"The Amazing Race" (15.3) recap: "It's like being dropped on Planet Mars"

The third episode (last week's two-hour season premiere was technically episodes 1 and 2) of CBS's The Amazing Race confirmed our belief that gay brothers Sam and Dan are worth rooting for, and that beefy lunkhead Lance is this season's de facto villain.

We start off where we left last week, as the teams try to make their way around Vietnam. The father and son team of Gary and Matt are the first to depart for Ho Chi Minh City, with Sam and Dan following closely behind.

We learn more about the guys this week, specifically that Sam (the shorter one) is two years older than his brother, and is definitely the more calm and sensible of the two. Dan is impatient and gets frustrated very easily. They're like yin and yang, like sweet and sour pork ... like Mounds and Almond Joy.

Sam: Okay, let's calmly and sensibly look at the clue. Dan: But I'm impatient! This is so frustrating.

The teams have to go in search of the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theater, where their next clue awaited in the mouth of a water dragon.As a Vietnamese band played, teams took turns leaning over the edge of a pool where water dragon puppets swam around on top of the water. The object was to try and grab the tongue from the dragon’s mouth, which wasn't as easy as it looked.

Give me that clue, or you'll hear a chorus of "Punch the Magic Dragon!"

Inside the tongue was a small bullet that the opened up to reveal a postage stamp, which meant that the next clue could be found at the building shown on the stamp, the Ho Chi Minh City Main Post Office.

The Harlem Globetrotter team of Big Easy and Flight Time were the first through the Puppet challenge, and set off to find the next clue, which is a detour, with Sam and Dan a few teams behind.

Meanwhile, the funniest part of the episode occurs when "Ugly Americans" Lance and Kerri (whose entire conversations consist of him yelling at her, and her telling him ... not to yell at her) get confused about the puppet clue. They don't realize that they have to open the bullet, and panic-stricken, race around the puppet theater "looking for a clue" (which basically describes their existence). They finally open the bullet to reveal the stamp, and somehow Lance still manages to blame Kerri for everything.

Next page - Lance Smash!