Now this is a punishing leg. Start with 20 hours on a bus (oy), and follow it with flying all the way from South America to Russia. Then choose between being pelted with hockey pucks and downing a shot, and just when you think you can’t get any queasier, you get to choose a member of your team to eat two pounds of caviar — an item intended to be ingested by the teaspoon. What begins as bus-station jostling over some very bizarre notions of racing (“Can we agree that you won’t try to get ahead of me?” “Uhh…”) matures into complications at the airport and the navigating of multiple connections in Europe. Finally, in St. Petersburg, there is hockey and vodka, and then the killer Roadblock appears. Say what you want about Christie and Nicole choking on the caviar, but they’re not getting flack from me, because that is clearly hell in a bowl. Nobody wants to eat two pounds of anything, particularly if it’s entirely made up of fat and salt, and when you see a twin at the end physically shaking, it becomes clear that you don’t have to be a “pageant girl” to struggle. In the end, Christie pulls it together in time for her and Colin to slide into second place behind a surging Chip and Kim after Chip takes advantage of his caviar-snarfing ability to lap the competition. Nicole and Brandon drop to the middle of the pack, as do Charla and Mirna, and after they come up short at the airport, it’s time to say goodbye to Bob and Joyce. Aww. They’re very sweet, though, and have the classy exit you’d expect. Thanks for playing, Bob and Joyce — we dug you.

Oy is right. I like this season a lot, but not having a Fast Forward available every leg is really killing the unfortunate teams that get stuck with a bad flight or a pack of horny dogs.

Not that I didn’t actually cheer for the horny dogs, mind you. But it’s culling the nice people (again, with the exception of Team Horndog.)