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Wow. I should've been a little less excited at the prospect of a new recapper and been a little more forgiving of Josh's lackluster posts because DANG! The new recapper isn't even trying to be funny! Nor is she addressing the important issues of the episode in depth: First, how in the world Big Easy could be under the misconception that Sam somehow decided racing to the mat wasn't as important as screwing the Globetrotters, slammed on his brakes and starting running backward to elbow Flight Time (she supposedly watched it several times over and couldn't figure this out? Stupid recapper.); and, more importantly, why oh WHY were the brothers' undergarments pixelated when nooooobody else's were?!! They were pixelated during the entirety of the challenge!! So it's not like it was a one-time slip that revealed a little too much. They were sporting some major erections or something. Maybe they found the Estonian athletes a little hotter than they let on, eh?
Enough of that - on to the recap! The painfully unfunny and uninformative recap. Whee.
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I've been here before. You know, in that unenviable position of inheriting Josh Wolk's TV watch. He dared to go on vacation last summer with his family and you know who was asked to fill in on Josh's Big Brother watch. Next thing I know, I'm getting the hate comments. One after another. ''Where's Josh?'' ''Who's this evil Jessica person?'' ''Bring back the Wolk man!'' To all those people who plan to hate on me, all I have to say is: I'm 6'10'' and 260 so I'm gonna do what I gotta do.
Hey, if Big Easy can throw down like that, why can't I? (Answer: Because I'm not 6'10'' or 260?)
But I've gotten ahead of myself, to those final moments when Phil was practically begging for a brother on Globetrotter brawl. Much to cover before then.
All five teams left Stockholm for Tallinn, Estonia, only to find out the first ferry was a gazillion hours later. When teams I like are ahead I always get so annoyed at the Race for evening things up, and tonight was no exception. I can't help myself — I like the Globetrotters and I wanted them to have a comfortable lead. I like that they never lose it on each other. I like the joy they bring to traveling. And, of course, I like their theme music. Every team should have theme music (''I'm a Bitch'' for Ericka?). And Flight Time and Big Easy weren't too thrilled with their long pre-ferry layover either, but at least they were smart enough to grab some extra snooze time in the car. By the way, why'd the shoes get evicted from the car? Too ginormous to fit? Too stinky? Just wondering.
Eventually everyone arrived to the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, which sounds like a group of pubescent guys who pick at their acne in some secret dungeon. Alas, it's just a secret society of merchants. Or, as Ericka calls them with disdain, ''these Medieval men.'' She's onto something considering they look like they just exited the extras door of Medieval Times, with their big brown robes and grunting sounds when the stupid American didn't know the definition of the word ''candelabra.''
Come on, Matt! Being American doesn't exactly get the ol' ''Wow! Cool!'' response from the rest of the world. Do you have to further tarnish our reputation by not knowing a word you should have learned in D&D back in 4th grade? And don't tell me you didn't play D&D. And, frankly, even if you didn't know the actual definition, didn't the first half of the word tip you off? Candle-abra. CANDLE-abra. ''I don't frickin get it. Am I missing something?'' he asked. Um, yeah, like a gradeschooler's vocabulary. I'll stop now because I won't be the one to hit a guy minutes before he gets the ol' heave-ho from Phil. And not just 'cause I'm not 6'10'' or 260.
Speaking of Big Easy, I absolutely loved his comment to Flight Time who first attempted to red crayon his way through the clue, but managed to come out with the right information. ''You big headed it!'' complimented Big Easy to his partner. I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure as hell going to use it as much as possible.
As Matt managed to mess up almost everything on this leg (from thinking his black bandana would intimidate the other teams to creeping out the hottie on the sauna bus Speed Bump to not reading the word ''gardens'' in his clue, leaving the team scrambling to enter the tower instead of looking for the very obvious clue box) on his way to being eliminated with Gary, the rest of the teams headed out to play volleyball in knee-high mud or fling radishes in mud shoes. Wow. Estonia's tourist industry is going to collapse if too many people see this episode. Come to Estonia! We have lots of, um, mud!
Meghan and Cheyne were impressive at the sport, quickly scoring point after point. It's hard for me to truly like this team and I'm not sure why. Is it that they look like Malibu Ken and Barbie? Meghan's hay meltdown? Cheyne's blatant disregard for proper name spelling? Just when I was starting to warm up to them this episode, they had to go and look totally ungrateful when Phil told them they'd won a sauna for coming in first. ''Wow,'' was all Meghan could get out, with about as much genuine emotion as when Ericka tells Brian she loves him.
