LAST EDITED ON 02-10-05 AT 10:18 PM (EST)

Official RTVW Summary
The Amazing Race 6 Finale
“Freddy and Kendra Just Won’t Stop Breeding”

Okay, you’re all with me on my position on this here CBS Tuesday night filler, right? Not really amazing. Not really a race. Phil, manmaries, all contestants suck, Bruckheimer not nearly as good at scenery and incorporation of local interest as Burnett, Bruckheimer overly fascinated with trains, planes, automobiles, buses, and that sticking-ugly-Americans-into-places-that-don’t-smell-very-good schtick, and Bruckheimer responsible for lisping syphilitic pirates, the 1978 Iranian hostage crisis, that despicable wreck of a Super Bowl and its failure to produce any interesting commercials, tsunamis, cockroaches and other vermin that aren’t lisping syphilitic pirates, those soft spots on the oranges in my fruit bowl (no, not code for something), Flo and Zach, my increasing dissatisfaction with my day job, Phil’s manmary-enhancing wardrobe, the decline and fall of the Iroquois Federation, election fraud in Florida and Ohio, My Local News’ sacking of Beloved Icon Anchorman and subsequent hiring of Squarejawed Idiot Fox Affiliate Guy From That Bigger Media Market, and the failure of the Maryland Terrapins to field adequate football or basketball teams this season. Among other things.

Sadly for you, even though you understand all of this and support me in my entirety when I expound on such wholly reasonable points of view on these and other matters? I’m still gonna jam about eight or ten thousand words down your throats here. I can’t help it, it’s what I do.

Not first off, but high in the batting order, because I couldn’t possibly start off a summary with a simple thank you but must instead lead in with a few hundred words of more-or-less autotexted jokes that you just can’t quite prove I’ve recycled from previous summaries or derived from other peoples’ work, I must thank the fabulously brilliant, charming, fashionable, gorgeous, selfless, hooterific, and universally beloved Executive Princess Lisapooh for offering me the opportunity to do this summary in her stead while she took a bullet and went off to write summaries of far inferior television filler. All hail the Executive Princess Lisapooh. Do it now. Go on, hail Her.

I mean it. I’m not going on until I hear some hailing.

No, seriously, I’m waiting.

Okay, that’s better. Previously on somewhere between 46 and 193 interminable episodes of The Not Particularly Amazing Not Really A Race:

Think of a number between absolute zero and Phil Keoghan’s bust size. Okay, that’s how many pairs of freakwads left Chicago a similar number of weeks ago for a “race” around the “world.” Now double the number, then divide by two. It’s the same number you started with! Isn’t that amazing?

Okay, okay, back to previousness. Some teams are funny, like Lori and Bolo, and some think they’re funny, like those irrelevant dworks who got eliminated first. Some teams should be exterminated, like the psychopath Jonathan and his former Playmate wife Victoria (who taunts the little freak about his dick size until he implodes, then wails that he’s beating her), or the passive-aggressive skank MaryRebecca and his girlfriend, the passive-aggressive MaryAdam. Some teams are families, like the blondes from…wherever the hell blondes come from, or the fat CIA janitor and his freaky-weird daughter, or the weeping geriatrics Don and Mrs. Don. Some teams are best forgotten, like the obnoxious Queens chicks who no one will ever love. We are treated to the death scenes of seven teams, including the clueless Avi and Joe, the forgettable Queens chicks, the blondes, the Oldfarts, the CIA guy and his unmarriageable daughter, The New Bickersons, and the positively adorable Lori and Bolo.

And we are treated to extended memorifical footage of the four teams that made this final episode: the stinking braless whackjob Hayden and her boyfriend Aaron, who’d be much better off hanging with crackwhores; the relentlessly and cloyingly cheerful Biblethumpers Jon and Kris, who have lucked their way through the entire season with, as a good friend of mine and yours said, “a horseshoe up their a$$”; prettypeople Freddy and Kendra, who broke new ground in ugly Americanism with Kendra’s travelogues on the breeding and bathing habits of poverty-stricken populations; and the domineering MaryRebecca and the cringing, panty-wearing sissy MaryAdam, who are stupid, whining babies who entirely deserve each other. Forever.

By the way, if any of these cretins’ mothers are out there reading this, could you please post in reply to this thread to ask me why I’m being so cruel to your idiot mediawhore children? Thank you.

Phil tells us that, sadly, one of these four pairs of DNA waste receptacles will win the “race” and some giant sh!tpot of green American money, allowing them to take time off to breed. I feel pretty strongly that this sort of thing should be prevented, don’t you? Feel free to chime in here, babymamas of aforementioned cretin mediawhores.

Roll credits, then off to:

Commercials, brought to us by AOL

Various morons telling me, in an unusually lengthy commercial, they believe that people get viruses through any other mechanism than porn-surfing, for AOL; a lipstick ho, for Revlon; a pompous jacka$$, for Campbell’s; an insane dog, for some Pedigree doggie dental product; a highly enthusiastic voiceover, for some Advil product that cures the common cold; and CBS, for Survivor: Palau, including various whining and kvetching about the opportunity to win one million dollars, coupled with some freak jiggling his pecs, and come to think of it? I’m no longer so terribly appalled that I didn’t get a Survivor: Palau summary.

And we’re back, in…I dunno, someplace where non-Americans breed…lessee, okay, we’re in Shanghai, which is not how the Chinese spell it, but it sure nuff is how we’ll spell it, and China’s pretty big, so there’s a whole lotta breeding goin’ on, and where Mary and Mary are going to have to go begging for dough, since they walked in last in a nonelimination leg on the last episode. But first, the Braless Wonder and her idiot boyfriend have to leave. Now, I write these here summary dealies from tape, and I missed about the first half hour of the show when it was on last night, because I was on the phone. But I can tell you that, since the Braless Blunder and her idiot boyfriend are leaving at 11:20 PM, we’re going to get stuck overnighting somewhere, and there’s gonna be bunching. In, y’know, something other than MaryAdam’s panties.

Needsabra and Doofus brak on about fortitude or mettle-testing or some such piffle until it’s time for them to go hail a taxi and head for the train station to catch a train to Xian. The Breeders are about 10 minutes behind them, and we focus on Freddy counting his bankroll, just in case we missed the point about Mary and Mary being broke. He also does his own braking about growthfulness or some such shit, and they’re off to the train station, followed fairly close behind by the Shining Happy People, who brak about the horrors of their last leg. At the train station, everyone finds out that…SURPRISE! There’s no train to Xian until morning, and when there is a train, it’s going to be a 17-hour ride. Ouch.

Meanwhile, Freddy condescends to Kendra, we skip the Shining Happy People, and Mary and Mary go begging after whinging philosophic about their horrible inept-dominance-and-rueful-submission driven life. They actually make money without Mary Adam having to show his pretty little bum to the laughing tourist masses, and magically we all bunch up on the same damn train. MaryRebecca explains the concept of bunk ladders to her pretty little diapersissy MaryAdam, and the Braless Blunder frightens the hell out of small foreign babies who, in most cases, would otherwise be attracted to feeding stations as hugemongous and untethered as hers.

