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Previously on the Amazing Race, some airplane drama left Brad & Victoria well behind the rest of the pack. So far this season, none of the legs appear to have been close. Every team that has been eliminated has lost pretty handily. As for other teams in the race, father/son team Mel & Mike took home top spot in the last leg, while Victor & Tammy show a lot of cracks in a sibling relationship that might have been shaky to begin with.

We begin the race in Transylvania, home of Vlad the Impaler. By virtue of finishing first in the previous leg of the race, Mel & Mike are first off in tonight's episode, departing at 10:49 p.m. It was nice of The Amazing Race to ensure that this portion of the race began at night, because the creepy quality has a chance to be off the charts.

But no, Mel & Mike read their clue and tell us that they're expected to fly to Krasnoyarsk, a city deep in the heart of Siberia. Once there, they'll go to a hydroelectric dam for their next clue. Mike describes his dad as "part Woody Allen, part Billy Graham, with a splash of Judy Garland." I presume this means that Scarlett Johansson is Mel's muse, but he's very conflicted about it and his own sexual preferences. Or something like that.

Amanda & Kris are off just four minutes later and posit that because they are young and competitive, they have a greater chance at winning the race than everyone else. Take that, old fogeys! Kisha & Jen, Margie & Luke, Mark & Michael, and Christie & Jodi are truly right on their heels, which means that there's already plenty of bunching to start this leg of the race. Even Jaime and Cara are only 45 minutes behind Mel & Mike.

Something incredibly amusing happens when Mark & Michael ask their cab driver to call the Lufthansa desk at the airport for them. Apparently, he hears this as "call the pretty girls in the cab a ways back", because the Jaime & Cara are extremely surprised when their cab driver's phone rings and he hands it to them. When Mark & Michael ask if they are talking to the Lufthansa ticket desk, they say yes! They tell the unsuspecting stunt men that they have a flight for them in the morning at 9 a.m. that goes through Frankfort. For some reason, though, she tells him that the only seats she has are business class. I guess she doesn't have the gumption to follow all the way through with the prank. She hangs up on them, and the cheerleaders giggle uncontrollably. Oddly, the guys think the American accent is odd, but the light bulb never really goes off. Fortunately, their cab driver's sense of humor won't cost them anything.

I mentioned that I thought that Victor & Tammy seemed to be well behind the rest of the teams, and that belief is confirmed when they receive their first clue. The two of them are two hours behind the team in front of them, Jaime & Cara. Victor & Tammy are going to have some work to do to get it back together. The good news is that they're both smart and if they can put a bad leg behind them, they're still one of the stronger teams in the race.

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