The last shall be first

The Amazing Race, Episodes 11 and 12, Season 21

France/New York City -- It was a win for goat farmers and underdogs everywhere. A reminder that the Amazing Race really can be amazing.

Frozen out of an alliance, mocked by the Twinnys, constantly finishing near the end of the line until the last episode, the Fabulous Beekman Boys, Brent and Josh, pulled off an upset for the ages winning Season 21 and walking away with $1 million.

Now they can pay off the mortgage on their upstate New York farm. Now they can be together all the time. Now Brent can stop nagging Josh.

“Don’t make errors and expect me not to point them out,” Brent kvetched after Josh got a pizza order wrong in the last episode. (Really, who hasn’t botched a pizza order? Go easy, Brent).

Whatever. The first episode of last night’s two-hour, two-episode finale, took place mostly in France and ended in the elimination of the Twins, Nadiya and Natalie, who got lost on their way to the finish. So many castles, so little time.

The remaining three teams, Josh and Brent; the Chippendales, Jaymes and James; and the Texans, Lexi and Trey, flew to New York City for the final episode.

For a while, it looked like Lexi and Trey were going to pull off a win, but Lexi got frazzled by the last challenge, a variation on the memory lane test that Race producers like to throw at the remaining finalists.

Josh and Brent

It was a doozy. Having arrived at the United Nations, one person from each team had to sort through 18 phrases or words matching up the correct “hellos” and “goodbyes” they heard at the finish lines in nine different countries. (Bonjour, au revoir, etc.)

Josh solved the puzzle by turning it from a language challenge to a math challenge, running the permutations and combinations until he got the correct hits.

Thus, he and Brent were able to hop in a cab and get to the finish first, followed by the Chips and those dating Texans.

The winners rejoiced; the losers were good sports.

As always, Lexi used her swan song to strongly hint that it was about time for Trey to “take the next step” and propose. He held off, as he had throughout the season.  Storm clouds or wedding bells on the horizon? Who knows?

As always, the Chips remained cheerful even though they didn’t win the million.

And they were happy, at least, that they had finished first in the episode that sent them on to the finals. For their effort, each Chip won a new Ford Escape.

Look, Ma, no hands

James’ car will go to his mom, who, we learned, has no car of her own and has to walk to her job. “She’s spent her whole life taking care of special needs children,” James explained. “It’s time to take care of her.”

And speaking of Ford Escapes. Did you know that you can open the back gate of this wonder car with your foot? Really. Your foot.

In a bit of product placement that outdid any previous Amazing Race product placements, the racers put foot to door of their Escapes again and again and again.

They were in the Loire Valley, they were visiting centuries old castles, but what will they remember? Yes, opening a car door with their feet.

What will the rest of us remember?

Oh sure, I’ll recall the mushroom hunting and dog-food preparing challenges. (Good grief, those hounds seemed hungry.)

Harry Houdini at work

But I know I’ll be haunted for years by the Detour at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in which a racer was tied up in a straitjacket and raised upside down over water by a crane. Then he had to escape the jacket, upon which he was dropped 15 stories, his life saved by a bungee cord.

And I’ll remember the Twinnys (or is it the Twinnies?). Those Jersey girls from Sri Lanka were their oh-my-Godding selves right up until the end.

However, they may have spent too much time trashing talking the Beekmans in the episode that sent them home.  “The evil gays, they’re going down,” Natalie or Nadiya said at one point.

Though in the end, the Twins gave grudging praise to the surprise winners and pretty much blamed themselves for their own failures. “Whatever, but we suck,” Natalie explained. And, to their credit, as much as any Race team, the Twinnys exited laughing.

And Race historians take note, even though they didn’t win, the Twins were game-changers, though not always in the ways they intended.

Cafeteria food

In an earlier episode, they had engineered that Double U-Turn deal that sent race favorites Ryan and Abbie home. And they formed an alliance with the Chips and the Texans that worked for a while, though it may have backfired because it excluded the Beekmans.

Made to feel like the odd guys out in the high-school cafeteria, the Beeks seemed to take on new resolve.

Don’t forget, they survived an earlier episode because it was a non-elimination episode. They got a four-hour penalty in another episode because they couldn’t finish two challenges (cue the synchronized swimming) only to stay alive because James and Abba couldn’t find their passports.

But the Beeks got better and so, I think, did Season 21. By the end, it was fun. Which means a lot.

Overheard:

Lexi: Please lord; get me out of this fricking cave.

Brent: I usually try to be very Zen.

Nadiya: I’m telling you, the Beekmans have tricks up their sleeve.

Jaymes: Someone is going to end up with some stinky Chippendale clothes.

Trey: There’s no sharing on that last leg.

Lexi: I hope I don’t have to eat pizza.

Jaymes: Maybe the world will have a different view of Chippendales now, for better or for worse.

Order of Finish

Episode 11

Jaymes and James

Trey and Lexi

Josh and Brent

Natalie and Nadiya

Episode 12

Josh and Brent

Jaymes and James

Trey and Lexi

Pool results

Josh and Brent’s win means the $50 first-place award goes to the team of Louise and Will Wadsworth and Julia Walker. The second place award of $30 was won by Cindy Schmitt and Jim Memmott, who backed the Chips. Bob Wilcox picked Trey and Lexi and won $20.

That’s it,

Jim