Welcome to The Amazing Race - where the world discovers just how ugly Americans can be. So far, five countries have been assaulted and five couples have been eliminated. Let’s meet our contestants as they embark on another exciting adventure.FIRST The Festers: Chrome-domed frat brothers. Enjoy playful banter, witty repartee and occasional violent outbursts. Newly discovered talents in belly dancing and camel herding.
SECOND Team Guido: Life Partners and Evildoers. Fond of matching outfits and pretension. Successfully fulfill every outdated and odious stereotype right down to the yippy little dog.
THIRD Team Momily: A mother/daughter duo from Waco, Texas. Bless their hearts. Hoping to hold on until they cross a large body of water where Emily’s mammaries can be used as a flotation device.
FOURTH: Ace and Gary. This ambiguous duo are lawyers and best friends. Good looking, successful and oh-so-unattainable. Overly protective of the family jewels.
FIFTH: Bossman & Doormat. Cultured, soft-spoken, bright Margarita and the inflamed appendix she hasn’t figured out needs to be removed.
SIXTH & LAST (again): Lenny and Karyn. She is perennially dis-uh-pointed; he is chronically inept. Coming up in 2002: L & K will become the first couple ever to appear on the Newlywed Game and Divorce Court in the same season.
Now, on with the show:
When we last left our globetrotters, they were hanging out in a tent somewhere in the Sahara. Due to an unexpected sandstorm (unprecedented - a sandstorm in the desert!), the teams have been taken to Gabez. After their mandatory pit stop, our duos discover they need to get to the Palace Hotel in Tunis.
Unfortunately, Gabez is completely devoid of taxis after dark. So the viewers (all 37 of us) are treated to a full 5 minutes of teams looking for a ride. Riveting.
We are then treated to a montage of shots of the contestants in cars on their way to Tunis. Strangely enough, most of the male contestants have started to wear turbans. WTF? Say what you will about the Guidos, but at least they can accessorize better than the competition.
OK - they make it to the Palace Hotel. The route marker there indicates they need to find a pizza parlor next to the Colloseum in Rome. Woohoo! - a whole new country to offend. Various couples arrive and depart. It was all really quite dull. Nothing to report here.
OK - OK - I have a confession. At this point in the show, my phone rang. And really - I take my assignment quite seriously. But see, it was this guy I went out with on Monday and he’s very cute. So I had this heated internal debate about my previous summary writing commitment and his really thick auburn hair. Y’all won! I only talked to him for like 2 minutes. Then I got right back to chronicling the exploits of our dynamic duos. I don’t think we missed much. Seriously, this is Amazing Race! Sooner or later they will all bunch back up again.
The evil Guidos arrived at the airport first and managed to get seats on a flight to Zurich with a connection to Rome. Then the Brunette Guido tried to thwart the Festers by speaking in Pig Latin to the ticket agent. But Tall Fester also speaks Pig Latin and told the Brunette Guido that he would break his legs if he wasn’t careful.
Then Brunette Guido said "Don’t wave your finger in my face."
And then Tall Fester said "Are you talkin’ to me? Are you talkin’ to me?"
And then Blond Guido said "He will always wave his finger in your face."
Much hilarity ensued, but everyone kissed and made up. Temporarily. Sorry for being so vague but I was still kind of excited from the phone call.
There is some kind of controlled strike or something at the Rome airport so flights could only leave when Jupiter aligned with Mars. FYI: I was gonna do an analogy with Roman gods and planets and stuff but I’m not sure if the planets’ names are even from Roman mythology and this summary is already late so pretend this was clever.
Anyway, the Guidos got what appeared to be the last two seats to Rome. Team Momily had now arrived at the airport and were clued in by the Festers.
"It’s like the good luck fairies follow them wherever they go." said Mom. *Sigh* Sometimes the jokes are just handed to you. Thanks Mom - bless her heart.
All the teams scrambled to get tickets on any flight while the snarky Team Guido congratulated themselves on their exceptional fashion sense and superior intellect. I hate those guys!
Miraculously, the short Fester stumbled upon a blind ticket agent who was quite taken with his rugged good looks. The charming Fes managed to get 6 seats on a flight that would arrive in Rome 3 hours before the evil Joe & Bill.
