The Amazingly Lame Race 8 returns to the US during a supersized episode

It’s time for another edition of Hysterically Ridiculous Things The Amazing Race 8 Teams Said, brought to you this week by my sorrow over the Gaghan family eliminations. My heart’s not in it, but it’s God will for me to continue.

• “Daddy can swim. He takes his time,” Marion Paolo said about her husband. Taking your time: Always a good skill to have when racing around the world.
• Another good skill: Not dying. “Dad, don’t drown. Come on!” one of the Paolo kids screamed as their dad clung onto a buoy, screaming for rescue swimmers.
• “All right, you guys. No peeing, for two and a half hours,” the youngest Linz boy said after learning how long the cab ride would be.
• “It’s greater to be hated for who you are than loved for who you’re not. We’re being ourselves and we’re being hated for it. Why make these buddy-buddy friends? No, we’re competitors.” Who said it? A Weaver, of course.
• “Thank you, Jesus,” mom Weaver said after her son successfully swam to and from a buoy. “Dear God, maybe we’re going to catch them,” she said 30 seconds later. Pick a deity and stick with Him. Christ.
• “I’ll have more muscles than I have brains in my head when I’m done with this race,” mom Paolo said when her family decided to lift a ton of sugar cane instead of painting a wheel.
• Finally, a Weaver said something that I wanted to hear: “We’re in last place.”
• “Am I in hell?” Brian Paolo asked as his parents began singing in Italian as they rode atop some sugar cane.
• “Teams must now fly to Phoenix, Arizona … and travel 14 miles,” Phil said, returning the race to suckitude once again. Next season, let’s just have the race at Epcot in the World Showcase area, okay?
• “What the hell are we going to Phoenix, Arizona, for? I want to go to New Zealand!” Marion Paolo said, instantly endearing herself to me.
• DJ Paolo said something about not messing with a good thing, and his brother said to him, “Well, then, we shouldn’t mess with you, because you’re a bad thing.” Then, with an incredibly remorseful expression on his face, recanted. “I’m kidding, I’m sorry. That was bad humor.”
• The Weavers cornered DJ Paolo and demanded to know why they were Yielded. DJ said, “We were definitively trying to knock a team out.” All four of them opened their mouths into huge O-shapes and said “Ooh!”, in approximately the same horrified way that they would have if he’d said, “I’m a gay vegan pagan atheist Democrat abolitionist.”
• After offering to “be friends,” mom Weaver threatened DJ while blinking violently: “Well you don’t have any Yields left, and we do, sweets.” Very Christ-like.
• Marion Paolo flipped out at DJ: “I hope to God you never get married, D, I really do. Because nobody would put up with your nonsense. I don’t know why your father just doesn’t knock your thin head off your shoulders.”
• Phil tried valiantly to make the Roadblock sound intense: He said, “Then, they’ll have to complete a grueling 50 lap race in sweltering heat to receive their next clue,” but all the adjectives in the world couldn’t change the fact that all they had to do was drive a go-cart.
• “What state are we in again?” Linda Weaver asked. Phoenix, sweets.
• The Weavers had to do yet another racetrack task. I was feeling compassionate and was going to not write anything–until they started being assholes again. “Your dad would be proud of you guys. Just think about that,” one of the Godlewski sisters told Rebecca Weaver. Moments later Rebecca said, “I hate the desperate housewives. They’re just so annoying, and they lie.”
• Incapable of letting five minutes pass without trashing another team, the Weavers pointed out a garbage truck and asked if the Paolos were inside it. And then they made fun of the garbage truck driver, who they didn’t even know, calling him “Arizona’s finest.” The irony, of course, is that those four will probably never do anything as valuable and important as that garbage man does every day.
• Tragically, Phil said something that I didn’t want to hear about the Weavers: “Weaver family, you’re team number two.”
• The Paolos, unable to count the cars at the pit stop, started putting on additional clothes, until the Bransen family drove up and the Paolos realized they weren’t in last place. Mom Paolo ended up on the mat with some panties on over her pants, and dad Paolo hugged Phil wearing tighty-whities over his shorts.
• Oh no, a second episode. Another hour of this? Why, Phil, why? Oh, right, it’s sweeps. Warning: I’m only transcribing the best things from this point on, because I already used up all of my ability to care.
• “I don’t roll with the punches. I punch,” a Linz twit said.
• “Older men are not a real turn-on for people to open their pocketbooks, so I just try to keep a nice distance,” Wally Bransen said as his daughters begged for money.
• The Roadblock actually seemed dangerous, as they went up in stunt planes and performed maneuvers that involved the plane spinning out of control toward Earth.
• “They’re throwing garbage,” a Godlewski said as they drove past the Weavers, which had prompted a Weaver girl to hurl food or something else out their SUV’s window. Was Jesus a litterer?
• A park ranger told the Linzs that the Weavers were “talking a whole lot of smack” about them. Even people who’ve known the Weavers for mere seconds think they’re jerks.
• Bailing water out of a boat at the Detour, DJ said to his mom, “Ma, this is a big river. I can drown you here and no one would find your body.”
• Talking about the Godlewski sisters, who came in third place, one of the Linz boys said, in the most lascivious way possible, “Maybe they’ll be nice and treat us to one of their prizes afterwards.”
• “Those people are, like, classless,” one of the Weaver girls said. Then she burst into tears and admitted what really upset them: they’re the only team “trying to live a Christian life,” and the other teams “cuss.” Well, fuckin’-a.
• The Paolos were eliminated from the race, which perhaps was predictable, since Stassi Schroeder’s been posting pictures of herself with the Paolos on her MySpace (in addition to photos of a shirtless Brock); they probably all became friends at loser island.
• “For a family that fights so much, and for us to still be together, there’s no greater bond than love,” Marion Paolo said.