Mary and Mary are sharing a compartment with the Shining Happy People. Witty repartee is exchanged. We speed through rural China, which is not nearly as Communistic and covered in steamed rice as the Braless Blunder’s idiot boyfriend expected. Meanwhile, when the Braless Blunder’s ridiculously oversized and completely uncontrolled breasts aren’t slapping her in the nose and inhibiting her respiration, she loves how the countryside smells.

Despite the Bruckenheimster’s usual fascination with train travel, the aerodynamic, svelte rush of the sleek Chinese passenger trains, the beauty of the countryside, and the opportunity for some interaction between the teams, we arrive at Xian in about 34 seconds of footage, two seconds for every hour the cretins are on the train.

Dark it is here in Xian as the teams disembark and negotiate unintelligibly with taxi drivers who can’t understand them. They’re off to some landmark called the Drum Tower. There is much intercultural mocking by the two cultures involved. Chinese hacks think the racers are hilarious because they are cretins. The cretins think that the Chinese are hilarious because they don’t understand English, the superiority of capitalism and the American military-industrial complex, or the meal-making power of Captain Crunch. Oh, how we laugh, all the way to the Drum Tower.

We bunch again at the Drum Tower, which doesn’t open until 8 AM. When the editor does the scene-cut, it’s day light, and many gaily costumed Chinese persons are drumming and cymbal-crashing and standing at attention with medieval weapons and generally looking stoic and ritualistic as the cretins exhort each other, claim their partner isn’t running fast enough, heave insults at their loved ones for no particularly good reasons, and chase after the clue bus. And we’re at a Detour.

Phil lovingly explains to us in his demented half-Kiwi accent that a Detour is a choice between two tasks. This would go a lot easier if Phil had a chip implanted. It wouldn’t cost very much, and would save a lot of wear and tear on his vocal cords, and let’s face it—just carrying those damned manmaries around all the time has got to be a huge strain on everything above the man’s nipple line. He needs a bra almost as much as Hayden. Once again, he’s wearing a shirt that he thinks is loose-fitting and suave, but which actually molds perfectly to his hideously deformed chest.

We’re choosing between two tasks related to Chinese industrial might. We must either spray paint a crappy Communist car in a crappy Communist car factory, or we must unroll bolts of fabric on a light table in a textile mill to look for the secret ancient Chinese characters that spell Calgon, then clip the characters from the fabric and trade them for a ride on the next clue bus. Supposedly, the crappy Communist car factory is only a little farther, but harder to find, while searching through the bolts of fabric will be tedious, but the textile mill is closer and easy to find.

So we’re running through the streets, trying to hail taxis. There is much taxi thievery going on in the streets of Xian, mostly at the expense of the Shining Happy People, who just aren’t very aggressive about this whole racing thing. The Breeders get their comeuppance by getting stuck in traffic, while the Happypeople just take it all in stride. MaryRebecca cracks her whip and derides MaryAdam’s tendency to whine about everything outside of his comfort zone, which is, of course, everything; the Braless Blunder rants at her dumba$$ boyfriend, who just sits there and takes her shit, including such classics as, “I need you to do something” (about her angst, which centers primarily on being in a foreign taxicab with absolutely no control of her breasts) and “Do you not care?” (about her angst, or about whatever it is she’s raving about).

I have a confession. Long ago and far away—like, say, as recently as last week—I had a little bit of a thing for the Braless Blunder. That is to say, I would have admitted, that recently—in fact, did admit, to at least two close friends—that I’d do her. At least once. Because, you see, of my irrepressibly macho conviction that one tryst with me would completely straighten out this shrieking hag and turn her into something capable of interacting with civilization.

I was wrong. I will cheerfully repeat that as many times as you might like, but the most simple form of the concept is just that: I was wrong. I. Was. Wrong.

My very good friend (and yours) was hugely comforted—gushed great huge heaving sighs of relief, in fact—when I admitted this to her in a phone conversation about 45 minutes into this episode. The part where I was wrong, I mean. Followed by the part where I not only stopped defending the psychotic shrew, I began heaping her with abuse and declaiming whatever hypnosis made me believe, however temporarily, that contact with her flesh would not cause me to shrivel up like the bad guys at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Satan’s Little Helper, on the other hand, never actually accepted that it was true that I’d do Hayden, not even that I’d do her once as sort of a service to humanity. She believes in me, does SLH. I am grateful for her faith, even though at one point in the season she did accuse me of preferring great bloody heaving thrusting globes of wildly unmanageable breastitude over her far more attractive, delicate, petite-ish but nonetheless exquisitely delectable orbs.

Wow, did that last ‘graph read like Victorian porn or what? Stop me if anything thrusts or becomes turgid, mmkay?

All of the cretins are begging their cabdrivers, in English, of course, to hurry up, and to put some wood in it, and to get them to this mysterious factory (which, it seems, in every case, will be the crappy Communist car factory). Mary and Mary, it appears, have the best taxi luck, and get to the crappy Communist car factory first, MaryRebecca gushing that they’re just gonna slop the paint on the car, and be real messy, because let’s face it, what does she care if she semipermanently marks up her little sissybitch of a girlfriend with automobile paint? They don respirators and coveralls and prepare to paint.

Its Bralessness and The Idiot That Tolerates It arrive at the crappy Communist car factory second, as Mary and Mary crack stupid jokes while they paint. Line of the century: MaryRebecca orders MaryAdam to use “nice long strokes.” I will indulge my preference of thinking that she’s talking about the painting, thankyew.

Freddy and Kendra arrive, followed by the Shining Happy People, and we all get down to some uniforming and spraypainting and cussing about other teams who have previously arrived. Various cretins are surprised and dismayed when little martinet Communist supervisors make them actually do the job right. Stunningly, Mary and Mary finish first despite having had a 10-minute lead upon arriving at the crappy Communist car factory.

Their clue directs them to the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum, home of 8,000 terra cotta statues of warriors built to guard the tomb of the first emperor of China. This is some way cool stuff, here. Refer to Interesting Times, by the incomparable Terry Pratchett, for an abfab riff on the terra cotta warriors story. Don’t argue with me, just start buying and reading Terry Pratchett novels right the fvck now.

