THE AMAZING RACE

Season 3 Episode 4: Did You See How I Stopped It? With My Face!

The self-inflicted humiliation of the Hydras have really reached a grotesque proportion this week. The more they fall flat on their face, the more they become pompous, deluded assholes. Are there any contestants outside Big Brother that are as delusional as they?

By the way, hubby says that this episode isn't fair. I agree it isn't. There is way too much bunching, and by the end of this leg of the race, all contestants are pretty much starting out at the same handicap again. But this also means that the Hydras have an equal chance to be eliminated as, say, the Tubby Sibs! I am sacrificing some brussel sprouts to the Demonlords Wail and Tarable so that the Hydras will be eliminated next week. Let the destruction of the AoD begins!

Anyway, yeah, the race. Since the Zoolander Twins were first last episode, they start first. The Tubby Sibs follow, and these two brotherly gangs team and jog together one and the half mile down to Stonehaven Harbor to search for "messages in a bottle".

Next are the AoD, unleashed on unsuspecting Scotland like a plague of syphilis-infested rabid hyenas, and they, as usual, are ragging on the twins. Female Hydra: "Twins, twins, twins, twins, twins..." and the world falls into a coma. Someone please take all the broken records in the world and shove them down these Hydras' mouths, because they just do not know when to stop.

Crack Whores. Alicia Silverstone is fired up, while Uma Thurman is winded down. Whatever.

The AoD are running and gunning for the Twins. They are like the pigs in Animal Farm, only with an extra large infestation of yeast. The phrase "fuck off and suck heels" must be invented especially for them, and "fuck off and suck heels and eat my shorts" is especially for the Grotesque Hydras. Mrs Tool is yelling at Mr Tool again, and from Hell, the Demonlord Wail sends a thunderclap to strike that woman dead, only Wail's consort and nemesis, Demoness Tarable, manages to protect her portege from the wrath of the Wail. Oblivious to the battle raging in hell for their souls, Mr Tool and Mrs Tool lead the AoD down a path where they intercept and beat the Sib Alliance to the clues.

The clue requires them to go to the airport and take a flight to Portugal. In Portugal, seek out the winery Calem Port Lodge. There, the next clue awaits.

Then begins the mad scramble for plane tickets, and bunching occurs at the airport. Earlier, MIA and Token play a mildly amusing cat and mouse game, but they arrive and join everybody at the airport. The race has been reset and everybody now has a chance to catch up again.

Token are so happy.

Tubby Sibs aren't.

Hydra aren't either. "Here they are, loud and obnoxious as ever," Mr Hydra tells me. Yeah, and you are a sniveling rat, you tool. Wait until people start pelting you with used toilet paper on the streets. Asshat.

The female Hydra is - again - yammering about gunning down the twins, yadda yadda yadda, oblivious to the sound of the mute button of the remote being pressed all across the world. Not that the mute button helped any (and I should know, I almost worn mine out) - that girl looks like a sorry end of a bus accident and watching her mouth move is like watching a sore pus-filled open wound over time. What a moron.

Then again, watching the insecure, whiny, pathetic Hydras bitch about everyone to the cameras while putting a smug face before them makes me wonder if those pathetic creatures are actually jealous and bitter because they obviously wanted to be the stars of this show, but here they are, outshone in looks by pretty much every other team, outsassed by the Tubby Sibs, and outclassed by the hapless but adorable Zoolander Twins. It must be tough learning what pathetic losers they really are compared to everybody else in the show.

The Sibs Alliance decides to play a gamble - they will catch an earlier flight to London and then from London they will try and catch the connecting flight to Portugal. But there is only a five-minute interval between flights.

"It will be so good if they miss their connecting flights," the bitter, humorless, talentless, useless, malodorous, and fug-ugly-pathetic female Hydra tells the camera.

We Giggles thumb our noses at her when the Sibs Alliance do in fact catch the connecting flight by the barest of chances. Sibs rule, and Hydras aren't even fit to wiggle in their shadows, so there!

That way, the Sibs Alliance has around twenty minutes head start ahead of the other teams. They find the winery, and the clue leads to a detour. They have to deliver wines in the winery to places across Lisbon, but they can choose to do one of two choice of methods. "Old School" sees them lugging a (heavy) cask onto a boat, upon which they would row to a single restaurant, deliver the cask, and they'll get the next clue. "New School" lets them use a truck, but they will have to deliver more casks to three different locations.

