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Leo & Jamal: Afghanimals. Here’s another team that has a zest for life that has shown through on their previous outing, but theirs was borderline (and often crossed that line) obnoxious. But this is a new Race and we have gotten a somewhat new team of Afghanimals. I don’t know if it’s their Amazing Race fandom-itis and they actually saw how they were shown last season or that they aren’t trying to impress another fair-haired team, but the cousins have been better on the audience’s nerves. Unfortunately, Leo was a little too happy to joke around with the factory workers at the Roadblock and if Margie & Luke weren’t so obviously eliminated, then Jamal wouldn’t have been quite as tolerant of it. While this season they have suppressed the urge to fight on the scale of last time, we all know it is within them to just lose it and take the other guy with them.

Brendon & Rachel: Big Brother (Team Fetch). All that stuff I just said about Leo & Jamal could be easily and justifiably cut-and-pasted right here about these newlyweds. But the personality transplant for Brendon & Rachel hasn’t yielded the best Race results. They are exponentially more viewer-friendly and, dare I say, likable but it hasn’t exactly helped with their goal of winning. The last three legs have consisted of two eighth place finishes and a seventh place finish. But the same legs have been fertile ground for breakdowns and they haven’t, even in the face of elimination. Rachel talked Brendon off the ledge on the bartending Detour (as well as main competitors Margie & Luke) and then followed that up with last week’s calm and cool handling of their Speed Bump. I never thought I would live in a world where Rachel Reilly was a voice of reason but here we all are. Maybe the Mayans were off by just a couple of years.

Jennifer & Caroline: Country singers. As much faith as I have in Flight Time & Big Easy to pull off a major show of Race domination that is just hibernating right now, I have just as little faith in what these ladies have demonstrated. Last week, they scored a second place finish and that is commendable but I believe it’s a fluke. Why? Because their meltdown at the Japanese Roadblock where Caroline got the Express Pass from the cowboys still replays in my head. Jennifer was ready quit before even starting the task. This last week showed they can do quite well but there’s been nothing prior to show it’s not an isolated incident. They are the team that I peg as the one that will be the most bi-polar on Pitstop finishes with high highs and low lows, while everyone else is established as either a frontrunner, middle-of-the-pack or lower tier team. More so than the others, the singers, in my opinion, are only one bad leg from elimination.

John & Jessica: Newly engaged couple. That brings us to the last spot and a team that pulled possibly the most boneheaded moves strategically or otherwise in Amazing Race history. Unlike the many boneheads who have foolishly squandered or held onto immunity idols on Survivor, the Race doesn’t have that many chances for similar missteps. Even so, this team found one when they were eliminated with an Express Pass in their pocket. That shows their capacity for idiocy, which has been long-dormant on this season but it’s still there. In fact, this newly engaged couple hasn’t shown much of anything on this season at all. Milquetoast would be a good way to describe them. By dialing back the confidence/arrogance from before, they have completely blended into the background and been non-factors. Unless they come alive this week, their Race should be over.

C’mon, folks, let’s see where this episode takes us.

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