So Mary and Mary are off, in another taxi, and they’re gloating because they’re in first. It makes MaryRebecca feel particularly amorous—she’s very huggykissy with her little sissyboy. Meanwhile, Blunderbreasts and Dickweed get their clue after having to beg their supervisor for it—he’s too busy screwing with them to actually hand the clue over. The Braless Blunder carries the ill will from this encounter over into the first taxi driver she sees, screaming at him (in English) to go fast, go fast, go fast. Not a Clapton kinda girl, our Blunderbreasts. As they take off, Mary and Mary are karmically stopped in traffic by a government motorcade. Ooh, tough break, childrens, but we have to take our leave of you, for we’re off to:

Commercials:

A trailer, featuring the totally incomparable Vince Vaughn, Yawn Revolta, Cedric the Entertainer, and the recently-reinstated-to-the-List-in-a-state-of-renewed-grace Uma Thurman, along with some other really interesting-looking people, for a movie called Be Cool; a very bad diorama and sexism through the ages, for Wendy’s new program to encourage you to believe that it’s serving things that can be construed as healthy in its megamillion-calorie meals; oh crap, it’s that stupid Emeril for Crest commercial again; a blonde with a really annoying nasal accent, for some heatwrap product for knees; Aerosmith, candles, and a stripper, for…what the fvck? BUICK???? Mommy, what planet did we wake up on? BUICK???? Hold me, Mommy, this is a scary place; people with bad vacuum cleaners, followed by a condescending British guy, for Dyson vacuum cleaners; CBS, for CSI: When Animals Attack, and for Without a Trace; and a PSA encouraging me not to just haul off and beat the freakin’ crap out of Hayden.

And we’re back.

Mary and Mary look back over their shoulders, hopeful that Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad are stuck well behind them as creepy Chicom government officials move freely about the city. But they’re not. That’s because Blunderbreasts screamed so long and loud at their cabdriver that he decided to take the scenic route to punish these howling mad roundeyes. Karma, kids; it works. It really, really works.

The Shining Happy People finish up, chagrined that everyone except The Breeders are ahead of them. Shining Happy Person Kris indulges in a rare fit of pique, complaining about cabdrivers who won’t violate the law in a country that executes people for Thinking About Rain. The Breeders finally finish up, and get on the road, screaming at their cabbie that this is an emergency. This is only, as we shall see, the first time that it will occur to them to abuse this concept during the next 90 minutes or so. And suddenly, the realization crashes down upon me; karma doesn’t always really, really work.

The Shining Happy People talk to the horseshoes in their arses and get their cabbie to pass Mary and Mary’s cab. Meanwhile, Blunderbreasts exhorts Dworkwad to “make him go,” apparently believing that if her boyfriend will simply club their driver to death, they will reach their destination both alive and faster. Blunderbreasts is infuriated that cheapo Communist buses are passing them. Y’all know I’m not about the hatin’ (yes, Fester, honey, strutting boulevardier, Coach K, and Suzy Kobler), but this bitch is really severely testing my convictions. The Breeders freak out that their cabbie doesn’t know where he is, as he drives them aimlessly past a few power plant cooling towers, the Kwik-E-Mart, the Springfield elementary school, and the Krustyburger.

The Shining Happy People spot a giant terra cotta thing and realize they’re where they are. Mary and Mary breathe a sigh of relief as their cabbie excitedly gestures at the same destination. The Shining Happy People don’t realize that it costs money to go see the clay things. Mary and Mary take a moment to smell the terra cotta, then run for the flag. They’re outta here super fast, getting the hell away from the clue box before the Shining Happy People can spot it by their dominasissy stench. Mary and Mary make a brilliant escape as the Shining Happy People mill about aimlessly.

The Breeders whine and bitch and insult their taxi driver, who appears to be lost. Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad arrive at an incorrect destination, then get back on the road, as The Breeders arrive at the museum, just as the Shining Happy People leave the museum. There is much dismay, since the museum is not laid out in such a manner as to put the flag at the very front of the building, and we might have to actually experience evidence of a foreign culture before speeding off mindlessly to our next destination, shouting louder and louder at people who can’t speak our language as we dash.

So we’re off to some mountain…Mount Hwak! Ptooey!, or some such. Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad end up back in the same taxi after a great deal of argument with each other, screaming at the cabbie to go fast! Fast! Fast!

The Shining Happy People are a bit taken aback by the “abruptness” of the Chinese language. Kris observes that Chinese is not a Germanic language. It is obvious that she is joking. I am not convinced that it is obvious to the producers, who apparently believe that the Shining Happy People are bickering.

So back at Mount Hua, which is what it’s actually called, Mary and Mary whine and complain their way around the entrance, paying for a ticket, getting on a shuttle bus that will take them up the mountain. They bitch that someone’s going to catch up to them and, lo and behold, the Shining Happy People do just that.

The Breeders arrive at the mountain, unlike Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad. She screams at them that they need to get a new cab, then screams at him that there’s nowhere to get a new cab. They fight with their cabbie, not wanting to pay him. Blunderbreasts, who instigated this whole thing, keeps bitching about not being able to find a new cab.

Oh yeah. I’m all about the hatin’, and we’re off to:

Commercials:

a tuxedoed man in a desert, followed by numerous people, some of whom are apparently celebrities, for Diet Pepsi; some annoying person, for Aveeno, which can’t possibly be spelled that way; whistling, for Red Lobster, which serves lobsters that apparently must have lemons squeezed on them to be palatable, which is really quite tragic, since my dad lives around the corner from Young’s Lobster Pound in Belfast, Maine, which will sell you a pair of fresh, cooked lobsters with trimmings and drawn butter and side dishes and no freakin’ lemon for about 18 bucks, and which you can then enjoy, lemonless but soaked in drawn-buttery goodness, on the back deck of Young’s while watching the sun set over Belfast Harbor and drinking the bottle of wine that you BYOB’d, and I think you can pretty much see why I think Red Lobster is by and large a very, very bad idea, on top of being a crime against humanity; CBS, for Dave; My Local News, that’s right, the evil one that fired Revered Local Icon Anchorman and let him take his well-regarded political show franchise over to the ABC affiliate, which now houses just about every Revered Local Icon these dipshits have run out of the station and which, stunningly, is beating the unholy snot out of this CBS affiliate’s version of My Local News, but neither of which employ Dignified Former Cokehead Anchorman, his longtime sidekick Aging But Still Perky Do the Anchorbabe, Drunk Nekkid Local Weatherman, Hairweave Sports Guy, or Every Guy In Town Would Do the Aging But Red Hot Weekend Anchorbabe Wendy, all of whom are employed at the NBC affiliate, and I’ll never be writing summaries from that station again, since NBC can’t do reality; a ripoff of Jimi Hendrix, to wit, some idiot playing “Hail to the Chief” on the electric guitar, for Ford, which simply adds to the many, many reasons that you should never, in your entire life, buy a Ford automotive product; loud voiceover, for Toyota, braking on about various reasons I should contemplate supporting My Local Country by buying Toyotas, which are made, apparently, not only in my country, but in my very neighborhood; and a female voiceover, telling me now that this whole stand of commercial goodness was brought to me by ING Direct, which is apparently not just a rootless gerund.

And we’re back.

Where Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad are having a fit, then making up after Dworkwad finds his center and reminds the raging uncontrollable ball of hormonal fury that none of this shite matters anyway, at which point she finally calms down and they have disgusting, sweaty makeup sex in the back seat of a crappy Chicom taxicab.

