Amazing Race: The Finish Line

The Episode

This is it! The final episode, featuring two tough teams and two inept boobs. After months of racing around the world, who will emerge victorious in the show, and who will emerge victorious in our pool?

The Beginning: Teams all got the same flight to Oregon, right here in the USA. The leg seemed to be structured to create a quick sprint to the finish line, and it definitely rewarded hustle. Teams caught a cab from the airport to some forested area. Ken and Tina's cab driver had no trouble locating the right place, Nick and Starr had just a little bit of trouble, and team Dandrew appeared to drive around forever with their completely useless cab driver.

The Detour:
Teams had to choose between walking along a 850 foot log bridge ("Low and Wet"), or climbing 30 feet up a tree, walking along a log, and leaping off the end to grab a clue off a trapeze bar ("High and Dry"). All three teams chose High and Dry, and even though Ken and Tina got there first, Starr lapped Tina, who was struggling with a fear of heights. I'm not sure why they chose this option, then. It didn't even seem like the fastest choice to me, but something in the clue must have made it seem more attractive.

The two front running teams were long gone by the time Andrew and Dan showed up. This was a theme of the episode.

Teams then took their cab to a harbor-type area, where they went down a zip line onto an island. Even though they got smoked at the Detour, Ken and Tina benefited from a peppier cab driver, and arrived at the zip line first.

The Roadblock: Well, this wasn't really a roadblock at all. The show made a dramatic structure change by replacing the Roadblock with a task that the team had to perform together. In keeping with previous seasons, the task related to the season as a whole.

I don't really mind this deviation from the standard. I always hate it when it comes down to the wire, and a single team member has to take the blame for losing the million dollars right at the end. This way, they're in it together.

The actual task was pretty cool. There was a field of clue boxes containing pictures from the various legs of the race. Teams began at a kiosk, which had a different picture slot for each of the ten previous race legs. For each leg, the teams had to go find the picture that related to one of four things-- Roadblock, Detour, Route Info, or Pit Stop.

So, for each leg, the teams had to remember the correct answer, and then go find the appropriate picture. There was enough running from box to box that there was a serious physical component, as well as a serious mental component. Remembering the location of an incorrect guess might help you down the line-- like Concentration, as Tina said.

Ken and Tina got the first three pictures correct before Nick and Starr even began the task, but Nick and Starr out-hustled them again. They just ran as fast as they could from clue box to clue box, and this appeared to make the difference for them. Ken and Tina were trying to hurry, but Tina just didn't seem to have any oomph left in her, and Ken seemed afraid to press her too hard.

By the time Andrew and Dan arrived, the other teams were long gone.

The Rest: What followed was a sequence of clue-chasing and running around that asked teams to figure out some actual puzzles. They took a cab downtown, then had to identify a green dinosaur in one of the municipal buildings. This is where Nick and Starr took their final lead of the game.

From there, they had to travel to a Russian eatery, and then figure out the location of a donut shop based on the donut shop's slogan (which Starr accomplished by shouting out the slogan at passersby).

Nick and Starr turned their slight lead into a comfortable lead, mostly by being absolutely frantic as they rushed from place to place.

Finally, the teams cabbed it to the finish line for the race. Both teams had a lot of trouble flagging down a cab, with Ken unsuccessfully offering $50 to an occupied cab to take him instead. Nick and Starr won the million dollars handily.

It's nice to see a deserving team win this season. Nick and Starr rarely fought with each other, they rarely made a mistake, they followed directions well, they completed tasks especially well, and they used their foots peed to their fullest advantage, pushing themselves to the point of exhaustion.

Ken and Tina were a pretty strong team, all things considered, but Tina just couldn't keep up with Ken, and their bickering bogged them down at times.

Andrew and Dan were in the finale only as the result of some complete flukes, and their incompetence showed. They were hampered by a bum cab driver, but they have to take some responsibility for choosing him, not switching, and not getting on his phone immediately for directions when they realized he was not ideal.

1st: Nick and Starr (no change)
2nd: Ken and Tina (+1)
3rd: Andrew and Dan (-1)


But what about the pool?


Eighth Place: SLOW IN THE HEAD
Matt

Finale Score Total: -160
Final Score: 619
Best Move: Getting 40 bonus points in week 2 for picking Ken and Tina for Fastest Team
Worst move: Picking Nick and Starr to go out early
Last Season's Title: Amazing Race Superfan (2nd), with 999 points
I know, I know. How does a genius like me come in last in the pool? Well, it wasn't easy. First I had to pick Nick and Starr to be eliminated early, and then I had to consistently bet against them in the FT races. I don't know what it was, but I didn't really see their strength as a team until the last couple of episodes, and by then it was too late. For all that, I was competitive for most of the season, having correctly picked Toni/Dallas and Ken/Tina as strong teams. But going into the finale, I decided that the only way I had a shot at winning was to put in a wacky set of picks, so I predicted that Ken and Tina would win, followed by Andrew and Dan in second. That knocked me from the middle of the pack to the slums, and right now I am reeking of jealousy.


