"It's a race, Phil."

That's what last night's Amazing Race came down to for me: Did Rob and Amber do the "wrong" thing by not stopping when the brothers crashed, whereas Lynn and Alex claimed to have done the "right" thing by stopping?

Oh, sure, there were lots of other highlights and moments in all two hours of the double episode -- from the low of seeing Ray and Deanna come in first and win a pair of cars and the high of seeing them later eliminated, and the sheer grit of the otherwise-often-annoying Gretchen continuing on after taking a header in a cave and then being stripped of all possessions -- but the crash debate was definitely the lingering aftertaste for me.

Ol' Phil even decided to sow a bit of his Jeff Probstian oats and pointedly asked Rob at the Pit Stop about seeing the crash but passing by. making his distaste obvious in the doing -- I guess if your show wins a few Emmys, you can accelerate the timeline for inserting yourself more into that show.

There's still no recap up over at TVgasm yet, so if you missed the episode I imagine much of this won't be terribly meaningful for you, but if you're watching in general, I think you can relate. As I've mentioned before, I feel people are either for Rob and Amber or against them. I have to imagine that the thoughts on the crash will fall along similar lines.

My opinion: It is a race. There were no bodies laying in the road for them to run over and no one waved them down. You can't tell me that, had that been the case, they still wouldn't have stopped. Lynn and Alex may have been crowing about being "people first and Racers second," but they made a choice. The brothers told them to go on and they chose not to do so. They are so consumed with jealousy over Rob and Amber's celebrity that I think they made a point of staying just to be able to rub it in.

The only other observation I have to make is that, while I haven't disliked the brothers at all, I found myself liking them a lot more than before after these legs of the Race. I still can't tell them at all apart, but I definitely got a better appreciation of them and their relationship last night.

Oh, and did I mention how overjoyed I am to see that prick Ray (and his sucky, bossy, misogynistic attitude) gone from the Race?