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Following a commercial break, both the twins and Vanessa & Ralph admirably and maybe foolishly decide to stick it out with the tasks they chose. At this point, we see that the Army of Two have already burned up nearly an hour and 15 minutes of their penalty and no other teams have started the Roadblock yet. They just have to sweat it out for another 45 minutes of praying for Amazing Race hardship on their competition.

The next three teams arrive at the Roadblock and the teammates up for some bottle balancing are Bad Rachel, Joey of Jersey Shore, and Mark of Kentucky. Three quickly becomes five with Un-Fed Nary and cousin Kerri stepping up for their teams.

My extreme annoyance with Big Brother as a team is heightened by the following things:

• Bad Rachel is the first one done with the Roadblock;



• She decides to do a “please look at me, please look at me” victory dance;



• She actually did a commendable job on the tasks; but most of all



• She whines about having to run up a hill and stairs, then over exaggerates being so out of breath but is okay to jump up and down joyously when Phil say they are team number two.

Unfortunately, the solid work of Joey Fitness & Danny is not recognized even though they are team number three. Blonde Rachel & Dave still have 30 minutes to cool their jets and suffer through possibly more teams checking in before them.





With Mark and Nary finishing the Roadblock and rejoining Bopper and Jamie, they trek to the Pitstop together. Amazingly, they arrive literally seconds before Army of Two’s penalty expires. So the official count is Kentucky as number four, Team Un-Fed as number five and Army of Two as number six. Phil then tries to offer a visibly dejected Dave some solace in the fact that in 20 seasons, they are the first team to not finish a task and incur the time penalty but still remain in the race.

Given the futile Detour efforts of the twins and Vanessa & Ralph, there really wasn’t much danger of them actually being eliminated. Night has fallen and we are shown cousins Kerri & Stacy being checked in as number seven.

The race is still on as both of the last teams at the Detour finally finish their tasks at 2 a.m. (if the two chimes of the clock tower we hear are to be believed). The twins arrive first and Andrew the musician who can string a guitar but not a harp is the chosen one for the Roadblock. Andrew appears to have accepted their last place fate - that is, until Vanessa & Ralph roll up and everyone is instantly energized.

Ralph reluctantly accepts the Roadblock challenge and nails it. The dating team grabs the clue and makes it out of the Roadblock first. As they are running to the Pitstop, Andrew finishes up. Despite being the faster of the two teams, Vanessa & Ralph had enough of a head start and they are checked in as number eight. Obviously, I really have overestimated them. They fell to the back of the pack quickly and never recovered this week.

The twins show up at the mat and with a hard fought leg behind them, they are the last team to arrive and Phil tells them they are eliminated. Before the season, I pegged them to make it to the end but over the first two episodes, I course corrected but I really didn’t think that they would be gone before Jersey Shore.

So, aside from the stellar task work of Border Patrol Art & JJ, this leg may go down as the most arduous one the teams have been subjected to in 20 seasons.

Next week, we get more crocodile tears from…wait for it…Bad Rachel. Amidst said tears, she says, “I just wanted to go on a trip around the world with my best friend” and also, in a fit of anger, says, “I hate you” and “This isn’t worth a million dollars.” I suspect that my upcoming week of wishing that they quit the race will be unfulfilled. Have a good one and I thank you in advance for wishing right along with me.

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