren't even the worst off; Jordan and Jeff's cabbie was the only bad driver in German history. He took them halfway down the Autobahn before he realized he was misreading his digital navigator. Jordan told Jeff they should've just gone to the soccer challenge, but Jeff pointed out, rather adroitly, ''This guy would've typed it in his GPS and we would've ended up in Switzerland.''

The Savage Detectives arrived in Beatles-Platz. Their taxi driver warned them it was right by the Red Light District: ''Pubs, discos, and sex shops.'' Inside of the Indra, Beatles look-alikes were onstage. Phil welcomed the First Place team. Said the Detectives, ''I'm no longer a sheep, brother! I'm a wolf! AROOO!'' DRUUNK! From zero to hero, indeed.

Back at the Shark bar, Steve kept his winning streak going by downing the Boot in what looked like two chugs. ''This is my dad's favorite challenge in the world,'' said Allie. Steve won over the bartender with his parting words: ''Thank you for the beer. Love you.''

At this point, the episode became a race between people who would lose by a little, and people who would lose by a lot. In the ''Lose by a little'' category, Joe and Heidi had no luck with the soccer (''My knee is killing me,'' Joe said five times), and decided to switch to the sauerkraut. Heidi, who clearly believes in Magical Thinking, promised that they'd be sauerkraut champions: ''We tailgate. We bring the sauerkraut.''

Dan and Jordan made short work of the soccer targets. I kind of enjoy the brother's team dynamic: they seem like good friends, but there's also a definite air of competitiveness in their interaction. (Dan: ''Jord, let's stop wasting balls and time!'') Carol and Brandy made short work of the sauerkraut (Brandy ended up licking the plate, earning a congratulatory nod from the waiter.) Everybody was having trouble with the boot. Joe looked like he was about to vomit: ''I like drinking beer, but I dunno if I like this.'' The cowboys admitted something a little bit surprising: ''I never drank a beer in my whole life.'' What's not to love about Jet and Cord? Nothing. Nothing is not to love.

Meanwhile, in the ''Lose by a Lot'' category, Jordan and Jeff returned from their misadventure in the German countryside. They were rallying. They knew they had to devour the sauerkraut. When the waiter brought out the plate, Jordan made a face that I would charitably describe as ''undiplomatic.'' She plugged her ears when the band started playing the polka. They managed to eat about 1/8 of the plate. ''See you later, sauerkraut!'' said Jeff. They beat a hasty retreat and tried to find the soccer stadium. Jeff, always the optimist, said, ''Hopefully, somebody fell off a bridge with cement shoes.''

Speaking of the soccer stadium! Caite was excited when she heard about the soccer challenge. Soccer, it seems, was her number one sport: ''I'm really good at it.'' Brent nodded in agreement and decided that the best tactic was, as usual, to let Caite do everything while he hung back and showed the world his best Blue Steel. Unfortunately, Caite hurt herself from all the kicking. She was screaming in pain. Brent helpfully advised her, ''Don't hurt yourself. Just kick the ball.''

Joe and Heidi arrived at the nightmarish Beatles bar in third place. Just behind them, the Cowboys made friends with the Shark bar denizens, who were cheering them on as they gagged through the beer. Gesturing at the almost-empty boot, Cord said, ''You're down to a tennis shoe,'' which is pretty funny. ''I never ever in my life want another beer,'' he said, on his way to a fourth-place finish. Tough night for the Cowboys! I have to point out that Carol had the definite burp of the night, with a proud belch that echoed across the Rhineland. I should also point out that Dan and Jordan had my favorite exchange of the night:

''Are we in the red light district?''

''Hell yeah we are! And I'm drunk!''

Big shocker: Caite is not a beer drinker. She had a tiny sip from the boot and made a face I would generously describe as war-instigating. At last, Brent had his chance to do something useful for the team. He tried to chug the beer. The result was not pretty. ''I'm gonna throw up,'' he said. ''I'm really gonna throw up.'' Viewers, Brent doesn't lie! While he regurgitated all over the historic streets of Hamburg, his galpal waited patiently. When he got back in, she comforted him: ''Just chug it.'' The Germans cheered him on.

The model couple sped away to Beatles plaza. Jordan and Jeff arrived, and after their worst day yet, Jeff finally found something he was good at. He polished the beer off in about two seconds, and proved himself the fan favorite of the Shark Bar regulars. Despite a big lead, Team Dating Models barely got to the finish line ahead of Team Newly Dating. This might have just been in the editing, but I can actually believe that the high maintenance beauties had trouble walking in a straight line down the street. If the last two teams actually were that close together, then Team J & J was undone by Jeff's wandering eye: ''That's a strip joint,'' he marveled, ''These are all strip joints!''

