DISCLAIMER: This is based on the brilliant recaps by Miss Alli of "Television Without Pity". I do not own the website, and I am not Miss Alli.

(Everything in parenthesis is pure opinion, and is intended for humor.)

Previously on The Amazing Race: Ships passing each other -- like ships that pass in the night, only during the day. Iguacu Falls. At the airport, Harry fell in love with his ticket agent, but she didn't like him that way. Ron and Hermione were both perfect size sixes and wore matching gold lavalieres. The alliance between Sloppyrin and July lasted just long enough for Neville to waggle his eyebrows in Pansy's general direction, and then it burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp. Parvati and Lavender were told they were going to be killed for their backpacks, but fortunately for those of us who were not looking for them to make quite that much reality television history, they weren't. Bellatrix and Narcissa were eliminated, much to Bellatrix's obvious relief. Who, Dumbledore wonders in his deliriously dulcet tones, will be eliminated tonight?

Winery. Dumbledore notes that during the pit stop, some of the teams "celebrated more than others." Cut to a thoroughly sloshed Malfoy, looking very drunk. Lavender says that some trouble started at the dinner table, and Dennis clarifies that the evildoers were July and Malfoy. Apparently, they were getting "loud and vulgar," especially the Malfunction. Speaking of mishaps, Malfoy, wearing his hideous purple-and-white shirt, interviews about what is, by now, fairly obvious -- the fact that he had a lot to drink at the pit stop. Cut back to the previous evening, where a barely-able-to-remain-upright Malfoy says, "I want to have fun with the hot South African ladies, man." Neville is highly entertained, but I suppose he can afford to be. ("Dude, you're hilarious! Mind if I borrow your wife?") Anyway, Parvati says that "a couple of lines got crossed, and Malfoy played a key part in that." Malfoy explains that Flitwick didn't appreciate the swearing that became part of the revelry (as it so often does). Cut back to a swaying Malfoy. Malfoy even admits that the Teachers "had reasons to be upset," although he also somehow attributes the Teachers' reaction to his being in last place, which...I think is a stretch. (I know plenty of people of all ages, religions, and philosophies of life that would not appreciate being part of what's going on here, and I don't think you have to be losing the race to feel that way. In fact, I generally don't want to be a part of it, even when I'm the one doing it. Actually, especially when I'm the one doing it.)

Now Dumbledore points out that at the pit stop, "other relationships continued to grow," and we see July arriving and Neville being hugged by Pansy. Next up, a grainy, poorly-lit, internet-bootleg-ish shot of Neville and Pansy huddled...somewhere. A goofily smiling Neville turns to the camera and says, "We're just 'strategizing.'" He finger-quotes "strategizing," (and he seriously needs some romantic advice, because finger-quoting is so thoroughly the opposite of an aphrodisiac, I cannot even tell you. It is truly the unsexiest thing since drooling and polka-dot bow ties.) Over more film of Neville and Pansy "strategizing," Malfoy says that his un-wife is free to see who she wants, and he reminds us that he could do the same (that sound you hear is Parvati, Lavender, Hermione, AND McGonagall simultaneously shuddering). He points out that nevertheless, they shouldn't "stick it in each other's faces," (and I'm not even going to think about what that means). A clearly drunk Neville and Pansy are still mugging for the camera, and he goes to kiss her (he is totally going to kiss her, too, camera-mugging or not), and she shoves him off. (Heh. I have a warm, happy feeling that they deserve each other.)

(Wow, quite an episode -- sex and booze before we even begin the next leg.)

2:52 AM. Cha-Cha-Cha. The clue tells them to use a map to get to the Cape Aviation Business Center and find Ryan Blake Air. There are two charter flights to Walvis Bay, Namibia which Oswald fabulously pronounces "Na-meeee-bia", leaving three hours apart, and each is able to hold four teams. Establishing shots of the sun-soaked desert, then the Amazing Yellow Line helpfully moves across the Amazing World Map to demonstrate the route in case you are confused. Man, the AYL always makes it look so easy.

2:52 AM. Sloppyrin. If you can believe this, Malfoy's hat is even toolier than last week's. This time, it's a multicolored stripey knit cap in the '70s-chic color scheme of yellow, orange, and brown. (I feel strangely obligated not to be too mean to this particular hat, because it looks like his mom could have made it. If she did, I encourage her to take it off him long enough to smack him on the back of the head, and then put it back on. He'll be better off, believe me.)