Ace, Gary, Fester #1, Fester #2, and Team Momily hussled to make the flight. Even though the Guidos are convinced they have completely outclassed the competition - and even though they have stated repeatedly that no one can possibly beat them, the fearless Team Guido began to cry like the little girls that they are. Panicked and prissy, they ran over to the security checkpoint then pretended to lose their tickets in order to keep the other teams from catching the plane.
Being the honorable and chivalrous chaps that they are, Team Guido then beat the mom to a bloody pulp and left her comatose on the tarmac. OK - not really. But they pushed her. Hard. Bless her heart. They could have got into a shoving match with the lawyers or the Festers, but no. They push the middle-age mama. Classy.
The teams made the flight anyway after the Guidos got into a confrontation with airport security. As the first flight took off, we got a glimpse of the Guidos volunteering for a full body cavity search from the handsome man with the big metal detector back at the security checkpoint. Ah, romance.
Meanwhile Frank and Margarita took a flight to London and then another to Geneva. And Lenny and Karyn gambled on a direct flight to Rome leaving later in the day.
Lots of weird stuff happened here. The three teams traveling together got stuck in Lyon and then took a train to Milan. Frank and Margarita slept in an airport. Lenny and Karyn got to Rome first. Not that it really matters. Because once in Rome, all the teams got to hurry up and wait til the next day when some monuments open.
The route marker at the colloseum offered a Detour. Find a hoof or a foot. Statue stuff. This whole section was boring.
All the teams talked smack about the Guidos. Surprisingly enough - the Guidos chose to find the statue that was surrounded by other statues of naked men. Ah, art. All the teams chose this option except Lenny and Karyn. That’s a shocker.
The next step of the journey is a train ride to Castelfranco Emelia in northern Italy. Once there they need to find the Pagani Auto Factory. All the teams make the same train. Except Lenny and Karyn. I bet she was dis-uh-pointed.
So the train stops in Bologna. Team Oscar Meyer Weiner and Frank and Margarita decide to take cabs to the factory instead of staying on the train. That was a big boo-boo and a violation of the rules.
In their cab, Frank and Margarita contemplate the sorry state of the game. Margarita: "It’s getting really ugly." Frank: "Yeah, I don’t like the violence between teams." See, Frank only believes in domestic violence.
Ace and Gary, The Festers and Momily stay on the train and complain bitterly. When they get to their destination, they discover there are only 2 taxis in the whole town. Momily willingly gives the cabs to the other two teams after they promise to send one back for them. Bless their stupid little hearts.
All can say is Thank God the Guidos weren’t there for the whole cab debacle. They might have knifed Emily.
Frank and Margarita get to the factory first followed closely by Guido. At the factory they are challenged with a Roadblock that will take them to the final Pit Stop. I’m sure it was worded cleverly, but I can’t read my notes. Here’s a synopsis: They have to get to a little town 10 miles down the road. One team member gets to do it in a kick-ass sportscar; the other has to follow a map written in Italian while driving a car licensed from the official Ed Begley, Jr. Collection of Electric Autos.
Frank seriously impressed me by hiring a cab to drive the route and while he followed. They got to the pit stop first.
The rest of the episode was pretty dull quite frankly. Blonde Guido, Tall Fester, Ace (or was it Gary), Mom and Karyn were the designated drivers.
The riders had much more fun - especially Emily. She took her top off and stuck her bazooms out the sunroof of the roadster in a good will gesture to the young Italian men along the road. (whew, I’ve managed to fit in two references to her fun bags in this summary - my work is almost done).
The finishing order was Frank and Margarita, followed by Team Guido, Ace & Gary, The Festers, Momily and K & L.
I’m very dis-uh-pointed to report that even though Lenny and Karyn came in last, they weren’t eliminated. This is one of those pit stops where nothing happens and everything is pointless and you feel like you’ve wasted an hour of your life taking copius notes about a meaningless episode of a low-rated reality television show.
There was some big explanation about how F & M and Team Guido were penalized for cheating and L & K were credited time for some production problems but none of their rankings changed. Whatever.
More importantly, we discovered that L & K can go from first to worst within the course of one episode - congratulations - you really do suck!
Oh yeah - I almost forgot. The brunette Guido is actually a woman and has experienced this level of violence before. He feels very violated that The Festers - members of the Aryan Nation - are targeting them in a endless cycle of escalating violence. He is really scared and in fear for his life. Poor terrifed brunette Guido. Bless her heart.
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