“That’s not a computer.” – Jill
With the finish line in sight, the final three teams of the 17th cycle of The Amazing Race showed… not very much. There were no compelling teams left in the last leg, and they barely ever crossed paths in this lackluster finale, making for little suspense or gamesmanship. All of my favorite teams, including Nick and Vicki –who were just eliminated last week — were gone. I was mildly rooting for Brook and Clair, but mostly I was just rooting against Jill and Thomas. Thomas was the only guy remaining at this point, and he was not a very flattering representation of my gender. I’ve said for a while that he is a terrible person and I can’t imagine why Jill puts up with him. He treats her terribly, both with his arrogance and his short fuse.
This leg took the three remaining teams — Nat and Kat, Brook and Clair, and Thomas and Jill — from Seoul, South Korea to Los Angeles (annoyingly introduced by Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”). Jill and Thomas had a small head start from finishing first in the last leg, but all of the teams were together when they took the same flight back to the U.S. Their first destination upon arrival was the Port of Long Beach. The task there was to get up on one of the huge cargo cranes and swing on a bungee cord from there. This was a big problem for several of the contestants who are afraid of heights, especially Nat. But the doctors managed to take the jump and took the lead. The teams then took helicopter rides to a secret destination, which turned out to be the Rose Bowl. There they reached the Road Block, which was to decorate one of the floats for the Tournament of Roses Parade. Thomas, who described himself as not so crafty, had some trouble with this task and his team fell behind.
The next clue was a riddle which all of the teams struggled with. They had a lot of trouble even finding a phone or Internet source to use to research who Sancho Panza’s master is. Eventually, they found the answer of Don Quixote and subsequently Quixote Studios, the location of the next task. In the final leg of each race, there’s always some kind of quiz testing the contestants’ memory of the race. Usually they have to remember the order in which all of the other teams got eliminated, but this time it was shaken up a little bit and they were asked the order of the finish line greeters. Nat and Kat apparently had a great memory, and sailed right through this. The clue was given to them by “legend” Bob Eubanks, and I might be a Philistine, but I’ve never heard of him.
Around this time was when Jill and Thomas got into trouble. They expected that back in the U.S. a language barrier wouldn’t be an issue, but they got a taxi driver who didn’t understand anything they said. It took them quite some time to just let him know that they wanted to borrow his phone to get the answer to the riddle, and even longer for him to get them to their destination.
The winners ended up being Nat and Kat, who are now the first all-female team to ever win the race, and there was a tender moment as there is every year where all of the eliminated teams waited at the finish line to greet the winning team. But this episode wasn’t a great one. The order was determined early and there was barely any change. The teams hardly even interacted with each other in this whole episode. But the two plucky doctors were deserving winners. They didn’t do too well in the first few legs, but they came back and raced hard for the whole season. They overcame a lot, like Nat’s diabetes and Kat’s vegetarianism, and they were charismatic too. They weren’t always the most exciting team, but I guess they’ll do. With the next season beginning in only two to three months, these two leave a good enough taste.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.