Yeah. You’re welcome. But trust me, worse imagery involving these two remains to be seen and documented.

Over on Mount Hua, which is really quite a large-looking mountain, MaryMary and the Shining Happy People board little cable car thingies to ascend to the top. MaryAdam whines about whether the cars are safe. MaryRebecca stripes his shaved-smooth little hiney with her quirt, struts about in her PVC thong, and assures him that it’s safe, while simultaneously negotiating selling him to opium slavers so that they might extract the essence of his stoopid little horns for sale as a bogus aphrodisiac. The Breeders, incidentally, are not far behind. Kendra manages to suppress her usual commentary about filthy little people who don’t speak English, in favor of a Willy Wonka memory about how she feels like she’s soaring through the sky after crashing through the roof of the chocolate factory, which is really some pretty marshmallowy stuff, but it does put me in mind of one of my favorite art forms, even though I have to write it for Hayden:

Oompa, loompa, doompedy dee
If you are smart, you’ll listen to me.
Oompa, loompa, doompedy ditz
Must you inflict upon us those damned tits?

Oompa, loompa doompedy vests
We’re really tired of ogling your breasts!
Oompa, loompa, doompedy da
Would it kill you to buy a damn bra?

What do you get when your breasts are untamed?
Massive abuse, but it seems you’re not shamed!
Harness them now, we won’t hate you so much,
but they’ll still feel your dwork friend’s touch!

Oompa, loompa, doompedy doo
I’ve got a little secret for you.
Oompa, loompa, doompedy dross
Bind them up now, cause those things are just gross.

I know, I know. Gaze on these works, ye mighty, and despair.

The Marys and the Shining Happy People both run up the wrong peak. There is much weeping and gnashing of tooth. Both couples turn around and climb the other peak. This is frightful, because both climbs involve very long, very steep steps—at some points, it appears, almost vertical. And when we get there? Roadblock.

Which, Phil informs us after activating the “Roadblock” chip while still wearing that disgusting chest-hugging short-sleeved dress shirt, is a task that only one person may perform, and in a special twist enacted after this game feature was renamed the “Chip Off the Old Block”, each player may perform no more than six Roadblocks during the game.

This is, quite simply put, the most cruel Roadblock ever. It seems that here on Mount Hua, young Chicom lovers hike up to the peak, and then fasten a padlock around a chain railing to show their undying devotion to each other and the Luminous Overlords of the Glorious Peoples’ Revolution.

Okay, I gotta hold up for a sec. I hear many of you asking an important question, a question very much like, “When did Landru become a reactionary 1950s imperialist and start dogging Commies? I mean, I thought he had a heterosexual pink streak eight miles wide?”

It’s true. I’ve been fooling you all along. I am now, and have always been, a reactionary tool of the empire. And I’m your father, Luke.

Yeah, fine. I just like saying “Chicom.” And let’s face it, Commies make truly crappy automobiles. And tanks. Really bad tanks. Happy now?

Uhm…yeah, Roadblock. So there are like 3,000 of these Commie locks, and the Roadblocked playa has a key to exactly one of them. Owie.

Oh, and they have to finish before the last shuttle bus leaves the mountain at 7 PM.

So this turns out to be a chick task; every single team puts the chick on the job, saving that last Guy Roadblock for the next leg, when the very sanctity of chauvinism may depend on having a guy available to perform the Roadblock, which may well be of a don’t-worry-your-pretty-little-childbearing-head nature. This is key strategery here.

There follows an extremely arduous sequence in which the chicks go after the locks, and the men stand back and bark out helpful advice, like, “You’re doing great, honey,” and “Go, honey, hurry up,” and “What’s the problem, a monkey could open locks,” and “Take your time, honey, no, no, faster!” and “What the fvck’s wrong with you, you stupid cow, a blind fingerless cavefish could find the fvcking lock faster than you are, I can’t believe I ever hooked up with you, you bimbo skank!”

We’re still pursuing that course when Blunderbreasts starts screaming at many Chinese persons, trying to find out where the bus is, and why they bought tickets that didn’t get them on a bus, and where’s the bus, and how do I get a ticket for it, and what’s wrong with you stupid Chinese people anyway, don’t you know anything?

This minute of footage was brought to you by World Citizens for a Better Tomorrow.

And back up on the mountain, chicks are jingling locks; Kendra and Kris are still pretty cool about it all, just a little frustrated with the whole Million Points of Lock thing, and MaryRebecca chants that she needs to be Zen about this, just before grabbing the lock she’s working on and shaking it about like a martini shaker, so hard that millions of tons of granite go cascading down the mountain, damming a river and causing a flood that drowns villages that have lived in peace since Europeans were still throwing sharpened sticks at Augustus Caesar.

We flop back and forth, between Blunderbreasts screaming and getting on the wrong bus and pi$$ing off Dworkboy so much that he hurls his backpack, and the people on the top of the mountain, turning locks as their pretty little fingers begin to seize up and bleed and cry out for the relief that can only be brought by typing 80 words per minute in a secretarial sweatshop, and Dworkboy complaining that he’s not having any fun, which is really stunning considering that he’s spending it with a banshee shrew, and all of a sudden Kris pops a lock and the Shining Happy People are outta there.

The next trick is to show up at the South Gate of the Xian City Wall. It is manned by a man in a “City Wok” cap, otherwise dressed in fanciful medieval Chinese plumage, riding astride an armored horse, back and forth, guarding the gate, screaming “Why Mongoreans attack Shitty Wall?”

Thank you. Derivative humor is our favorite.

Shitty Wall is, it develops, our pit stop, where one team will be eliminated and the others freed for a mad dash across about three-eighths of the planet. And the Shining Happy People, it appears, are riding that horseshoe to an early finish at the pits.

Blunderbreasts and Dworkboy finally calm down enough to get to the mountain, as the Shining Happy People are leaving. Kendra and MaryRebecca get to the end without finding the right locks, both turning around and starting over. Kendra finds hers first, and The Breeders are off to Shitty Wall. MaryRebecca actually apologizes to MaryAdam for taking so long; he uncharacteristically tells her the apology isn’t necessary. I think this is their expression of overconfidence.

The Shining Happy People and the Breeders leave on buses within minutes of each other, or so the editing leads us to believe. Kendra needs a hug, and Freddy obligingly pulls her into his lap and, for some reason, buries his face in her armpit. I’m quite certain that this is touching.