Phil laid a happy twist on the sad couple: ''This is a non-elimination leg.'' So Jordan and Jeff will live to get lost another day. How did you feel about this, viewers? Do you think they'll be able to redeem themselves? Personally, I'm betting that they last longer than Caite and Brent: the fact that Caite made coming in seventh for the third time sound like a good thing (''Lucky number 7! Three time's the charm!'') doesn't fill me with confidence.

How did you feel about the trip to Hamburg, Race fans? Despite a little stumble, Jet and Cord still feel like the frontrunners to me; even when it became clear that they were starting to fall behind, they didn't seem the least bit anxious, and that steadiness will almost certainly serve them well. Conversely, even though I'm a big fan of the Savage Detectives, it feels to me like their success last night was due to more than a few lucky breaks. Then again, there's the ongoing mystery of Steve and Allie: whoever they are, they're doing good things.

2010 Oscar Follow-Up

Well, you can pretty much refer to last year's wrap-up post and you'll get a feel for how I felt about last night's ceremony. It was long. It was boring (though I liked Steve and Alec as hosts well enough. They weren't super hilarious but they did make me chuckle here and there). There was no prospect of hot men. And I lost the RHI pool AGAIN. I came in third. THIRD!!!! It was my poorest showing in recent memory. So poor, in fact, that I'm not even going to waste my time scanning and uploading the scored ballot. I missed nine categories!! (And no, not because I picked Avatar for everything. In fact, I only picked Avatar for 4 categories, 3 of which it actually won. I have some skill, people.) Disgraceful!!!! Seriously. And many of my misses really stung because there were several categories where I waffled between two options and picked the one that didn't win. Annoying! Next year I should just close my eyes and throw darts.

Since I am typing this up during my 'official' break time, it's going to be short and sweet. Here are a few good links to tide you over in lieu of my biting commentary:

MSN Best and Worst

Television Without Pity Best and Worst

Thank you, TWoP. In their very first slide they said "...we still held out hope that there'd be one or two big upsets somewhere. And we suppose there were -- in Best Foreign Language film (El Secreto de Sus Ojos beat The White Ribbon) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Precious over the expected Up in the Air)." THANK YOU! A small slice of vindi-cay-shee-own. (That would be 'vindication' in non-King of Queens speak.) I think Maria* thought I was a wackaloon because I picked Up in the Air for Best Adapted Screenplay but I'm telling you - the thing was a lock according to every major media outlet!!! And The White Ribbon was supposed to win a couple of awards, not totally flame out! Very upsetting. Why oh why oh why do I bother to do any research at all. I am my own worst enemy.

EW.com's 16 Best Oscar Moments


* Maria was kind enough to come over and watch the Oscars with me while Robert is out of town. It's no fun shouting at stupid, ugly and/or boring people on TV alone! So it was nice to have company. :o) Plus, she thought the same stuff was boring as I did so I didn't have to sit through the boring writing categories this year (Robert!).

Amazing Race 16: Week 3

Ugh. Well, I am right in the thick of the previously mentioned assignment that sucks balls so I haven't had a chance to read the recap yet. (In fact, I won't have a chance to do much blogging at work for the next 2 or 3 weeks! Not that I've been super prolific of late but consider this fair warning.) Therefore, let me just say this: (1) I still like the cowboys; and (2) Jeff's "We shouldn't reproduce" comment was the BEST ever and made me love his team again. He's fantastic!

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Oh, my gravy, this race just got interesting. Last week I thought Jet and Cord got lucky by landing on the fastest bus, but to run such a clean race two weeks in a row? Is this a fluke or have we met the team to beat?

And has the team to beat turned into the most likable (albeit with slightly garish belt buckles) pair of globetrotters since, well, last season's Globetrotters? They know who they are, don't have a tolerance for bitchy Brandy comments yet aren't rude to her, and damn, can Jet throw a lasso. (On the second try. That's right, buddy. You're not getting off scot-free.)

Or is the team to beat Steve and Allie? Wait, who are they again? Clearly, Berty V-M doesn't want us to know since he's shown us the absolute minimum footage possible for these two to still qualify as contestants. Let's see what we know: Steve sometimes falls. Steve sometimes aches because he's 57. Steve doesn't have a fear of lice as evidenced by his willingness to hat swap at the pit stop mat. (Did he skip grade school where teachers ban you from sharing headgear with your friends?) But other than that and despite their impressive finish (more on that later), I have no idea who these people are. I know about Jeff's plans for procreating, for crying out loud. Either Steve and Allie are the most boring team on the planet or some editor should be canned.

