The Amazing Race Recap
By Daron Aldridge
December 1, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com

*sad Globetrotters whistle*

"It starts with an F. That's all I'm saying." – Dan's contribution to working together with Big Easy.

First, I missed not being able to ridicule the gamesmanship and overall douchebaggery of the brothers last week but am in agreement with the astute and contemptuous conclusions that David and Kim provided. Also, I didn't get to mock the teams' complete ignorance of the location of Prague ("No, Sam, it's not a country" and "Can we really believe your excitement of seeing Prague, since you thought it was A COUNTRY??"), the total hair-brained guesses as to what a vintage Praga was, the unfamiliarity of what a mandolin was (didn't any of these people ever see R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion video?) or the transportation woes of Brian and Ericka. Now that that business is covered, let's get down to our final three because there can't be anymore non-elimination legs this season.

This penultimate episode starts with Meghan and Cheyne once again because they once again finished in first. Leaving about 30 minutes later, the brothers acknowledge that they are now seen as the villains. I would add "cowardly" to villains given their spineless averted eyes when they crossed paths with their taxi-jacking victims Brian and Ericka last week. If you are going to be the bad guys, then embrace it. (See Exhibit A: Russell from the current season of Survivor)

They go to a synagogue for their clue, which then directs them to the Ekotechnicke Museum for their first challenge, a Roadblock name Kafka-esque and celebrates author Franz Kafka. It involves entering a room with hundreds of ringing phones that they had to answer. On the other end of only five phones a voice would give them a letter. They have to figure out that the letters spell FRANZ. Oh yeah, they apparently can't write down the letters either while they retrieve them and when they have all the letters they have to fill out a form with random, unrelated personal information before making a guess to throw them off. This might be one of the most mentally tricky challenges we have seen in a while.

Meghan and Cheyne are the first at the Roadblock and Meghan is the doer of this task. She smartly devises her own memorization method of saying the letter out loud and then assigns an animal that starts with the letter, like Rabbit, Zebra, and Ferret.

The Globetrotters are the next to leave right after the brothers and Big Easy declares that they are proud of how they have run the race since they stayed true to their character, which really comes out in the race. I'm pretty sure that is a veiled dig at the brothers' overall crappiness to each other and the other teams and I couldn't agree more with Big Easy.

Meghan gets all the letters and fails on her first attempt because she didn't even attempt to spell a word with the letters.

The brothers and Globetrotters are on their way to the Roadblock as Meghan turns in her second guess, which is correct, and they are off very quickly. My guess is that she blazed through that task in less than 30 minutes since that is all the time that separated them from the second and third teams when leaving. They are now heading to a place called Kryocentrum...sounds ominous. Short of Phil showing up to make them run the remainder of the race as a three-legged race, Meghan and Cheyne are the clear frontrunners to take this whole enchilada.

The brothers have arrived and see Meghan and Cheyne dashing to take their cab and to not become victims of their own questionable precedent, the guys tell their cabbie to not go with them. The driver does agree to call them another cab, though. Dan enters the Roadblock. Given how short of a fuse these guys have, this distracting and potentially difficult task just might give Dan an aneurysm.

Brian and Ericka finally leave the pitstop about an hour and half after the Globetrotters plus they have to do the Speed Bump for not being eliminated.

Flight Time and Big Easy show up and Big Easy is tapped for this Roadblock. That is two in a row that involve searching for something and he proved with the mandolin that these types of tasks are not his forte. Dan gets the letters and fails on his first attempt as Big Easy starts up.

Meghan and Cheyne reach Kryocentrum and Phil explains that the cold is used to heal Czech athletes. The good news is that the teams only have to stand in a therapy room for two minutes. The bad news is that these rooms are -180 degrees Celsius and the task must be done in their "skivvies."

At the first clue box, Brian and Ericka encounter their Speed Bump. They must head to a local bar, make an absinthe drink, and then down it. Drunken stumbling in the streets of Prague just might be on tap for the remainder of this leg, especially since Brian acknowledges that he doesn't drink alcohol at all at home.

Dan is still assembling his letters in a random order because he is convinced that it might be a Czech word and he doesn't know any of those. Then, Dan explains that the stone-faced supervisors checking their guesses are the "biggest douches ever." And he would know because Dan is now the embodiment of "the pot calling the kettle black."

Big Easy gets his letters and heads to the supervisors to witness Dan get another one wrong. They decide to help each other, which is an interesting combination with the tension toward the Globetrotters from the brothers. This team work is not really paying off as they strike out again and again.

Meghan and Cheyne finish their subfreezing two minutes and head to the Charles Bridge.

Brian and Ericka properly mix their drinks and finish them off. I am pretty certain that Brian's eyes were as dilated as possible and they described their beverage as tasting like rubbing alcohol. There goes that lucrative absinthe endorsement.