Blunderbreasts gets her key stuck, and begins to bitch yet again at Dworkwad. He tells her to stay calm and work the thing out, because he can’t help with a Roadblock. She screams at him that it’s not a matter of being calm, just before the key breaks off in the lock and we head to:

Commercials:

Annoying superlatives, for Notebook, which looks like a seriously turgid chickflick that you couldn’t pay me to see; The Blue Man Group, for…oh, whoever the fvck they’ve sold out to most recently, which turns out to still be Intel; children playing football and breaking car windows, for…Tysons Ready-to-Eat Bacon? WTF? Okay, first, Tyson makes chickens, not pigs, and B, who the hell eats pre-cooked bacon? I mean, I am the Laziest Man Alive, and even I fry my own damn bacon; bright lights and soapy skin, for Caress; people on the sidewalks and in the subway, for some Kellogg’s cereal that claims to be good for your heart, and did you know that E.J. Kellogg, the original Battle Creek guy, was like a total freak? Seriously, Google him, look it up, you’ll be glad you did; CBS, for Dave, and for a new show that I can’t really take seriously because Rob Morrow just can’t pass for a cop; a rocket blasting off, which is certainly not code for something, for Volvo; MC Hammer, who has aged, like, uhm, a lot, for Nationwide, and I’m just gonna do the math for you here: this is an aging ex-rapper, hawking insurance; horribly boring actors in a hackneyed plot, for Midas, in a commercial that your friend and mine described as…well, to be honest, I don’t remember the word she used, but she really hated it, and like me, she’s just not about the hatin’; happy music accompanied by Seussian rhyme, for the Toyota Avalon, in what I think is a serious crime against humanity; and My Local News, which, if you haven’t heard, is another serious crime against humanity, teasing me with a story about…Gus, not the monkey, the fat CIA janitor, who is apparently a denizen of my metroplex, which is not surprising, since the place a CIA janitor would be cleaning is also in my metroplex, and to be honest, the prospect of casually running into his freakazoid unmarriageable daughter is really beginning to skeeve me out a bit.

And we’re back.

So Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad have to go find another key, which they do, as Mary and Mary exult and MaryRebecca continues to hack away at the locks. Down in the city, the Shining Happy People jump off the bus and catch a cab to the South Gate to find the Shitty Wok guy and the Mongoreans, and lo and behold, so are Kendra and Freddy.

There is more charming byplay between the Marys, and between Team Breasticles, as the people down below find the South Gate, where Phil and some Chinese guy are waiting smugly, Phil still in his damn short-sleeve dress shirt with the deformity-highlighting qualities, as the Shining Happy People arrive first and win a Caribbean vacation, compliments of an airline that I will neither fly nor mention (it’s a long story, but suffice it to say that I’ll fly damn near anyone but the airline that stole the Web domain righteously belonging to Alcoholics Anonymous). There is brakage about the wonder of their making the final three and competing in the final leg and about how magnificent they are. Freddy and Kendra come in second. Freddy claims that he promised Kendra they’d make the final three. Kendra calls Freddy her “little hero”, tragically confusing the man with one of his body parts.

Back on Mount Hua, MaryRebecca and Blunderbreasts are still banging away at the locks as their menfolk grow increasingly bitchy. MaryAdam tells MaryRebecca to stop being a baby. Screams of “pot, kettle” echo through the cosmos. The whining level increases. Blunderbreasts quits moments before MaryRebecca opens a lock. Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad instantly decompress and fall deeply in love.

Everyone jumps off the bus, and Blunderbreasts and Dworkwad thoughtfully outrace the Marys to the finish pad. Phil’s breasts inform them that they are being penalized four hours for not finishing the Roadblock, and that they’ve been eliminated. He informs the Marys that they are the last team to arrive and that they’re in, as Blunderbreasts hugs MaryRebecca.

And then, the horror strikes. Dworkwad loves Blunderbreasts. He gets down on one knee and proposes. Blunderbreasts accepts. The Marys look on in horror. Phil is dumbstruck. And so are you, America. For my part, I? Am figuratively suicidal. For one thing, these two bungholes may conceivably reproduce. For another, I will have to write the rest of this august work without referring once to Hayden’s breasts. Tragedy has befallen us all. Sic semper tyrannis.

Brakage follows, as the remaining teams blather about strategery and competitiveness and other brakworthy (not) topics. You will no doubt thank me for repeating none of it and merely pointing out that we are now proceeding to:

Commercials:

a rugby match featuring team England and…huh? Gladys Knight? for MBNA, which, oddly enough, has massive office works in and near the aforementioned Belfast, Maine, and constitutes the bulk of the county’s economy, along with lobstering, flea markets, fleecing summer tourists, treehugging, and feminist art collectives; repeated dworks, again denying that viruses result from anything but your favorite nekkid cheerleader site; smug voiceover and bad music, for the still-ugly PT Cruiser; pompous voiceover and a guy getting out of bed, for Nyquil; a perky dickweed, for some tooth enamel product; people in a diner reaching out and accidentally touching each other over a salt shaker, for…what? Hallmark? WTF?; and CBS, for the God chick show, and for some Dr. Phil special starring the long-ago-aforementioned New Bickersons.

And we’re back.

Phil is doing exposition, in a way that tells us that they originally cut this as two episodes and CBS jammed them together so as to be able to squeeze in a Dr. Phil special in this timeslot next week which, coincidentally, is exactly what is going to happen. Apparently, Xian is a pretty cool place, and used to be the capital of the empire, for some 12 dynasties, which I reckon is a pretty long time.

It’s 5:30 in the morning, and we’re gonna fly to Honolulu, where we will drive to a park and open a cluebox. We have to go buy airline tickets first, because in China you can’t walk into the airport and buy international tickets. This is because China is a pack of freedom-hating Commies, and it’s illegal for American citizens to admit, at the airport, that they’re leaving the country. This, of course, does not prevent some dozen or so daily flights from taking off from Xian for Tokyo and Osaka.

So there’s gonna be a bunch of running around and ticket-hounding, and can’t you just smell a good panty-bunching coming on? I knew you could. There is much brakage as filler. The Breeders are about 90 minutes behind; Kendra is dancing happily, knowing that she is going back to a place where people speak English, take baths, and breed at a rate appropriate to their station in life. She braks on about how it’s no more mister nice guy for the Breeders; nosirree bob, she’s gonna lie, cheat, steal, and flog MaryRebecca’s girlfriend if that’s what it takes to win. She is not kidding, as we shall see.
So we’re all sprinting back to the Chicom hotel so we can buy tickets and excape this here Commie country. The Shining Happy People catch a cab to the travel agent, where they are faced with an impenetrable language barrier. The Breeders can’t understand the Chicom telephone system. The Shining Happy People bail on the English-impaired travel agent and head back to the hotel, arriving at the hotel’s now-open business center just after The Breeders escape.

Upshot of all this airline bullsheeot, which is going to take up way too much of our freaking time to describe in anymore kaleidoscopic pandemonial detail (But while we’re on the topic, how do you make a panda moan?): The Breeders have to get to the airport stat quick. They will travel through Osaka and get to Honolulu at 9:30 AM local. They must book to get to the airport on time. After some sit-and-spin, the Shining Happy People discover that they will go through Tokyo and get to Honolulu at about 9:45 AM local.

