Amazing Race Family 10/11 - "I Don't Kiss, I Make Out!"

Cafe Society
21

Random thoughts:

All the good lines this week belonged to Stepmom Schroeder:

“She’s Silent but deadly! She’s an SBD!”

“I’ve got shrimp juice in my sock! What’s with that?!?”

I didn’t hear who muttered the headline, though. I suspect it must have been Linz boy just prior to frenching the doomed crustacean.

Did you see the look of sheer relief pass over Papa Aiello’s face when they were Philiminated? “Point proven, gentlemen! Now let us hie our well-bonded selves to the den and consume mass quantities!”

The roadblock tookme back to my days coming up with public demonstrations of various phenomena. Rule #1: it is not even remotely fun to watch someone experience something that only they can perceive.

Now, if they had had to play catch with a nerf ball at 3.2 G’s, let’s say complete three back and forth passes in an unbroken volley with their outside hands, that might have made it better television. Of course, without two centrifuges, there’s still the last-come, first-eliminated problem. Maybe if you fail, you get out and get another number, let the next team have a shot. (Why am I not getting paid to write for this show?!?)

I understand the annoyance with the Weavers, but I’m not ready to join the hate just yet (although I laughed at “Team Froot Loop”). Losing a close family member does really bad things to your head for at least a year and a half, and you just sort of tell the world to accept that because you simply don’t have the mental or emotional strength to demand better of yourself.

Sure, free gas for life, but it’s ARCO gas! That gas always makes my car sound like it’s ten years older than it is. ARCO is always the cheapest gas here in L.A., but everyone still goes to Chevron.

Dad Gaghan must have gotten a new math co-processor installed to make those pinpoint adjustments in the mud on the first try. Of course the kids were using their internal gyro-servos to automatically adjust their weight distribution in the back seat for maximum traction, which always helps. I wonder how these robots would do in the DARPA desert navigation challenge?

I plugged the Leaderboard into an Excel Chart for exptrapolation:

My predictions for next week based solely on the math:

The Bransens will manage to hang on to their lead quite handily.
The Paolos will finally get their crap together and move into 2nd, narrowly edging out the Schroeders, who will be left to battle neck and neck for places 3 or 4 with the Gaghans.
The Gaghans will have overtaken the Godlewskis late in the leg, the latter team finishing 5th.
The Linz’s will suffer a setback early, leaving them in a distant 6th.
The Weavers will be quickly overtaken by the other teams, finsihing last, but my money’s on next week being the first non-elim.
P.S.: What was with Paolo boy’s little elf dance at the start? Oh well, at least it was the one amusing thing to come from them this ep.

22

Favorite lines were from the Godlewskis:

“A hangar is an airplane!”

“Who wants to pull three GIs?”

Well, if you think you’re up to it . . .

23

Really? Eww. Not that we don’t have our share of trademark fashion statements up here in Pa., but still. I guess it would be considered in poor taste for me to send the family a sympathy gift basket filled with conditioners and moisturizers, then.

Yeah, the Stepmonster seems pretty cool. She gives as good as she gets, and in any parent-child dynamic, that’s great, but when you’re not the biological parent, it’s even better. Not wild about the Dad in this family, but he has settled down some, and overall, they seem alright.

It’s interesting to me how there are clearly two kinds of teenagers in this show: sulky ones (Hunter, Rolly, the cute Rogers kid who left last week) and screamy ones (the Paolo boys, the Weaver girls). Teenagers are the way they are, but it’s interesting to me how much more “stable” the families seem when the kids are better behaved. All of you out there with kids probably already know that, I just never paid much attention to it before.

You’re probably right about one of the Linzes causing this week’s title. I like them OK, I just wish they didn’t try so hard to be funny all the time.

24

Dang! I missed the show again! I need to start writing myself notes or something.

The giggling gaggle of blondes is still in first? The hell?

25

No, they’re in 4th place (the Godlewskis - aka the “Desperate Housewives”). The three blonde sisters with their dad in tow are in 1st place now (the Bransens - aka “Team Pert Commercial”). Neither of these teams are to be confused with the blonde Weavers (“Team Frizz”) who are in 5th place. I know, my head hurts too.

26

Third episode, season eight. Unofficial title: “Hooray for Product Placement!” Also known as, “The Attempt to Make the Last Half of an Episode as Unexciting as Possible.” Look, having a split bunching point (where half the teams are tied for first, and half are tied for last, with two hours seperating them) is bad enough. The first four teams have nothing to worry about, so they know they can slack off. But who’s bright idea was it to have a queuing task right at the end? The order in which teams rode the centrifuge determined Pit Stop arrival order. Last ten minutes = No excitement. It’s the Amazing RACE, dammit, not the Amazing Wait-Your-Turn. Bleah.

