To be continued?!?!

Well, that was anti-climactic. Here I was all busy trying to figure out if the bus washers were actually behind the lagging doll searchers and who was really in danger of being eliminated and it all turns out to be irrelevant. Hrumph. Lack of a proper ending aside, this episode was full of good drama, bad mistakes and rising frustration. I like seeing the panic that settles on the better teams when luck takes over from skill in determining who gets ahead and who gets left in the dust. It reminds everyone that no matter how well they're doing overall, they could be just one bad cab driver away from elimination.

Legs like this one also make me stop and appreciate how hard it must be to compete in this race. How long was that flight from Sao Paulo to Moscow? The teams must have been wrecked by the time they landed. I think about how I feel whenever I get off a plane that's been in the air for more than four hours, and how easy it is to lose your cool when you're exhausted, and then I try to imagine what it would be like to drag myself and a teammate through a strange city under those conditions while other teams chase us. Tough stuff.

That said, man, lots of dumb moves to go around. I mean, how hard is to figure out that if you're at a public pool, and the Road Block clue asks "who's ready to take the plunge," then maybe, just maybe, the task will involve swimming? And that maybe the teammate who can't swim very well and is deathly afraid of water isn't the right person for the job? It ended up being a meaningless delay, but Yolanda/ Ray ("Rolanda" from now on) and Wanda/ Desiree (Wandiree), what were you thinking? And let's not even get into the whole, "whoops, I left our money, instructions and passports in the changing room" stunt. The Pink Ladies are lucky that stuff was still there when they returned. Could have been a long layover in Moscow for the Bridge-and-Tunnel girls.

Since I have no idea if and when someone will get eliminated before they travel to Germany (from the looks of the previews), and we don't know how much of a time gap there is between the teams doing the two different road blocks, I won't bother speculating about what will happen next. With no further ado, my random thoughts of the week:

• Why was Michelle so freaked out about donning a bathing suit in front of Russians? Is her body a state secret?
• The Hippies dropped their shtick pretty quickly when the pressure rose. I'm not convinced their wackiness will survive the remainder of the race. Let's hope not, anyway.
• I'm beginning to think the Frats are all a big act, too.
  
• What's with all the charter buses? I imagine the producers are trying to keep the race competitive by taking out variables like local transportation that could create big time gaps between the teams. Understandable from a big-picture perspective, but I think they should leave the racers to their own devices more often.