Not that I should be complaining about the former Miss America. Ericka was hardly at her worst tonight, though she did have a few hateful moments. (And, no I'm not talking about her ''all the girl is wearing is a pair of stringy thongs'' admission to Brian in the car. As far as I'm concerned, any woman who opts for lingerie over Jockey briefs while racing and facing unknown athletic challenges should be commended.) I was more talking about ''Wow. Dude. You really just gave them a taxi?'' when Brian actually allowed Ken and Barbie to take the car they had every right to take. And, moments later ''Brian, I'm gonna have to keep him in check.'' Honey, forget keeping him in check. Just keep him. Because without him, you'd have been eliminated weeks ago. And the man can fire a mean radish.
At least Sam and Dan, all weepy from being boy bitches to each other last week, seemed to really enjoy the sights that Estonia had to offer. ''Some hottie Estonian boys!'' Sam said. Right on, dude! You go and find beauty in a blond dude about to be drowning in mud. Oh, wait. Why are your private parts being blurred out? Those shorts shouldn't really be showing anything. Sure, Dan could have covered up a little more. But Sam? Did something escape? On both you and your brother but no one else on the race? I'm uncomfortable now.
Of course, not nearly as uncomfortable as the whole brother v. Globetrotter race/elbow jab/trip/I rewound it 5 times and still couldn't figure out what happened. ''Big Easy has a look on his face like he wants to kick some butt right now,'' Phil said to the two teams who arrived second and third, just seconds apart. I was half hoping the Blackheads were going to come out of nowhere in their brown robes and start yelling ''Fight! Fight! Fight! Where's that loser who doesn't know what a candelabra is? Fight!'' Where was the super-duper slo-mo dissection of what happened? I needed more. I needed at least three replays. Instead, all I got was a nice big threat from Big Easy — who wasn't even the guy elbowed! — that promises to end in elimination soon enough. ''We didn't know that the elbow and the physical stuff was in play. Now we know that it's in play so…,'' Big Easy said (subtitled so you didn't miss it!). No one wants to see a guy who says ''We're gonna do what we gotta do'' win the whole thing, no matter how great his theme music is.
What do you think of the Sam/Dan vs. Flight Time/Big Easy spat? Should Big Easy play dirty? Should Sam and Dan get new shorts?
While he was in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Bryan Spears and his company found a scrappy puppy and named him Moody. But due to military regulations, they were prohibited from caring for the animal, and the soldiers said their goodbyes to their new friend.
Fast-forward a few weeks later, and tragedy strikes: Five members of Spears's team are killed in an attack by a suicide bomber. That same day, Moody returns — and it was that turn of events that Spears says saved him from losing all morale. The dog had helped him cope with the loss of his fellow soldiers.
After that, there was no question that Moody would be going home with Spears when it came time for him to end his tour of duty; the only question left was how to do it. Moody's story, along with that of three other dogs traveling to the U.S. (including Nubs, who had a 75-mile odyssey through the desert), was chronicled for No Dogs Left Behind, a documentary airing Nov. 15 on the Military Channel.
Moody was rescued by a team from SPCA International called Operation Baghdad Pups. The project began in February 2008 after SPCA International received an inquiry from a soldier who desperately needed help with retrieving a dog he had befriended in Iraq. Since then, the team has launched 42 missions to Iraq and has saved 180 animals.
The process of bringing a dog from Iraq to the United States costs an average of $4,000. SPCA International funds most of the effort with the help of donations, and asks each dog's soldier to contribute $1,000 if they can — but things don't always go as planned.
"When you're running an operation that's inside a country that's at war, a lot of things are beyond your control," says program manager Terri Crisp. One time, she says, a dog didn't make it out as scheduled because the Iraqi president was flying in and the airport was shut down. The dogs are sometimes gone by the time the team gets there — "whether they ran off or somebody took them, you don't ever know for sure."
Most important, though, is the commitment of the soldier asking for the dog's transport. "They're making an investment in the animal, and chances are they're going to take care of that animal" Crisp said. "The level of commitment to the animal is unbelievable. They've been through so much together."