The Back Seat Report

"Over the River and Through the Woods…" - or, songs, happiness, and lots of familial love.
The Linzes (up from “almost there”): Two second places in a row redeems them from their horrible first-episode finish. I’m tentatively placing them here at the top of the heap 'cause they’re on a roll, but I also see this team as being most likely to take a precipitous plunge. And let me say this: I love fart jokes, but that’s in part because they’re jokes. Jokes contain funny. Just saying “fart” is not funny. (Heh heh. Fart. OK, sometimes it is. But not when the Linzes say it.)

"Daddy’s driving right now, hon." - or, a little tension and impatience, but still far from the breaking point.
The Schroeders (holding steady): Steadily moving up in the rankings for a number three finish. I still haven’t quite got a handle on this team, and this episode was a poor test of racing skills (except maybe mental stamina), so I’m keeping them here for now rather than moving them into the next category. A solid performance next week and they move up. Also, Char, I wouldn’t be so concerned about the mental magic mind games the Widder Weaver’s weaving. Sheesh. (“Mom’s a bitch.” Ha ha; what are you, Hunter, fourteen? Oh, wait a minute…)
The Godlewskis (down from “Over the River”): A drop to fourth makes me wonder a bit about this team. Still strong contenders, I think, and a good bet for the top three at the end of the season, but just possibly this season’s crash-and-burn. Let’s see what kind of non-issue the previews for next week foreshadow.

"Are we almost there yet?" - or, some whining and dissent, but no more than you’d expect.
The Weavers (down from “Over the River”): Oh, man, that mental family breakdown this early in the race did not look good. The fake smile plastered on the Widder’s face was creepy creepy creepy. And look, withstanding pressure is part of the Race, and teams need to deal with it, and the results can be entertaining. But it’s entertaining when we’re watching adults, who presumably knew what they were getting into when they signed up for the race. I’m not so keen on watching a sixteen-year-old kid slowly melt down because she doesn’t have the life skills to cope with sleeplessness and uncertainty on top of her father’s death. I’m not necessarily against the Family Edition as a whole, but seeing a teenager crumble is a real big negative for me. Yuck. Anyway, the Detour switch didn’t help the Weavers, although examination of the Aiellos tells me that maybe it was for the best. On the plus side, good on Mom for walking around the airport gathering information and freaking out the other teams, even if inadvertently. Somewhere, Rob Mariano is grinding his teeth in jealousy.

"Dad… Janie’s on my side again!" - or, conflict, bad feelings, things just not going right.
The Gaghans (holding steady): Another seventh place, just barely avoiding an elimination. The wrong Detour choice (which wasn’t obvious!) did them in, but I said it last week and I’ll say it again: the Gaghans are hauling around two very young children. They’re quite impressive children, yes, bit they’re pre-teens, and they just don’t have the stamina or the smarts of adults (Ma and DJ Paolo excepted, respectively). The Gaghans have to play smarter–consistently smarter–than the rest of the teams, and they’re not.
The Bransens (up from “poopy pants”): A first is impressive, but it’ll take more than a single first to make me forget Wal-durr’s (Ha ha! Intra-family humor! Accessible to all!) early-season crash last ep. The Bransens were helped by some luck: picking the right Detour, and being the first to the centrifuge sign-up, which essentially assured a first-place finish. Luck is good, but not something you can depend on all season, so I’ll have to see more out of this team to rank them higher.

"Dad… Jimmy made poopy-pants in the back seat." - or, near disaster, and a whole lot of clean-up required before getting back on the road.
The Paolos (holding steady): Bah. They still suck, and not in any new or interesting way.

"ALL RIGHT, I’M TURNING THIS CAR AROUND RIGHT NOW!" - or, out of the Race and on their way home.
The Aiellos (Down from “Janie”): I’m not quite sure what happened to this team. I guess they were just covered with bad luck, which is just as fatal as being covered with stupid. The Aiellos were the anti-Bransens: first they pick what turned out to be the wrong Detour, then took forever to complete it, then simply flat-out lost the footrace to the centrifuge tag board and wound up last. Farewell team-that-I-know-least-about.
The Blacks: Awwww. Dad’s too nice.
The Rogerses: Awwww. Dad’s an ass.

Next week: You’re kidding me. Either someone in casting picked the Weavers, knowing that one of the tasks would be at a raceway, or someone in race planning chose a raceway task, knowing that the Weaver’s Dad was killed at Daytona. Either way, that’s fucked up and unfair to the Weavers. I refer you to my above comments about not particularly enjoying the sight of a teenager slowly cracking under stress.

[sub]Props to Mullinator.[/sub]

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I was irritated that both a great prize and the elimination occurred on the grounds of who grabbed the numbers for the centrifuge first (or last).

It bugged me a little that making the better choice on the detour didn’t help the later arriving teams more (I’m thinking particularly of the Gaghan family). Two buses, two hours apart is ok, but I didn’t like the fact that the bus stopped 5 miles from Space Camp. Come on, give them a little more room to get lost in, make good or bad navigation more of a factor in who got to the clue first.

I was frustrated by the editing which made it look like the first bus load of teams had no problems finding the Pit Stop (or the last clue)but the second bus load were mostly clueless and hopelessly lost (And yet, I think, ended up finishing in the same order they went through the centrifuge in).

