TAR5 Ep5 Official Summary
"A TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW"

Well, buckle in as we’re back for a fifth episode of non-Burnett produced chock full of Bruckheimery goodness the almost not quite astounding positively allegedly somewhat racelike yet not really competitive unless you consider airport scheduling to be an Olympic sport semi almost contested free trip around the world by teams of spoiled Americans with a pre-existing relationship who complain their way around the globe while failing to appreciate the wonders around them not a race. I’m only one full sentence in and I’m already clocking at 96 words so if I can just keep cranking out the hundred or so words apiece sentences there is no reason not to expect a new personal record at summary long windedness ‘cause I’m just evil like that, not evil in a bad way but your favorite kind of old comfortable evil that you slip into like a comfortable old sweatshirt when you are rooting against your most hated college sports team, yeah that’s it, frighten the iguana, or something equally intelligent from that alleged college’s sports marketing department, not that it is much of a college and not that they will ever win another game in the new and improved ACC but they have the cutest little sports slogan, I mean, “Frighten the Iguana”, if that doesn’t strike fear into the Seminoles and Hurricanes I don’t know what will and oh yeah Go Hoos. Of course now I am 247 words in and I really haven’t addressed the show opening although MacGuyver, I mean Phil, has been telling us as always about the 11 teams that started out on the race and brakk brak brak brak braaaakkkk and there are now 7 teams left and we head to commercial.

Commercials:
Not only do we get to hear that tonight’s show is brought to us by Expedia but our first commercial is that one with the couple in the exotic locale and the big honking mosquitoes kind of the Indiana Jones like overkill exposure to mosquitoes for Expedia... then an Exorcist the Beginning trailer... a Nordic style blonde for 30% larger tic tacs ‘cause that’s what we really need... an African American family and their player son for Verizon “in”... a Philip Morris sponsored anti-smoking PSA because my media market is so much more tobaccoey than your media market which by default makes my media market much much more major than your media market because everyone knows cigarettes are cool and glamorous or why else would all those celebritneys smoke them in all those movies... Connie Nielsen the annette benning younger sister lookalike for Neutrogena despite her perfect skin... MJ for Hanes tagless for kids... and shockingly CBS 48 Hours has yet another shocking murder mystery to expose and how do they keep coming up with new ones I’d look into the 48 hours producers for contract killings but that is just the way my evil mind works and hey, we’re brak from commercial...

Not that I have peeps but if I had them this is where the obligatory shoutouts would go but I won’t be doing any shoutouts ‘cause that’s what I gave up for Lent or something, nope definitely no shoutouts to see here not even if you carefully keep track of the numbers I list in this summary and counting from the start of the summary use those enumerated words to form a sentence or something easter eggery like that, nope no shout outs and its not a parody, its an homage so I definitely couldn’t do shoutouts even if I evilly wanted to. nope not one. hey

So, Catherine’s Palace in St Petersburg is the starting point for this leg of the race. We get to see some of the team hobnobbing shots from the mandatory 12 hour pitstops and strangely enough everyone is eating for such a short timespan after the caviar forced gurgitation ordeal. More curiously, Mirna is seen cutting Schmirna’s food for her in the background of this shot. I cannot say how strange this is as they are both adults and this is just the first of many little ways in which Mirna will be taking the wraps off the M word in this episode, once and for all. There will be no more politically correct dancing around with the terms dwarf or little person. She’s a midget. I know ‘cause I heard it from a certain clown, and if Mirna having Schmirna dance on command like a trained poodle wasn’t enough, wait until you see how she treats her tonight.

Anyways, Chip & Kim - team Token are first out at 9:11am and they are to take a train to the Hermitage Museum to find a specific Rembrandt, the Return of the Prodigal Son. As if adding an “o” to English words for instant Spanglish wasn’t bad enough, in asking their Russian taxi driver to get them to the train station, team Token will inaugurate the “Choo Choo” Count at one and two. Shortly after Colin and Christie - C2PO’d leave, but as they are not arguing yet they get no screen time. Marshall and Lance - the Doughboys are next, then Mir/Shmir depart after interviewing that they will be pushing each other by which they mean Mir will push Shmir to do all the tasks in exchange for having all her food prechewed. Also, Mirna rings up the Choo Choo Count to four. Team Token are shown arriving at the train station for no other purpose than to get the Choo Choo Count to six. Brandon & Nicole - team Manperm are out next, they ring up CCC number seven and then Brandon wants to walk to the train station and for once is overruled by Nicole. Once in the cab he realizes it would have been a long cold walk and this is the closest he ever gets to admitting fault or apologizing. I’d say that makes him just like a man but with that hair, ehh... not yet. Cut to MirShmir still walking for some inexplicable reason. Shmir does ring up the CCC to nine and it crystallizes for me right then, this is a metaphor and Shmir is clearly the lil’ engine that could. Choo Choo