2:52 AM. (Are you enjoying 2:52 AM? It's a very active minute.) Colin and Dennis. They read the clue and reveal that they've been given $210 in cash for the leg. Cha-Cha-Cha, Sloppyrin, and Colin and Dennis all leave together, and George voices over that they're all splitting a cab to the airport. As they walk out, Fred explains that he has some pain in his foot, and George says that he hurt it "trying to do yoga." Heh. (Of course, all injuries are potentially hilarious, but I especially like the idea of Fred hurting himself in some kind of ultimately unsuccessful attempt at yoga.) Fred says he tried to hide the pain so that no one would know.

ChaMaPaTHUNK goes off in their van, with Pansy and the Malfunction voicing over that the cab-share made solid financial sense. They get to the airport and go inside, and they all sign up for the first plane. Cha-Cha-Cha is so excited that they do a whole who's-your-daddy boogie, which Fred cheers appreciatively. Interestingly, the yoga injury doesn't interrupt the dance. ChaMaPaTHUNK takes a group nap, as George voices over that they expect the last team on their flight to be Parvati and the Flower. Amusingly enough, everybody else has a couch or a couch cushion to sleep on, but Malfoy's on the floor. Heh.

5:56 AM. Parvati and Lavender. As they run from the pit stop to a cab, the Lavender voices over that she's been sick, so she's feeling very weak, but she's trying to hang in there. I barely recognize her in this interview with her hair down and a flat-brimmed straw hat on. When they're aboard, the Flower points out anxiously that Xerox and Ron/Hermione are only six minutes back, so if they're going to beat them to the last spot on the first flight, they've got to hustle.

6:02 PM. Speaking of Xerox and Ron/Hermione, here they are. Hermione is sporting the little Ponytail Horns again over her little blue bandanna, and she also has a camouflage shirt that says, "KAPPA." The entire get-up grabs me, shakes me, and yells, "I AM CUTE AS A BUTTON!" (I have to admit, right now, that I'm jealous of Ron.) Ron, on the other hand, is wearing a black sleeveless shirt and a knit FDNY hat. Pretty obviously, if he's going sleeveless, he doesn't need the hat for warmth, which means he's wearing the hat for effect, which I'm not amused by.

In the Parvati/Flower cab, Parvati is explaining to the driver that they're in a huge hurry, because there are teams right behind them. Back at the pit stop, those teams run for cabs. Ron voices over that he likes being in the middle of the pack, and that although they're doing well, they've been humbled by their misfortunes enough to realize that anything can happen. (Even though I don't care too much for this team, that's actually not a bad lesson -- one of the things that separates good teams from bad teams is the ability to successfully recover after a setback, and certainly that overconfidence can be your downfall, so they at least have this going for them.) Xerox climbs into a cab, and Seamus interviews that at this point? It's "eat or be eaten." (Gosh. If those are the only options, somebody else can gnaw on Malfoy, because I get the impression he'd be kinda gamey.)

In the Ron/Hermione cab, Ron promises an extra 100-rand tip if the driver gets him and Hermione to the airport before the other two teams. Then he cackles and twirls his moustache. Okay, not really. Meanwhile, Xerox which is running a few yards behind Ron and Hermione) wonders why, whenever they're tied, they're always a bit behind rather than a bit ahead. (I wonder that, too, and I fear that it bodes ill for them.) Ron reiterates that Parvati and Lavender would have left for the airport about three minutes before they did, and his driver repeats that it's no problem -- they'll beat the ladies to the airport. In her cab, the Flower tells her driver that they don't want him to get a ticket, so if he needs to slow down, he can do that. "We appreciate everything you're doing for us," she says. Flower, nooooooo! Don't slow down! Ron has bribed his driver! Faster, Flower, Faster!

Xerox asks their driver if he knows any shortcuts. (Shortcuts? Eek. Considering the Xerox luck of late, I suspect that any shortcut will take them by way of New Jersey.) The driver says yes, and adds that the other driver won't know about his big secret. (Oy, this makes me so nervous.)

At the airport, Colin and Dennis snooze. Outside, a green van pulls up, and George meets it, opens the door, and extracts the Flower. Without even saying hello, he takes her arm and says, "Okay, just pay later, just go in and sign up." He scans the road for other approaching teams, leaving his hand on her arm protectively as she gets out of the cab. Parvati and the Flower go inside and check in, making it onto the first flight. (Can I just say again that George is a great guy? What a smooth operator. I think he and I should open a small business together where all we do is invite girls in for tea, and if they're nice, we'll kiss their hands and tell them how fabulous they are, and if they step out of line, we'll just drink champagne and make fun of their clothes after they leave.)

