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Damn you, Phil! Damn you, Non-Elimination! Damn yooooouuuuul…

What could be more satisfying than seeing Eric and Dani(elle) come in last? Nothing, except possibly seeing someone hit Mirna in the face with a very large trout. What then could be worse than seeing Eric and Dani(elle) get saved from elimination by what feels like the 18th Non-Elimination this season? Nothing.

No, I lie. There is certainly something worse – having to see more of Eric and Dani(elle)’s tedious relationship fakery for at least one more episode. Somebody pass me a drink, I really need one.

Karma chameleon

Do you ever get the impression that Charla and Mirna have trouble letting things go? Besides their sense of shame, I mean – clearly they left that behind a long time ago. Our clueless cousins were still on their morality parade from last week where they appointed themselves arbiters of all that was good and decent and condemned the Beauty Queens for using the Yield.

Mirna invented a new phrase: “Yield Karma”, used to describe the bad karma one gets for using a perfectly lawful aspect of a game in order to do well. So you cricket players better think twice before appealing for an lbw – you might get bad juju!

Now either Karma doesn’t exist or it just didn’t give a crap about the BQ Yielding people, because their luck was a lot better than the Cousins’ throughout the leg. Maybe Karma is biding her time. Or asleep. Or dead from alcohol-induced liver failure. Who knows?

If I were of a more Mirnese persuasion, I might point to Charla and Mirna’s little stunt in using Danny and Oswald’s standby number to get to the top of the standby list as…questionable. I’m not, as I think it was a perfectly valid and clever bit of gameplay, and I don’t actually begrudge them for doing this at all, but I’d just like to point out that two people so proud of their own supposedly spotless records of behaviour should not be pulling anything that might be seen as dodgy in any way.

The BQs were not happy that Charla and Mirna tried to screw them over, and threatened to give Charla and Mirna a “BQ sandwich”. A midget in the middle of a hot blonde girl sandwich? That sounds like another of my spammy emails actually. I really should get a better spam filter.

Thankfully, the difference between the BQs and the Cousins or Eric/Dani(elle) is not that they don’t get pissed, but that they don’t spend multiple episodes reflecting on the immorality of another team for playing the damn game.

Money for nothing

Danny and Oswald had a really hard time running this leg due to their severe lack of money. The recession is hitting us all pretty hard, even Amazing Race contestants. Because of Danny’s temporary moment of insanity where he bought a whole bunch of newspapers for the price of a Rolex, Danny and Ozzy were forced to schmooze cab drivers into giving them discounts. They’re lucky they’re among the freewheeling Hong Kongers (Kongees? Kongites?), and not still in Poland. Those hardasses would have sent them to Warsaw State Penitentiary over a few owed Euros.

Luckily for the Chas, they were the first to claim a Fast Forward which involved fast cars and possible pant-wetting, so they did not need to use money they didn’t have. Good thing too, because while selling street manicures may be able to pay the bills in Maputo, I’m not so sure it would work in Hong Kong.

For their troubles, Danny and Ozzy came first and won a return trip to Hong Kong and a stay at some fancy hotel. All expenses paid, I hope, because Lord knows the Chas would end up having to wash dishes in their current financial state.

I suppose I do need to mention something about Eric and Dani(elle) besides my disappointment at their non-elimination. I will talk about the latest development of their oh-so-riveting non-relationship. Eric couldn’t find his way around town and ignored Dani(elle) when she advised him to ask someone for directions. Way to uphold stereotypes, guys! They should really take tips from Charla about breaking stereotypes, since she has been so successful in showing the world that little people can do things just like anyone else in the world – obnoxiously.

Everybody was kung-fu fighting

Quick, name the first thing you think of when you think of Hong-Kong. If you said crazy stunts, then you are a more knowledgeable person than me because I had no idea the crazy stunt industry was so active in Hong Kong.

Almost all the challenges in the city involved some sort of cool thing you’d see one a movie set. A pair of terrified Cubans in a car crash? I think I saw that one in a Lethal Weapon flick. Blondes in the middle of a ninja fight? That was one killer soundtrack away from being a Quentin Tarantino movie. A determined dwarf kicking down doors? That’s Tom Cruise’s entire career right there.

Somewhere in Hollywood, someone is writing up a movie right now about Charla. Come on, it has all the elements of a box office smash! Charla the Wonder Midget and her roller skate shoes! Charla kung fu fighting men twice her size! Charla beating down doors with one swipe of her foot of fury! Charla finding love with the Travelocity gnome! I can’t wait for this to be released.

Mirna will of course be her wacky sidekick in the film, a linguistics expert who can speak any language, as long as it’s English in a funny accent. The villains will be a pair of Beauty Queens whose dreams are of world domination rather than world peace.

And don’t even get me started on the merchandising opportunities…

Next week: Two teams make a surprising deal involving Yielding another team. The only thing surprising would be if this deal didn’t involve hypocritical behaviour from either Eric/Dani(elle) or Charla/Mirna. I’ll have my knives at the ready.

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