This week's leg basically starts with everyone leaving Chile. It was difficult to see that beautiful footage of such an exquisite country knowing about the earthquake that just happened. If you have the means, do what you can to help out for the earthquake relief. Part of loving travel — and I assume loving Amazing Race is more than watching a reality show about teams clawing, uniting, and bickering their way toward a finish line — is doing our part to ensure that our planet is not destroyed, whether by acts of nature or people. And now I'll stop preaching.

Anyway, all teams have to board one of two Argentina-bound buses that leave the following morning. Even playing field. Well, except for Caite, who misses her departure time because she's puking and shaking in the hotel bathroom. Why she and Brent, who's also under the weather but not quite bowing before the porcelain god, decide to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night is beyond me. If they knew they were sick or dehydrated, might they have opted for a 9pm visit instead of missing their departure time? Regardless, I feel for them. It can't be easy getting sick when you need all your strength and mental clarity. Plus, to abandon all vanity by letting cameras monitor you in the emergency room getting an IV! Wait. What's that? Yes, Caite is wearing multiple coats of mascara on the Chilean ER gurney. Hey, puking on national TV is one thing, while showing America your bare eyelashes is an indignity few could tolerate. In the end, they're a little more than three hours behind schedule, though hydrated and properly made-up.

But even Brent and Caite make it on one of the buses with everyone else. At the station, we witness a Brandy barb when she greets last week's winners with ''Hey! It's the enigmatic cowboys!'' She proceeds to grill them about how they got on a faster bus last week, which seems like the worst kind of sportswomanship possible. Don't question those who kicked your butt, Brandy. But she knows there's something about those two cowboy-hatted brothers. ''They've got tricks up their sleeves and their tricks have tricks.'' But do their tricks' tricks have sleeves? To Jet and Cord's credit, they chuckle and look at Brandy like she's just some silly big city woman who thinks all cowboys are morons, which, of course, is exactly what she is.

After a long and incredibly beautiful ride (''There are no mountains like this in Oklahoma,'' Jet says. You bet your belt buckle there aren't!) the teams arrived in Bariloche, Argentina, where they had to drive themselves to El Boliche Viejo, which translates to ''The Old Joint.'' (The teams seemed to know they had to take route 237, though Brent — bless his dehydrated heart — clearly thought 237 looks like 231.) From the looks of things, this joint is basically a saloon lifted out of Universal Studios, complete with scowling extras with rumpled hats. Apparently, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hung out there when they were in South America. (In the clue picture, a Travelocity gnome is photoshopped in alongside Butch and Sundance. ''I don't remember the gnome being in the movie!'' says Jet. I'm not entirely sure he's kidding.)

At the Old Joint, teams have to win a hand of 5-card stud. I have no idea what this entails because I'm a blackjack girl. All I know is some cards get exed out, some turn green, and lots of people get gnomes and instructions to travel to Pena Gaucha.

Pena Gaucha is this week's Road Block where teams have to rope a target 18 feet away and pull the target (and accompanying clue) toward them. We found out from Cord that Brandy thinks it's unfair that the cowboys will be able to lasso something so easily. True, these two have gotten lucky two weeks in a row, with cow-milking (no kicks to the head for them!) and now lassoing. But I have a feeling they'll be plenty challenged in the weeks ahead. And again, just be gracious, Brandy. You've got your own problems to worry about — like your 5-month-old relationship which seems to be on a fast train headed toward being an Amazing Race casualty. Jet, way out in front, got the clue on the second try. ''I can't believe I missed it on the first try. I'm going to hear about that.''

Despite the claims of unfairness, Brandy's girlfriend Carol finished second with Heidi close behind. Jeff is beyond adorable trying to lasso that animal head, but not half as cute as Jordan in braids. ''I'm a city boy, not a country boy,'' he says. Jordan's take? ''He is NOT a natural cowboy.'' I can't help it. I love them. My only problem with them this week was that I didn't get to see them enough. And because Berty V-M is incapable of showing Steve or Allie for more than 3 seconds at a time, we saw Steve nail the lassoing challenge, seemingly on the first time. Did he struggle? Who knows? The cutting room floor does. Here's where things got sad. The mom/attorneys Monique and Shawne arrived and had a decent chance. But Shawne couldn't seem to work a rope. And soon enough, remaining teams Dan (''Lassoed that bitch!'' Um. That just sounds really wrong, Dan.), Brent and Caite (''I was stoked to get it on my second try. I thought maybe we got a chance here!), and the private eyes pass them.