The Sibs Alliance choose the Old School.

Twins. Lots of biceps bunching as they row the boat. I look at my hubby's arms and sigh in disappointment. "What?" he says, annoyed.

The Tubby Sibs are as adorable as always. "This ain't easy. I feel like a big Viking chief!"

What we should do is to give these guys a sitcom and the Twins will play the hapless, pretty, dim, and loyal tenants that share the apartment with the Sibs. I'm sure it'll be better than everything "funny" on TV nowadays other than Scrubs, but Scrubs' coolness is untouchable, so that's okay.

AoD as usual are slavering at the heels of the Sibs Alliance, wishing they could only be as cool. Except for Hunk and Dead Weight, who keep getting the most useless cab drivers ever. Seriously, these guys have the worst luck when it comes to cab drivers.

Token is really loud, Mr Token to be specific. Mr Hydra looks in the mirror and calls Token "ugly Americans". I think the limit of the concept of delusion has been shattered by this ugly, miserable excuse of a troll.

Team MIA, John Vito, Hydra, and Crack Whores all do the new school, while Token and Hydra go head to head in the old school like a Viking battle of two funeral pyre filled with mourning, ghastly undead rejects.

John Vito has no problems. I really like these two. He's hot, sure, but his Rambette girl is no softie when it comes to throwing her weight, and they are very supportive of each other. They may look like xenophobic white trash types that will put up wires around their trailer home to keep "furriners and ugly democrats" out, but they are cool nonetheless. MIA is doing good too, until they find themselves wedged between Tool and Crack Whores' vehicles. In exasperation, MIA does Crack Whores' chores for them while Uma Thurman will reverse her vehicle. No go - later Uma Thurman will cause her vehicle to stall again. She ain't being sneaky, she's just being a really useless driver here (remember that everything's reversed in European cars as opposed to American cars). "Watch out," MIA yells to passers-by, "American drivers in front!" I am starting to like these two. Heh heh heh.

Hunk and Dead Weight. Still lost. Hunk says that they cannot be last. "I'm too good to be last." You know, he is really a funny guy, and he can cook, he will do anything, and damn if he isn't treating Dead Weight like a queen. If he wises up and ditches that baggage, I don't mind hiring him as my cabana boy (the Riker twins will fill the pool boy positions and the Tubby Sibs are my chief advisors). Finally, they stagger outside the Lodge, and Dead Weight suggests limply that they do Old School. After all, he can't drive. Can she drive, you ask? Does it matter? You think she will lift a finger to do anything? Uh huh. So it's Old School they go, where the man makes a funny as he rows while her face grows even longer as she struggles with the oar. I wish they make more men like Hunk, but damn if Dead Weight isn't making me embarrassed for my own sex as much as the Crack Whores make me feel as if my privates are shrinking even now as we speak.

Uma Thurman gloats to Alicia Silverstone that she made MIA do their Crack Whore thing for them. Between these two and Dead Weight, I feel the blade of the sex change surgeon on my skin already.

The clue from the road block asks the team to take a train to Lisbon, to the Gate F of the Estadio do Restelo stadium to be exact. The first train leaves at 7:10pm. Whoops, bunching again. Yes, every team meets at the station, again negating everything they have done in the past. The Zoolander Twins really look petrified. Oh come on boys, don't let the AoD get to you. Don't let me get to you. You've done very well for yourselves this far, so there's no reason to believe that you will flop just because the AoDs laugh at you. The Hydras are just jealous because they only wish they are as Zen-like calm as you two. Oh my God, I'm turning to Rosie O'Donnell.

The train moves, and sure enough, every team gets a seat. Token is so happy. Mrs Token repeats for what seems like the millionth time, "We're in the pack!" and I don't think she's referring to her annoying loud-mouth husband's malnourished bulldog face.

The Sibs Alliance is over. The Tubby Sibs say that it's every team for itself now.

