Duke and Lauren, we hardly knew ye

There are many things going on in the world that I'd like to comment on, but for the moment, I'll confine myself to the TAR recap. I'll give my perspective on everything else tomorrow! Before I start though, to Angela, a big thank you for calling to make sure I didn't miss a minute of this week's episode! There was a weird start time to the show this week - I guess a football game must've run long earlier in the day. In any case, I appreciate that you thought of me! To Judy - girl, what were thinking??? Don't reveal the ending when you email me to see if I watched the episode!!! If I haven't seen the show yet (sometimes I have to tape it and watch it later), the suspense will be all ruined! How can I sit on the edge of my seat watching the penalized team all wracked with anxiety when I already know they're not the ones to get eliminated?

Okay, so this week we start by flying to Vietnam. I think the best line of the day was when the beauty queens grabbed a travel agent that TnT passed up, and TnT thought that constituted cutting (I like TnT, but I don't think that's a fair assessment - if you had first crack at her and you walked on by, she's fair game for someone else). The one T says to the other that it's okay, because that shows the girls would never win "the beauty pageant of kindness." The beauty pageant of kindness. Classic.

Other notes from this segment - Lauren and Duke didn't have enough money for the cab, and yet somehow it was all okay when they got to the airport. I think I missed something. Was the driver okay with taking less than he was owed? Also, a shout out to Lyn and Karlyn for givin' the South some love. Yes, we are a friendly and cordial people.

Once in Vietnam, the first clue was at the Hanoi Hilton. I had mixed emotions about the teams going there. It seems to be something of a museum now, so I guess tourists are encouraged, but it seems irreverent to make it part of a game. It bothered me to see people just running all around in there looking for a clue and barely registering exactly what they were seeing - not really thinking about what went on there and imagining what it must have been like for the prisoners. People were tortured and died there. It's not a theme park. I give huge props to TnT and The Brothers for stopping to show a little respect/reverence for John McCain's flight suit, even if they might lose some time. Some things are more important than money.

Road Block. Selling flowers. It would depend on who my partner is whether I'd do this one. I wouldn't mind doing it, but I have friends who do sales who could do it better and faster than I could, so it would all depend on that. Also, those bikes looked a little unwieldy. I could see me tumping over and all my merchandise ending up on the pavement. A relatively easy Road Block, though.

Vac Village. As much as that bus error hurt Sarah and Peter, think how much worse it would've been if they hadn't found out as quickly as they did that they were on the wrong bus. Best line in this segment was when the teams were trying to cross the busy street: "It's like Frogger, dude." I had a little blast back to my Atari days.

Detour: Fuel or Fowl. Like all the rest of the teams, I would've picked Fuel. Funny how it always turns out that at least one team does the other task - whether they choose it, or stumble into it like Duke and Lauren, somehow the other task gets done by at least one team. I wonder how long it took Duke and Lauren to find the birdcage task and if things would've turned out differently if they'd chosen that one - if they could've found it sooner and wasted less time looking for the coal one, and that would've been the difference.

Pit Stop in the rice paddy. I like that Erwin and Godwin won this leg! I like those guys, and they pumped up their karma with their respect at Hanoi Hilton. I thought Peter should've helped Sarah through the rice paddy. She was on all fours for pity's sake, and he just ran ahead. Hell-o! You remember your girlfriend, the amputee, right?

I think it's nice that David and Mary are making friends with people who are so outside their normal sphere. It just goes to show that just because people don't have a lot of diverse friends doesn't automatically mean it's because they don't *want* to have diverse friends - maybe there just isn't a lot of diversity where they live. Most people probably thought straight away that they'd be racists or homophobes and such because they live in Kentucky, but they've taken people as they are and liked other people based on how they play and behave. That's how it should be.

On a different note, if Mary's ankle doesn't heal up, that could be a problem. Same with Sarah's prosthetic - they'd better get that thing fixed. You need to be able to run in this game.

I was very bummed that Duke and Lauren were eliminated. I liked them. There's no one at the moment I'm actively rooting against, though I'm not crazy about the beauty queens, but there are a few teams I have no opinion of still, and I would rather have lost one of those than Duke and Lauren. I got all teary when he talked about just wanting her to be happy. What a good dad.