Xerox arrives very shortly thereafter, only to find they've barely missed making it on the first flight. As they step back from the ticket counter, voicing over that they were only a minute or so behind Parvati and Lavender, Ron shows up in the background, out of focus. He lowers his head, and there's an insanely red blur representing his hair. I am not making this up. Finally, they pull him into focus, just as he says, "This game is about minutes, huh?" Xerox agrees, afraid that if they disagree, Ron's hair will jump out of his head, scuttle across the floor, and start arguing the point strenuously while weakening the opposition with their pulsating, blinding glow. Outside, walking with Hermione, Ron laments about being bunched away from the lead.

8:50 AM. July. They start to hurry away from the pit stop, but they realize that they're waiting for a noon flight, so they've got nothing to rush for. "It stinks being down low," Harry mopes. Blah blah blah, they're going to get their "competitive juices" going, "kick ass," yap yap yap. They get in a cab. (I silently pray that we don't have to see too much of Harry and Neville's "competitive juices," because there are some things I just don't need to know about, and that's one of them. In fact, in the book where those things are written, that's underlined and highlighted.)

8:51 AM. The Teachers. Flitwick reads the clue and refers to Namibia as "Nambia." (Bleh. Don't they ever teach Geography at Hogwarts?) They're off. McGonagall says that "all the teams that are left are very, very, very aggressive." She says you don't have to play mean to win. That sounds like a contradiction.

9:00 AM. There goes the first charter. Colin says that they were happy to be in the top tier of teams getting out on the first flight. Man, the Malfunction still has that hat on. When will the torture end?

July and the Teachers arrive at the airport. Hermione re-exposits their position in the second bunch.

The first charter lands at the desert airport, with the Malfunction griping that he can't imagine what they could possibly be doing here. "It's all sand," he says. (Well, yes. Welcome to the desert, nitwit. It's like that.) When they get over to the airport, they find the Flag and grab the clue. It tells them to get to the top of Swakopmund Lighthouse. As Colin and Dennis look at their map, it appears that they actually studied it in advance, trying to see where they might need to go. (BAH! Did Colin and Dennis do research? That's too endearing.)

Drunken cameramen careen around the town and the lighthouse. Back at the Walvis Bay airport, George and Fred are looking into renting a car, with the rest of ChaMaPaTHUNK looking on anxiously. When the lady behind the counter finds out that they don't have a credit card, though, she tells George he can't rent a car. Sloppyrin and Colin and Dennis take off in search of taxis, but George perseveres. "What option do I have?" he asks. "Credit card," she says wearily. "No credit card," he says calmly. "How can we go from here to Swakopmund?" "I can give two people a lift," she says -- just like that. Of course, something here is a little cooked, because she has to actually give four people a lift they have to accommodate their camera guy and their sound guy, but the gist appears to be genuine. Fred asks how much it will be for the ride, and the lady just says to give the driver whatever they think is fair. George kisses her hand as they leave. They put their stuff into a car, and George voices over that once again, they learned the value of being polite and pleasant when you need help. Amen, brother. In their cab, Cha-Cha-Cha discusses the fact that they may or may not remain in first place, even though they're doing well coming out of the airport.

Back at the airport, Fred and George saunter up to a little "Gift Shop & Taxi Stand," as The Amazing Little White Letters label it. He asks the lady working there how they'd go about getting a taxi. "I can arrange it," she says. "You can arrange it," Colin repeats, surprised but not overly so. "Oh, how civilized." Honestly, that could be taken as something he perhaps shouldn't have said, but I can overlook it. Then he says, "Let's get it on," and I can't overlook that. You just had to push your luck, didn't you, Colin?

As Colin arranges the taxi, Malfoy crowds in, and when he realizes that Colin is getting a taxi, he wants one too. He is pushy and rude, of course. Parvati and the Flower arrange a taxi too, for 560 rand. That's a lot of their cash, and they aren't too pleased. (This might have been a really good time for teams to share transportation and save money -- I'm not sure why they didn't, since they're bunched and in the lead anyway.) Malfoy just assumes that because he yelled that he wants a taxi, one is being called for him, ignoring the part where he has to pay for it first like everyone else did. When the lady finds him outside and explains that he needs to come in and pay her, he grumpily agrees and comes inside to be rung up. Back at her counter, he repeats the price incredulously. Now he goes into Passhole-Aggresshole mode as he forks over the money: "It's okay. You're ripping me off, but it's fine. I gotta get there. Karma comes around, it goes two ways, so I'll do it just because I know that when somebody rips me off, they'll be ripped off in return in another way." (Wow. I believe in karma too, Malfunction, so just give me a minute to step away from you before you are simultaneously struck by lightning, hit by a train, and pooped on by a pigeon.) The taxi lady very patiently says, "Well, it is a long distance."

