Amazing Race Season 14: The Finish Line

The finale was short and sweet, with a field-leveling flight into Hawaii ensuring that the three teams would each have a chance to cross the finish line first. Here's how they did:

Margie and Luke seemed like they were poised to take the million dollar prize, but Luke got hung up on the Roadblock, and instead they finished in an inglorious third. The leg had three challenges, and they excelled at two of them. First, they were the only team to successfully carry a 145 pound pig down a stretch of beach without dropping it. This is a final testament to supermom Margie's strength of will in this race. In the second challenge, their proven water proficiency served them well as they swam out to a jetski to find a clue on a marked buoy. Finally, it came down to the kind of "sum up the race" memory challenge that we've seen in recent seasons. Luke had studied for a challenge like this, but he was unable to identify the last surfboard decorated with a task-themed picture. Even though he had 9 of 11 surfboards up by the time second-place Victor and Tammy arrived, he couldn't figure it out, and they left the task in last place. There was some tear-jerking anguish on the part of both Margie and Luke related to his last-minute failure. Rather than dwell on that, I'll think of them during the hilarious jetski task, when Luke kept vocalizing at his mother like an agitated Wookie, while she tried to keep her exasperation in check.

Cara and Jaime finished the race in the same karma-killing, angry storm of bitchery that has marked their team since about halfway through the race. Cara couldn't hold up her end of the pig, which set them behind the other two teams. They did well on the jetski task, but then they wound up with a taxi driver who didn't know where the wall of surfboards was located. Their defining moment came when the taxi dispatcher, broadcasting on speakerphone, told the driver that she wasn't Cara and Jaime's personal concierge, and so she was too busy to find their destination for them. This was clearly in response to the dispatcher overhearing Jaime being pushy and angry, like usual. This may not have cost them the race in reality, but I like to think that it did. They crossed the finish line in second place, failing to become the first all-female team to win.

Tammy and Victor didn't have a particularly good leg, but Victor pulled the race out of his ass by excelling at the surfboard-arranging task. They arrived at the critical task in second, but Victor was the only one who didn't get stuck on at least one surfboard. They sailed through the task, and crossed the finish line in first place, thereby winning the million dollar prize. I thought they were likable and competent racers, but I also think their Mandarin-speaking abilities turned out to be an unfair advantage. In general, I like the idea of a team being given a boost by dint of having an unusual skill, in this case fluency in an exotic language. In this case, however, the last four legs or so all took place at least partly in China, which is unheard of. It ensured that they would be able to get into the finale just by making it to the halfway point, and it also protected them from the stress and frustrations of traveling through a country where no one can understand you. All that being said, they were a very strong team, and it's possible they might have won the race anyway.



Finishing Order

1st: Tammy and Victor (no change)
2nd: Jaime and Cara (+1 = most improved)
3rd: Margie and Luke (-1 = biggest slide)



The Standings


In the finale, no one got more than one team's placement correct, and that meant that no one really achieved their potential. If anyone had, that person would have won, hands down. Here were the standings going into the finale:

1st: Matt 980
2nd: Carl: 874
3rd: Paul 860
4th: Kim 856
5th: Experts 792
6th: Dawn 789
7th: Mom 676


Here are the changes in those scores based on the final episode. You're seeing them in this format:

(+FT bonus, +/- Margie and Luke finish, +/- Cara and Jaime finish, +/- Tammy and Victor finish, +/- bonus points for final episode prediction)


1st: Matt : (+10, -50, -10, -90 +75)
2nd: Carl: (+10, -20, -80, -10 +75)
3rd: Paul: (+10, -20, -60, +50 +75)
4th: Kim: (+0, -10, -40, -30 +0)
5th: Experts: (+0, -30, -20, -40 +75)
6th: Dawn: (+0, -20, +50, -50 +0)
7th: Mom: (+10, -10, -70, -30 +75)


And here are the results:


Seventh Place: SLOW AS A SLUG
Mom

Final Score: 651
Last Season's Title: Slack as a Sloth (5th), with 907 points
Mom was in trouble from the moment that she got her picks in late. Since she had already seen the first episode, I penalized her over 100 points to make it even. Maybe the penalty was too big? At any rate, she struggled at the bottom of the pool for the entire season, and the finale didn't help her any.



Sixth Place: TORPID AS A TURTLE
Dawn

Final Score: 769
Last Season's Title: Fast as a Fleer (2nd) with 619 points
Dawn had a decent set of picks, but she was one of only two players who didn't pick up any bonus points in the finale. That cost her a chance at the top of the pool, and relegated her to an embarrassing sixth place.


Fifth Place: SLACK AS A SLOTH
Kim

Final Score: 776
Last Season's Title: Torpid as a Turtle (6th), with 789 points
Kim did a little better this season than last, but no one's going to get excited about fifth place in a seven-person pool. She, like Dawn, was killed by the fact that she struck out in her finale picks, which meant she missed out on the 75 point bump that everyone else enjoyed. As it happens, she finished just one point off of a slightly-respectable fourth place.


Fourth Place: INERT AS ICE
Experts
Final Score: 777
Last Season's Title: NA
The Experts in this case were a set of picks based entirely on the average age of the contestants. This turned out to be a decent yardstick for the rest of us to compete against. The picks would have probably done even better, had the FT points not been locked into the youthful Jen and Kisha for most of the season.


Third Place: RAPID AS A RABBIT
Carl

Final Score: 849
Last Season's Title: Greased Lightning (1st) with 1225 points
Carl, coming off of a victory last season, had a chance to pull off an unprecedented title defense this time around. He went into the finale a distant second, and needed to get a perfect set of finale picks to pull off the win. That didn't happen, and so he'll have to try a little harder next year to nab the win.

First Place: GREASED LIGHTNING
Matt AND Paul!!!

Final Score: 915
Last Season's Title: For Matt, "Slow in the Head" (8th), and for Paul, "Slow as a Slug" (7th)
Yup, that's right. After 12 episodes, with hundreds upon hundreds of points being awarded and subtracted for different reasons, we have a first-ever tie for the pool lead. I'm not sure what the odds are on that happening, but I'm guessing it was pretty unlikely. Paul and I were at the bottom of the pool last season, so we each had something to prove coming in this year. Next year, we'll have to battle it out to see who truly deserved the title of Greased Lightning.

Thanks for playing everyone, and I hope to see you all next season!