Reality Hit List, June 5: Welcome Back, The Amazing Race!

Debra seemed to figure it out when Reichen & Chip let her & Steve stay in their hotel room, asking Steve matter-of-factly, "Do you have a feeling the boys want to sleep together?" (Incidentally, on the extra video footage at the cbs.com website, Reichen & Chip report that Debra’s a snorer.) Meanwhile, Kelly accused them of being... Californians! "They’ve got the look!" she insisted. So did Roxette in 1989.

Reichen & Chip decided to form an alliance with David & Jeff, but were hesitant to out themselves to them because they found them "very straight." I’m not quite sure I understand what "very straight" means. Do they have deflector shields that repel quiche or something? (What’s truly depressing is I just realized that that pop culture reference is to a book that came out in 1982. If it were a person, it would now be old enough to drink legally. Y’all excuse me while I go play with my Ginsu Knives, won’t you?) In any event, I certainly hope Reichen & Chip aren’t relying on them for directions; in this episode alone, David & Jeff managed to get lost going to the airport in their home city and stumble onto the other half of the Detour while looking for the pitstop. Meanwhile, David said with a straight face, "We took the train and we thought we were going to beat the other teams; unfortunately, we came in as one of the last groups." Well, yeah, because the other teams took cabs! Just about anywhere in the world except for going crosstown in Manhattan (trust me on this), cabs beat trains! Oy. Then again, after the first episode last season I was thinking Derek & Drew were dim, and they proved me wrong and made it to the Final Four, so you never know.

Also having a lot of bad luck this round were Monica & Sheree. First, the airport shuttle bus took off without them at Jon [of Kelly &]’s urging – although this didn’t seem personal; it seemed like he would have said the same thing no matter what team showed up at the door at that point. Then, once they got inside the airport, they became embroiled in Ordergate. Josh, at the front of the line at the Swissair counter, decided seemingly right then and there that he wanted to be in an alliance with Steve & Dave, holding up the rear of the line, because he noticed their air traffic controller hats and he "wanted people who were familiar with that" in with him. Now, I’ve heard a lot of asinine reasons for alliances in my time, but this has to take the cake. I could understand if he wanted to carry Steve & Dave because he thought they’d be easier to beat than Monica & Sheree, but how in the world is it helpful that they’re air traffic controllers? That only means they’re familiar with their own airport! Considering they’re at the back of the line, it’s certainly not doing them much good, is it? Anyway, he got tickets for Steve & Dave as well, freezing Monica & Sheree out of the flight even though they’d been waiting patiently ahead of Steve and Dave. Legal? Sure. But I don’t blame Monica & Sheree for being royally pissed, even if "Cheaters never win and they cheated!" sounds like something out of The Cindy Brady Guide to Life. Monica fretted that other teams would think she & Sheree were "prissy little housewives," but I generally don’t picture prissy little housewives snapping, "Don’t say sh*t to me right now!" After all that, quite frankly, while it may not have been the smartest idea to use up their Fast Forward this early as it didn’t get them all that far ahead, I can certainly understand why Monica & Sheree did so. Besides, Rob & Brennan used their Fast Forward the first leg in the first season and went on to win the entire race, so you never know.

Josh later made up for it by helping Monica & Sheree by leading them to the last tickets for the second bus. This was smart, because as he pointed out, it didn’t hurt him any and it made Monica & Sheree feel better toward him. However, he had less altruistic motives for helping them: "I really don’t want those two blonde chicks with the fake tits up in there, so..."

Combine David & Jeff’s directional impairment with Monica & Sheree’s bad luck and you have the allegedly breast-enhanced blondes, Tian & Jaree – who, with those names, sound like the long-lost members of Jem & the Holograms. At one point, a gas station attendant barked at them that he’d given them directions three times – at which point they promptly asked him again! Speaking of barking, here’s Jaree to Tian about their faulty hatchback door (which caused them to have to wait for a new vehicle): "Just shut it!" Funny – I felt like telling them the same thing a few times over the course of the episode. Like shortly thereafter when we had the following exchange:

Jaree: "Don’t even irritate me right now!"
Tian: "You’re always irritated!"

Oh, this bodes well.

Their smoking might do them in before their bickering, however. As they huffed and puffed to the finish line, Jaree moaned that after twenty years of smoking it was "too much cardio in one day!" (someone’s been spending a little too much time at the local Bally’s), while Tian swore she’d never touch another cigarette. (Incidentally, when it comes to that, the house brand patch you can get at Walgreens, Duane Reade, RiteAid, etc. – they’re all made by the same company, Habitrol – not only is significantly cheaper, but works much better than the name brands, believe it or not. I say this because I’m only three patches away from successfully finishing the program, and I smoked for fifteen years.)

Tian & Jaree were hands down my least favorite team upon initial viewing, but when I watched it again, I didn’t mind them nearly as much. Jaree didn’t really stop for coffee so much as have some while she was waiting for the cab; she left it as soon as the cab was there – although it’s a shame she didn’t think ahead and get it in a to-go cup; did that café perhaps not have any? (I’ve never been to Europe so I don’t know what cafés there would have.) At first I thought Tian bitching, "I can’t believe we got behind the slow team!" was rather rude; then I realized that if I were in last place in a race and stuck waiting behind another team, I might very well be fuming too; I also noticed that she did help Debra off the zipline and apologize for going ahead of Debra and Steve after they finished. Also, I realized Tian reminds me a lot of my last roommate, and we got along incredibly well. So I guess for now I’m neutral on them – I don’t hate them, but at the same time I haven’t seen much reason to like them either.