And finally, I was unhappy that given the two teams I like the least and the Gaghans as competitors, it was the Aiello family who ended up losing the competition. I want to root for the Gaghans, but they have not impressed me with their navigation/ask questions of the right people skills yet.

28

This really was a poorly-planned episode. I didn’t mind the detours, although watching people de-head shrimp is not exactly exciting. But having the final finishing order determined by who picks the number first at the roadblock was STUPID. The clue should have just said “pick a number off the board to determine your order of finish at the pit stop.” It was so lame, I fully expected a non-elimination. “No way they would eliminate a team who had no chance to catch up!” Well, pretty much, yes they would. Bah!

29

Well, yeah, but still, the team that got whacked got it because they got unlucky at a roadblock that took 'em a long time to do. Happens all the time. The rest of the teams are bunched so tightly that it won’t matter anyway.

I didn’t notice the “I don’t kiss” remark during the show - who said it?

I suspect the Weavers were selected for the show *because * of the track thing, so we’d get another classic Reality TV moment on the air. What, you guys don’t think TV producers would stoop that low?

30

Oh, and for those of you who’ve wished they were going to have an “Eat Something Disgusting” challenge this time, maybe that’s why the bus stopped at Waffle House.

31

I was going to post something profound, that the entire leg was decided between the Huntsville bus stop and the take-a-number at Space Camp, but 85 people beat me to it. So I’ll just say…anti-climacticest ending ever.

What is the trick to driving in the mud? What did the Gaghans do right, that the Aiellos couldn’t do in 14 tries?

Weavers…hooboy. You’d think that sitting on a bus would be a good time to decompress. Take a nap; don’t worry about navigating. But instead they started to get paranoid about being hijacked to Cuba or some damn crap like that.

32

They were on the 5:00 bus with three other teams. It was the race from the bus to the number board that settled everything.

I wonder what was so hard about the mud pit? The Gaghans blazed right through it (wrong detour choice, zut?), but maybe this was another task designed to favor those teams with a lighter payload.

And how long to decapitate 200 pounds of shrimp? That’s 50 pounds per person. Considering the drive to and from the mud pit, it wasn’t worth the risk.

33

I think what the Gahgans did right in the mud-driving challenge was having a lighter total weight than the other teams so less chance to get bogged down in the mud.

I think the purpose of the centrifuge was to make somebody puke!

I think the title of the show came from the clandestine conversation between the Weaver and Schroeder teen boys. . . but I can’t say that I heard either of them say it.

And I think the Talladega appearance is supposed to provide closure for the Weaver family. You know, in the get-back-up-on-that-horse tradition! I don’t know if it’s an on-purpose thing. Kinda cruel if it is. But I bet it will work out that way. Suck it up for the Dad’s memory and all.

34

I’ve decided if the endings are going to be so lack-luster that, instead of a Philimination, there should be a Philhumiliation! So instead of Phil being all nice and touchy-feely on the mat, he should list errors/grievances and make the families defend themselves. And Phil should laugh and point… a lot. :slight_smile:

35

According to previews for nextweek, not so much with the giggling anymore.

36

Meh. I don’t trust next-episode previews to be accurate about the color of the freakin’ sky in the shots, let alone what exactly happens. For all we know, it could be that the crying lady misses her husband and the others are comforting her. SUCH DRAMA!!! Pfui.

37

Actually, one thing that was certainly interesting about this episode (IMO, obviously) was the Detour choice. It wasn’t exactly clear beforehand which was the quickest choice; had it been me, I’d’ve probably chosen the mudbogging (in part because I was envisioning tiny cocktail shrimp, not the huge guys they were actually using).

I suspect you’re probably right about the lighter payload being a factor, but in any case the mudbogging was clearly the wrong choice for the Aiellos and the Weavers, and probably even for the Gaghans (Note that the Bransens, who arrived on the same plane as the Gaghans but opted for the shrimp Detour, finished ahead of the Gaghans.) However, I thought the optimal Detour choice in this case was sufficiently obscure that I characterized the Aiellos’s choice as “bad luck” rather than poor gamesmanship.

38

I missed it again last night, 'cause I got caught up in a book. But I’m glad it sounds as if I didn’t miss a whole lot.

39

I think another factor more for the Gaghan’s than the other two was the fact that there were only two bogs, and two teams ahead of them. They may have had to wait a while for the Weavers to give up so they could start. If they had started right when they got there, it probably would have worked out a lot better for them. If the Aiello’s had made that first run, instead of coming up painfully short, I think their choice would have rocked. But like you said, bad luck.

40

I like the Gaghans, but I feel we’re missing something. They seem to lose time somewhere. Like when they got off the plane they were the last to leave the airport. Maybe a bathroom break?! Same thing after the bus stopped. Am I the only one who sees this?

As much as I hate, Ma-Paolo did say something funny on the mat to Phil, “Don’t hug him, he’s full of shrimp guts!”