The Whites, Mel and Mike (loved you in Zombieland, Mike!), are described as having "broke[n] away from the pack and wandered off course in Thailand." I still blame their cabdriver for the sixth-place finish of my favorite TAR14 team. Mel warns that he's seventy now, so look out. "I'm shaking in my boots," Mike says.

Kent (no longer Kynt, because that was stupid) and Vyxsin (I guess I'm still going to have to learn how to spell that, or she is) are still a "dating Goth couple," and Phil says they "self-destructed in Italy." I didn't watch TAR12, and they were a big reason why. We see a clip of him yelling shrilly at her while she drives, and threatening to leap out of the moving car, if "threaten" is the right word. She says they're looking forward to "redemption." "The pink-and-black-attack is back," Kent dorks. I don't normally assume the worst of people, but until they convince me otherwise I'm going to have trouble believing that they aren't total frauds.

Gary and Mallory, the one team from TAR17, are the father-and-daughter pair who "lost their way in Oman," which is putting it mildly. Mallory says she's "almost more excited about this than I was Miss America!" That might seem like a non sequitur unless you know Mallory was Miss Kentucky. Not that Mallory is usually all that good at avoiding non sequiturs anyway.

Phil says that sisters Kisha and Jen "took an untimely break steps from the Pit Stop in Beijing." That's a pretty discreet choice of words, but then there's a flashback to the penultimate leg of TAR14, when we saw Jen disappearing into that port-a-potty and into Amazing Race History, saying, "I'm about to pee on myself." The Amazing Editors clearly do not share Phil's decorum. Jen says they're hoping to learn from their mistakes: "I will not drink four bottles of water on the way to the Pit Stop!" Or just make sure you leave time for a pit stop if you do.