Finally, we see Linda & Karen - the BM’s, and Kami & Karli -the BlunderTwins both depart. They are in a race for last. Back to Shmir who has icicle hair and CCC ten and then finally arrive at the station after walking the whole way the others cabbed. CCC eleven. Team Token arrives and begins looking as do C2PO’d. Chip is just blown away by the highfalutin kulture they got there but not enough not to sing his way through the museum. The Doughboys on the train comment that, “the Russians might be the most miserable people on the planet” and where is Omoanorosa when you need her to explain that whole pot kettle thing again? In a surprisingly smart move, MirShmir ask one of the Russians on the train for the location of the painting within the Hermitage in order to get directions. Team Manperm decides that breakfast on top of 2kg’s of caviar is not sitting well after all and decide to induce nausea in everyone just to be safe. No You’re Shmoopy. Well, You’re the Ginchiest. Mr Manperm declares that he could see himself marrying Nicole but then it subsides and he is able to stand up and leave the train. Back in the Hermitage, Kim finds the painting first and finds out that the next destination is the Tower of Cairo in Egypt so they head off to the international airport. That’s international, like you know, International House of Pancakes, not Domestic Pancakes.

BM’s vs BlunderTwins is the supposed drama at the train station. C2PO’d out second but just when you hate them they do make the intelligent move of going off to a travel agent instead of straight to the airport. In short order we are shown the Doughboys, MirShmir, and Manperm leaving the Hermitage for the International Airport, that’s International, like the IHOP. Cut to Token arriving at the International Airport, that’s International, like the IHOP. And, this is interspersed with shots of C2PO’d booking their flight at the travel agent. In condensed fashion, all of the first five teams arrive at the International Airport, that’s International, like the IHOP, and they figure out that Colin & Christie have the best flight on Air France arriving at 225pm while everyone else on Lufthansa is arriving at 315pm. Back in the pack, the BlunderTwins do outrun the BM’s in the Hermitage. In their only sign on intelligence so far, the Blundertwins latch onto a friendly Russian who guides them to the painting and then leads them off to a travel agent who gets them onto the Lufthansa flight. They then head off to the International Airport, that’s International, like the IHOP. Finally the BM’s fumble and stumble out of the Hermitage and head off to the airport. Only upon traveling there do the BM’s realize they are at the Domestic airport, not the International Airport, that’s International, like the IHOP, and I am shocked at this development as there was absolutely no heavy-handed CBS foreshadowing on this one. Subsequently, the BlunderTwins do make the Lufthansa flight and the BM’s arrive at the International Airport only to find out they are too late and no more flights depart for Cairo until the next day. Clearly the BM’s are doomed, irrevocably, as a huge blunder like this cannot possibly be made up for...

Post commercial, the BM’s arrive finally at the Lufthansa office and find out that tomorrow morning’s flight will in fact catch the other teams on their layover and all will depart Frankfurt for Cairo together. Whew.

C2Po’d arrive in Paris and continue to play smart and scramble their way onto an earlier departing flight that evening thereby skipping the same layover the other six teams are facing. They calculate they will get a twelve hour lead on the other teams and as we have just seen twelve hour leads are insurmountable.

In Frankfurt, the middle five teams sit and socialize together, except they leave out MirShmir because of the midget. No really, it’s the narcissistic whining. But MirShmir show them, they find an earlier Al Italia flight that will get in 50 minutes earlier than the Lufthansa flight. Not wanting to tip their hand, they book the flight but sleep with the others at the Lufthansa gate. At least they pretend to, until all the other teams are asleep. cBS then provides the Mission Impossible-esque sneaky music for them to exfiltrate to. Cut to C2PO’d arriving in Cairo and finding the Tower. Realizing that the hours of operation mean that they will have to wait until 9am for the Tower to open they manage to accept this and bed down on the sidewalk to wait. As they realize this will cut their lead back to just seven hours, you have to be proud of Colin for no vein popping. Back in St Petersburg, the BM’s make their movement to catch up. In Frankfurt the other teams awake to realize MirShmir have disappeared. Kim of Token demonstrates again her diminished mental capacity as she states they will show up for the flight. The Doughboys, less naively, state that while they don’t find MirShmir likable, they realize that MirShmir is smart enough that if they have disappeared it was for a reason. The BM’s then catch up and speaking of relative mental capacities, Nicole finally has something sharp to add when she observes that the five teams on their flight are all tied for last in her opinion.