Ellen Goosenberg, the documentary's executive producer, told PEOPLEPets.com that her hope is that No Dogs Left Behind will humanize soldiers, their experiences and their needs once they return from war.
"A lot of times, they need a community," Goosenberg said. "They need to be understood. There's no way you transition from war back to civilian life without some kind of assistance. Sometimes animals do a brilliant job at that."
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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“I Stood By Your Bed Last Night”
I stood by your bed last night, I came to have a peep.
I could see that you were crying, You found it hard to sleep.
I whined to you softly as you brushed away a tear,
“It’s me, I haven’t left you, I’m well, I’m fine, I’m here.”
I was close to you at breakfast, I watched you pour the tea,
You were thinking of the many times your hands reached down to me.
I was with you at the shops today, Your arms were getting sore.
I longed to take your parcels, I wish I could do more.
I was with you at my grave today, You tend it with such care.
I want to reassure you that I’m not lying there.
I walked with you towards the house, as you fumbled for your key.
I gently put my paw on you, I smiled and said “it’s me.”
You looked so very tired, and sank into a chair.
I tried so hard to let you know that I was standing there.
It’s possible for me to be so near you everyday.
To say to you with certainty, “I never went away.”
You sat there very quietly, then smiled, I think you knew …
In the stillness of that evening, I was very close to you.
The day is almost over… I smile and watch you yawning
and say “goodnight, God bless, I’ll see you in the morning.”
And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide,
I’ll rush across to greet you and we’ll stand, side by side.
I have so many things to show you, there is so much for you to see.
Be patient, live your journey out … then come home to be with me.
Needless to say, I spent the last three minutes of my lunch break frantically shoving my tissue into my eyes to stem the ever-growing mass of tears pooled at the the brink, waiting to rush down my cheeks in a deeply embarrassing display of sentimentality. Yeesh. I blame my mother for this. The woman never met a movie or a goodbye she couldn't sob over. Curse you, smooshy heart!!! Dang. I really hope I got one of those super-awesome dogs that never ages...
No wonder Recapper Man's recaps have been so crummy - he's been savin' up the good stuff for his new job! Harumph. Here's hoping the new recapper is actually funny.
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I feel like I've been dragging out my farewell lap for far too long, after recently bidding adieu in the Pop Culture Club and Survivor Talk, but as I'm leaving Entertainment Weekly for another opportunity later this week (more on that later), I feel an especially large lump in my throat as I sit down to write my last Amazing Race TV recap. I've been writing this column for nine seasons, so maybe it's for the best that I end it now. After all, I don’t want to get self-indulgent and start repeating myself. Everybody knows that if you try to repeat past glories, it never quite measures up and LOOK AT ME, I AM MAKING A METAPHOR!
Yes, as promised, the infamous hay bale challenge from season 6 was back! The first time we saw these mountainous wheels of hay, Kristy was stuck futilely pulling them apart for over eight hours until Phil arrived to put her out of her misery. And now, nine seasons later, Bertram Van Munster has decided to resume the torture. (Did it take this long just to get all the hay rolled back together? Man, those Amazing Race interns are slow.) And while the challenge was just as maddening as ever, its reoccurrence made me realize all of the reasons it fails as a good game. But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself…
The leg began with everyone flying to Stockholm from Schiphol airport in Holland. Though, from the way Meghan pronounced it, I thought the airport was called ''S--tpole,'' which sounds like something that I would have been called in high school back when I was a tall, skinny, terrible basketball player. But no, I misheard it…although, oddly enough, ''schiphol'' is Dutch for ''hey, you stiff, way to miss another rebound.'' Life's funny, huh?
Everyone ended up bunching up at the airport that night, as the first flight didn't leave until 6:55am. The ticket agents didn't open until early in the morning, and at that point Brian and Ericka and Gary and Matt couldn’t get seats, and ended up leaving two and a half hours later. But here's my question: They arrived at night hours before the ticket agents reopened, so, knowing they were last in line, why didn't they take a cab into town to book their tickets via an internet café, thereby leapfrogging everyone else? You don't write recaps for nine seasons and not learn a thing or two, people!
