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Last week, we bid adieu to the Globetrotters, and the folks getting royalties every time the producers played "Sweet Georgia Brown" will have to seek weekly compensation elsewhere. This was the worst result for Flight Time & Big Easy in all their seasons, which I think is more indicative of their passion for the Race than the level of competitors.

Before we presumably leave Italy, let's take a gander at my rankings for the teams still actually trotting the globe:

1. Jet & Cord, cowboys/brothers


2. Brendon & Rachel, Team Fetch/Big Brother vets


3. Leo & Jamal, cousins/Afghanimals


4. David & Connor, Team Murphy's Law/father-son


5. Jennifer & Caroline, singers

Where we left off, Brendon & Rachel leave the mat in first and actually admit to the cameras what I suspected: They only U-Turned David & Connor because they wanted to win first on the last leg. Some may have tried to argue that it was a bigger game move with them not wasting it on Jet & Cord, who would have used their Express Pass. Or that they were afraid of David & Connor making it to the end. While these are both valid points, the newlyweds were just getting greedy and wanted a prize.

Strategic aside: If you in the lead and don’t NEED to U-Turn a team, then why would you knowing that if there was another U-Turn this season, you would be unable to use it? In one fell swoop, they made themselves targets of a bitter team (bitterness that is silly in and of itself for U-Turns), rallied others to target them and exposed themselves to possible future U-Turn retaliation. Hope that cash prize was worth it, because it may have cost them the Race. End speculation and strategic aside.





The clue points the teams to the train station, where they will be traveling to Chiasso, Switzerland. After arriving in the land of cheese and chocolate, they will drive themselves to a place to meet “William Tell.” Team Fetch heads out and a makes it to the train station without incident but have to wait a bit for departure. “Anxiously wait” might be a better descriptor because they really don’t want the angry mob teams to be on the train with them.

About an hour after Brendon & Rachel leave the mat, Jet & Cord are next, with the other three shortly behind them. As they are all driving to the station, it looks like we will have a clumping of all the teams on our hands. Oopsie…one team is twisted around and lost. Which one?

Well, we know that it’s not Jennifer & Caroline because they are attached at the hip with David & Connor. So it they were lost, then we would have two teams lost. These inseparable teams are following Leo & Jamal, so that means Jet & Cord are the meandering cowboys. No bueno for the team I am favoring to win it all.

The supergroup of Amazing Race teams (granted they are more like Mr. Big or Chickenfoot than the Traveling Wilburys) arrives and boards the train, much to the dismay of Team Fetch. Up until this last week and the start of this one, I have been enjoying the Afghanimals (which is saying something because I despised them last time), rooting for the congenial David & Connor, and dismissive of Jennifer & Caroline because in two seasons they have yet to prove they are worthwhile racers. Well, in short order, this alliance, which they dub The Accidental Alliance, has brought down the first two more in line with the singers.

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