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Finally, we get Meghan and Cheyne to round out the introductions. Meghan and Cheyne are childhood friends and been dating since high school. How very Kevin and Winnie from the Wonder Years. I already predict that I'll confuse Meghan and Cheyne with Mika and Canaan throughout the season as they are both young, fit, white, fair-haired dating couples with the same freakin' initials.

Hey look there's Phil standing in the middle of a concrete river and he's got something to say. Welcome to the Amazing Race. Then Phil throws the teams a curve: their first challenge is waiting for them on the other side of their bags and he points out that one team's race will end at the starting line. That's cold-hearted. You get these people all jazzed about being in the game and you throw a curve ball on the first pitch. There might as well be cartoon thought bubbles of "Ruh-roh" over each team. I feel duped because I went through the effort to get at least vaguely familiar with the teams and now one of them will be off my TV for good in the next seven minutes.

This cruel first challenge involves team's locating a Japanese license plate from the area they are traveling to. When they get the right plate Phil gives them tickets on one of two flights to Tokyo. The clue has a fairly obvious pair of Japanese characters on it that matches the plate they are looking for. If this first test is any foreshadowing at all, then we are in for a season long exhibition of not paying attention to every part of the clue.

Trial and error and rampant wild guesses fill the challenge until they slowly start to pick up on the symbols hiding in plain sight on their clue. One by one, the teams make the right choice until we are left with hothead Lance and Keri and our yoga masters Eric and Lisa scrambling for the last tickets. The reality gods smile down and the more volatile (read: entertaining) team of Lance and Keri gets the ticket. Sadly, Eric and Lisa's amazing race was nothing more than a 100-yd dash. I feel the need to correct Eric; they ended up actually as numero doce and not uno.

Lance and Keri are last out the gate to the airport and Lance already pushes the blame on Keri for not reading the clue well enough. Dude, you have been on the race for less than an hour, you need to pace yourself in the "alienating your teammate" game. He really might be the return of Jonathan. Bring on the awkward.

At the airport, Flight and Easy (who proudly wear shirts emblazoned with "Harlem Globetrotters" on them) start to talk to teams to get acquainted. When they ask Zev and Justin what they do, Zev immediately retorts with the quippy, "I play basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters." For someone with a disorder that impacts how he interacts socially, Zev seems fairly confident but not uneasy at all.

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