scowl

Finally an episode that totally cracked me up. This show leads me into topics that I wouldn't think would be funny, but twenty minutes later I'm laughing at them eating a dog. I've liked all episodes that involve Dennis having a mental breakdown.

Just the second episode and this season appears to have the largest number of assholes so far. Adam (with the "horn hair") is constantly raging at Rebecca over trivial things ("I lost my sunglasses! If you ever tell me to take off my sunglasses, I'm never going to speak to you for the rest of my life!!!"). Bolo the wrestler always looks like he's ready to pop Lori and can't stop calling her white trash. Jonathan is yelling yelling yelling and Victoria is squealing squealing squealing.

I loved the intro with Fred and Carrie not remembering when things happened. They sounded like detectives following clues in their own lives. I was expecting them to remember that they actually saw it in a movie. I like the way they make scenes like the astrophysicist look improvised. It really looked like they found a real one and just had Fred unload crazy stuff on him. Lots of regular people are surprisingly funny. I'm one month older than Fred. Yikes!

Starting this one. So who do we have? The hot party girls, the New York Jews (who are already making Exodus jokes!), the old couple, the roid-rage married wrestlers, the screaming "passionate" guy and his cowering partner , the doomed ex-lovers (picking up from the minute they broke up), the Salt Lake sisters with conflicting lifestyles (one who doesn't like "roughing it" so she's perfect for TAR), the "Daddy treats me like a baby!" girl and her daddy, the alpha male best friends, the engaged models (more eye candy), and the dating actors (even more eye candy and a nice couple). And here's where the famous TAR line is said: "I'm so cold my implants are frozen!" Oh my GOSH! Another gas/diesel mistake? Haven't these people seen the show? Oh, diesel is called "dieseline" in Iceland. At least they caught it before they started the engine.

I'm almost finished with season 5. This one has the most uncomfortable situations I've seen so far. Brandon and Nicole godbothering in every episode. Colin flipping out during the famous "My ox is broken!" scene was awful. Two teams ended up talking to cops when angry cab drivers disputed their fares.

A friend and I were in Arizona last weekend. She told me how surprised she was by how few man-buns she saw down there. The only good thing about them is that they're replacing the ponytails that Portland men have been sporting for far too long.

Oh God, Charla and Mirna's whining is unbearable! Even when they're happy they're whining! I like how Chip makes a spectacle of himself but it's charming and not obnoxious like Justin was last season. I also like how teams win a trip to "exotic" Mexico. Too many gross-out eating challenges. Two pounds of caviar was horrible and now they have to eat an ostrich egg? My favorite moment so far was when the gorgeous K twins saw Phil on the island and instead of walking across the shallow water like everyone else, they tore off their clothes and swam to him. I could hear a producer saying, "That's the promo for this episode!"

I'm only up to episode three, but they're portrayed as backstabbers and Chip is badmouthing the other teams.

Oh my god I've never seen so much blood after Jim tore his knee open three seconds after the race started. 20+ stitches and he was back in the race!

So when the last team is hopelessly behind in the last leg, they just leave a note for them telling them that the race is over? Ouch!

Swimming under the ice has to be the toughest thing I can imagine. The teams cheered after the first guy made it because they now knew it was possible to live through it.

This is the only case where I remember them "investigating" a Bigfoot walking on all fours like every other animal in the forest. It's also hard for me to stay tuned. The mistakes they make that aren't laughable are infuriating. When they purposely ignore important information, I know I'm watching a bunch of con-artists and I feel like watching the show is supporting them.

I remember that the woman's story changed bit by bit as it began to fall apart. The appalling scene was when Ranae was off where the bear crossed the road trying to judge the distance. Meanwhile the woman was with $maker and was getting more confused and upset by Ranae's questions, and equally more insistent that she had seen Bigfoot. Then $maker, being the asshole he is, started badmouthing Ranae, telling the woman that she'll try to "trick" you into saying something stupid. But don't worry -- you did see Bigfoot. The woman immediately looked relieved and happy. That episode really showed what a charlatan $maker is. He had no interest in what this woman had actually seen, and the only person who said "bear" was me yelling at the screen the whole time.

