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4) Brendon & Rachel: Big Brother cast members (third place on Season 20) – They are calling themselves “Brenchel”. I refuse to. Here’s some SAT analogy practice for you: “Brendon & Rachel” are to “CBS” as “fetch” is to “Gretchen in the movie Mean Girls." Both are continuing to try and make them happen. Therefore, I label the Big Brother alums Team Fetch. This was the first team I heard was returning and immediately made me regret the start of the season, but no amount of disdain will change their presence here. Gotta embrace the hate, I guess. I predict this season that Rachel will cry…a lot…and she will hinder progress on legs and challenges…a lot...and Brendon will be there to enable the behavior. Also, because they are CBS darlings, they will be spared elimination at least once this season on a non-elimination leg. They should fall just outside of the top three because Rachel’s tears won’t propel them even farther…unless that is a challenge, which make CBS’ agenda even more transparent.

5) Jet & Cord: Cowboys (second place in Season 16 & sixth in Season 18) – Yeehaw…the Oklahoma brothers are back. It’s likely that Jet & Cord will build on the two previous outings that endeared them to audiences (for the most part…I have a friend that despises their "Aw shucks" attitude.) But they actually went in the opposite direction on their first crack at All-Stars (or Unfinished Business as it was subtitled). Competing with teams with no Race experience yielded a second place run and the impressive feat of going from last place on a non-elimination leg to first place the following leg with a Detour. Then when they went up against teams with familiarity with how the game works, they slipped. While they may rebound a bit, I still think they will be out-Raced and out-lucked this season.

6) John & Jessica: Dating couple (ninth place in Season 22) – You likely remember John & Jessica from their spectacular flameout from having two Express Passes and strategically gifting one to the injured David & Connor to having the hubris to think there was no way they were in last place and got eliminated with the unused Express Pass in their pocket. Thus, I will call them Team Bonehead. Well, they had potential until John’s arrogance brought them down. I suspect they learned from the mistake but who knows, really. That’s why I can’t in good conscience rank them much higher sight unseen this season.

7) Natalie & Nadiya: Twins from Sri Lanka (fourth place in Season 21) – Second only to Brendon & Rachel, this is the team I was least looking forward to returning. They gleefully call themselves Twinnies, which I also refuse to do. My name for them is Shrill Lanka. I still have the yelling of “Twinny” ringing in my ears from four seasons ago and I am not looking forward to that sound being reintroduced into my life. They are one of the many teams that claimed a fourth place finish on their previous runs but not everyone can be fourth again and there wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about how they ran the last time, so they get this slot and hopefully off my TV soon.

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