Minicaps: DH, Amazing Race, Castle, HIMYM, SYTYCD

It’s sad but true that we are still behind on TV, but here’s a quick run through of some of our viewing for this week so far including Desperate Housewives, Amazing Race, Castle, HIMYM, and SYTYCD.

Desperate Housewives

We’re just going to go ahead and call it – RIP Karl. That’s the major death we’re putting our money on. We’re also going with Lynette having a miscarriage from saving Celia. We all together on that? Okay. We’ll check in after the next new episode which will be a misleading fantasy episode showing us some fake futures.

PS: I’ve just awarded Desperate Housewives 50 bonus points for naming this episode “Boom Crunch.”


Amazing Race

Meghan and Cheyne won it all, which wasn’t particularly shocking but was entirely satisfying. Anyone else ready to punch Ericka in the face by the time they were two seconds into the cirque du soleil challenge? And we were so impressed with her when she repelled down the side of that building with little to no complaining! So congrats to Meghan and Cheyne! You got the million dollars plus a whole mess of prizes from coming in first so many times. And you probably won’t break-up the second you get him, so that’s an added bonus!

Castle

Girl’s hair is finally getting less mullety, and that alone is worth a mention. On to the actual episode. Usually when we are able to recognize a guest star on shows like this we are pretty safe to say that they are involved in whatever murder/crime we are investigating (meaning, they did it!) but this week really threw us for a loop. We had:

Rider Strong

 Riley

and Cut Throat

so our minds pretty much overloaded with possibilities. Then it turned out to be some random assistant that we didn’t recognize at all! What a rip! Rider Strong has done this to us before (see his episode of Bones where he was a giant creeper red herring), but we expected more from you Riley and Cut Throat!

HIMYM

So Maggie, the girl who Ted and the rest of man kind  were all trying to get with was very familiar. Of course she’s been on Gossip Girl, Privileged, Reba, Freaks and Geeks and a whole mess of other stuff that I can place her in even though I never really watched. But just now I scroller threw her imdb and had my mind blown by her 37 episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Old school (season 3 and on). Now that I know she was Sam in the Midnight Society I totally get it, Ted.

Barney had some good stuff with his overalls challenge, and Robin was great at foiling him and throwing herself at Maggie’s friend, but the real star of this episode totally had to be past Marshal, with a future Marshal as a close runner up.

Dear Future Me,

First off, you'd better be driving either a kick-ass Camaro or the A-Team van. That's priority numero uno. And by now your rattail should hang down to your frickin' knees. You can still slam-dunk, obviously. And you've legally changed your name to "Vanilla Thunder." Your wife, let me break it down: blonde, six feet tall, has an awesome rack and caters to your every need.

(“Sorry, babe." "That's okay. You just described your mother.")

You're still rocking the stone-washed overalls, because this look is working. Oh, and most importantly, you'd better be saving the world. If you became some lame, corporate sellout? Just throw yourself off a cliff, because you suck. And I? Licky boom-boom down.

SYTYCD

Poor Russel, having his partner taken away due to an injury the day of the performance for the second time! Is he cursed or sabotaging? Hmmmm. Sorry Ashleigh. Me thinks it might be best for you and Ryan to go home together this week. If Kathryn is in the bottom again I then I seriously don’t get America. If she and Jacob don’t make it to the finale there will be hell to pay. My guesses for the bottom 2 guys and girls: Ryan, Russell, Ashleigh and Ellenore (although I would much prefer to see Mollie down there) with Ryan and Ashleigh hitting the road.

PS: Did Samantha Ronson’s remix of Easy Street make you want to stab someone or was that just us?

The Amazing Race ~ Waterslide melt-down

Let’s not beat around the bush. The thing that everyone is or should be talking about today is what I’m going to go ahead and dub “The Great Water-slide Melt-down of ’09.” If there anyone else is planning to top this melt-down on a waterslide within this calendar year, you’d better get on that. Time is ticking and this one was a doozie.

So Canaan . . . what exactly about Mika screamed “Amazing Race material” to you? Was it her paralyzing fear of heights, or was it her deathly fear of water? Oh I get it, it was the COMBO! They should totally cancel each other out, right? Like double negatives? No?

