AMAZING RACE FINALE – 12/9/12

On the trip to France, the twins quickly turn on the Beekman boys (sorry to call them that, but having to use their names constantly or referring to them as “the gays” just doesn’t feel right). They talk of their impending Speed Bump and try to rally the other teams to basically screw over the Beekmans so that the twins can catch up. The twins talk of how the Beekmans have just coasted through and that other teams “wanted it more” than them. I love that kind of talk on these shows. I’m guessing everyone probably wants the million as much as the next guy (or girl). What the twin means is that she thinks the Beekmans just aren’t as good at the challenges and that they got through basically because of the strategy to get Abbie and Ryan out instead. Sure, mostly true, up until now. But in terms of “wanting it,” I just don’t understand that talk, though someone says it each season. Just because you may not be as good at challenges or as cutthroat does not mean you don’t want the million just as much.

I must say I felt really bad for the Beekmans when they overheard the plotting and planning against them by all of the other teams. Anyone else feel like you were back in high school for a second? That awkward moment happened when a person who is going off and bad-mouthing someone else realizes that the person they are attacking has heard everything that’s been said. Yikes, that was uncomfortable, even sitting in my family room. Then everyone gets nervous about it and Jaymes or someone says “Hey, how about a group hug?” And no one does it. Ugh, I couldn’t wait until that segment was over. AWKWARD. I felt horrible for the Beekmans. They handled things with tremendous class, I must say. They didn’t say a word. How hard must that have been?

It totally made no sense to me why anyone would want to eliminate the Beekmans over any of the rest of the teams. They WERE the weakest team going into the finale, in that (unless I’m mistaken) they were the only ones who had not yet won a leg of the Race. THAT’S the team you want to keep IN, right? I just don’t get what these people are thinking sometimes. Anyway, you see how that one turned out.

One thing I noticed in the first half of the show was that the twins are much nastier than I realized. I thought they were more funny and snarky than nasty in the previous shows, but that was not the case in the finale. When the groups are all running together toward the next location, the twins are yelling loudly to lose the Beekmans and leave them behind. They aren’t even trying to keep the Beekmans from hearing. It’s just nasty, and basically for no reason. The twins decide that Josh was faking his ankle injury because he’s just way too fast in this footrace. She had a point there; he was pretty quick and uninjured suddenly. Jaymes commented that he was gimpy before but had a bionic ankle all of a sudden. Not too far off. Maybe Josh exaggerated the injury because he sucked at tennis, but I doubt he faked it altogether. I guess when there’s a million on the line, you might be amazed at what some people suddenly are able to do.

Anyway, while the teams are all running, the twins are yelling, “Lose the gays!” Had to love it because the Beekmans were yelling, “Don’t listen to these bitches!” Awesome. Finally, some drama. I mean, I don’t get what the twins are thinking. This isn’t a show where six people win; yet they are yelling “Top six!” like there’s some meaning to that. I guess it means “final three” but who really cares? If Jaymes/James and Trey/Lexi had a brain, they’d realize they’d be better off with the Beekmans than the twins anyway (or so I thought when I first wrote this…haha).

The twins head for the Speed Bump while the other teams head for their first task. The Speed Bump is putting a corset on a lady and lacing it up. Wow, compelling stuff. This should have taken five minutes tops, and that’s basically how long it took. Maybe less, actually. These Speed Bumps aren’t anything anymore. Pretty soon it will just entail reading the extra Speed Bump clue or something: “Read this clue and then join the other teams at the next location.” I mean, seriously. The only “Speed Bump” part of it is having to veer off from the others and then rejoin them. This is for a million dollars, right? After the twins finished with it, the corset looked too tight and nothing like the example one, but the lady approved it anyway. At least mix it up by failing them once, huh?

We are back to the other teams, who are looking for Leonardo Da Vinci’s grave. Actually, James is looking for Leonardo DiCaprio’s grave. Uh huh. Not the smartest one, is he? The Beekmans notice that as soon as the twins were out of earshot, the alliance was over. That was not a surprise. Every man for himself in the finale. You can’t be worrying about someone else at a time like that. Plus, the Beekmans speak French. The others would have had to be dummies to not work with them. Unfortunately, the French speaking didn’t help with the map reading and the teams all get lost. Since the twins were only delayed by a few minutes, they catch up quickly.

The Detour was Plow or Chow. Chow was disgusting. Cut up a bunch of different kinds of what must’ve been Grade P meat, fill up some buckets of it and then feed it to hunting dogs. Plow was using a horse and an old school plow to “till four furas.” Whatever the hell a “fura” is. If that’s even what was said. I was going off of the closed captioning and that is usually completely unreliable. I looked up “fura” and apparently it’s a “ferret.” As in, the ANIMAL. So, what the hell? A horse plowing a ferret sounds like a completely different show to me. And, to be honest, a bit inhumane. Thanks for that image, CBS. Those poor deaf people. I have no clue how they keep up with most shows.

There were only two spots available at once with “Plow” so the farmers choose “Chow” instead. That made sense at first, until the Beekmans realized that only one other team was originally doing “Plow.” So the farmers who mention “the farm” 400 times an episode didn’t choose plow? That was interesting. I guess “Chow” wasn’t that far off from farming either though.

Trey and Lexi originally chose “Chow” with the Beekmans but then switched to the plowing task. Lexi, ever the strategist, picked the “pretty” horse. There’s a good idea. She spoke with real agricultural genius too. This is a direct quote: “We had to make four rows of plowing that were straight.” “Pretty horsey.” Mensa, looking for any new members?

As proof that the corset Speed Bump was a ridiculous crap task, the twins beat Jaymes and James to the plow and chow tasks. It got pretty interesting when the twins and the gays were both working the chow task side by side. The twins were relentless with the insults and attacks, and I found myself liking them even less. What a bad week they had for me. I know that such a show is stressful and probably brings out the worst in people, but they were just plain nasty. They kept calling Josh and Brent the “evil gays.” I honestly don’t think either of those two have an evil bone in their body, which is essentially why the twins had decided that they “don’t want this enough.” Apparently they did, but the twins didn’t know that yet.

Anyway, the Beekmans are smart guys and come up with a strategy. They decide to load up the buckets with the meat that doesn’t need to be deboned first. It gives them a lead over the twins. While they are all cutting, the Beekmans ask them why, if they are the weakest team in the Race, do they want them out? “Don’t you think you can beat us easier than the others?” Natalie and Nadiya tell them they have an alliance. Yeah, how did that work for you? The Beekmans finish quickly and move on to the next clue. The twins are pissed.

Next is the Road Block. I was mad at first. “Find MUSHROOMS?” THIS is the FINALE? But when I saw more of what was involved, it seemed more challenging. They had to find the mushrooms in a really creepy, virtually underground, cave with a bunch of tunnels. And the lights kept going out. Lexi was in there for a while, but when she finally came out, she had all the mushrooms correct. Jaymes came out quickly but had one wrong. He quickly fixed his mistake and was on his way.

We’re back to the twins, who are trying to find the mushroom task. They stop a car on the road for directions and the lady looks to be using a cell phone from 1982 or something. Anyone else see it? It was HUGE, ridiculously long and had a curly cord that looked like something from a kitchen circa 1984.