Andy DehnartOn its penultimate episode, The Amazing Race 11 finally eliminated a team. Thus, it now has its final three teams, and those include just one man among five women. There’s a two in three chance that an all-female team will win the race for the first time in its history. But that’s next week; first, there’s last night’s ridiculousness:
- “We know that karma was a particular bitch on the last leg of the race, and we got slapped hard for it,” Oswald said.
- Once again adopting her strange broken English that she uses to speak to foreigners who probably think she’s a mentally challenged person who speaks English, Mirna asked a cab driver in Hong Kong, “How you say ‘airport.'” He said, “Airport.” English is an official language in Hong Kong, after all.
- “You look very buff today, Eric, in your white shirt,” one of the blondes said, and apparently figured out how to disarm him entirely. He sort of shyly smiled but clearly loved the attention drawn by his shirt, which appeared to have been painted on his body.
- “I doubt that Danny and Oswald are going to make it on the flight,” Eric said, and then a commercial break arrived. Of course, because of the magic of Amazing Race commercials, which solve all problems, Danny and Oswald got on the flight. But they did not receive cheers from their fellow competitors. “We weren’t sure whether we landed in Japan or Alaska, because we felt the cold breeze–freezing cold,” Oswald said.
- Phil explained that one of the Detour options in Guam offered “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience an official Air Force air drop training exercise.” Later, Charla explained that they chose the task because “I like to help people who are in need,” while Mirna said, “humanitarian effort, here we come.” Apparently they both missed–or the producers expected us to miss–the “training exercise” part.
- “I feel like Top Gun,” Mirna said, as she ran into a cargo plane. Because, you know, Top Gun had lots of people riding in cargo planes. For no reason whatsoever, the cargo plane did a nose dive and left them weightless. “I was, like, flying,” Mirna said. Yes, that’s what people do in airplanes.
- “There’s no charming the sergeant,” a blonde said. “The sergeant was all about business. We weren’t getting anywhere with a smile; we had to scrub.” Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
- “I’m bringing you over to tell my maid how to clean, ’cause obviously I don’t know what to tell her,” Oswald told the sergeant judging their task. Does he ever run out of witty things to say? Ever?
- Using a GPS to find a lost a soldier, the blonde that did the task explained that it was “like you’re searching for your Easter basket.” Yeah, if you were so poor growing up that your parents didn’t make your personal butler gather the eggs for you, and instead forced you to use the GPS.
- Mirna told Charla, “Follow instructions…Use the GPS. It tells you which way to go.” Put one leg in front of the other. Breathe in and then out. Do not tape my mouth with duct tape and push me into a ditch and deny to Phil that you know what happened to me.
- Charla got lost even with the GPS, and Charla’s military escort told her, “ma’am, I told you not to touch the screen at all.” That’s military code for “Christ, you idiot.”
- “Do you have any idea how many toys you guys now have?” Phil asked the blondes, who came in first again. “We love our toys,” one said.
- With three teams remaining to check in, the editors did their best to make it seem like a race to the finish, but instead the teams arrived in the same order they finished the task: Eric and Danielle, Charla and Mirna, and Oswald and Danny, who were eliminated.
- “No regrets, darling,” Danny told Phil. He said that Oswald will “be pushing the wheelchair as I got into the home, the gay nursing home that I’m going to ‘open up.'” Oswald replied, “And hopefully by then, he won’t speak so much that he’ll be interrupted every time I say something.” I’m not quite sure I got either joke, but we’ll miss them and their non-stop humor.