Then they are in Lisbon, and whoops! One of the Tubby Sibs does his best Humpty Dumpty run dance and it's another whoop of laughter from us Giggles at home. Everybody dashes for a cab, lots of finger pointing - "Faster, faster, fast-tah!" - and it's like an illegal Portuguese grand prix on the road as every cab tries to overtake the Twins' (except for Tokens, whose cab I don't know why can't catch up). This proves how stupid the AoD are - the Tubby Sibs are far ahead, and they are the biggest threat to the AoD, but here the morons are, gunning for the twins just because the twins bring out the petty high school kid in all of them. AoD - morons, morons, morons.

Hunk and Dead Weight are lost. Yeah, cab driver. These two are so screwed.

The Sibs reach the stadium first, closely followed by the Tool. The stadium holds the road block, ie only one member of the team can perform the task to win the next clue. Here, the team member must stop a penalty soccer kick from the local kid. Lots of Americans jumping around like silly fools. This is what happens when people don't play real football. Those American football thingies with big obese guys in sissy protection gear and overpadded crotch and thighs? That game is for wusses. Let the real men show you how football should be played, and oh yes, those powerful legs in short shorts aren't too bad either.

But Hunk is... amazing. He saves a goal just after two tries. He can cook, he can do everything. My heart just breaks that he has to saddle himself with that Dead Weight. They have to walk one and the half mile to the Pit Stop, an old fortress called Torre de Belem. Tubby Sibs are hot on their heels, followed by MIA, the Zoolander Twins (the soccer ball smacks right into Drew's face - heh), John Vito, the Tools, and the Crack Whores.

Token and Hydra finally limp to the stadium. Mr Hydra is in full-blown whining mode, and my eardrums bleed even as I gloat at how the more the Hydras boast and act smug, the more they fall flat on their faces. Token breezes through after some difficulty, leaving the female Hydra staring helplessly at incoming balls and whining, "I'm too short!" while the male Hydra just keeps shrieking "We're finished! We're doomed!" in the background. I've heard rabid alley cats and stray dogs in heat making music much sweeter than the Hydras' wailings. I think the poor soccer players can't take it too, because one of them finally kicks a very slow and very straight ball so that Mrs Hydra can catch it between her scrawny thighs.

Now, walk to the Pit Stop? Try running!

Run, run, people! Everybody run - in different directions, naturally. But the Crack Whores are so much smarter, the lawyers that they are, deliberately misinterpreting the "walk" direction in their clue to mean "take a cab to the pit stop and walk right in". They walk in first, and Uma Thurman has the cheek to ask, "Where's everybody?"

They are followed by the Tubby Sibs. Then comes the Tools and the Twins (not bad, boys, really, not bad at all, see?). MIA comes in after them, followed by the Tokens (that man is quite an asshole - if my husband yells at me like that, I'd have given him the wifey smackdown), and finally, John Vito. Dead Weight can't walk, so Hunk supports her and they walk slowly up the stairs to the pit stop. It must really be love, and Hunk must be this season's Paul to Dead Weight's Amie (Paul kissed Amie even after she had thrown up in the first season, if that isn't love, tell me what is, please), and while I admit it is kinda sweet to see him so noble and chivalric, really, DUMP THAT USELESS ICY BITCH! She always slows him down, and it's really annoying because Hunk is a pretty good player, albeit one cursed with non-stop clueless cab drivers.

Last? Hydras! Hahahahahahahaha!

Wait, the Crack Whores cheated, remember? Philo Koughie calls them both, Crack Whores and the Hydras, into a room where he then tries to do his best imitation of Anderson Cooper but fails miserably. Er, Koughie, please don't try that serious talk again, because I don't think I can take anymore of your slow... slow... talking. (Hey, won't it be cool if Koughie actually cohost this show with Coop? I miss Coop's fake execution chicken dance - you'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen the second season of The Mole.)

Bottom line? Crack Whores get a 30 minute time penalty - in this case they are effectively eliminated from the race. I am sorry to see them go, believe it or not, because between them and the Hydra, I'd rather see Hydra go anytime.

As the Hydras and the Crack Whores hug most insincerely and as the Crack Whores babble their goodbyes, let's just switch off the TV, take a deep breath, and sigh. Another great episode, and here's looking forward to the next one. Please, for the sake of humanity, let the Hydras be the next to go!

Before YouTube, recapping music videos is totally a thing and not a waste of time. Really..

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