Woot! So happy Nat and Kat won!
Did they ever come out on the show, though? Apart from the “tells” (like linking arms, etc)
Double HOT BABES ftw!!!
Oy those were some weak-ass challenges for a finale. Arrange flowers? At least have the contestants have to jump off or let go or do something active in the bungee jumping thing. Just passively sitting there until you’re released seemed way lame. (Remember the giant water slide that one chick couldn’t make herself go down? ) And then continue to sit passively as you get lowered to a platform? wtf? That bridge bungee challenge earlier in the season where they had to climb back up (the one that Vicky killed) was a million times better. (IIRC, they had to actively jump/let go that challenge.)
I’m thrilled an all-girl team won. Now that it’s no longer an issue, hopefully it’s regular challenges from here on out.
I thought it was funny when Phil asked them what this would mean for their relationship, and Kat started talking about being bonded forever, etc. I said to my husband, “I’m pretty sure that’s not what he was asking…”
Nope. I thought the same thing, until one referred to the other as “like a sister” in the post-race interview. That’s not a phrase anyone uses about their lover, no matter how closeted.
Idiots!
I have to repeat: IDIOTS!
Not one person of 6 understood the reference to Sancho Panza. They are all dumb and they all went to college. And at least two of them – smart women who got through their undergraduate education, got to graduate school and became anasthesiologists – didn’t know a reference to Don Quixote?
Pathetic.
And maybe the Amazing Producers saddled the contestants with the most unassimilated and unintellectual taxi drivers they could find in LA – being an Easterner, I suspect finding such guileless simpletons in LA is an easy task, likely relegated to one of the many coffee-grabbing minions – but they all knew the city or seemed to. They were all happy to be home.
Good gravy! The cowboys from a couple seasons ago were geniuses. They played the game brilliantly and brought an Oklahoman sensibility to their game. Nat and Kat won, but they’re just plain ol’ dumb. As are Brooke and Claire and the other two nitwits whose names I never botherd to remember. I hate dumb contestants. Again, it makes me sad.
Agree that nat and kat were smart to take the time to choose a taxi with a phone before getting in. However, Brooke and Claire had the same problem as Jill and Tom and asked to be taken to a hotel instead of badgering the taxi driver. Jill and Thomas just kept at the guy asking the same questions louder and slower like you would do in a foreign country with someone who didn’t speak English.
The challenges were non=starters. The faces match was cool, but the other two were really dumb. Was glad for nat and kat although I was rooting for Brooke and Claire. I also noted that Claire was the one who got almost all of the faces right. She was really paying attention while Brooke was bouncing all over the place. They were a good team.
I haven’t been watching that long so I won’t know most of the all stars, but I’m sure it will be fun.
I’m wondering if the cabbie was doing passive-aggressive dumb. They were kinda shrieking at him…not being obnoxious or anything but giving him tons of pressure.
I’m glad Nat and Kat won. I LOVE the no-drama attitude they brought. I really got hooked on them when whichever of them was the vegetarian just shrugged and ate the meat with no drama, no hysterics and (IIRC) no barfing.
That said, now that the Amazing Race producers have finally warped the casting to allow an all-woman team, I want to see an all-woman team win in a real race with non-crippled casting.
I fully expect the Home Shopping Women to kick some serious ass against some of the lusers they picked for next season (really? The whiney-deaf-momma’s boy? )
Why does everyone assume that people would know who Panza is? I didn’t know and I’ve been through college and even read part of the book. I also think myself pretty well read. There are thousands of classic books out there and most people have not read them regardless of what people around here have read.
Much like the rest of the season the ending was rather anticlimactic and didn’t really care they were the first all female team.
This happens pretty much every time a reality show throws in a real world clue. There are howls and shrieks about “How could nobody know this? Are they all uneducated fools?” [swoon for effect]
I think I even made a thread complaining about it (and challenging the notion that whatever was expected to be common knowledge wasn’t), but damned if I can find it now.
Nat and Kat dumb? Other than not knowing who Sancho Panza was – and that would be a matter of “not having been exposed to Don Quixote” rather than stupidity – I’m not seeing anything they did this season as particularly dumb. They ran a very smart race, as proven in this leg by finding a cab driver with a phone he’d let them use.
Brooke and Claire, ditto. Brooke was a shrieker, but no dummy.
Notre Dame boy … okay, not gonna defend him. 
