And the winners of the Amazing Race All-Star Edition are... not the viewers. After what has been universally derided as a subpar season of everyone's favorite reality series - with lackluster and uninteresting teams after the early exit of Rob & Amber and strange, erratic leg designs - the final leg for a million dollars boiled down to a single trivia style contest between all three teams, with Eric and Danielle coming out on top, edging out Dustin and Kandace to the finish line to win the race. The Charla and Mirna little person/evil annoying bitch combo came in 3rd.
After Danny & Oswald's race fatigue destroyed their competitive spirit the past couple legs and ultimately sent them packing, I was left with only one team to root for - the not despicable pairing of beauty queens Dustin and Kandace, who were always smiling and upbeat and not bad to look at, but also kind-of cutthroat, which made the other teams hate them and the editors to make it seem like they were kind of evil even if they were just playing a game. I can't say I was a huge fan, and I can't say I'm disappointed that they didn't win a million (something tells me they won't have trouble making money in their lives), but of the three remaining teams I didn't mind them the most. Eric and Danielle on the other hand - he is an absolute ass, or at least was on many, many earlier legs, treating Danielle like shit and his fellow racers like shit, but to be fair, he was an excellent racer and put up with Danielle's sometimes excessive whining to carry them to victory. Her game improved dramatically by the end, but this was Eric's victory mostly. He came in second with partner Jeremy (who we spotted in the final scene as having gained about 30 pounds but still acting like a frat boy idiot) in his original season, and now has avenged that close finish with a win of his own. So congrats Eric and Danielle, on a job ... done.
As for Charla and Mirna, well I must say that I didn't hate them nearly as much this season as on their original season, and several teams, including Danny & Oswald, seemed to be openly rooting for them. So maybe Mirna is not just an evil, psychotic, delusional bitch. Or maybe everyone just liked the idea of Charla winning as such an underdog. I don't know. But I'm happy they lost. And I'm happy I'll never have to waste another syllable on them again.
As for the final leg, well the teams started in Guam, with about 2 hours separating first place (the beauty queens) from third (Charla & Mirna), but they all ended up on the same flight to Tokyo to make a connection to Honolulu. So that didn't matter. Then Mirna - and this was her one great skill during the race to offset their physical weakness and other inabilities - was able to sneak on an earlier connection through United and got to Honolulu about 40 minutes before the other teams, putting them in first place. But then they all signed up for charter flights that were only 10 minutes apart, which led to a rather meaningless Detour choice that everyone finished at the same rate. So that didn't matter. Then the next leg called for a lot of walking and running and rowing out to find the next clue next to wreckage from a WWII cargo ship, which Eric and Danielle did faster than anyone, putting them in the lead with their amazing athletic ability, only to read the next clue, go to the airport and find that there's only one flight to Oakland and it's later that night, so everyone caught up anyway. So that didn't matter either. Talk about a waste of 35 minutes of show.
So the million dollars all boiled down to a Roadblock at the US Mint in San Francisco. Dustin and Kandace were the first to arrive, but Eric and Danielle were mere seconds behind with Charla and Mirna only trailing by a minute or two on the cab ride to the airport. The Roadblock required one team member to go into a vault and answer four questions about the other teams on the race (things like "Which team was the least trustworthy?" - Rob and Amber got a lot of votes, and "Which team will you stay in contact with after the race?" - Uchenna and Joyce seemed to get the most praise there). Then the other team member had to go in for 10 minutes to try to match the answers. If they couldn't before 10 minutes was up, then they could leave at that point. If they finished earlier, they could leave earlier. And the only thing left was a short cab ride to the finish line. So whoever matched their partners answers first won a million dollars. And Danielle - who, according to Eric, loved to gossip about the other teams to him constantly - was able to match Eric's answers with about 2 minutes remaining on Kandace's clock, and they raced to the victory. Kandace went the full ten, as did a still trailing Charla, and the rest was history. I could hardly contain my excitement.
So that is the end of what I think was the 11th season of The Amazing Race, a show that maybe - just maybe has jumped the veritable shark. I loved Survivor up until and including their All-Star season - which I thought was awesome, but then I only watched it for another year after that before bailing. I'm not even sure TAR will last that long, which is a shame.
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