The last challenge of the day required both team members to go down a steep water slide, though a really cool tube where you could see sharks swimming around you, and reach the bottom for your last clue directing you to run down the beach and meet up with Phil. No biggie, right? Well, that’s what most of teams thought. Then came Mika and Canaan, in second to last place with a healthy lead on the Globe Trotters. Mika is petrified. She’s wearing swimmies (or floaties if you prefer, to each his own) which is an absolutely ridiculous concept considering that it is a WATER SLIDE where the water by necessity is never more than two inches deep. At the bottom it is maybe a whopping 3 feet. Those things would do nothing but make you less aerodynamic and be way uncomfortable on this type of slide. So she’s freaking out. Canaan tries to coax her to sit down and as soon as she is near the opening he tries to FORCE HER down the slide. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh dude. Bad bad bad bad bad call. Way to make a bad situation worse. Now she’s terrified of the slide AND Canaan. He’s trying to push her down, while she’s begging to slide attendant to intervene. “Help me! Help me!” Man, he was not loving his job that day. Cross your arms and feet. That is all he is required to tell you. He didn’t sign up for any damsel in distress business, and he in fact does not help her, help her.

So there’s Canaan, running around telling her “'I'm begging you. You are breaking my heart. You will regret it,” which isn’t helping at all. Despite him being a jerk by trying to force her down the slide (which, by the way, could have resulted in some serious physical damage if she went flailing down unprepared), I can’t blame him. She’s ridiculous. The Globe Trotters manage to catch up, which enacts a 2 minute move it or lose it rule. The normally congenial Big Easy tries to psych her out, “''Don't do it. I wouldn’t do it. It's high. It's a long way up here…. If you're scared, come on back and we'll walk back down with you.” Some people may have found this a little low (Canaan certainly did), but it only amused us. I mean, come on – she wasn’t going anywhere! Finally their 2 minutes are up and the Globe Trotters fly by them down the slide. Canaan goes too with some vain hope that Mika might follow. Not so much. Mike cries a little bit and then makes her way back down the stairs to find Canaan, who tells us in their exit interview that he doesn’t hate her. Sure dude. One million dollars lost because of a waterslide. What’s to be mad about.

So the question that everyone is asking:

Would you rather lose the Amazing Race because of a waterslide or a porta potty? (I’m looking at you, Jen and Kisha).

Quickies - Amazing Race, Mad Men, DH, HIMYM, Castle

Here's a quick sampling platter of our recent TV veiwing:

Amazing Race

Dammit Keri! Headed home this week were Lance and Keri. Thank god. They had gotten to the point of annoyance where I couldn’t even be amused by them any more. Ok, I laughed a little (maybe a lot) at the fact that they spent 90% of their time driving the wrong way up and down the highway. But then they were all too quick to remind us of why we hated them so much when Lance finished the water finding challenge and practically threw their stuff at the local clue giver while saying ''Have a spoon, have a ladle, have a nice life'' in a way that made my skin crawl. Peace out.

Side note to Ericka and Brian: you two are the only ones who care that you are an interracial couple. Enough with the “Ebony and Ivory” business!


Mad Men

Betty found Don’s box of super secrets. Not they best hiding spot in the world, Don – and a little careless with the keys! She sat up all night with the box ready to confront him about it, but he was too busy doing Sally’s former teacher. So she simply put the box away and pretended like nothing happened. That can’t be good. We don’t even know how she processed the information. There’s the divorce certificate from the real Don Draper’s wife and the deed to that house – so she’s pretty sure that he was married before and never told her. But what about all of the pictures of him labeled Dick?!?!?! Could she possibly be able to put that together too? Only time will tell.

Props to Sally for delivering a great “Geez Louise” to some of Betty’s awesome parenting, and to Paul Kinsey for kind of realizing that Peggy is advertising magic.

