The Gaymazing Race

The teams take on tough challenges in the heat of Marrakech. Team Boss Mom, Ann Marie and Riley lead the pack, as multiple teams claim to speak Arabic or have Arabic-adjacent skills, including Jo from Team Rainbow Wristband.

Our gaymazing Dafina has pulled her hamstring, but she and Saran also find a new feature in the shattered ruins of pottery: the "roadside assist." A new str8 alliance is building, and Jody and Jenn have a "Thelma and Louise" moment on dune buggies before another Amazing Race fruit-stacking challenge has folks on edge and burning through more express passes.

Season 39 of The Amazing Race comes in hot, which means we're back to talk about everything Gaymazing on the race whether it's actually gay or not. Karen gives Nicole a lesson in soccer lesbian lore as the two discuss the inclusion of elite LGBTQ athletes, Ali Krieger and Joanna Lohman amongst the new teams.

We're cautiously optimistic about the brewing "Boss Lady Alliance," though we have some worries as a new group of all female teams try to be the first to win since Amy and Maya in 2014 (season 25)! There's an abundance of EXPRESS PASSES on the first two legs, which is twisted, but also kind of fun… Tune in, hear the new nicknames (in progress), and buckle up for another unfiltered season of TGR / TAR!

Hacks writer, producer and all around awesome person, Guy Branum joins us for an insider's debrief about the show's "D'Amazing Race" episode. Plus, we get into the most beautifully lesbionic "Montecito" ep, which Guy co-wrote.

Nicole and Karen have an epic post-race exit interview with Team LezBoss, Izzy and Paige. Get some inside scoop and all the sapphic love!

Karen regales Nicole with stories from the LIVE Amazing Race S38 finale at Berry park, while Nicole tells Karen what actually happened in the episode that started with the end of the road for our beloved Team LezBoss (Izzy and Paige), and culminated in the inevitable victory of Jas and Jag, who won 6 legs along the way.

We also get into how meaningful it is to see the self-dubbed "Turbanators" win the race in NY, since The Amazing Race began in 2001, and Sikh Americans were targeted with misrecognition and suspicion after 9/11.

The final four Amazing Race teams descend on Paris and we are reminded repeatedly that the U.S. was once a democracy worthy of gifts from allies like the Statue of Liberty. At the Moulin Rouge, everyone must can-can in gendered outfits constituting what Nicole calls a "hate crime" on our gender non-conforming Team LezzBoss.

The two judges at the Braille Institute steal the show with their coffee breaks, as everything seemingly boils down to slow & steady vs. fast hands on Braille typing machines. The final three will be determined by a scramble across the city of lights for tri-color puzzle pieces. Will our last Gaymazing team survive to compete in the final?

The final 5 teams of the The Amazing Race make their way to Milan, where they're all struck by the revelation that all but one team–Izzy and Paige, aka Team LezBoss– has a Big Brother winner. In Survivor-like fashion, we see a MEDIC on screen as Adam from the Brothers Keffiyeh suffers a scary plunge in his blood sugar.

Jas and Jag continue to coast, while Izzy and Paige use their eye for detail and therapized perspective on life to finish with their highest placement yet! Karen returns from Puerto Rico and has a lot of women's studies professoring on her mind as she and Nicole catch up on the feminist politics of the show.

The giant has been slayed this week in a SHOCKING turn of events in Greece. We've got Sisyphus (aka a caveman), the Greek alphabet, women helping women (sometimes), and a real shake up in the order of things!

Nicole and cartoonist, illustrator and Jeopardy champion guest cohost Ajuan Mance talk about all of this while Karen is away at an academic conference. Stay tuned!

The Amazing Race teams descend on Bucharest, where they encounter a harrassy sinister chicken as they harvest Christ's eggs in a big city park. All Express Passes have to be used up on this leg, as Eric and Tucker, and Jas and Jag continue to vie for the top two spots, with Kyland and Taylor trying to play spoilers.

Team LezzBoss, Izzy and Paige find religion when they are blessed with a PAN FLUTE challenge at the detour.We are gifted with lesbian jazz-scatting on a public transportation platform. Adam, from the Brothers Keffiyeh, is running on fumes and needs to eat something before crashing out. And all teams have to make mixed street meat kabobs (Mici, in the vein of Lule or Kofte) before the pit stop, and we wonder what kind.

The consequences of running with the "Trainwreck" alliance come home to roost with team Sissy my Sissy, as The Amazing Race makes its way to Bucharest, Romania from Split, Croatia: Joseph & Adam nab the crucial last ticket on the first flight away from Natalie and Stephanie!

Paige takes a 13,000 foot skydive roadblock for Team LezzBoss to spare Izzy the angst, and nearly all the teams make shit bricks at the detour in their bid to move on to the next leg. Tragically, the talented Negrotti sisters are eliminated in this episode. NOOOOOOO! But Nat and Steph came on to TGR to talk about it, and so much more…YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!