C2PO’d wake to the beautiful Tower of Cairo at sunrise. Upon getting their next clue they are excited to find the first FAST FORWARD of the race. This is an excellent time for the Phil deprived to feed their manbreast jones. Phil expositions on the Fast Forward that it is the First of only two on the race this time. More specifically, he states that “the FIRST team that finds it can skip all tasks and go directly to the pitstop.” Is this a rules tweak that only makes the FF available to the first team to find it, or would it still be available to successive teams if the first team(s) pass it up? Who knows, this is the vaguest run game show ever, rules are only clarified when they come up in a crucial situation, never beforehand. C2Po’d are off to the Pharonic village to deliver a Sarcophagus by ferry (that’s a boat Donny) to an island temple. Colin again refuses to listen to Christie try to tell him about the sarcophagus’ location at the front of the village leading to some eventual backtracking. In a brilliant display of spin, Colin manages to turn this completely around into Christie’s fault for changing her mind. Apparently Colin is cranky in the morning. Nonetheless C2PO’d jet to the pitstop arriving at 1127am.

MirShmir don’t even land until 225pm then have to go to the Tower to get their clue directing them to the Giza plateau. The next, I mean last, five teams land at 315pm and the BlunderTwins lose the airport taxi scramble and are last out. Token are happy to be in the biblical holy land while the supposed Christians of Manperm are happy to pass the Doughboys. Niiiice juxtaposition. At Giza, MirShmir wander aimlessly.... shyeah. Manperm, Token, and Doughboys clump up at Tower and head towards Giza. BM’s and Twins clump together but Twins pass BM’s in cab race to Giza. You just know the Twins taxi driver is a seriously bad mofo when he puts on his shades. Manperm, Token, and Doughboys all find the yellow rock trail while MirShmir wander aimlessly in the desert for 40 minutes and 40 seconds...err, I mean they show Mir exhorting Shmir to hurry. To which, Shmir reasonably responds that she can’t run in the sand. To which Mir unreasonably responds, “well do a little bit better, please, it’s going to get dark in an hour. Either your midget legs can run in sand or they can’t. They can’t. They can stumble on to the checkpoint and it is a roadblock. For this one, one team member must descend the Oscirus shaft 140 feet down and then retrieve a satchel of artifacts and return to the surface with them. Mir says she is claustrophobic and can’t do it, so of course Shmir will do it. AGAIN. Finally cut to the Twins hurrying, and the BM’s also hurrying and just following the Twins because the BM’s have no idea where to go and the Twins are known for their navigational prowess. Anyways, Linda trips and hurts her ankle and we go to commercial with the looming drama of a serious player injury.

Linda is now up and hobbling along. Whew. Mir then expresses remorse at giving Shmir the shaft.....try the veal, here til next Tuesday. Shmir is then immediately shown cheerfully narrating her own descent. Eventually she busts into “It’s gettin’ hot in here” by Nelly? 50cent? whoever, and it’s the extended Midget remix version. Shmir does tire on the way up with the heavy satchel but does make it. In a particularly Indiana Jones/MacGuyver-esque moment Philthen expositions that the satchel contained pottery hieroglyphic puzzle pieces which are part of the clue to the next location. If the puzzle is assembled correctly and placed within an outline on a map of the Giza plateau they are given when leaving the shaft, a missing hole in the puzzle will point the way to the next location, at the base of one of the pyramids. They assemble the puzzle, but Mir then comments that she still has no idea what it is supposed to mean. She even then asks, “do you think that hole has anything to do with it?” Shmir immediately gets it and directs Mir to place the puzzle within the outline on their map. Shmir is now the backbone, the brawn, and the brains of the outfit.

Token and Manperm arrive at Roadblock. Chip immediately volunteers to descend, but Nicole must berate Brandon into doing it in yet another moment of maximum masculinity. Brandon interviews that he is scared of crevices, which explains their Christian virginal lifestyle, but not his girlyman fear of the oscirus shaft Roadblock. For that you must reference his too tightly wound ‘do which is clearly shrinking his balls leaving him a Kaliforniay Gurlyman. MirShmir arrive at pyramid but can’t find cluebox. Shmir again demonstrates why she is the brains and directs Mir to climb up on the first tier of the pyramid to see if she can spot the box. Mir demonstrates that she still can’t find a clue by asking “do you want me to climb this thing?” only minutes after Shmir made a much more significant climb. Eventually getting it, Mir does spot the cluebox which has the next Detour in it. Rock and Roll or Hump and Ride. Drag a 600lb stone Egyptian style for 100 yards or on horseback drive some camels to the carpet merchant. MirShmir realize they have no prayer at dragging stone and it is 527pm and camel pen closes at 530pm. the drama... so they argue while hurrying to the camels.

