North to Alaska and an on-target finish

By Jim Memmott

Amazing Race, Season 23, Episodes 11 and 12

Indonesia/Tokyo/Alaska – Nice teams can finish first.

In the season’s finale, Amy and Jason, the dating New Englanders 

Jason and Amy

who would help other teams (well, she would) won it all and took home $1 million for their efforts.

They were a strong team, for sure, having finished second on six different legs, but they were lucky, as well, Amy acing a tricky challenge in Alaska that proved pivotal.

Airborne in a small plane at 60 mph and 100 feet above the earth, she dropped a bag of flour and hit a target on the ground.

It was a fly-over that proved difficult for Marie (of the dueling exes Tim and Marie) and almost impossible for Nicole (of ER docs Nicole and Travis).

Landing in Alaska

Having floured the target, Amy and Jason zipped through a death-defying ice-climbing challenge, a kayak ride and a memory test that asked them to assemble totem poles displaying the names of the currency of each of the countries they had visited.

“I memorized every thing but this,” Amy said, recalling her preparation for the all-semester exam that usually comes at the end of the race.

Nonetheless, she and Jason seemed to have little trouble with the poles and got to the finish line well ahead of the remaining two teams. They kissed. They gushed. They didn’t, however, set a wedding date. Come on Race editors; seal the deal.

Tim and Marie came in behind them, taking second. Early in the season, they had been the team everyone loved to hate, but by the end they seemed, at least to this writer, to be, well, fun.

Tim and Marie

Tim took to the task of explaining Marie to the world, much as if she were a force of nature.

Playing her devil’s part with a wink, she cheerfully admitted that they had agreed to a 60/40 split, the bigger portion going to her. It was, I think, the first time any Race contestants had talked about that sort of thing.

And Marie would not contemplate any reunion with her former beau, though she allowed in the end that “in some weird friend kind of way, of course we love each other.”

The ER docs finished a distant third after an almost creepy display of a relationship under strain. The married couple had started the season well, declaring that they would take the high road and

Nicole and Travis

show the world that the race could be won fairly and squarely.

Then, in episode 10, Nicole desperately went low road on one challenge but, perhaps more ominously, Travis’s tendency to criticize, even bully, his spouse became apparent.

In Episode 11 in Tokyo, the first hour of the two-hour finale, Travis carped as Nicole and Amy struggled with a large-scale model building challenge. (“Come on Nicole, it’s not rocket science.”)

Once in Alaska, Travis wouldn’t let up, even failing to compliment Nicole after she had climbed an ice wall using just one ax.

Speaking of Episode 11, at the end of the racers’ brief stay in Japan, the Afghanimals, Leo and Jamal, were eliminated, in part because Leo took forever on the model-building task and also because the other teams didn’t much like them.

Earlier, they did bring their high spirits to the human-bowling challenge, a bit of Japanese game show hijinks that might be seen as advancing stereotypes.

Human Bowlng

And so Episode 23 is over, 35,000 miles after it all began, having saved the best scenery until the end, some of the shots of Alaska being spectacular. After a few months, it will be up and running again with an All-Star reunion season. Be still my heart. That’s amazing.

Overheard:

Jamal: We’re know they’re going to gang up and aim for Leo and I.

Tim (to the game show host): She broke my heart.

Host: It is American love story.

Marie: It is American horror story

Jamal: He’s a puzzle type of guy. This is the roadblock made for Leo.

Travis (to Nicole): What are you doing?

Order of Finish Episode 11:

1) Marie and Tim

2) Amy and Jason

3) Nicole and Travis

4) Leo and Jamal

Order of finish Episode 12

1) Amy and Jason

2) Marie and Tim

3) Nicole and Travis

Overview:

Last week's first-ever Amazing Pool reader poll (see above, right) was about as successful as the rollout of healthcare.gov. But the small sample did show strong support for Amy and Jason, the eventual winners, and (go figure) Leo and Jamal, the biggest losers. There was no support for Nicole and Travis, the eventual third-place finishers. 

The ER doctors' fall from grace is somewhat perplexing, as they had had a very strong run through the first eight episodes. But in Episode 9, they finished next to last, a sign of things to come. Amy and Jason did the opposite finishing first, second and first over the last three episodes.

Pool winners:

Amy and Jason's win meant $100 for Cindy and Jim and the honor of picking last in next season's pool. Tim and Marie's second place finish won $50 for Team Boston. Allison Chanler picked up $30 for backing Nicole and Travis in the pool. Earlier, Team Showers had garnered $20 as the first team eliminated from the pool.