Non-elimination Sunday

Brief spoilers for "The Amazing Race" and "Entourage" coming right up...

A very meh episode of "Amazing Race," and not just because it was a Non-Elimination Leg that kept the odious Eric and Danielle in the game. (You could tell they knew it was coming, too, judging by Eric's lack of urgency in the final minutes.) The Fast Forward required even less skill than the step-counting one from a few weeks ago; once Danny and Oswald agreed to do it, there was no real way for them to not complete it. The kung fu Detour looked very cool, but the ninjas seemed there for decoration and didn't really affect anyone's ability to do it. (Good on Charla, though, both for insisting they do it instead of that awful needle in a haystack choice, and for getting it done with minimal drama. Her cousin is grating and hypocritical and awful, but Charla doesn't seem that bad.) The two teams I like are in the lead, but I worry that Danny's carelessness with the money on the previous leg is going to haunt the Chas, unless they're handed a huge wad of cash at the start of the next leg and/or they have some really valuable stuff in their packs to sell.

When I was making my complaint that "Entourage" had turned into two different shows, one good (Ari), one bad (Vince/E), Fienberg pointed out that it's really three shows, because Drama and Turtle are usually off doing their own thing. This episode made that three-way split especially obvious, with Ari trying to pimp out Lloyd ("Go grab your best dress and know today that your love of (expletive deleted) is a tremendous asset to this agency") before having a rare pang of conscience, Vince and E involved in a double date story that would not end, and Turtle and Drama trolling for dates at the dog park.

The dog stuff was mildly amusing for a few minutes -- especially the latest bit of Drama wisdom: "Finicky dogs have finicky owners, and finicky owners make you wait two weeks before they'll give you a tug" -- but the double dating stuff was pure pain. Ari and Lloyd, on the other hand? I could watch an entire series built around those two, even if the other guys never showed up again. Question: was Ari's impulse to save Lloyd something he always would have done, or has the split with Vince made him more concerned about chasing people away?