SEASON 19 ENDS

The Amazing Race landed in Atlanta for the Season 19 finale, three teams going for $1 million.

Actually, one of those teams, Amani and Marcus (Drew and Emily’s duo) almost didn’t land in Atlanta, Marcus having enormous difficulty getting the Lear Jet flight simulator on the virtual tarmac. It took the ex-NFler 12 tries and, by that time, the other two teams were long gone.

Thus, even though Atlantans Amani and Marcus had a home-field advantage, they finished third, out of the money but still proud of trying so hard and coming so close.

Jeremy and Sandy (Dennis Doell’s team) came in second, having lost time going to the wrong Dump and searching amongst the furniture at a converted Home Depot rather than going to the Dump where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind.

But, for sure, the newly dating couple did well, and, surprise, competing on the Race helped them communicate as a couple, or so they said.

So who won?

Cindy and Ernie (Cindy’s team), the opposites-attract engaged couple hopped on the mat first, despite the fact that Ernie passed gas in the flight simulator and despite a little suspense-building last minute GPS anxiety… recalculating, recalculating.

Earlier they had done well in the flight simulator and in the typewriter challenge (yes, there was a typewriter challenge).

Ernie and Cindy

And Cindy had no trouble with the always-anticipated finale feature of a Total-Recall challenge in which one racer has to remember all the places visited on his/her 35,000-mile journey around the world. (This year, the challenge was played out on a huge map, the racer rappelling from country to country.)

Being on the Race did, perhaps unfortunately, define Cindy and Ernie’s relationship, with Cindy continually making it clear that she’s the brains and he’s not. Blame her upbringing. “My parents definitely have an expectation for me to be perfect and achieve the best,” said Cindy, clicking into Tiger daughter mode.

For sure, Cindy may not have endeared herself to the other racers when she thought about what it would mean not to win: “It would be like loosing it to the C students when we’re A+ students,” she told Ernie.

My suspicion, reinforced by idle comments from members of our pool (“That Cindy really drives me crazy,” etc.) is that this win may not have been popular with anyone other than Cindy Schmitt, who picked up $50 for backing her namesake. Dennis Doell gets $30 for second place, Drew and Emily $20 for third and Julia $10 for the snowboarders’ fourth-place finish.

Overheard:

Cindy: I think the race today is the ultimate pre-marital counseling.

Marcus: Now it’s onto the Super Bowl…We’re going to the crib,baby….home field advantage.

Sandy: I have to get on Prilosec when I get home.

Phil: Marcus, promise me one thing, you will never become a pilot.

Next season’s selection order:

Cindy Schmitt’s victory is especially impressive as she selected sixth at the start of the season, Cindy and Ernie having been passed over by five previous selectors.

Dennis Doell chose Jeremy and Sandy with the eighth pick, so,he, too, beat the odds.

Things got a little more orderly down the line as Drew and Emily picked third and their team finished third. Julia selected the Snowboarders with the fourth pick and they came in fourth.

Following what is now pool tradition, the order of selection next season will be in reverse order of finish for this season. Thus, Cindy will pick last.

But who will pick first, you ask, remembering the heated debate triggered by the double elimination on the second week of this season?

I think the Race editors settled that quarrel for us at the beginning of the last episode when they showed Ethan and Jenna (the Team Showers duo) as the first team eliminated, followed by Ron and Bill (Mark Memmott’s team), the flight attendants.

SEASON 18 ENDS

A few after-the-fact thoughts on the Amazing Race finish, but first congratulations to Allison, who saw her team, LaKisha and Jennifer, come in first and collect the $1million. For her clairvoyance, Allison gets $50.

Phil, Flight Time, Big Easy

The globetrotting Globetrotters came in second, winning $30 for the Bushnells. Dennis Doell picked up $20 for backing Gary and Mallory, the third-place team that was undone, as one team has to be, by a cabbie with no sense of direction.

Zev and Justin

Alas for Mark, Zev and Justin, the fourth team to start the finale, were eliminated at the half-way point, done in by Zev’s inability to samba – “I’ve got white boy rhythm,” he explained. In one of the most painful moments in Race history, Zev and Justin also screamed and lost time as technicians took the full 15 minutes waxing off their ample body hair. It wasn’t pretty.

So what do we make of it all?

The finale – which was wonderful television – first of all reminded me how self-contained The Amazing Race is.

In actuality, we know very little about the cast outside of the roles (sisters, cowboys, dating Goths) they’ve been assigned by the race editors. Some of their personality traits emerge (Luke's a cry baby, Kent's a whiner, that Ron sure likes to eat), but there's always a sense that we're getting a highly selective glimpse of who they really are.

Unlike a show like American Idol, the Race never goes to the contestant's homes to fill in their stories – at least I don’t remember this happening. Indeed, the racers could be in a witness protection program, as we aren’t even told on air what their last names are.

And surprisingly little was done during the course of Season 18 to establish any kind of back story for Kisha and Jen, whose last name is Hoffman, by the way.

We weren’t told, for example, that each are former Division I athletes (Kisha basketball, Jen volleyball), a fact that helps explain their solid performances in the skill challenges.

Lakisha and Jen

At the last minute, the victorious sisters revealed that they wanted to win to honor the single mom who raised them, certainly a worthy goal, though one not mentioned in their Amazing Race bios.

Of course, the sisters had a score to settle as they, like all of this episode’s contestants, were out to make up for their previous loss on Amazing Race. Thus, the finale spliced in scenes of their earlier defeats, again reinforcing the self-contained nature of the show.

The last episode reminded me, too, of the Amazing Race’s eager and cheerful embracing of stereotypes. It's a travel show (five continents, 23 countries, 40,000 miles) that takes us to exotic or ordinary places and consistently shows us what we expected to see. It sure is cold in Siberia; it sure is crowded in India; those Swiss love their chocolate.

The challenge set in a Florida Keys trailer park featured, surprise, plastic flamingos on rock-hard dirt, a smiling big-haired woman named Rose, and a guy wearing a T-shirt featuring the phrase, “So Many Cats: So few Good Recipes.”

All of this could, through another lens, be portrayed in a cruel, or at least mocking, tone, but on the Race it seems to be rendered more kindly, simply as part of life in all its familiar strangeness.

In the end, the business of Unfinished Business, A.K.A. Season 18, was to affirm that nice people can finish first, as any one of the final four duos would have reinforced this idea.

Nothing was revealed about Season 19, but, as much as I liked the weeks of watching familiar and generally friendly duos compete, I find myself hoping for some nastier contestants, some double-dealers, a little more edge.

Until then, here’s some some memorable phrases from Sunday night:

Overheard:

Justin about Zev: I’ve seen him dance, but not sober.

Gary about Mallory: She’s kind of a Tom boy, but she can dance.

Big Easy: All of a sudden Hurricane Andrew hit, and we were in trouble.

Jen: Stop with the wind, come on God stop with the wind.

Flight Time: We got beat out by a couple of girls, but that’s OK.

Big Easy: I had on a Speedo.

Order of Finish:

Lakisha and Jennifer (Allison)

Herb and Nate (Bushnells)

Gary and Mallory (Dennis)

Zev and Justin (Mari)

Order of draw next time:

Jim

Team Showers

Emily and Drew

Julia

Bob

Cindy

Mark

Dennis

Bushnells

Allison