The current season of TAR continues to eerily predict impending disasters, like Katrina or the cancellation of a once-great show.

This week, teams wandered around the Southeast avoiding Hurricane Dennis while finding random bits of giant furniture and spending the night in a trailer park. Wow, love the cultural immersion they’re undergoing! Not.

There was one awesome shot of a curtain of rain and stormcloud behind the Paolos, who at least stopped for a second to look at it. Before the episode, there was a disclaimer about how the episode was filmed before Katrina and Rita laid waste to the area, so the images from the Pit Stop sequence are especially poignant. Ah, New Orleans!

Miss Alli’s mini-recap is up, and really, she could hardly improve on it by writing a full-length one.

Let’s see. Give me a minute. Elvis-O-Rama, the Tupperware Museum, the Boll Weevil Monument, Cranberry World, The Shuffleboard Hall Of Fame, Poodle Dog Rock, the Mecca Of Albino Squirrels…ghost towns, theme parks, wax museums, the place where you can drive through the middle of a tree…alligator farms, tarantula ranches…nope. Never heard of the World’s Biggest Office Chair. But that’s where the teams start off this week, before heading to Talladega for a moment that the Weavers can only call, as we would around here, “Un! Comfortable!” But because the racetrack “task” only involves bikes (whuh?), it’s not as bad as it could have been. Then it’s on to a mobile home park, and then an unsatisfying Detour, and then New Orleans, and again with the awkwardness as the hometown Schroeders are eliminated. It’s good that they’re gone, particularly because both boneheaded Papa and boo-hooing Stassi are quite ready to go, but that’s several more layers of sad than I really look for on a Tuesday night. In other news, a Linz brother is legitimately funny for the very first time, we meet a Tonya Gone Wild, the Gaghans pull their fannies out of the fire again, and Phil wears another ugly shirt. Things are going downhill fast here, y’all.

I did feel bad for the Schroeders, who are from New Orleans and suffered the ignominy of being eliminated on home turf. They spent hours wandering around looking for a state park that turned out to be about 5 minutes from where the dad lived or worked for a while. At least he took responsibility for the boneheadedness of it all, and his weepy, semi-hysterical daughter Stassi really was right: they should have listened to her when she told them not to take the first departure-time tag they found, but keep looking for the earlier one that another family found (teh Evil Weavers, that is).

I don’t know why Stepma Schroeder called the Weavers “evillll” but that seems to be the consensus of most of the other teams. They’re not well liked, probably because they’re standoffish and unfriendly.

Except, of course, to random weird-looking strangers who have also found Jebus. Man, what a great way to live your faith.

Not.

Next week, we apparently FINALLY LEAVE THE USA.

Gaghan watch: the little girl, Carissa, did the only moderately wacky thing all episode – she made up a little song called “My magic pen” that she sang incessantly while helping her dad look for his Bic Biro, which is normally clamped tightly between his teeth.

Finally, an analysis of the route, clues, and tasks reveals that there was very, very little change in the rankings during the episode, except when families were looking for the departure time tags at the overnight at the trailer park (and BOO! to mid-episode overnights! I hate how this show has become “The Amazing Sleepover”).

Once again, the Paolos are the most dysfunctional family, but the most functional opportunists – they fight and squabble constantly, but the sons (who seem to be doing most of the head-work, frankly) generally spot the crucial detail or grab the right number or whatever.

Although, once again there was some sort of weird fight over who had the clue. Mama should never, never, never be allowed to touch the clue!