The Breeders make their flight, the Shining Happy People make their flight, and the Marys, who are like 4 hours behind, finally get out of bed. They will go through Osaka and get to Honolulu at 11 AM local. In their taxi, there is much made of the language barrier as the cultures laugh maniacally at each others’ alieniffic natures. The Marys make their plane, and we do the map and radar and lines on the map representing our flight plans routine.

So over in Osaka, the Breeders try to make an earlier flight to Honolulu. At the JAL counter, Freddy once again displays the team’s total lack of familiarity with the dictionary definition of “emergency”, claiming that an “emergency” requires JAL to move heaven and earth to put them on the earlier flight. The gate agent politely informs them that he is deeply sorry that company policy prevents him from accommodating their ridiculously selfish request. You or I, in the same customer service situation, would simply tell them to fvck off.

Kendra begins to whine. Then she lies, telling the unfortunate JAL employee that she has a sick child in Honolulu, forgetting that the guy with the TV camera standing 12 feet behind her is not invisible. He repeats that he is deeply shamed that he is unable to help the team meet its goal of world domination today, and that he must now help fuel the Zeros for their flight to Pearl, and would the Breeders mind please ceasing their continued dishonor of his humble presence? Freddy doesn’t get it; JAL has seats available, but won’t give them to Team Breeder. It is inconceivable to him that JAL could be so cruel as to actually try to operate a company without taking into account his personal and special needs.

Over in Tokyo, the Shining Happy People try to pull the same trick, but without lying, and come away only slightly less frustrated, as Jon says “I can’t talk to any of you any more,” presumably referring to the legions of polite JAL employees who refuse to move other people into first class so that the Happypeople can fly in economy, as the “race” “rules” require.

And back in Osaka, the Marys land. They try to get on the same flight that the Breeders are boarding. Rebecca has the same difficulty grasping the “emergency” concept that Freddy had a few hours before, and once again, legions of evil JAL employees conspire to keep nonpaying customers from boarding a flight on which the doors are about to close. After considerable begging, JAL leaves us hanging as we go to:

Commercials:

A trailer, for Shark Tales on DVD; some brothers who make concrete, for Quaker Oats, and I’ll just let you do the math on that one; a dog watching the conveyer at baggage claim, for…ugh, Disney and its promise to pick up your bags at Orlando when you stay at one of its hotels and submit entirely to its brainwashing program; a film production crew and a model/actress, for…I’m guessing hair, makeup, something, oh yeah, Head and Shoulders, which has, by the way, a penetrating formula, which will no doubt set some of you all atwitter; vehicles slogging through deep mud, for GMC pickup trucks; a clichéd 50s detective, inexplicably, for Flonase; CBS, for the Dr. Phil Exploits Jon and Blondie special, and for Dave, and for The Late Late Show, whatever the hell that is, and for King of Queens, still unfunny after all these years; My Local News, with a tease about what was either a road-rage killing or a contract hit, but I don’t really care, because it’s that square-jawed Fox reject delivering the tease, and frankly, I recently visited several places out in your little provincial media markets, and I’d cheerfully take any of your seriously provincial little hairdos over this fvcktard replacement for a Local Living Legend, and with yet another tease for a story about CIA janitor guy, presumably including a visit with his spooky unmarriageable daughter; a ridiculous semi-industrial version of “Magic Carpet Ride,” the most-abused song in the entertainment industry, combined with much movement and vehicularity, for some Chevy vehicle; an earnest-looking minimum-wage Entertainment Department employee, for WalMart; and cool papa voiceover, for Popeyes, and I just noticed that I’m getting hungry.

And we’re back.

Where JAL says so sorry, not happening, and the Marys are similarly befuddled that JAL will not move heaven and Earth to put their dominasissy a$$es on a flight that’s revving up for takeoff. MaryAdam pretty much bursts into tears, then tells the gate agent that she’s very mean. I figure it probably doesn’t work when he does it to his mommy, either.

But if MaryAdam’s mommy is out there reading this, do please reply to this post and tell me if it works. And while you’re at it, tell me how you managed to raise such a clueless little sissybitch. Was it deliberate? You get off on that kinda thing? If so? You go, girl.

So JAL flight 88 takes off from Osaka with the Breeders and without the Marys, and some other JAL flight takes off from Tokyo with the Happypeople, and it’s time for us to stop this airport foolishness for a few precious moments ™, and go look at footage of Hawaii. The Breeders are the first ones to hit the turf in Honolulu, and they drive off to some state park to find the next cluebox. They are excited to be in Hawaii. The Happypeople hit dirt about 15 minutes behind them. Meanwhile, the Marys are looking glum on the next Osaka-Honolulu flight.

The Breeders briefly take in a little natural rainforest beauty, then get on the clue bus, where the conductor informs them that they are going on a Detour. A Detour, as Phil, dressed in the nasty dark blue sports shirt that clings to his pretty titties, explains yet again, is a brak brak brak.

The choice here is between going through racks of clothing, like 165,000 pieces, to find matching hideous tropical outfits, or paddling an outrigger-type canoe for a couple of miles, the choice being between non-physical but confusing, or straightforward but muscular. The Breeders go canoeing. The Happypeople, inexplicably for such strapping young physical specimen bottles, choose the clothing thing, although frankly it won’t matter at all in the eventual outcome of this here hootenanny.

By the way, this is at least the second consecutive summary in which I have found a perfectly valid reason to use the word “hootenanny.” I know that you appreciate this rigorous attention to ritual, and I deeply regret—am shamed, in fact—that I was unable, in this instance, to insert the words “big ole” before that hallowed noun. Thank you for flying JAL.

The Marys finally land in Honolulu, but we’re not sure how far behind the curve they are. You get the impression that their flight was about 3 hours behind the Breeders’, but we’re doing funky editing compression to make it look like they’re a lot closer behind the Happypeople. The odd bit here is the weather; the sun is always shining on the Breeders, but it’s raining on the Happypeople as they get their clue, and on the Marys as they leave the airport. But the sun shines on the Marys as they get their clue. I suspect that there’s some considerable distance between the airport and the clue bus.

Okay, I got way too wrapped up in that shite. So there’s this interlude where we’re supposed to be amused by Freddy’s inability to pronounce Hawaiian street names, but that’s a pretty flat old joke, since it was done to death back in the days of Bolo’s inability to pronounce…uhm…well, anything. So the Breeders do the geography thing, and the Happypeople go off to play dressup.

Kris has a fine eye for fabrics and stuff, and the Breeders splash their way through a boat ride. Kendra bitches mercilessly every time Freddy opens his mouth. And the Marys find a clue in the bright sunshine.

The Happypeople finish finding clothes, and the Breeders finish their boat ride. Everyone is now off to a charter air company place, where there will be another clue. The Happypeople get there first, streaking with bullet-like precision to their destination, in an air of total Zen calm, pooping a trail of horseshoes all the way. They find the clue easily, and it’s a Roadblock. Brak brak brak, Phil’s still in the extremely unflattering dark blue shirt.

