AMAZING RACE FINALE – 12/11/11

Hello everyone, I can’t believe we’re already at the finale! I also still can’t believe our snowboarders, certainly who seemed like the frontrunners to win, were eliminated on last Sunday’s show. I read their exit interview, which showed what a class act these two are. There were no hard feelings from either of them, though the taxi driver collaboration was not addressed. I checked out some of the comments that readers were making after the exit interview. It looks like a huge amount of viewers also believed that the fact that the other teams directed their taxi drivers to the wrong location yet were miraculously driven to the pit stop anyway was pretty unfair to the snowboarders. But it also seemed that the view on the situation was based on who these readers wanted to win—if they were Marcus/Amani, Jeremy/Sandy or Ernie/Cindy fans, they took an “All’s fair…” attitude. Likewise, if the readers were fans of the snowboarders they were horrified that this all played out without penalties. I must say that my kneejerk reaction is to agree with those that said there should have been a penalty because the racers are supposed to direct their drivers to the correct location. I do admit I can also see the logic the other way. How many times do the racers tell the driver exactly where they want to go and the driver goes to the wrong place? It constantly happens on the show and often is just luck of the draw of getting a good driver. In that same vein, you would think that telling the driver the wrong place yet ending up at the right one may be seen similarly. It was just the taxi driver collaboration and the fact that the snowboarders were in the lead and had to go back to correct their steps—something the other racers were able to avoid—that didn’t sit well with some people. Anyway, guess we all have to get over it already—it’s done. If the snowboarders aren’t crying like babies over it, guess I should stop whining too. So, on to the finale!

We’re starting out back in Panama with Jeremy and Sandy leaving first, headed for Atlanta. Ernie and Cindy are off next, followed by Amani and Marcus. It’s confirmed that Amani and Marcus actually live in Atlanta. Anyone else think it’s really weird for them to pick a final destination where actual racers in the final three live? Yeah, I get that they may have picked the final destination before they even picked the racers, but then don’t pick racers from that location, right? I like Amani and Marcus, it just seems like a ridiculous advantage to me. I guess we’ll see how it plays out. Could be worse: I’d be throwing something at my TV if it were Ernie and Cindy’s hometown.

Marcus starts us out in typical style: He mentions that he and Amani have home field advantage and then tells us that the ball is on the 4 yard line and “we have 4 plays to get it in.” How could Amani not be saying “Enough frigging football talk already,” I have no clue. I know his football years are why she’s probably well off in life now, but it’s got to be pretty annoying constantly hearing all these clichés after all these years.

Sandy and Jeremy are first to the clue box, which leads them to a Learjet flight simulator. The racers need to successfully land their “aircraft” from 2200 feet. We’re told about the task by some 30 year old with those metal braces on his teeth. I always find that kind of creepy. I’m torn because bad teeth are a total pet peeve of mine yet I find it weird when anyone older than high school age has them. Anyway, who cares. Jeremy then says he’s “stoked” over the task—“stoked” being another thing that I think should never make its way beyond high school hallways.

Marcus and Amani are next at the simulator. Marcus starts going off about how he doesn’t like to fly at all and how this task will be hard for him. I’m left scratching my head: First, I’m wondering why Amani didn’t do this task if Marcus has issues with flying; and second, I’m trying to figure out why someone who hates to fly puts himself on a show such as this where you are literally flying tens of thousands of miles.

Next we are left with footage from every racer telling us that they’ve never flown a plane before. Why everyone felt the need to tell us that or why the editors chose to put that Captain Obvious filler in there, I’m not sure. Maybe (?) this statement coming from the flight attendants may have made some sense, in case they got crazy and grabbed the wheel one day or something; but from the rest of these people, it kind of sounds ridiculous. Who knows, maybe it’s just me. I come from a world where if you are not an actual airline pilot, you’ve never flown a plane. I guess in the more hoity toity world, this may not necessarily be the case.

We pan over to Cindy flying with Ernie and she’s told that she was flying so slowly her plane was falling out of the sky. If only it actually did. Come on, can’t the simulator crash down or something? Malfunction? Anything?!

Yikes, Marcus pretty much almost crashed into the airport itself with his first landing. Hopefully he starts improving, because I really don’t want to see Cindy and Ernie taking the lead here.