That was really a lack-luster final leg. Sheesh. Go here. Fall off this. Take a helicopter ride. Glue some flowers to a thing.
The fill in the blank clue was actually really pretty cool, and showed how interesting (but of course organizationally challenging) it would be if the clues were clues, rather than directions.
Then the mandatory memory test, although the lamest memory test yet. I liked when they had to grab items representing each leg and put them in the zone.
Hopefully this softball season satisfies whoever it was that was concerned about an all-female team winning. Can we get back to an interesting race next time?
What?!?! No Meredith & Gretchen?!?!
“Oh Meredith… I think our elephant is broken…”
We need more comedy gold like that. I have had enough of dysfunctional couples sniping at each other, or pretty people with perfect teeth.
You are right. I would retract my previous post. I don’t think they’re dumb. Just uninteresting.
That’s the worst thing that can be said of any reality-tv-winning-team: “They are so pretty and bland that I just don’t care.”
So what? They are not dumb. I don’t care that they won.
Okay, so I might have gotten Sancho Panza without having to look it up, although I probably would have wanted to check my work and make sure. And I got the Seven Year Itch reference immediately. But WTF was the middle clue about?
I forgot to add that my kids were highly excited to see the season finale last night. My son was thrilled for Nat and Kat, whom he said “won the hundred dollars!” (He’s barely 6; even $100 seems like a million to him). The hoopla of “first all-female team” completely blew past my 8-year-old daughter. She remarked more than once, “Well, Thomas should feel pretty proud of himself. he’s the only boy to make it into the final 3 teams!” 
Yeah, I was an English major in college and I didn’t know it. I’ve read a lot of books and “Don Quixote” wasn’t one of them. I know the basics of the story, but don’t know most of the character names.
Apparently, the Symphony in the Glen performs at Griffith Park. From what the docs were saying, there is more than one site for Quixote Studios, and the one they wanted was Stage 7 at the Griffith Park facility.
It’s the last episode, and obviously the predictive function of the Taxi Assessment is over and done with, and I’m pleasantly surprised that the final outcome is in the same order as I’ve been ranking the teams for weeks.
Taxi Assessment:
Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained - or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
Ron & Tony and Andie & Jenna and Connor & Jonathan and Katie & Rachel and Michael & Kevin and Gary & Mallory and Chad & Stephanie and Nick & Vicki - present and accounted for, but unimportant.
Jill & Thomas (down from "Rapido!) - I’m not surprised Jill & Thomas came in third, but really, it just seemed like this whole episode came down to taxi luck, and Jill & Thomas got screwed when it could as easily have been either of the other teams. On the other hand, if anyone in the final three should have some knowledge of classical literature, you’d think it would be the Notre Dame graduate. I bet Thomas is wishing he had a Princeton education about now.
Brook & Claire (down from “Passing”) - It looked to me like Brook & Claire were just barely behind Nat & Kat for the whole leg, but Nat & Kat didn’t stumble enough for Brook & Claire to pass them. And, I’ll note, Brook & Claire had a better solution to the puzzle-solving that Jill & Thomas did.
Flat Tire - or, not likely to get anywhere soon.
Wait 'til next season.
Stopping for Gas - or, not broken-down, exactly, but not a good sign.
Wait 'til next season.
"Rapido! Por Favor?" - or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
Wait 'til next season.
In the Passing Lane - or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Wait 'til next season.
Cruisin’ with Earl - or, drivin’ on the shoulder, takin’ shortcuts, and generally kickin’ butt.
Nat & Kat (holding steady) - Nat & Kat ran a leg that was just as good as it had to be. It wasn’t flawless–witness Nat’s two-minute stumble at the Roadblock and the team’s unfamiliatity with Cervantes–but it didn’t have to be. They apparently had a taxi driver that was a little better than the competition’s (note how they stretched a few second lead at the airport into a lead of at least a few minutes at the bungee drop), so in some sense the season came down to that, but at least their bad taxi luck in the first couple episodes was balanced by good luck in the last episode where they needed it. And, to be honest, thinking ahead enough to look for a driver with a smart phone shows why they should win this season.
[sub]Props to Mullinator and his Raj Rating[/sub]
I don’t think everyone would or should know who Sancho Panza is, but I am surprised that none of the six remaining contestants knew. There are thousands of classic books out there, yes, but I’ve always thought of Don Quixote as one of the giants, like The Odyssey, where the average person is more apt to be familiar with characters and details of the story than they would be for other books.