Shawne tried to score some help from Jesus, who clearly did not want to answer her prayers when she finally hooked the horn but the rope fell away. Dear all reality show contestants past and future, [Fill in your god] does not care about how you do on reality show challenges. Love, Me. Well, at least Jesus doesn't care about how she does. He seems to like Monique because after she prayed, Shawne nailed it. Too bad by this time a slew of teams have finished or are working on that detour.

The detour had teams either searching for a bag of money, using an old-time compass for a reference, that they'll deliver to a lead bandit OR attempting to score a goal in 9 swings or fewer with a model horse that they have to drag around on a polo field.

Over on the polo field, Jet and Cord rocked the challenge, despite the fact that they were no better equipped for this than any other team. ''I can't believe that was the horse we rode,'' Jet laughed about his wooden equine. Meanwhile, Joe showed his incredibly cocky side by bragging to Heidi that his watch compass would lead them right to the bag of loot. ''The steps are if somebody doesn't have a compass,'' he chided Heidi who'd pointed out that they should follow the instructions. As soon as he said this I knew he wouldn't be finishing the challenge. Sure enough, they switched to the polo field where Joe literally fell on his face. Oh, how I loved rewinding and rewatching that.

Carol and Brandy didn't fare much better with their coordinates…i.e, getting from point A to point B in a relationship. ''I can't do anything right!'' Carol yelled. ''That's a nice temper tantrum,'' Brandy said. Okay. When they eventually changed over to the polo field, Carol told Brandy. who was hitting the ball, to ''Pretend it's my face.'' Maybe there's something wrong with basing a relationship on a mutual love of Louis Vuitton?

Jeff and Jordan would have been far ahead if they were better at reading all the specific details in the clues. ''Lead bandit!'' I yelled at my TV screen. And then because I have an irrational love for these two, I got mad at the show for not making it clear enough which bandit was lead. As Jeff explained once they finished, ''We met some guy with guns. Assumed he was the bandit. We're so stupid. We definitely shouldn't reproduce.'' Okay, so your children wouldn't be the brightest bulbs in the hardware store, but really, why does anyone need to know how to tell time with clock hands? There are more important things in life.

At the bottom of the pack were the brothers, models, undercover detectives, and moms. Dan and Jordan did okay once Jordan figured out how to hit a ball down the polo field. Dan was positively disastrous. But no one was worse than Caite who somehow only managed to hit the polo ball about 1/100 of a centimeter. Actually, upon second viewing, I believe she hit it backwards. Louie and Michael initially started looking for the loot bag but ended up arguing. Michael (who, incidentally, sounds more and more like Ray Romano every week) yelled something about ''doing police work for 23 years'' to which Louie responded, ''I never did a grid search. I just execute search warrants!'' I'm guessing Louie is more from the Chief Wiggum school of policing. Eventually they switched to the polo field where they chose navy jerseys (''Let's go blue for NYPD Blue!'' said Michael) and finished on their second try. Michael let loose a ''Sparta!'' scream for some reason. ''Poor kid from Providence never dreamed of playing polo,'' he said. Aw, that's kind of nice, but, Michael, this wasn't real polo.

In the end, only the moms were left. They started on the polo field but afraid they'd injure their backs (random ailment complaint?), they switched over to the loot/coordinates challenge. ''As long as my children know I didn't give up, that's what's important to me,'' Monique said. I'm going to miss these two. I liked their whole girl power message. I think they would have done far better if the early challenges involved more brain power than physical power.

Over on the finish line at Estancia Fortin Chacabuco, a gorgeous ranch at the foot of the Andes that I want to move into, Jet and Cord arrived first. ''Those belt buckles aren't slowing you down on the race around the world?'' Phil said. The small-talk sounded stilted and uncomfortable and I wished Phil wouldn't ad-lib. Probably best to stick to the suspense-filled ''You're team number…''

Somehow, through little skill that we've been shown, Steve and Allie were team number two. Number two! Could they be real contenders? The rest of the top five was filled out by Carol and Brandy, Joe and Heidi, and Jeff and Jordan. ''I can never read you,'' Jordan said to Phil at the finish mat. ''You scare me. I was trying to read your face. It was blank.'' He looks confused but admits that he, too, scares himself sometimes.

Dan and Jordan, Brent and Caite, and Louie and Michael rounded out the bottom three. And, of course, Monique and Shawne were eliminated with tears. Shawne told Monique she's a beautiful crier with her ''big ol' eyes'', which makes me want to cry. They were all heart, little game. And though some teams could use more heart (I'm talking to you, Joe! You too, Brandy!), too many have killer game. Do you think Jet and Cord can be beat? Should Jeff and Jordan have kids? Will Brandy and Carol make it to their one year anniversary? Discuss!