Taxi Rides of Doom: Teams Head to Ghana on The Amazing Race

I'm actually kind of sad about the outcome of this week's episode of The Amazing Race ("A Kiss Saves the Day"), which took the teams from England to Ghana, where they had to hawk sunglasses in a crowded market, assemble television antenna hookups, and deliver unwieldy coffins through the streets.

All while attempting to stay alive during the series' most dangerous taxi rides ever.

I have to say that this season of The Amazing Race is definitely clicking with me for a number of reasons. There's a fast-paced quality to the challenges and the episodes themselves (to the point where last night's installment only seemed about a half-hour long) and the casting this season is top-notch. I'm waiting to see if a villain emerges from among the remaining teams, who so far have all played nicely with each other.

Personally, I'm rooting for Brook and Claire (particularly after the latter took a watermelon to the face and kept on running), Ivy Leaguers/a cappella singers Connor and Jonathan, and doctors Kat and Nat (who came from nearly last place to the middle of the pack, thanks to a mentally unstable taxi driver). I also like father/son team Michael and Kevin and think that the tattooed Nick and Vicki might just be the dumbest team on the race yet, which makes for some amusement, after all.

I loved seeing Brook plying her trade in the market and quickly selling a bunch of sunglasses to put their team in an early lead. While these two might drive me crazy if I had to spend too much time with them in real life, I'm loving them on the show this season. They're passionate, dynamic, and full of energy and I'm hoping they stick around for quite some time to come.

But I am a little depressed that we won't get to see the fascinating relationship between Andie and Jenna play out. One of the most intriguing teams to date, their dynamic--birth mother and daughter given up for adoption--was extremely interesting to watch unfold, as it represented a real change for The Amazing Race.

Related by blood, they were strangers to one another but were finding commonalities as they raced together. Little things--like having frizzy hair and having to straighten it--took on huge significance as they connected for the first time and found similarities, things that bonded them on a genetic level, even as their emotional bond deepened over the course of the first two legs.

While they ended up dead last in this week's installment (and they were focusing on them quite a lot with the editing), I was hoping that Andie and Jenna would stick around and we'd be able to see their relationship blossom into something, as each was given this rare opportunity to spend time with the other.

Alas, it was not to be, particularly as they were just so far behind the other teams and thanks to some daredevil taxi drivers, the other teams just ahead of them made up significant time when their cabbies invented a third lane of traffic. (Eeek.)

Out of curiosity: which teams are you rooting for? And which are you ready to see the back of? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on The Amazing Race ("In Phil We Trust"), the race continues in Ghana, where some teams are stumped by a deceptively simple quiz.