Back at the shaft, Doughboys reach it as Chip and Brandon ascend. Cut to MirShmir trekking to the camels. Shmir the brains, tells Mir the ....(I don’t know what she is there for, general villainry?) .. to blow her whistle and get the camel drivers attention. It must work as we see them perk up and they wait for MirShmir. At the pens, Shmirna is worried about riding a full sized horse. Mirna responds with a crack about jockeys. It was at this point that I officially joined the Midget movement. If Mir can be allowed to make all her stupid comments, then the gloves are off on the M word. Back at the shaft we see Tokens and Manperms assembling the puzzle. Brandon states he is baffled by it. He must be baffled in a secondhand way as his back is to Nicole who is behind him doing all the work in a lovely low rise butt crack exposing kind of way. The Doughboys show up in time to see Chip realize that the same piece is missing from both puzzles which indicates where they need to go.

And now a word from Andy Rooney: “Did you ever notice, how on the Amazing Race, in the last segment of the show, the editing cuts just come rapid fire, one after another. I hate that. For the first forty-five minutes they spend some time in each clip, building towards a story. Then bang, in the last fifteen minutes they jump around to everything in rapid succession. It’s fake and forced. They must think it creates a sense of urgency and down to the wire suspense. But it’s really just annoying, and they’re not fooling anyone. I wish they’d quit that.”

In a nice moment, Mir and Shmir of Arabia ride their horses across the dunes into the sunset. Mir then opens her mouth and the moment passes. Tokens, Manperm, and Doughboys find the detour. The twins arrive at the shaft. MirShmir deliver camels and head off to the Sphinx for the pitstop and the obligatory cringe/hug with Phil. Three teams are slogging rocks and no surprise Chip is clearly the best at this. Moms at shaft too now.

OK, this one is toooo big not to get it’s own special mention. The Twins get the satchel of puzzle pieces up and out and receive their map. They then decide to IGNORE the puzzle pieces and just grab the map. Karli gets a wild guess that they are to go “there”. Kami even says directly to the camera “We’re Clueless.” But, they still head out with just the map on a complete hunch, in the dark. BlunderTwin Powers, ACTIVATE!

Karen descends the shaft. Back to Manperm, where Brandon dumps his rock off sideways. Manperm is now completely screwed, out of the race, as their is no way he will ever get that 666lb rock back up on the rollers. However, he asks Chip to “help a brother out?” This is the whitest, most manpermedest person to ever ask this. Nonetheless, Chip helps. It’s the holy land after all. Karen gets the puzzle out. Linda figures it out without actively realizing it, but Karen catches on. BM’s off to detour. Manperm is now sniping at Nicole, he had to ask for help in front of his wimmenfolk and now she must pay. Tokens and Manperms finish dragging their rocks. Chip delays to direct the sans clue Twins back to the stone drag allowing Manperms to pass Tokens for third place. Doughboys finish stone as Twins arrive. Doughboys hit pitstop fifth.

BlunderTwins are show struggling to even move the stone an inch. The BM’s arrive and while they say they can do it, they make no real progress on their one attempt that is shown. Miraculously, cut to the Twins crossing the finish line. Of course you say, they have edited out all the boring, whiny struggling in between. Why then, do the Twins slide this huge stone several feet forward with minimal visible effort as they cross the finish line when previously they could barely budge it? How are the BM’s shown with only one person, and that is Linda of the bad ankle, pulling the stone gently across the finish and neither she nor Karen have broken a sweat or even so much as removed their jackets when Chip was sweating buckets at the same task earlier? This one is just too staged for me. I don’t think there is anyway the Twins could have moved that block 100 yards in under 6 hours if at all. I think both of the last two teams got help and I am highly interested in seeing the teams times out as they leave on the next leg.

At any rate, we get the standard who is in last place back and forth cuts which obscures not at all that the Twins are sixth and the BM’s are seventh and last. Fortunately for the BM’s this is a non-elimination leg which allows Phil to explain the new twist as he takes all money away from the BM’s and informs them they will receive no new funds at the start of the next leg. While this leaves them barely hanging on, the BM’s are still afloat.

and scenes from next week: Mom’s begging, offering apples in exchange; shirtless Manperm following Shmirna through a tomb/tunnel while Nicole drools; and C2PO’d living up to their nickname and bitterly fighting with MirShmir over a taxi which obviously tips that airport clumping has taken place, AGAIN