The first three teams arrived in Stockholm and were directed to find the tallest ride at a local amusement park. Sam and Dan and Meghan and Cheyne arrived first, and sprinted to the freefall ride. (Dan had a very odd running style, in which he clutched a windbreaker in one arm and waved it back and forth, as if it gave himself added torque. I think he probably misread an article about ''wind power.'') Once on the ride, a player had to scan the park and spot an arrow pointing to the next clue. This proved to be simple, as every team got it, and then it was just a matter of seeing them scream as the ride plummeted. Chalk up another anticlimactic challenge for the season; They should have to perform a task, not just get strapped in and have a task done to them.
Oh, and when they do perform a task, make it an interesting one, not a friggin' ring toss. Carny challenges have no place in the Amazing Race. What next, have the teams line up to try to grab a stuffed animal with a tiny crane? Or just eat a crapload of fried dough and then throw up on the bumper cars? The only point of this follow-up game was to work in the annual Travelocity roaming gnome product placement moment. Damn their pointy heads; if only their hats were shaped like a really high water slide, then we'd have been in business. (The Globetrotters tried to name their gnome, and Big Easy came up with the names ''Louisiana Shorty'' and ''Harlem Gnome.'' Were they naming their statue, or listing their favorite five-feet-and-under jazz musicians?)
From there, it was off to the Detour. The first option, ''Nobel dynamite'' (one of the more awkwardly literal Detour names of late), had teams filling up sandbags and building an incredibly low wall to apparently protect their shins from an explosion. (The other choice, Viking Alphabet, was moot, as no one chose it, so that guy got all dressed up in his Viking outfit for nothing. Horned helmets don’t buff themselves, people; that guy was working his helmet shammy all night, and for what? Nothing.)
In the Detour, the worrying Meghan really started to crack. She kept telling Cheyne that they needed to work together filling sandbags, while he kept going off to fill his own. As increasingly fragile as Meghan is (and we hadn't seen the worst of it at this point), Cheyne is inhumanly unflappable. I'm reasonably sure that he doesn't go to sleep at night, he powers down. On the surface, this seems like a good match, and yet if you were with someone who remained this egotistically upbeat all the time, wouldn't you want to strap the TNT to him?
Bringing up the rear in all of this were Brian and Ericka and Gary and Matt. Brian mentioned early in this leg that they were doing the Race partly to show to Ericka's family just how much they loved each other, as Ericka's mother doesn't approve of her daughter marrying a white man. Unfortunately, he may have lost some progress after last week's episode, when they hobbled for far too long in wooden shoes. So not only was he on TV nearly whittling Ericka's feet into stubs, but he was doing it with wooden shoes, which is perhaps the most Caucasian footwear you can find. The only whiter thing that could have happened would be if Brian veered off in the middle of a Detour to take Ericka to a Larry the Cable Guy concert.
Ultimately, the Detour wasn't very interesting, either. It was just a lot of digging, with an unrelated explosion tacked onto the end. Contrary to what Michael Bay's career has taught us, you can't make up for a long period of dullness with a show of pyrotechnics. And from here, the teams made their way to the Switchback, in which they'd take on the infamous hay challenge. At this point I felt like everything we'd seen up to this was just fluffy time-wasters to get us to the marquee challenge. ''Don't worry about the rest of the show,'' the producers probably said. ''Put 'em on a tilt-a-whirl and have them play 'Guess Your Weight' or some crap. It doesn't matter, because once the viewers see that the hay is back, they'll forget everything that happened before.''
The hay was undoubtedly a stressful challenge. There were 180 incredibly heavy rolls of hay with only seven clues available, and there was also the taunting knowledge that this had been the death of one team. So it's no wonder that it nearly ended with Sam plunging a stalk of hay into Dan's eye. Dan couldn’t stop armchair quarterbacking as Sam wrestled with the hay, leading to such exchanges as, ''We're gonna be here the entire day if you keep (going through all the hay). Stop doing that!'' ''SHUT UP!'' For most of the challenge they exchanged shouts and middle fingers. ''What he doesn't realize is I stopped listening to him years ago,'' grumbled Sam. Jeez, these fighting siblings are a regular Cain and Haybel. YOU ARE ALL WELCOME FOR THAT AWESOME PUN.
Whenever we saw Meghan, she was saying some variation on the sentence, ''This is the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life.'' And by ''variation'' I mean that she said the same exact thing, varying only on which word she put the inflection. And for all her bitching, this challenge could have been worse. Imagine if after she found her clue, she was forced to roll back up all the hay bales that she'd torn apart? Yes, it would have been hard, but it would have been the polite thing to do.