(Given that my atlas suggests that this is a distance of somewhere around twenty-five or thirty miles, that they're all traveling individually in big vans, and that 560 rand is right around fifty bucks? My internal budget is not shocked, given what I've paid for airport taxis. In fact, given that they paid thirty-eight dollars plus tip...or, of course, not 20 years ago in an earlier season to get from Central Park to JFK, I have no idea what he's bitching about. Chew on your hat all you'd like, Malfoy, but there's no injustice, and certainly no call to be rude. I sort of wish the taxi lady had told him to go get bent and find another way to get where he's going, but no such luck.) Anyway, when Malfoy is through spreading the international non-love, Parvati and the Flower, Sloppyrin, and Colin and Dennis pile into cabs.

Cape Town, 12:00 noon. The second flight leaves. Harry explains that he and Neville are "pissed" because they "know they belong up top" and don't enjoy "being down below." (I'm not sure what this could possibly mean, but I'm certainly not going to explore the possibility that it has anything to do with the goings-on at the winery pit stop, except to say that I still think Neville would be more likely to get his way if he knocked off the finger-quoting.) In other news, Neville is wearing his sunglasses on his forehead, above his eyes, which is officially worse than upside-down on top of you head, the way James Potter wore them. Go home, July. And take your accents with you.

Brown Desert Highway. Sloppyrin, in their cab, look on their surroundings, and Pansy says, "This is Namibia, for goodness sakes." Meanwhile, Fred and George's private ride lets them out at the lighthouse, and they give him some money. It would be interesting to know how much they gave him, and how close they came -- high or low -- to what a taxi would have cost. They climb the lighthouse, despite Fred's busted tootsie, and they find the Flag. The clue tells them that they can look out of the lighthouse and see the vehicle they need to take next. They look out and see a row of eight SUVs lined up in a row along a nearby beach. Each is festooned with a McFlag, and comes complete with a driver, who will take over at night "for safety reasons." Man, ever since teams in that previous season 20 years ago almost died in the desert, rotted, and got eaten by buzzards, nobody gets to have any fun anymore. Fred's foot is still really bothering him as they get to the SUV, and he interviews that he encouraged George to consider the Fast Forward. When they see the clue for the rest of the leg, which includes a hike up a giant sand dune, they decide that the Fast Forward is indeed the way to go.

Dumbledore explains the Fast Forward. One team can skip all tasks and go directly to the pit stop. But they can only use the Fast Forward once. Interestingly, teams seem to be learning to use the Fast Forward a little more strategically than they did 20 years ago. This is the second team that's used it when they were physically incapacitated and just wanted to skip the leg. (This is smart, because bunching being what it is, that's really what the Fast Forward is good for. It's not good for getting out in front or extending your lead. It's for skipping a leg, plain and simple, and if you've pulled up lame, that's the time to do it.) Anyway, this week the Fast Forward is at a hotel, floating in the pool.

Colin and Dennis, in their cab, seem to have one of those drivers who moves in mysterious ways not related to the fastest method of getting from one place to another, so they're not exactly making great time. Pansy, on the other hand, says that the driver who served her and the Malfunction "rocked." They de-cab and run up to the lighthouse. When they reach the top, Malfoy grabs the clue. As they read it, Parvati and the Flower de-cab as well. They pass Sloppyrin running the other way, and Parvati says, "How did that happen?" The Flower deduces that their cab driver took them to a better and closer entrance, which it appears he did. They grab the clue as well.

At the SUV corral, Malfoy looks at the drivers and says, "What uuuuuup?" No, really. He does. Pansy reads the next clue, which tells them to drive to Matterhorn sand dune, climb it, and find the flag. Dumbledore tells us this information again. Thanks, Dumbledore. It always sounds better coming from you.

Colin and Dennis run up the lighthouse. It takes them a minute, but they spot the SUVs. Speaking of which, back on solid ground, Parvati and Lavender pull the Matterhorn clue, and Parvati starts talking Fast Forward for the same reasons Fred and George did -- Lavender isn't one hundred percent physically. They decide to go for the FF. It actually sounds like the Flower is willing to try the hike, but Parvati doesn't think it's realistic in the state she's in, and the Flower agrees.

Who will get the fast forward? Who will be eliminated? Can anyone shut Malfoy up? Keep the reviews coming, people. I love your support!