Back at the Roadblock, the short-lived alliance of Big Easy and Dan is quickly shattered. Big Easy has been sharing his guesses with Dan as they go along as agreed but Dan has been making his own guesses without sharing with Big Easy. He finally figures out the answer and in true jackass fashion refuses to honor their agreement and give him the answer. "It starts with F. That's all I am saying," is the extent of the help that Dan offers. I can think of another word that starts with ‘F' and fits perfectly in front of ‘douchebag' to describe this clown. Two weeks in a row, the brothers make their mama proud by walking a fine line of dirty play with the cab and now a complete lack of integrity in the game. I want these guys off my TV so badly at this point.

Big Easy is struggling through the letters and can't keep his previous guesses straight. Since he does have the first letter, it shouldn't be too difficult if he can sort through those because there are really only a couple dozen possible answers (I think). But the underhandedness of Dan seems to have created a mental block on him. Brian and Ericka are now at the Roadblock and tipsy Brian starts answering the phones.

Meghan and Cheyne are still in first and get to the Detour that is either Legend or Lager. For Legend, sadly, they don't have to recreate the classic Tom Cruise fantasy film but instead they have to create a golem from Jewish mythology out of clay on a wooden shell and deliver it to a synagogue. For Lager, the teams have to deliver 30 draft beers from a brewery to a certain bar filled with soccer hooligans. Clearly working for the Czech tourism board and not Alcoholics Anonymous, Phil proclaims that the Czech people drink more beer per capita than any other country in the world. Meghan and Cheyne go with the Legend.

The brothers get to Kryocentrum for their task and they mock how ridiculous they look in the required getup. Since they are making fun of themselves I don't have to and frankly, I am tired of writing about them.

Brian gets all his letters and Big Easy is still in his chair trying to finish this task up. He tells Brian that he has been in there for two and a half hours. At this point, he can only hope that the same will be true for Brian.

At Legend, Meghan and Cheyne begin shellacking their golem in clay. These two are working very cohesively this leg with only minor disagreements. Cut to the Roadblock and Brian confidently hands over his latest guess. Bingo! He is correct and bounds like an inebriated Tigger out of the place declaring, "And I did it drunk too!"

Right now, Big Easy hates life probably as much as he hates Dan. He caves to the pressure and goes outside to take the four hour penalty for not completing the Roadblock. This choice has to be based upon their expectation that the leg is far from over. I have made no secret that the Globetrotters are my favorite team on this season but I think this was supremely foolish move. Four hours is a long time in and out of the race. If he was going to take the penalty, he should have done it as soon as Dan flaked on him. That would have built in some kind of cushion before Brian and Ericka showed up. Better yet, I would have just taken a breather for a few minutes from the letters to clear my head and then start over. The mental game got the best of him and is possibly going to be their downfall sadly.

Dan and Sam get to the bridge and choose Legend. Brian and Ericka arrive at Kryocentrum and Ericka confesses that she didn't even see snow until she was 21, which is fine by her. Might they struggle here or are the editors just giving a glimmer of hope that the Globetrotter penalty isn't their death knell? It looks like the latter is true as the married couple do complete the icebox task.

Brian and Ericka opt for the Lager Detour as Meghan and Cheyne deliver their golem. They head for the pitstop and continued domination of the race. As expected, the brothers are bickering like they have every leg. This team is a black hole for teamwork as they keep fighting over the best approach to completing the Detour. They disagree on how to go, where to go, when to take breaks, who needs to shut up, etc. Imagine how well they would be doing if they actually worked together instead of constantly being at odds.

Brian and Ericka start delivering their beers and have to avoid the hovering thirsty people they encounter on the street, in order to protect their precious ale cargo. We finally get a point of time reference by checking in with Flight Time and Big Easy and only an hour has passed. They have three more hours to go and as a viewer we know, the other teams are only one task from being at the pitstop. But then Brian and Ericka drop half of their glasses and Ericka wants to switch tasks. Brian rations out the drinks so Ericka only has a few which is more manageable.

At this point, Sam and Dan seem to either be lost or are taking their golem to a synagogue in Jerusalem, Brian and Ericka are threatening to beat down any of the lushes in the street reaching for their beers and Flight Time and Big Easy are still cooling their heels at the Roadblock.

The brothers finally finish their Detour and make it as team number two. As the Globetrotters' penalty time expires, Brian and Ericka drop off the last of their beers to the sleeping bartender as it is now daybreak. Clearly, they will be team number three, which means that my disappointment has been realized...the Globetrotters are eliminated. They were an entertaining and classy team. Phil sums up my feelings by saying, "I loved watching you guys race around the world." Me too, Phil, me too.

So for the finale, we have the frontrunners (Meghan and Cheyne), the underdogs (Brian and Ericka) who might pull off an upset, and the two most hateful brothers since Cain and Abel (Sam and Dan). I hope that Santa brings me an early Christmas present in the form of anyone winning but Sam and Dan. We shall see in less than a week.