Big Easy showed up third, but found the first clue (and therefore won the leg, giving Flight Time a great birthday present). Sam grumbled that the basketball players were the ''luckiest team in the entire race,'' and there's some validity to that. They're lovable, skillful racers, but they've caught every possible break in this game. It seems like obstacles jump to get out of their way. Hmmm…perhaps the reason that the Globetrotters win all their games isn't because they're fixed, but rather because God wants them to win. Who knew that pulling down a ref's pants was the word of the Lord?
Earlier in the episode, Sam and Dan alluded to the Globetrotters' ''fans'' helping them out, and I wonder if there's a lot of that that we're not seeing. They're not exactly traveling incognito, and if you were an American abroad who saw a couple of Globetrotters trying to win a game show, wouldn't you jump to pitch in? We're all trained to see them win, so you'd feel like you were just helping maintain the natural order of things. It seems like an unfair advantage to have one team that is recognized and beloved by strangers. We saw the same thing with Rob and Amber. And yet, come on, how can you stay mad at the Globetrotters? You might as well kick a seven-foot-tall puppy.
After a couple of hours of her weeping and moaning, Meghan found her clue, and she and Cheyne finished second, followed by Brian and Ericka. Then we got an excruciating sequence of Sam and Gary searching through hay. The producers did a good job of drawing out the suspense. Every time they'd switch from Sam to Gary (or vice versa), I'd think, ''Ahhh, this is the moment when he's just about to find his clue…'' but then it wouldn't happen, and we'd switch back to the other. The tension was far more palpable than it should ever be for a contest about two guys pushing hay around. But then it happened: Sam got his clue, he and Dan dashed for the mat, and then Dan burst into tears for the way he'd shouted at Sam. Who knew that hay could make you so emotional? I guess this explains why the Farmers Almanac says that 84% of all marriages end on hayrides.
Gary saw the challenge through anyway, only to be told by Phil that this was a non-elimination round. And that's when I got angry. My problem with this challenge (even back in season 6) is that it's too arbitrary. Skill doesn't matter at all, it's just a matter of which bale you arbitrarily pick to unroll. It has nothing to do with how well you've run the race up to that moment. While it's fun to see players' abject frustration, it's ultimately incredibly unfair.
And yet, Kristy's tenacious if doomed pursuit of a clue made it a classic, and the producers couldn't resist recreating it. But they didn't have the courage of their convictions. They thought, ''Remember how awful it was that Kristy looked for that long, only to be kicked out? That was awesome! Let's do that…except let's not kick anybody out.'' They recreated the frustration, but none of the stakes. It was like a war reenactment, where, after the dust settles, everyone gets up, wipes off the fake blood, and carpools home. So there was something to disappoint everyone: If you never liked this unfairly luck-based challenge, too bad, you got it again. And if you did like how mercenary it was, too bad, now it has no ramifications.
And so there it is; my last recap. I'm sorry I have to leave this season on such an unmemorable episode, but they can't all be water slides. I'm heading off to new challenges (I'll be easy to find; one quick Google search should do it), but I'll miss talking Amazing Race with you, sharing some laughs and some real truth flavor. But not to worry; the recaps will continue every Monday morning here on EW.com, and you'll be in good hands. So show the new writer some love, won't you? And by that I don’t mean by calling her ''babe'': As we all know from The Amazing Race, that's the quickest way to prove that there's no love at all.
them but they still brought out all the stops with the celebratory soup and dessert. Fabulous!
This is Ted. 
Then, just in case you missed him, he'll inch a little closer to your plate. Soon after, he'll start working his nose and sniff frantically all around your plate. Then, as a final assault, he'll make his most pitiful face and plop it right on the table. If you're lucky, your plate will escape the inevitable moose-tonguing. But it probably won't. ;o)
They look pretty darn good, I think.
Sarah was very professional and did everything on her pumpkin herself, from gutting to carving. She was awesome!
Claudia's pumpkin
Sarah's pumpkin
Michelle's pumpkin. It turned out fantastic! I do nice work... picking stuff out for other, more skilled people to do. Heh.
Grandma and Grandpa got to keep the girls' pumpkins but Robert and I got to take Michelle's pumpkin to our place. They all wound up dying a bit before Halloween but they sure looked great while they lasted.
