The Amazing Race 8 - Episode 8 Summary

'It’s a Family Show!' By Cygnus X1

Thank you so much for that warm introduction, Nutzie. Let's hear it for ARNutz! Tip your waiters and waitresses. Oh, and hi, campers! Let’s get right into it.

With this Episode 8 being Hour 2 of the show, we don’t start with a recrap from Phil (you can get a perfectly fine one from Nutzie, anyway). Instead, we launch right into the start from the Fort McDowell HaveSomePie (only if you have a) Reservation. It’s 60,000 acres of pristine Western and Native American beauty. But, since this is TAR Family Edition, we’ll be damned if we’re gonna see any of it! On to the more commercial crap!

We see a brief flashback to the Bransens’ arrival at the mat, looking like they’re dressed more for March of the Penguins than an Arizona summer. Since it was a non-elim, they’ll start last and get no money, plus they were stripped of all their money and non-worn possessions. Stripping is no surprise to Lauren, anyway, after her mooning of the Linzes in Leg 4. At least the Bransens had the sense not to put all their undergarments on their exterior. My brain needs enough scrubbing from those images!

First up are last leg’s winners, Sharon and the Banshees. They will funnel their strengths and weaknesses into a solid unit. Are they planning to stop up a sewage line somewhere?

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Linda Faye Weaver and Her Congregation of Self-Righteous Post-Mortem Indignation are next. They recite all together, “Drive yourselves to Jose Mesa, Arizona.” I wait for the “In Jesus’ name, Amen,” but it doesn’t come. The camera gives a gratuitous oobie shot (GOS) of Rebecca as she climbs in the SUV. She says in confessional that the other teams “don’t like us because we’re different from them, and I’m glad we’re different from them.” For starters, they’re human.

The Linzes, Team Rush Week, prepare to depart. They point out that “little mistakes happen and tides turn.” Please file that away for future reference.

Next to go are the Paolos, Team Abondanza. Or is that Tony Danza? (Apropos of nothing, my first girlfriend, who was Italian, told me there is no such word in Italian as “abondanza.”) Mama CelesteMarion says the main thing is to stay in the game. Hmmm. This means something.

And last, and for the moment least, are Prostate Exam and His Band of Estrogen. They hope to make some quick money, maybe at the nearby casino. Of course, there are three young and fairly attractive girls, so if they each managed to get into Nevada . . . Ahem. This is a Family Show, which means we must Dull Down.

The Teams discover they have to set out for Fighter Combat International, and strangely enough, it’s not at the Paolos’ house. It’s at Williams Gateway Airport in Jose Mesa. Methinks we’re heading to a bunch point as big as the naners that Tony Paolo was lugging around in Central America.

In what has become a recurring theme, the Banshees take only a couple miles to start arguing about which way to go. They appear to be on Highway 60 east of Phoenix (that or Loop 202). 60 is called the Superstition Freeway, so named for Stevie Wonder’s numerous commutes on it. Then again, he probably would have a better sense of direction than the Schroeders!

Lost, Rush Week winds up with one of Arizona’s finest behind them after they tried to stop and ask someone else for directions. Fortunately, they watched the TAR 6 episode when Jonathan talked himself out of a ticket in Hungary. Either the Linzes likewise used Jedi mind tricks to get the officer to give them directions to the airport, or he noticed that none of them had used deodorant in a couple weeks and wanted to get them the hell out of there. Surprisingly, he doesn’t notice their statement that “we’re racing other cars to get there.” He lets them go because in his last collective bargaining agreement, he was stripped of his power to detain an SUV full of DAWs.

The Linzes’ gaffe gives Linda Faye and Her Flock the chance to arrive first at Williams Gateway Airport, which was founded by a way-cool pinball and video game manufacturer and a slowly bankrupting computer company. They find a number board and grab number one. Rachel probably last wore that black top when she and a boy were reading the Song of Songs together. It wasn’t cut in the middle before then!

As the Linzes arrive, the Weavers decide to be encouraging:

We will work with the Linzes, we will work hand in hand
We will work with the Linzes, we will work hand in hand
And when they ask “Where’s the number board?” we’ll say “Talk to the hand”
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Which they do. And when the Linzes ask how the Weavers knew where the board was, they reply, “We’re smart.” What, no attribution to the big G-Meister?

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