Let’s see – there’s a recap of the premiere up, which I got around to reading the night before the second episode aired. The title, whch is usually only visible when you look at the whole list of recaps, is “Peru-ff Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.”

Miss Alli has this to say about the state of TAR thus far:

Previously on How To Endanger Your Franchise With One Drunken Casting Session: First, it was awwwwwesome (Ed: TAR1). Then, it was great (Ed: TAR2). Then it was great, except for the part where Flo won (Ed: TAR3). Then, it kind of sucked (Ed: TAR4, and I totally disagree, unless she’s talking about the long, long wait for renewal and the next season to start). Then it kind of sucked, except for the part where Chip and Kim won (Ed: TAR5). Then it really sucked, except for Kris and Jon, and especially in the parts that had shoving. So now, it is time to see whether the trend can be reversed. It’s safe to say we all certainly hope so.

Yes, we do, and after seeing not just the premiere, but two whole episodes of the current season, I think we’re all mighty relieved that there’s nobody as assy as Jonathan Livingston Asshole. And also – hey, fun, culturally relevant tasks that actually allow for skillful play and shake up the standings a little.

And here’s the mini-recap for what many of the TWOP fans were saying was a kick-ass, fast-moving episode:

Boston Rob and Amber become more polarizing than ever as he tries a couple of dodgy maneuvers, including paying a source for exclusivity (not too bad) and paying a bus driver to keep the back door shut until he’s well away (not too good). And when he’s interrogated by other teams who somehow seem to feel entitled to have him confess (?), he can only wink and laugh, because…either they’ve heard of him, in which case they have no reason to think he’s going to tell them anything, or they haven’t, in which case they have no reason to dislike him yet.

In actual race-related news, the teams pull off a shoeshine Roadblock in Peru before being shipped off to Chile for a truly ass-kicking Detour that uses interesting skills, results in shifts of position, allows teams to maneuver around each other, and generally justifies its existence in the way that many less interesting Detours have failed to do.

And for the most part, Rob and Amber are the bosses of every task in the leg, from trickery to book-hauling. They wind up winning the leg easily, and the rest of the teams take another half-hour to trickle in. In the end, it’s a battle between Brian and Greg and Heidi and Megan, which is extra-sad because the two teams had been doing quite a bit of dorky flirting earlier in the leg. When the brothers win and the blondes go, the guys are sure to act very sorry it’s happening.

Which, if you can bond with people in, like, a day and a half, I’m sure they are.

So – Megan and Heidi are gone, and now I regret the mean things I said about them, because they weren’t nearly as annoying and Little Miss Blonde Thing 1 and Thing 2 as I thought they’d be. In fact, they endeared themselves to legions of men by being the kind of sexy that allows for a little dirt around the edges, no makeup, loose hair, and not 6 coats of lacquer and a heavy-duty laminating machine.

Not to mention wearing green sweats that ride really, really low and say “PINK” right across the ass, where your tailbone tat shows to best advantage. The Insider video has some hot dish that Phil spills about the two teams hooking up and sharing a hotel room, but Brian insists that nothing “shady” happened.

Okay, Brian, you’ve been home for months. Luck’s got to have changed. 😉

They certainly seemed to hit it off on the long, 10 hour bus ride with the Brothers Zoolander (TM somebody on TWOP in the “Brian and Greg” folder, because of the horrifying spectacle of Brian’s sunglasses). There were actual man-tears when the brothers beat the blondes to the mat in yet another exciting footrace to the Amazing Bathmat (that’s 2 weeks in a row).

In fact, I’m a little worried that the brothers will throw the race in favor of going off to Sequesterville to hang out with the Malibu Barbies for a few weeks. However, I hope they’ll finally learn the difference between having fun while racing, and racing well while still having fun.

They’ve been having a little too much fun thus far, but then they always seem to get into a pretty amusing “Dork Panic Mode” at the end and pull it out. Next week I’d like to see them finish a little higher in the pack, please.

And as for the Rob/Amber thing – half the people in the office thought Rob’s shenanigans with bribing security guards and bus drivers were cheating. Half thought it was smart play. There’s no denying that he totally rocked that last task, using his skills as a builder to stack 180 books neatly and solidly onto a handtruck. Just like stacking bricks, baby. He had those volumes cantilevered like you wouldn’t believe. Amber’s role seems to be to keep him calm; she reads the rules and checks that they’ve completed something correctly. She was pretty cute doing the “shoeshine” Roadblock task.

This episode was a particularly confusing one because the lead changed hands a couple of times, the tasks in the Roadblock and Detour segments allowed for the work-smart teams to bypass the work-hard teams. It really pays to suss out the best, most efficient way to perform these tasks. After all, if you were a citizen of that country and did that every day to put food on the table, you’d figure out pretty fast how to carry baskets of salt on your head or loads of bricks in a yoke or how to encourage an unbroken ox to plow.

Thank goodness, those smart folks over at Tarflies.com have the excellent Sports Page for this episode up to explain all the twists and turns, and the departure, arrival and task stats laid out all nice and pretty.