This one requires us to parachute, in tandem with an instructor, from 11,000 feet onto a sandbar, where cluefulness awaits.

So’d I ever tell you about my last night as the reader of the 11 PM news on WKCO radio, the voice of Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio? I thought not. My only pay in that job was to hang out in the radio station for hours, sitting in the booth with the deejays, smoking dope and picking records to spin, and occasionally taking requests and sending out dedications to various stoned, drunk, and/or horny dormitories or fraternities. My routine was to come in at about 10:30 or so, gather up miles and miles of paper from the wire service teletypes, sort the wire service copy, and get down to some serious plagiarizing. I’d choose some headline stuff, national and world (local news consisted of things agricultural and reports on which townie girls gave the best tongue), and some sports scores, and usually a feature or two, thoughtfully tagged by the wire service. That fateful night, though, I was late. And I was tripping my brains out. And the deejay knew it.

Instead of sorting the copy, I went to the wall in the news closet, from which various copy hung from hooks labelled “National,” “Foreign,” “Sports,” and “Features.” I grabbed the top few sheets off of each hook, and settled into the news booth, putting on my headphones and waiting for my cue. I heard my cue—“Here’s Andy with the news”—and tried to start reading. I was a little hampered, though, because the deejay, Bill, decided I needed some eerie background music for tonight’s news. After I sat and listened to the pretty music for about 30 seconds, Bill came back on and gently suggested once again that I might possibly be Andy with the news. I stopped giggling and actually started reading.

I got through some national and global and sports news just fine, more or less, not even stumbling over—and I remember this very clearly—Nicolai Ceaucescu, then prime minister of Rumania, who had repressed someone significant that day, or some such thing. I got to the features page, which I hadn’t previewed, and started to cold-read a story about Evel Knievel paradropping 10,000 feet into a moving convertible. I got about eight words into the story and starting howling uncontrollably.

I don’t really remember Bill coming on and saying something like, “Andy will be back with more news later.” I don’t remember him dragging me from the news booth into the comfy chair in the big booth. I’m told those things actually happened though.

I don’t remember Dean Wormer (not her real name) calling to fire me about three minutes thereafter, but I hear that happened, too.

So Jon’s getting ready to jump for the Happypeople, and the Breeders are getting lost, and Freddy cusses about it, and this must be getting pretty dramatic, because we’re off to:

Commercials:

a trailer, for Hitch, which stars Will Smith who, at last count, had something like 141 Blowhevians on one thread lined up to do him; a line cook, for Denny’s which will make you great steaming piles of breakfast food, as long as you’re not (in my state, anyway) an African-American Secret Service agent; a screaming blonde and a pack of depressed superheroes, for the Visa Check Card; a lovely and earnest young woman talking to me in measured but slightly perky tones about plaque, for Colgate, which, it says, protects you for 12 hours from a complete range of oral sex health problems, and the fine print under the ad says, “Real consumer testimonials accurately portrayed by an actor,” which really rather startles me, because they could just have gotten the actor to like Colgate, couldn’t they?; pompousness, for Zales, which is a jeweler that may or may not exist in your region; animated characters, for Ritz crisps; two young modern women, for Neosporin lip goop, which apparently helps your chapped lips and saves you from herpes; various happy women, for women’s Rogaine; and CBS, for Survivor: Palau, which looks neither more interesting nor less frightening in this promo than it did in the last one.

And we’re back.

We have reached the point where the weight of almost exactly 90 minutes of footage and about 8 hours of writing are coming crashing down on my soft little head; we’re also closing in on 9,000 words (I told you so). Further, it has been about 30 footage minutes and about 22 real hours since I was last able to tell you anything about Hayden’s ridiculously gigantic and totally unrepressed oobies <click>. I am becoming morose. I hate these people. I want this race to be over. Kindly adjust your expectorations accordingly.

So, let’s see, the Breeders are lost, and the Marys are arriving at the canoe place, and paddling their little boat. Miraculously, the Breeders arrive at the parachutism venue, and Jon and Freddy end up on the same airplane. Breedergirl and Happygirl ride separate little boats out to the anticipated landing zone. Happyboy makes Colin-like gestures out the window of the plane as they take off. Happyboy and his new homosexual lover jump from the plane, Happyboy screaming happily all the way. As Happyboy is about to land, Breederboy jumps, also screaming happily.

So down on Earth, the Happy Shining People collect their clue, which tells them to fly to Chicago, where they will take a train to the Old Water Tower and their next clue. The Happypeople babble happily and make for the airport.

Breederboy lands, the Breeders collect a clue, and head for the airport. The Marys collect a clue, and decide that MaryAdam will skydive. By this point, though, MaryAdam is getting pretty used to wetting his pants, so he doesn’t weep too much as they prepare for the jump. He even jumps with only a modicum of whimpering, and actually seems to be digging the ride. He is such a sissy freak. The Marys collect a clue and head for cluefulness. MaryRebecca gives him a big old kiss as he jumps in the boat. Ew. The camera also reveals that, according to MaryRebecca’s halter top, it is getting a tad chilly on the coastal waters of Hawaii.

Okay, time for our last big ole airport hootenanny. There, better?

The Happypeople discover that the fastest flight to Chicago will get them there on the aforementioned airline that I won’t fly, at 5:43 AM local. This turns out to be untrue, as the Breeders reveal to us at the United counter a little while later, getting on a flight that’s scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 5:15 AM local. There are the usual interrogations of airline employees about schedules, and we’re settled on our flights. Breedergirl is gloating about the tremendous lead the Breeders will have on the ground in Chicago.

The Marys arrive, and while only their boarding time is given, so as to attempt some suspense surrounding their total lack of a chance at winning, the math says they’re getting into Chicago about two hours behind the other teams. They fly, on that airline that I won’t, and we cut to Chicago.

Where karma catches up to the Breeders. Their plane arrives 10 minutes late, and they are sprinting off of the airplane. Pooped horseshoes litter the runways of O’Hare as the Shining Happy People land 5 minutes later—15 minutes early. Oh boy, it’s a race. The two teams end up on the same train into the city. Breederboy assures Breedergirl that, no matter what happens from now on, they’re winners and all those people in Dakar and Addis Ababa and Shanghai and Colombo are losers who need baths and vasectomies. The Happypeople are relaxed, happy, confident, and redolent in piles suspiciously overleafed clovers and suspiciously soiled horseshoes.

That would’ve been a really good place for some good old-fashioned American commercialism, but no, we’re hitting the subway station and running for the Water Tower. The Breeders get a little bit of a jump, and the Happypeople get caught in a little bit of a crowd. The Breeders hit the cluebox running, where they find that they must go to a pizzeria and eat one of the sloppiest, most tomato-drowned pizzas ever seen. The Breeders are suspiciously overconfident about chowing down on ‘za at 7 in the morning, but Freddy swears he’s eating that sucker even if it’s covered in six-legged Haydens.

