'The Amazing Race' recap: They Don't Call It the Amazing Race for Nothin'!

By Zap2it Partner

September 27, 2010 7:14 AM ET

This season's "The Amazing Race" starts in Gloucester, Mass., of all places. The teams are "home shopping television hosts" Brook & Claire; Chad & Stephanie, who have been together only eight months but are already buying a house together and bench pressing each other; Katie and Rachel, beach volleyball players; a capella singers Jonathan and Connor; doctors Nat and Kat; father/son-slash-"internet sensations" Michael and Kevin (yes, I remember them from the meetings); bikers Nick and Vicki; best friends Ron and Tony; dating/hating couple Jill and Thomas; father and daughter Gary and Mallory (the latter of whom is yet another beauty queen, and a screamer to boot, so, awesome), and recently reunited birth-mother and daughter Andie and Jenna. Many of these folks have really unrealistic expectations for the race, but as usual, that can wait until the full recap.

Before even starting the race, Phil tells everyone that the winner of this first leg will win the "Express Pass," a new thing that allows its holder to skip a task at any point in the race. The eleven teams race their Smart Cars to Logan Airport for the three available spots on the first flight to London, which go to Ron/Tony, Jill/Thomas and Chad/Stephanie. Upon arriving in Heathrow, almost everyone gets into the wrong side of the car, but it's Andie who almost grinds her engine into dust and Gary who flattens a tire.

Stop one is Stonehenge, but all they have to do there is figure out how to get to Eastnor Castle. Which they have to literally storm, climbing ladders in the face of shouting peasants hurling buckets of sludge, then negotiating kiddie-pool-cover-sized boats across a lake. From there, it's a "joust" in which one racer has to take on an empty suit of armor with a giant slingshot that fires watermelons. You may have already seen how that goes for Claire, if you have an Internet.

Jill and Thomas are the first to the Pit Stop, so the Express Pass is theirs. While the first five teams finish the leg (including the melon-victim), the back of the pack is persistently and spectacularly lost. Chad and Stephanie, who seemed like early frontrunners, are so befuddled by the boating and the part where they actually have to find Phil that they end up in eighth. Ron and Tony seem doomed, but Nick and Vicki are dumb enough to let themselves get caught -- almost. Sad to see Ron and Tony go, because they got along really well even when sucking wind.

Photo credit: CBS

» Read the full recap at Television Without Pity

Provided by