Desperate Housewives

Oh Julie, we called that you were sleeping with the Bolen dad on the first episode – I mean, you DO like your older men. When Susan find her diary and she only referred to her lover as “D.” we were like, “What the hell is the Bolen guy’s first name? The son is Danny, but it can’t be him . . .” and then when his wife called him “Nick” we were like, “So the ‘D’ is for . . . Dad . . . . Bolen?” It wasn’t until the shocking  entirely predictable ending that he showed up to her hospital bed and called himself “Dominic” that we knew it was him for sure. Whatever, I’m calling him “Dad Bolen” from now on.

Also in this episode, Katherine done gone crazy and Lynette’s pregnancy boobs are out of control!


How I Met Your Mother

Robin is in danger of getting deported because she hurt someone with a chair at the Hoser Hutt, so Barney helps her cram for an American citizenship exam. This goes pretty well until she ends up back at the Canadian bar that night and finds herself in Toronto in the morning. Despite Barney’s attempts to Americanize her, she is still a Canadian at heart. Sadly, she finds that she isn’t the same Canadian girl she used to be when a woman at Tim Horton’s mistakes her for an American when she doesn’t say please or thank you and didn’t watch the last night’s game. Alas she is a woman without a Country. Barney yells at Canada for being stupid enough to let women like Robin leave, and then gets the crap beaten out of him by a bunch of burley Canadian men (and possible children, and Robin a little).

Meanwhile Ted and Marshall embark upon a road trip like to used to in College. One snag – Lilly. She’s coming along to put a damper on their fun. There were some excellent moments over into his plot line as well, including the results of too much Tantrum, Kenny Roger’s narration of “Goodbye, Sparky”, and a flashback to the Fiero in full “And I would walk 500 miles” glory.

Top Quotes:

“There's kids playing hockey on the back. It's like you want us to make fun of you!” - Barney about Canada’s $5 bill.

“How do you know the Canadian citizenship test is easy?” – Robin
“It's Canada. Question one, do you want to be Canadian? Question two, really?” – Barney

“We were like Lewis and Clark, if Lewis and Clark peed in water bottles and had a bong made out of a cantaloupe.” – Ted

Castle

Just read that ABC picked it up for a full season! Woo hoo! Much like Becket and Castle learned that they were going to be stuck with eachother for a while in this weeks episode, we can rest assured that we have at least one more full season of Nathan Fillion on our TV. We realized watching this week’s episode that one of the reasons that they are so amusing together is that they are both so completely lacking in subtlety. They are blunt and emotional and competitive, and we love that. Keep on keeping on, Castle! Also, we are pretty sure that next week Castle dresses up like Captain Reynolds for Halloween (or at least it looked a lot like that in the quick preview). Nice. Then again, the promo pictures show him in a different outfit, so maybe out imaginations are just getting away from us. I prefer the first option.

And because I have no GIFs particularly relevant to any of these episodes yet, let's just take a moment to be excited for Wednesday night's shows, including Glee and Modern Family!

Amazing Race 15 – Eat the Wasabi!!!!!!

This is our first year watching Amazing Race from beginning to end, and we are excited! This week the contestants were shocked to discover that one team would be eliminated before even crossing the start line. The teams had to sort through a gigantic wall of license plates to find the one referenced in their clue. Shockingly, it took every team at least one wrong try before they noticed the characters on the clue were also on the appropriate license plate. Eventually they caught on, but there were only so many license plates to go around. Eric and Lisa got the boot, which was fine because we had already decided we were over them. The blond yoga instructors had already lost our interests the second the said “We’re like yoga in the hood.” Sure you are, guys.

After that things got under way for real. The teams raced to Tokyo where they had to participate in a Japanese game show called Sushi Roulette. The best thing about this challenge was clearly the audience members. Oh Japan, you know your game shows. This challenge was 80% luck and 20% wasabi tolerance. The giant wheel of sushi was spun, and whoever received the coveted wasabi bomb had two minutes to choke it down. Most teams were able to do it in just in time. A couple people failed the first time and actually had to eat another one just moments after. One of the Globetrotters ate it in about 30 seconds and made my brain explode. Once the team has successfully eaten the wasabi bomb, they were assigned 20 Japanese tourists from the game show audience and needed to herd them through the ridiculously busy streets of Japan and make their way to the pit stop. The horrible poker girls actually lost 2 of their tourists! Luckily for them, this was a non-elimination leg. The next day folks had to herd ducks through a course while Courtney screamed in terror from the comfort of our couch. Big props to Zev for being the surprise duck whisperer. There was also some mud slinging – literally. They had to cover the base of a tree with some super nutrient mud. Messy! At the end of the leg, Garret and Jessica got the boot. Meh. Okay with that, but would much prefer to go back in time and eliminate the poker chicks.