It was OK when they were investigating things that sounded like Bigfoot. They lost me when a Bigfoot witness clearly described a bear crossing a road on all fours yet she was convinced she had seen Bigfoot. The BARFers did not say, "Sorry, Ma'am. Bigfoot is a bipedal creature. You saw something else." No, $maker consoled the poor woman as that awful Ranae tormented her by asking reasonable questions about what she thought she had seen. $maker told her that he was certain she had seen Bigfoot and that Ranae is a nasty bitch. I thought... what's next? Bigfoot with antlers? Bigfoot wearing a dog collar? Bigfoot carrying a beer cooler?

The main wrong thing about "Brunch Special" is that everyone in the line would have been staring at their phones and their tablets, and more than one of them would have been complaining about how this place was cool before everyone found out about it. They also would have talked about some other cool restaurant from x years ago back when Portland was a cool place.

They found yet another way to pad the show.

I'm three episodes into this one. Biggest mistake so far in this season: Cindy and Russell buying a train ticket to Gmund instead of Gmunden. There seem to be more teams doing things together in this season so far. Sorry that Amanda and Chris got eliminated. I liked Amanda's smile.

Yes! The technique of corralling both whites and blacks and then releasing the whites one by one was obvious... once someone figured it out. Who figured it out? Tara of course who was always ten times smarter than crazy-eyed Wil.

So the ending of this season was pretty good. Wil and the woman he yells at actually lose the clue. I had heard there was a season that ended with one team being stuck in Alaska (please don't tell me which one) so I thought this was it. Nope, Tara manages to remember bits of what the clue said, look something up, make a phone call, and confirm the TAR contestants are expected there. Brilliant! The editing of the race to the finish was brilliant. They intercut Wil and Tara who think they're going to lose with Blake and Paige who already know they are going to lose. Wil and Tara bicker about who screwed up more and whose fault it was, then they cut to Paige who is almost in tears because Blake is telling her how fantastic she was and how proud he was to be her brother. Back and forth between Wil and Tara at each other's throats and Blake and Paige quietly being happy that they made it to the end.

Yeah, that didn't seem fair, and then they won it to boot, but like you saw Gerard and Ken also paid kids to help them hold the basket bikes steady. Everyone was cheating in that leg. I had heard that Flo was a whiner. I actually felt sorry for her early in the race when she started the repelling then suddenly screamed and begged to be pulled up. She was clearly having an uncontrollable panic attack. However it was hard to watch her during the train trip when she declared that she was going to quit and go home. This isn't a vacation trip!

The funny bits I've seen so far: Blake and Paige driving full speed down a Brazilian street against two lanes of traffic. Paige: "Is this one way?" Blake: "Uhhhhh, yes?" Oswald: "I've learned that five star hotels... are worth every penny!" Gary: "Why couldn't the British have colonized [bangkok]? No one speaks English here!" And Wil (who I guess got the L beat out of him once) is a good villain to laugh at, especially when he accuses Blake and Paige of "trying to obstruct the flow of the race." I guess he meant "trying to win".

Portland's trend in pinball machines continues to grow! We'll be getting a 4,000 square foot pinball arcade and museum. Yes, there are pinball leagues here. Women are invited but I haven't seen any yet. http://www.wweek.com/2015/12/21/portland-getting-a-new-4000-square-foot-video-game-palace-at-former-alhambra-theatre/ Is this a Portland thing?

When they need to cross a river to an island in wicker boats. Flo absolutely gives up. Just stops. "I want OUT!" While Flo sat and pouted Zach found a solution that worked so well, I'm surprised it didn't break a rule. He won them the million dollars at this point. The bald brothers were pure comedy, non-stop! Those guys dropped at least one killer line in every episode. So awful that they didn't win.

Light hearted? This season was hard to watch at times. Teri and Ian screaming at each other non-stop (worse than Logan and Chris) and Flo crying and saying she was giving up and wanted to go home then almost successfully sabotaged a task. It did show that anyone can win in the end. The team that was nearly throwing in the towel won it.

Well, I'll take Arianne and Jill and Talicia and Heather and Eve. And yes, even Flo (the three second shot of her in her underwear got my attention). Season two does have some fabulous looking men like Shola and Doyin and Oswald and Danny and Blake. Oh my, Paige has a great smile. The double-bun hair was so popular back then.