The Amazing Race season finale recap: Skip to My Luau

And so the fourteenth season of The Amazing Race ended justly: With Tammy and Victor victorious, and second-place Jaime standing at the mat berating herself…but only because there wasn’t a cabbie in sight to pin the rap on.

Before I go further, I’d like to present a bit of a teaser: With the Race over, I’ll be launching a new column on EW.com later this week that I’m very excited about. You want details, you say? Stick around until the end of the column, when all will be made clear. (But I will reveal this one hint now: It will not be a recurring photo gallery of all-time great nose flutists. The editors at EW.com rejected that one. They’re such noseists.)

Now back to the Race…

Let’s take stock of our final three. There was Tammy and Victor, who realized early on that they needed to break out of the bossy older sibling/kowtowing younger sibling roles that were causing such tension. And they found a simple solution: Simply pretend the problem was solved, allowing the bossy older brother to continue to be bossy while they both claim he is not. Next stop in the Race? Denialsburg. It’s located right next to Shamestown.

Then there were Margie and Luke. We were set up this season to think of them as inspiring, but then Luke became a bit of a dick. This certainly set up a moral quandary in choosing who to root for. It was like finding out that a post-cancer Lance Armstrong is the one who keeps shortsheeting your bed.

And finally, we had Cara and her thoroughly unpleasant friend Jaime. As the finale started, Cara said that from the beginning, she’s said, ”Don’t underestimate us.” From the beginning Jaime, on the other hand, has been saying, ”SPEAK ENGLISH! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU IDIOTS?”

As the episode began, the Race finally exited China and made its way to the last stop: Hawaii, all the better to get the teams stripped down to their swimsuits! Aoooogah! But the Race is a bit like an old Bob Hope special: it tries to be naughty, but doesn’t quite get what real naughtiness is. It’s kind of cute in its naivete, actually, especially when compared to contemporary skankapaloozas like Rock of Love Bus. On the Race, producers think, ”We’re in sunny climes, we’ve got a couple of cheerleaders, let’s get these folks in some hot two-pieces! Yeah! And then…and then…and then we’ll have them haul a dead pig around! Meeee-ow!” Jeez, why not have them put on negligees and then embalm a corpse? While I’m sure that there is a small species of pork-carcass fetishists who dimmed the lights, lit some candles, and got out the lotion at the sight of these fine, fine ladies grimacing under the weight of a dead, fly-covered pig, the rest of us could have thought of far better ways to sex up the show.

NEXT: The luau of doom

The challenge was to truss a 145-pound pig on a pole, and then carry it 200 yards to a luau. Before carrying it, they had to prep it with, as Phil put it, ”real island flavoring.” Is that anything like the real truth flavor? (Ronald, I miss you each and every day.) This did not sound as difficult as it looked, but I don’t want to judge, having never hauled a dead pig 200 yards. Tammy could barely manage three steps without dropping the pole. Stressful for her, but quite an ignominious funeral for the pig.

The cheerleaders arrived at the challenge third after giving their cabbie a little thrill by changing into their swimsuits in the back of his minivan. For this cabbie, it must have seemed like a Penthouse letter in the making before it took a dark turn: ”Dear Penthouse: I never thought these letters were real, but the other day two cheerleaders got into my car and started changing into bikinis right in my rear-view mirror! It was so hot. And then one of them started yelling at me and didn’t stop for the rest of the day. Now I can’t get aroused unless I imagine that someone is going to hit me if I don’t get a GPS.”

As much as Tammy struggled with the pig, Cara was struggling even more. And as you’d imagine, Jaime was not all that understanding. While Victor tried to encourage his sister with lines like, ”Do not doubt yourself!”, Jaime tried a different kind of pep talk, using such inspirational nuggets as ”You’re fricking killing me!”, ”I don’t understand what the problem is!” and ”This is how you lose a million dollars!” After a while, I’ll bet Cara started feeling envious of the pig.

At this point, Margie and Luke were significantly ahead, having made good time with their pig and then prepped it for the luau in short order. (It was nice to see that the Race continued one of this season’s traditions right up to the end: inviting locals to laugh at the contestants as they performed their task.) Before you knew it, the mother and son were off on their Jet-Ski in a challenge to find the next clue taped to one in a sea of buoys. Margie was driving, while Luke clutched onto her waist, and with the generic heavy-guitar music playing in the background as they zipped along the ocean, I felt like I was watching an excerpt from a really unsuccessful beach-cop pilot. ”He’s got bad hearing, and an even worse attitude. And if you think he’s tough, you should meet his mother. Mama Bear and Kid Cochlear, tonight at 9 on CBS!”

NEXT: Jaime snaps at yet another cabbie…and proves the existence of God

They breezed through the challenge, quickly finding the buoy with the next clue on it. (But not before things got a bit testy when Margie started snapping as Luke back-seat Jet-Skiied.) Behind them, the next two teams were neck and neck. It was hilarious watching Victor once again be unable to follow through on his promise to let Tammy do some work. As the driver, he insisted on also checking the buoys. Tammy kept saying that it would be easier if she checked, and he agreed…and then kept checking the buoys himself. Apparently he rationalized that she was busy enough with her very important delegated job of keeping his midsection warm by wrapping her arms around it.

