Amazing Race Week 10

Woohooo! Final 3, baby.

This week's episode started and stayed in Moscow. Teams had to find a nuclear sub and "find the actor from The Hunt for Red October". Seriously, show of hands now, who thought it was gonna be Sean Connery? Nope. Some no name actor that the Race didn't even have enough respect to give a name to.

Ok, so first let me go back and state for the record, that I honestly don't believe for an American TV show that you should be able to cavort on a nuclear sub. There is NO FRIGGIN WAY that this was a real nuclear sub. Maybe a Bush/Palin "NUCULAR" sub, but those aren't real anyway. I so hope the Amazing Race never comes out to Limerick and has people scale the cooling towers.

Anywhoo, everyone jumps into taxi's (again, with the Russian KGB-spy drivers) and draws a stick figure of sub. Me? I'd of had rays shooting off of it just so the driver knew I wanted the RADIOACTIVE sub.

Everyone gets to the sub at the same time and all rush in, and run around the sub saying, "clue? clue?" Finally, they find the heavily made up ACTOR captain, who is on the phone with his agent trying to find out what this gig is paying. He gives them their next clues: take a taxi to the graveyard of fallen monuments. Which is not grammatically correct because, from what I saw, all of the monuments were right side up, but were of fallen HEROES.

The Cheaters jump in the spy-taxi with GPS. MASSIVE TRAFFIC. Maybe the big 3 automakers should go there to sell their cars?

Roadblock. One teammate had to be "good at solving mysteries...literally". For the roadblock, one teammate had to count the number of Lenin and Stalin statues (6 and 2) , put the separate numbers together, then take a cab to a store where, if their numbers were correct, a shopkeeper would give them a book by the a mystery writer; at the book's page with the same number as the statue total, there would be a clue to an address where the teammate's partner would be waiting. Phew. In case you didn't guess I cut and pasted that sentence from the cbs website. Seriously, it was really confusing. Give me Survivor where all I have to do is tell ya that the unwashed have to lob a ball onto a sheet with circles on it, and get closest to the middle circle. Now, I didn't hear this part in the reading of the clue but everyone gives this member of the team their passport and all their money. This should have been accompanied by dramatic music, since we'd all seen the promos and know some tool loses their passport and $$.

The Frats go to the wrong park.

Nick gets to the park, counts the monuments, goes to the bookstore and gets the right answer. bada-bing. He's off to the famous author's house where their partners are all waiting. The Cheaters argue the whole way in the cab to the cemetery. Tina Cheater wants Ken to tell the KGB agent to put out his cigarette. Ken refuses, just to piss her off. She close her eyes and puts her finger on her forehead to press Ken's image out of her head. As a result, storm clouds gather over the cab and by the time they get to the Roadblock it is raining. Tina doesn't want to chance having her eyebrows wash off, so she takes her time getting a raincoat out of her bag. This exasperates Ken. Tina counts the dead heads, and heads off.

Dallas goes into the park to count the Lenins and Stalins. Cut to mom who is waiting at the author's house and saying, "I paid a lot of money for his education, but I'm not sure he's gonna know how to tell the difference" . LOL. The funniest part is that she paid money to educate this monkey.

Dallas gets to the bookstore and gives the wrong answer, getting a 10 minute penalty. He counted 6 Stalins and 3 Lenins (but one was John), so he's never gonna get this combination right. Tina Cheater counts 5 Stalin and 2 Lenins, but she's not sure of the Stalins. She gets it wrong and gets a penalty. I lost track how many times Dallas got this wrong, but he and Tina Cheater compare notes and they figure out the right numbers. Tina helps Dallas with the higher math and, when she tells Ken Cheater, he gets all pissed off that she helped him. Seriously, these two needs meds.

Meanwhile, Nick and Starr get their next clue: find a lady in the park with a pony. LOL. Sounds like something illicit on an internet chat sight. I didn't realize Shetland ponies are Russian. Detour: take the rails or the lines. I gotta copy this one too cause it's so ridiculously complex:

In Ride the Rails, teams had to make their way on foot to the Sokol’niky Metro Station, where they had to catch the metro to Ulitsa 1905 and find a marked snack shop to receive a traditional pastry known as a samsa. The wrapper of the samsa would direct them to another train to Kitay-Gorod Station in order to find the statue dedicated to the man who created the Cyrillic alphabet (seriously, this is ridiculous and gratuitous information). In exchange for the pastry, a nearby babushka would hand teams a postcard with the name and picture of their final location, VNDKh Park Station.
In Ride the Lines, teams made their way on foot to a bus stop near Sokol’niky Park and hop on a trolley bus to a station called Krasndsel’skaya. Then, they had to find a key maker who would give them a storage locker key, before hopping on another trolleybus to a station called Rizhskaya. When they arrived, they had to search the station for a locker that matched their key, open it, and also retrieve a postcard with the name and picture of their final destination, VNDKh Park Station.

Got it? Ok, right about now Frats get to the right park and wisely get a real live Russian to help them figure out the monuments. They come up with 6 Stalins and 1 Lenins. He gets it wrong the first time.

And, now the moment we've all been dreading... when Dallas gets out of the cab at the author's apartment he leaves his money and passport in the cab. Now, this kind of pissed me off and if I had these 2 as MY pool pick I would have been freaking out, cause it seemed to me he didn't do much to stop the cab. I would have screamed like a banshee (seriously, when traveling outside the US I manically check and recheck my passport about every 10 seconds), and thrown my backpack at the back window of the cab. But, I guess he figured mommy would take care of it. Deep breath. Ok, so they figure they will still try to finish the Detour, but to save money, they take the subway instead of a cab as specified in the clue. Also, they panhandle the money for the subway with ease. Apparently Russian money is totally useless since everyone is willing to give it away.

Nick and Starr ride the rails with ease, commenting about a million times how living in NYC has come in handy. They finish easily and get their next clue to proceed to the Pitt stop where they are once again first and win trips to Anguilla. They are assured a spot in the final 3. I hate them.

Toni and Dallas and the Frats get to the Shetland Pony lady at the same time, but Toni and Dallas have to go back and take a cab instead of riding the subway. The Frats get their Speedbump, and with the challenges on this leg so far, I was dreading hearing what they had to do. Speedbump: they have to perform with Russian dancers. haha. You know the producers just made this up after seeing the marching. I thought this would be the end of them given the total lack of coordination of the one dude. They have to repeat it twice but finally finish.

Toni and Dallas borrow money and go back to the author's house where they also get money to take a cab, return to the Pony lady and start panhandling to ride the rails.

The Cheaters ride the lines but get on the wrong kind of bus. Keeeeeeennnnnn. God, her voice is killing me. The Frats do either the lines or the rails. Lines I think. By this time my head was hurting. Both teams end up at the station, Tina and Ken are kind of lost and arguing. The Frats spot the clue box and head on out to meet Phil. Frats are team number 2. Cheaters cheat and just see Phil and the mat and step on it. Phil tells them that they are team # 3 buuuuut, they missed the final clue. They panic and run all around the station. Fortunately for ME, Toni and Dallas are horribly behind. Cheaters step on the mat and get the final spot. (Ginnie: how big was the drama at your house??)

Phil gets tired of waiting for Toni and Dallas, so he goes out and finds them in the street and tells them it's all over. Toni cries, they both say "I love you" over and over again. I wonder what will happen with Starr and Dallas' romance??