The Happypeople get their cab, and I notice something interesting; they’re no longer carrying a bag. Freddy and Kendra are, and I’ll bet you’re almost convinced that this is significant.

The waitress tells Freddy and Kendra that they must each eat two slices of pizza. “That’s all?” asks an incredulous Kendra, and you can just tell we’re lining up for a puking, can’t you?

Meanwhile, Happygirl wiggles in Happyboy’s lap in the back of the taxi, telling him how excited she is about deep-dish pizza, and I’m pretty sure that there’s something mildly obscene going on just below the camera’s line of vision.

Freddy does his usual trick of talking relentlessly and encouragingly to Kendra as she chokes down pizza. She tells him to zip it, just before she gags, pukes, whimpers, and sends us off to:

Commercials:

a trailer, for a really horrid-looking sequel to The Mask, which Jim Carrey apparently had the good sense not to touch; happy entranced children, for Splenda, which apparently hypnotizes people and makes them move in an very odd, dreamy fashion; a cloying child talking to her sister or mommy or someone, for Kay Jewelers; various aging models, for some Revlon product; a happy couple and their cats, for Arm and Hammer kitty litter, which can’t possibly rid your home of the smell of that cat you just irritated by withholding a few grams of tuna; annoying cereal factory workers, for Post; a really annoying and fat couple, and a cloying “am I fat?” joke, for Twix; a gasping woman and some other persons, for various flavors of Robitussin; CBS, for CSI: Sipewicz, and for CSI: Original Recipe, and for a very special Without a Trace; My Local News, still squarejawed, stupid, thicktongued, New-York-accented, and Fox-rejected, and still teasing the same old crap; and happy music and vehicular motion, for some damn car, oh, it’s that stupid Seussian rhyming thing for Toyota again.

And we’re back.

We’re at the pizzeria, where Kendra is gagging and choking and puking. Freddy tells Kendra that he does not want the pizza to beat her. Breedergirl screams at him to shut the fvck up, no pizza will beat her, shut the fvck up shut the fvck up shut the fvck up. Breederboy keeps up the positive reinforcement chatter. By the time she finishes puking and choking down the last bits, I’m joining her in her cry of shut the fvcking fvck up, you stupid pigfvcking unshaven piece of model shit, and come to think of it, could you possibly find a pair of glasses that are less fvcking appealling, you gorram self-absorbed cretin?

Oh. Did I forget to mention that I’d probably still do Kendra? Y’know, like, just once, maybe?

No matter. She finishes a good vom and they get the clue. Oddly enough, she’s still chewing the last piece happily, now that Freddy has finally shut the fvck up.

So we’re headed for Ping Tom Park, which is where the finish line is. The Breeders commence to trying to find a taxi, Breedergirl belching loudly and happily. They’re around the corner from the Happypeople, who walk into the pizza place and positively rip into their pizza.

The Breeders grab a taxi, and Freddy holds the taxi and flags down a police car, telling them that it’s…brace yourself…an emergency and he needs them to lead their taxi to Ping Tom Park. The not-born-yesterday police officers ask, savvily, “What’s the emergency?” Breedergirl begins screaming that it’s not an emergency. Breederboy apologizes and the police, sadly, do not hook them up and run them to whatever passes for Central Booking in Chicago.

I would have.

Meanwhile, the Marys are landing at the airport. But it appears that the Breeders’ taxi driver has no idea where this Ping Tom Memorial Park is. His dispatcher has no idea where the park is. On the first viewing of this, I was nearly peeing myself in excitement that these lying, skeeving fvcktards might finally get their comeuppance, because y’know what? After lo these many weeks of really coming to dislike the Shining Happy People? I have suddenly become attracted to their Zen-like manner, the peaceful glow that surrounds them, their holstered breasts, their failure to whimper like sissies when encountering bad stuff like raindrops and taxis that don’t smell very good, and their utter lack of a tendency to lie and assert their self-importance when encountering humans out in the world. But I’d still dislike them, a lot, in real life.

So the Marys pile into a taxi, MaryRebecca screaming that they’re good at pizza, and MaryAdam whimpering that he hopes it’s plain cheese.

The Happypeople absolutely demolish their pizza and run like hell. They get a cab, and the driver knows where the park is. The Marys get to the pizza place. MaryRebecca asks for soy cheese. I missed this on the first run-through, and you know what? It’s official. She needs to slump over.

The Breeders stop every car at every stoplight to ask the whereabouts of this mysterious park. The Marys argue about pizza. The Breeders pull into something park-like, but it’s not the right one. They’re panicking. They’re aimless. The Marys finish pizza and find a cab.

And the Breeders turn into Chinatown. Yeah, that just might be the general whereabouts of something called Ping Tom. Just maybe, huh?

The Breeders pile out of the cab, shedding baggage as they sprint into the park. The Happypeople are hot on their heels. There are railroad tracks crossing the road into the park.

And all the horseshit from all the horses in the world suddenly falls from the sky onto Jon and Kris, as a 476-car CSX freight train chooses right now to schlep through this urban grade-level crossing that stands between them and a chance to run down the Breeders from behind.

Wow. Breeders win.

Brak brak brak winners, one million dollars, applause from the losers, other teams arrive, pompous speechifying, Breedergirl weepy and gushing that Breederboy is worthy of having her children. Hayden, by the way, looks really crappy even in makeup and a bra.

Jon and Kris finish after the train goes away and they smoochify and adore each other a whole buttload. They get to the finish and gush about each other some more. They’re actually kind of a cute couple, but they’re way too freaking positive for me.

Much later, the Marys arrive, dumba$$ MaryAdam still toting their backpack. MaryAdam tells us that he’s glad he brought his little sissy buttocks out on the road. MaryRebecca tells us that she’s dumping the little diaperboy.

There is much hugging, it develops that Hayden isn’t wearing a bra after all, and we’re off to:

Commercials:

My Local News, SSDD; a guy backing down his driveway, for Blockbuster’s imitation of Netflix; more improbable dworks still yakking knowledgelessly about viruses, for AOL; children splashing in a stream and other scenes of people recreating out in America, for some organization that promotes RVs; CBS, for the Early Show, and for the Grammy Awards.

And we’re back, with scenes from the next season of TAR, most noteworthy because yes! Yes! Yes! It’s true! Rawb and Ambuh are going to be on the next season of TAR! I may wet myself, this is so fuh-reakin’ cool! The other racers appear to be hosers, including one guy who is being mawked because he was a POW in the war in Iraq. We’re starting off in Peru, where one can hope that the entire cast except for Rawb and Ambuh will be taken prisoner by Shining Path.

Woo-hoo! Rawb and Ambuh!!!!!

And we’re done. Thanks again to Lisapooh for giving up a pinchhitting opportunity, to AyaK for authorizing it, and to all of you for sitting through nearly 11,000 words.

And a special fine-print shoutout to shoutout virgin Geg, who earned it and then some today.

Edited because the filter doesn't like a certain word that rhymes with "ditz."