With this challenge, Margie and Luke really elongated their lead. When they finished, they got a fast cab, while Tammy and Victor’s got stuck behind a slow Jeep, and Jaime and Cara’s cabbie got—for the thousandth time—lost. I’ve never bought into karma or cosmic forces, but now I’m a believer: There has to be something bigger than all of us that sends only crappy cabbies to the cheerleaders. When that voice crackled over the cabbie’s radio, saying, ”You need to tell your people that I’m not their personal concierge,” I wondered, Was that the voice of God? It would be wildly appropriate if, when confronting Jaime about her sins, the ultimate supreme being took the form of an angry taxi dispatcher.

The angry retort didn’t stop Jaime from yelling at the driver. She kept saying, ”We’re in a race for a million dollars, we don’t have time for all this.” It’s too bad: Over 11 legs of the Race, she never once realized that while she’s in a race for a million dollars, these drivers aren’t. What the hell do they have to gain by breaking all speed laws for her?

Luke and Margie arrived at the final Roadblock long before anyone else. The task was, as per Amazing Race tradition, a memory game about all previous legs of the Race. In this instance, one teammate faced a pile of surfboards, 11 of which had a logo on them that referenced the legs; you had to find them all and then put them in chronological order. I’ve always found this tradition lacking in entertainment value. Maybe it’s because I have a lousy memory. If I didn’t, perhaps I’d have more fun playing along, or snickering at the errors of the players. But as it is, I’d rather see them face some ultimate time-consuming and frustrating challenge that pushes them to physical limits, rather than mental ones. Mental challenges are—by definition—not that visually compelling. And the fact that this one involved Victor and Luke dashing around in their underpants made it even less so.

Luke seemed to have this challenge tied up, as he was nearly done by the time Victor and Tammy arrived. But he could not close the deal, getting the last two legs wrong over and over again. Victor caught up to and then passed him; even Jaime caught up to him. The producers made it seem like Jaime was incompetent, as she didn’t seem to grasp that most of the boards had random, unusable logos on them. And yet, suddenly she was missing only two, neck and neck with Luke. She went from clueless to ass-kicking without any explanation; it was as if the producers couldn’t bear to include any scene that might reflect positively on them. I think if Jaime and Cara had finished first and were making their way to the finish line, Bertram Van Munster might have leaped out and tripped them.

NEXT: The final battle…and my new column

With Luke wildly frustrated, and Jaime her usual frantic self, Margie suggested the two teams work together to finish the challenge. I suppose that’s good strategy: Yes, you run the risk of giving the other team the info they might need to outrun you. But at that point, with both teams stymied, you’re likely a dead man as it is, so adding extra competition is better than being eliminated right away.

In the end, Tammy and Victor handily won. They clearly finished the Race seamlessly, as they gave the producers no footage with which to manufacture even an iota of false suspense. Meanwhile, runners-up Jaime and Luke, once they realized they were done for, both beat themselves up, holding themselves responsible for the loss. Fortunately, both had partners to buck them up and deny all guilt. Luke’s last moments with Margie were sweet; as much crap as we may have given her for being overly protective, she does seem like a great mom. As for Jaime, as much crap as we gave her for being rude and patronizing…well, her hair sure was red.

And so endeth the season. (Make sure to check out Phil’s blog to hear his closing remarks.) But what about you and I? Will we have to wait until next season to talk again? NO! Weren’t you listening when this article started? I’ve got big plans for us! Every Thursday on EW.com I will be hosting my Pop Culture Club, which is like a book club, only with movies, DVDs, and TV shows. Each week, I’ll pick an ”assignment”: It might be a film currently out, or a television show airing, or maybe an old DVD. We’ll all watch it over the week, and then meet back at EW.com on Thursday morning. (Look for my post on the home page that day.) I’ll write a recap/critique of our assignment, and then throw the cyberfloor open on the message boards for a group discussion. I’ll be a regular presence on the boards on Thursday, and I’m looking for a real give and take. I’ve seen how you all like to mix it up on the Amazing Race boards (and how funny you can be), and I’m looking forward to an insightful, hilarious, and furiously fast online convo.

Normally I will make the new assignment at the end of every week’s Club, but this time I’ll kick it off here: Let’s all watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at 12:35 a.m. on NBC. I watched him his first week, knowing full well that you can’t really judge someone by their first week. (If you could, Conan O’Brien would have been yanked off the air midway through his third show.) But now it’s been two months and Jimmy’s had time to settle, so let’s all give him another try and meet back here Thursday to talk about what we’ve learned. Has he found a groove? Does he have the chops to last in late night? Does he bring anything new to the table, or is he just another nerdy white guy? Oh, and the best thing about the Pop Culture Club? It’s not pot luck. Feel free to eat during the discussion without worrying that you don’t have enough for the group. See you Thursday!

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