He’s a quick breakdown of the couples who made it across the start line (sorry Eric and Lisa):

Sam and Dan – two gay brothers, what are the odds? They’re not mentioning that they’re gay to the other teams in hopes on staying on the good side of cute girls who want to fruitlessly flirt with them. It is working pretty well on the poker girls, so well played you guys! So far they are amusing us.

Zev and Justin – Zev has Asperger’s Syndrome, so that automatically put him high on our list. Combine that with his deadpan one liners and bluntness and he’s aces. We’re all about this team.

Flight Time and Big Easy – two Harlem Globetrotters who are sweet as sugar, athletic (obvs), and likeable to a ridiculous degree. My favorite quote of the night came from Flight Time during the tourist herding challenge in Tokyo: “They Thought Godzilla Was Walking Down the Street".

Gary and Matt – the requisite “''father and son who never communicated much before but whose relationship will grow in leaps and bounds on the trip” team. Amazingly enough there wasn’t any awkwardness of bickering between them (at least not so far), and their farming background gave them a leg up during the duck challenge. Plus the son’s hair is pink – so that’s cool.

Mercy and Ron – the older couple. They’ve only been dating for about a year (bold choice taking on the race so early in a relationship). She was super perky during the tourist challenge. I don’t remember a whole lot about him other than being older. So we’ll see how that goes for them!

Mika and Canaan – newly dating, uber religious, and he’s saving himself for marriage. . ''He likes me for the right reasons,'' said Mika. ''It's not because he wants to have sex.” Awwww, how sweet. Not as sweet? Canaan during the duck challenge: ''God, I want to rip her head off right now!''

Brian and Ericka – she’s a former Miss America, so that’s impressive. You know that she should be able to keep her cool, after being put through all of that pageant drama. Plus they’re a married interracial couple – so that’s fun too. Brian’s the one to keep an eye on. He somehow managed to bargain their way onto a sold old flight, and came up with the idea to have several teams pool their money together to buy up the remaining seats on a bus so that they could leave earlier to catch up with the other teams (as it turned out, it didn’t make any difference – all of the teams ended up waiting together for the dock to reopen the next morning, but still). He’s a clever little minx!

Garret and Jessica – they got eliminated at the end of the second leg, so we’ll never find out whether their on-again-off-again relationship has what it takes to make it (spoiler alert – probably not). They kept telling us that she’s got a hot temper and he’s the one that keeps his cool. And yet, he’s the one who hit the wall (literally) when Phil told them they had been eliminated.
Meghan and Cheyne – all I can tell you about this couple is that they’re childhood sweethearts and, more importantly, we are super annoyed by the way Cheyne spells his name. Dude! Your name is “Shane” – did you’re parents hate you or something?

Lance and Keri – we’re totally ready for these Massholes to be eliminated at the next convenient pit stop. He’s rude, condescending, and a “meathead.” (His wife’s words, not mine!). Despite Keri’s claim that he’s “smaaaaaht”, I really don’t think I’d trust him to represent anyone I know if court (oh yeah, he’s a lawyer – did I forget to mention that?).

Maria and Tiffany – 2 professional poker players who are playing mind games before they even hit foreign soil. They decide to tell everyone that they work with a non-profit organization that serves homeless youth, because who wants to help out a couple of rich poker players? This strategy worked well for them for a little while, until their cover was blown by a poker fan in the airport on the way to Vietnam. Everyone quickly realized that they were liars, and basically horrible people, so they shouldn’t be expecting a whole lot of help in the future.