The third stage of Beijing Express was broadcast on Sky and Now hosted by Costantino della Gherardesca. And it was spectacular. A grueling episode for all the traveling couples forced to cover 329 km including Indonesian volcanoes. The happy ending is a very honest elimination. Let’s look at the passed and failed ones together.

Jo Squillo and her daughter Michelle teach the noble art of making people gnaw: rating 8

Always dressed in matching clothes, or rather just as they are, the DJs are great masters of a precise, noble art: making the whole world gnaw. Graceful even in the mud, the impression is that Jo Squillo and her elective daughter Michelle cannot even, genetically, sweat. Winners of the last stage, they immediately place a disadvantage on the Comedians who spend the whole episode complaining about it and for this reason they will end up risking elimination. It is in the immunity test, however, that the two Barbies give their best: they climb a volcano in snowshoes, on horseback and then climbing infinite steps to throw flowery offerings into an Indonesian crater. Despite extreme fog, slush, wind and fatigue, they don’t even get messy. Not up, not down. Never. They don’t even argue. They are made of the same substance as Valeria Marini’s stellar kisses, incorruptible, eternal. The precise mix of kindness and perfection that would lead even Buddha himself to success, especially while everyone else is there spitting blood and bile for the objective hardships inflicted by the path. In fact, when the DJs also place first in the immunity test, Fiona May loses her temper, giving away the most unmissable TV moment of the edition so far – we’ll write about it later, ed. We have very little belief that, with the cameras off, these two could really be so mellifluous and smiling every second. But here they are perfect like this. Sincere congratulations to the casting office. Jo and Michelle, two relentless ‘demonesses’ dressed up as marshmallows. Unique Kryptonite: Apparently, they both have a phobia of birds. Will Fiona May disguise herself as a giant pigeon next Thursday to neutralize them? All hope is legitimate.

The rappers between the Albiceleste pole and the ‘pisciatella pollifera’: vote 6-

“You’re in love with me, you just don’t have the courage” says the curly one of the rapper couple to a random one of the two ‘Albiceleste’ sisters, so far 100% equal. And the unfortunate woman instinctively replies: “What the fuck are you talking about?!”. It ends like this, sensational post. We are pleased with it. Perhaps our guy interpreted that ‘Hijo de puta’ from the last episode for a traditional Argentine courtship ritual. Unfortunately or fortunately, to the enormous surprise of no one in the world, this is not the case. For Dani Faiv and Tony 2Milli, this pseudo-sentimental ordeal was certainly not the only effort of the race that saw them ‘getting along’ (we use Rapparolo technical jargon, ed.) fratricidal until a final overbearing squabble: lost in an Indonesian village (which perhaps wasn’t ‘not even the right one’), for the umpteenth time in search of the ‘Beijing Express logo’, they fail. And then they fight each other, we imagine, to waste as much time as possible before reaching the finish line, coincidentally, third to last and risk elimination. Honest. The peak of power reached in this stage is the blissful moment in which they have to pee and for this purpose they choose a corner near a chicken coop: “Let’s have this polliferous piss, brother”. We have already written it and we repeat it: they are Capsula and Nucleus of the Poles and Odds of ‘Zelig’. Twenty years later. But at least the first ones were a parody, while these ones here should be real. Help.

Fiona May speaks badly, “I’m unpleasant but do you know how many medals I’ve won?!”: vote 8

We can’t fail because we are, as anticipated, faced with the most unmissable TV moment of the edition so far. Fiona May, paired with her partner Patrick in ‘I Veloci’, takes the stage sideways from the start. That is when rappers, improvising bars at the request of the ever Mephistophelian Costantino della Gherardesca, have the audacity to nickname them ‘I Lentini’. The champion will repeat nothing else for the entire first part of the race: “I am not ‘slow’, we are not ‘slow’”, with a look of preventive arrest. The eruption of this Erinni was inevitable and arrived punctually when she placed second in the immunity test, being narrowly overtaken by the DJs (Jo Squillo and her daughter Michelle who exclaimed to her: “I had never won anything, not even the cross country in high school!”). Then the two blonde, unpaid ‘demonesses’ even give her a Malus: “Being sportsmen, they should be happy even when they lose, but instead they aren’t setting a good example. They don’t smile and never say hello.” Here, the aforementioned eruption. May blurts out: “What the fuck are you saying?! I get angry! It’s still a competition, not a joy! If you always smile it means you have a character like that, but I’m Fiona May, unpleasant and sulky, that’s fine, but do you know how many medals I’ve won?!” Michelle replies, with the recklessness of someone who is putting their jugular at risk and perhaps doesn’t know it: “Yes, but we do a different job.” We would like to see the full version, without cuts, of this epochal sclera. And we would like to see you yesterday, thank you.

Chanel Totti does nothing. So why does he always win? vote 5

The couple from ‘I Raccomandati’ wins the stage again, now we are at the second out of three. In the previous one, Chanel Totti and her friend Filippo Laurino had nevertheless won the silver on the podium. Aces takes (almost) everything. Without doubting the good faith of the editing, but how is it possible that they always triumph given that the ‘Pupona’ does nothing? Of course, the girl is truthful and spontaneous, but she doesn’t lift a finger in the competition: she delegates everything to her colleague in misfortune who, in effect, is competing alone. Ours is exactly as it was presented: “I don’t even get up from the sofa to get water when I’m thirsty”. And we can see her get emotional because she misses her little sister, her family, Rome, home, okay. However, it remains impossible to ignore the fact that he places every inconvenience on the other person, it acts as a perennial Malus for him. Which in fact turns against her this time – because while she was unloading the back seats of a car to get in together and continue the journey, mud splashes on her backpack and she really resents it. He transports bricks for Chanel, he is enslaved as a runner, only Filippo struggles while the scion at most grazes a couple of worms. Yet, they continue to excel. Young, cute and… really ‘Recommended’? We hope for VAR intervention.

Chanel Totti: “My parents’ divorce? Heavy, but I keep everything inside. I only watch mum Ilary on TV”

Finally Steven Basalari of Ex returns to ‘give 101%’ to his home: rating 0

Big and thick, a moan to the bone. While, stage by stage, the impression grows that this edition of ‘Beijing Express’ is just a huge plot to eliminate (physically) Francesco Paolantoni, the one who complains the loudest is always him: Steven Basalari, the discotheque, the male but mostly boyish component of the couple from ‘Gli Ex’. From minute zero of departure he would like to pack up and go home “on the first business flight”, but he stays because in his heart he would like to win back his former girlfriend Viviana Vizzini, with whom he competes in the game. How to win her back? Whining and making her trip hell on earth, apparently. Basalari doesn’t want to carry bricks, he doesn’t want to snowshoe in the immunity test (and in fact he withdraws, ed.), Basalari just doesn’t want to. “Because this is also a competition of intellect, you have to think of it as a marathon,” he says to the saint he carries with him. And she rightly replies: “Anyway we always finish last”. Already saved from the duel against those other two A4 sheets of paper who were ‘The Creators’ Elisa Maino and Mattia Stanga, the happy ending of the third stage is to see the ‘Recommended’ decide to eliminate the ‘Ex’. The bad news, however, is opening their social media and discovering that they are back together for real, in real life, they love each other. “I’m here to give 101%,” Basalari repeated on a loop, without ever risking a potentially tiring half step. Happy that from now on he will continue to do it at home. Having entered with the reputation of a great business man, he leaves having convinced us, always ‘101%’, that he is truly a great business. For the paper handkerchief industry.

Chanel Totti: “I’m a normal girl, I study at university. TV? I’m not interested”