Season finale of the Amazing Race

V and I don’t watch much t.v., but we usually make a point of catching the Amazing Race each Sunday night.

After racing through Indonesia, Thailand, Malawi, Denmark, Belgium and Panama, the final 3 teams (of 11) made for the finish line in Atlanta, Georgia.

The finalists were: Jeremy and Sandy, a dating couple who had consistently under-performed; Ernie and Cindy, a young engaged couple who’d run a good race despite many mistakes; and Amani and Marcus, a married couple whose solid relationship, communication and sense of humour were fun to watch.

“We’re playing at home and the ball is on the 10 yard line,” said Marcus as they all headed to Atlanta. A former NFLer, he was always good for football metaphors.

At the first challenge, teams had to bring a flight from 25,000 feet to touchdown in a simulator. Jeremy made it look easy – succeeding on his first attempt. Ernie and Marcus failed and had to try again.

But while J&S got a head start after the simulator, they couldn’t figure out that their clue for the ‘former residence formerly known as the dump” meant the old home of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind. They ended up wandering around a furniture wholesale store called ‘The Dump’ while E&C successfully landed their second flight, solved the next clue and took the lead.

At ‘the dump’ a team member had to type up the clue while figuring out that the missing #1 must be replaced with a lowercase L. Ernie struggled but finished before J&S arrived and while A&M were still stuck in the flight simulator since Marcus kept running the plane off the runway (effectively putting them out of the race).

E&C headed on to Turner Field where Cindy easily plotted the course of their race by clipping her rope through carabineers hanging off countries on a massive, vertical world map. As before, E&C were done before the other teams arrived. Their next clue led them to the finishing mat.

So, as often happens with this show, the last leg wasn’t the most exciting. We watch because we want to see who won, but it’s kind of unsatisfying all the same.