Seventh Place: SLOW AS A SLUG
Paul

Finale Score Total: +51
Final Score: 705
Best Move: Picking the beekeepers out first
Worst move: Picking Anthony/Stephanie to win it all (they finished 10th)
Last Season's Title: Amazing Race Genius (1st), with 1112 points
Wow, this is certainly a fall from grace. Paul was primed to repeat his last season performance as Amazing Race Genius after week one, but then things started to fall apart fast. He lost a whopping 50 points for a record three weeks in a row, and has to thank his lucky stars that a respectable finale finish got him out of the cellar.


Sixth Place: TORPID AS A TURTLE
Kim

Finale Score Total: +71
Final Score: 789
Best Move: Getting the finale finishing order correct
Worst move: Didn't get a single elimination prediction right
Last Season's Title: Amazing Race Dunce (last)
It's pretty sad when a sixth place finish is actually an improvement, but that's where Kim was. She was a bottom feeder for most of the race, and even though she picked up some bonus points towards the end of the season, it wasn't enough to get her into the top half of the pool. On the bright side, if she keeps improving at this pace, she'll win the pool in 2011.


Fifth Place: SLACK AS A SLOTH
Mom

Finale Score Total: +111
Final Score: 907
Best Move: Picking Aja/Ty out in seventh, Dandrew out in 3rd
Worst move: Picking Ken/Tina out in ninth, Nick/Starr out in 11th
Last Season's Title: NA
Mom was either really right, or really wrong all season. She predicted that the two best teams would be two of the worst teams. For most people, that fact alone would have ensured finishing at the back of the pack, but Mom also got two predictions right as well as a perfect set of finale picks. So, I think she should be pretty happy with where she landed. Next season, she'll be poised to break into the coveted upper half of the pool.

Fourth Place: INERT AS ICE
Jen

Finale Score Total: +91
Final Score: 931
Best Move: Picking Mark and Bill out third
Worst move: Picking Anthony and Stephanie to win it all
Last Season's Title: NA
Fourth place is a very respectable debut for Jen, who had a calamitous second week when her first place pick went out in 10th. So, she was essentially starting out in a deep hole. But she made up the ground against her peers, little by little, and eventually turned her lemons into lemonade. Good job, Jen!


Third Place: RAPID AS A RABBIT
Mike

Finale Score Total: +71
Final Score: 1101
Best Move: Led the pool for seven straight weeks, right up until the finale
Worst move: Finale picks predicted Ken/Tina in 3rd, which cost him the win
Last Season's Title: NA
Mike! Miiiiike! You did so well, but you could have done so much better! Mike dominated the pool for pretty much the entire season, taking a hard-earned 100 point lead into the finale. He got a record-high four predictions exactly right over the course of the season. But the finale killed him--he predicted that Ken and Tina would lose second to Dandrew. Had he submitted the more predictable finale outcome, he would have picked up an additional 150 points and taken the win that he so richly deserved. A hard lesson, indeed. But debuting in third still makes Mike an official pool phenomenon, so perhaps it's good that he still has the mountain of first place left unclimbed.



Second Place: FAST AS A FLEER
Dawn

Finale Score Total: -160
Final Score: 619
Best Move: Never lost more than 50 points in a week
Worst move: Picking Marisa and Brooke to come in second
Last Season's Title: Amazing Race Fan (3rd), with 838 points
For a girl who didn't lead the pool once all season, Dawn has done all right for herself. She got the FT right a pool-high six times, for a total of 80 bonus points over the course of the season, and that, combined with a perfect set of finale picks, made the difference for her. Last season, Dawn got third place. This season, against a larger field, she improved to second. Can first be far behind?


First Place: GREASED LIGHTNING
Carl

Finale Score Total: +311
Final Score: 1225
Best Move: Before the season started, correctly predicted Ken/Tina and Nick/Starr as top 2
Worst move: Picking Mark and Bill to last until 3rd
Last Season's Title: Amazing Race Wannabe (4th), with 565 points
Talk about come from behind victories. Carl kept within striking distance for the entire season, but he was rarely a front runner in the pool. He picked up a lot of FT bonus points, which helped, but his secret for success came at the end. Carl completely maximized his finale, mostly because he got 50 additional bonus points for the 1st/2nd finish of Nick and Starr, and Ken and Tina. This amazing foresight netted him 311 points at the finale, which secured the victory. Congratulations, Carl!