'The Amazing Race': Linda gets lost

Things may change as the season progresses, but through two episodes, The Amazing Race really seems to be on fire. They've come up with some fantastically fun and wacky challenges thus far, from last week's cheese roll to this week's pie toss. I wonder if the whole season will revolve around fun with food.

It was off to Munich tonight and everyone was starting in the middle of the night which meant a bottleneck. That wasn't a surprise, what was a surprise was Mark and Michael suggesting that they were in third place so they could relax. Their relaxing meant that they didn't borrow a phone from their cabbie on the way to the airport and therefore ended up on the second flight, not the first. They just finished their 12 hour mandatory rest period and were only through one leg, but they needed to relax? I figure that was a mental error they won't make again.

That was a small thing though, after that, the show got interesting. One member of each team had to parasail down the side of a mountain, but if the wind was too strong they could choose to either wait it out or spend an hour hiking down.

Those sorts of decisions would terrify me if I were in the game -- you have no idea what is going to happen, the wind could be bad for three hours or for five minutes. It's a tough choice. Everyone but Mel opted to run down, a choice he couldn't make because he had hurt his groin with the cheese. Amazingly, Mel said he couldn't pray for such a small thing but would be grateful if the wind changed. It did, he parasailed down, and he and Mike were just fine.

Linda, who ran, took a wrong turn, putting her and Steve deep into last place. She then compounded her error by walking down the street she arrived at rather than backtracking to figure out where she went wrong. I think out of pity the race didn't penalize her when a kindly soul drove her back to where she was supposed to be. It all could have been funny if she weren't crying. She knew, and I think we all did, that once she made that wrong turn, she and Steve were done. At least Steve didn't yell at her. Linda was clearly worried that he would and I was too after last week's performance.

Okay, fine, Steve sort of did hit Linda this week, but not in the way you think. Up next was what might be greatest detour the show has ever seen. The people with no sense of fun could Segway through an obstacle course, the others had to throw pies at targets until they found a pie with cherry filling. They didn't know that the "target" was their partner's face, but they figured it out quickly enough. That was just good, dirty, fun, and it gave Steve the chance to take out his anger on Linda in a show-approved manner.

Well, it was all fun unless you were Luke. Luke wanted nothing to do with the pie toss and, even after he and Margie had tossed several pies at each other, he still wanted to switch. What?!? There weren't that many pies present, and it couldn't be that long until you hit a cherry one, switching would have been a big mistake. Thankfully they stayed where they were and finished the task.

Tammy and Victor had no problems tonight, speeding through the whole leg. Tammy explained that throughout her relationship with her brother, he always has gotten to make the final decision, and that it made their partnership a good one. That may sound odd, but it certainly is a method that has worked for them on the first two legs (the previews indicate it won't work next week).

I have to say that Christie and Jodi almost made me happy by losing again tonight. They seemed to do everything they possibly could to avoid getting the final clue which required having to get a piece of wood cut and the location of the pit stop stamped on it tonight. They ran into trouble where no one else did. I'm not sure it was really as close a race between Christie and Jodi and Steve and Linda as the show made it seem, but it was certainly closer than it may have been.

Oh well, maybe they'll make me happy next week.

How about you -- as of this minute, who is your pick to win, and whom do you hate the most? If not for next week's preview I might be convinced to vote Tammy and Victor as my choice for winning.

The TV and Film Guy's Reviews - we take shots to the kisser on a regular basis.