As you may recall, Dave and Rachel were the first team to arrive at the end of the last leg of race, so they were the first team to leave at the start of tonight's two-art finale. The first clue instructs teams to travel from India to Hiroshima Japan.
There's only one flight to Hiroshema, so all the teams end up on the same flight. Next, the teams must take the bus to a train station, but Rachel and Brenden can't figure out the machine to buy tickets and end up missing the first bus. Rachel has a fit and yells that Brenden should have listened to her to begin with. At the train station, all the teams make the first train out, but Dave and Rachel. Dave has a fit because he's afraid they've just thrown away a million dollars. Rachel tells him to calm down, there's nothing they can do about it now.
The train takes teams to a ferry, which they must board. Unfortunately, for Rachel and Dave they miss the last ferry of the night while the remaining three teams - Vanessa and Ralph, Rachel and Brenden, and Art and J.J. were able to board it. Dave continues to have a fit when he discovers they've missed the last ferry of the night.
In the end, it is a moot point anyway as the clue they need on the island won't be available until the sun rises. Dave and Rachel make it to the island before sunrise so all the teams have caught up to one another by the time the next clue is available.
Teams must go to Hiroshema Peace Memorial Park next. From there, everyone travels to Osaka via bullet train to compete in a Japanese game show. It's a roadblock where one member from each team has to run on a treadmill and jump up to grab three rubber chickens along the way. The idea is to grab all three chickens and make it to the end of the treadmill on the first try without falling into a big pit of balloons, but of course nobody is able to do that.
Art is the first one to complete the task. Brenden and then Rachel of Rachel and Dave finish next, which leaves Vanessa. Vanessa sprained her ankle during the last leg of the race, so all of this running and jumping have to be quite painful for her, I imagine. Ralph keeps screaming at Vanessa to just stop and take the penalty, but Vanessa refuses to give up. She ends up completing the challenge.
Next, teams have a detour to complete. Their choice this week - "Photo Cut Out," or, "Bingo Shout Out." In "Photo Cut Out," teams have to convince people to pose with a sumo wrestler cut out. They have to convince 10 people to pose with the cut out and deliver the photos to a photographer before they can get their next clue. In "Bingo Shout Out," teams must correctly identify sushi and place it on a Bingo card when the sushi is called out. Once they've completed a Bingo or "Sushi," teams have to eat all five pieces of sushi before they can receive the next clue.
Rachel and Dave decide to do the photography task while the rest of the teams play Bingo. Dave and Rachel easily convince 10 people to pose for the photographs, receive their next clue, and head off to the pit stop before any of the other teams have completed the Bingo challenge.
Dave and Rachel win this leg of the race and receive a trip to New Zealand. They have now tied the record for the team with the most number of wins in The Amazing Race history. If they win the million dollars, they will be the record holder for the team with the most wins in any race on the show.
Art and J.J. and Rachel and Brenden run around the castle at the pit stop trying to find Phil. Eventually both teams find him and check in. This means Ralph and Vanessa are the last team to check in on this leg and are eliminated from the race.
In the second part of the finale, Rachel and Dave are again the first team to depart from the pit stop. This time, teams fly to Honolulu Hawaii. All teams end up on the same flight out, so everyone's on equal footing when the plane lands. Teams must find the Waterfront Towers. Once there, teams have to ascend the 45-story towers and look for their next clue once they've reached the top. Rachel and Dave and Rachel and Brenden both easily spot the clue. Once they've spotted the clue, teams have to rappel the tower face first before they can head off to their next location.
Art and J.J. have gotten a bad cab driver who doesn't know where he's going. Art and J.J. finally arrive at the towers when Rachel and Brenden are rappelling and making their way to the next destination.
When teams arrive at the next location, one team member is required to use a samurai sword to shave enough ice off of a large ice block to fill a bucket. Rachel and Rachel watch Art and J.J. rappel from the tower while Dave and Brenden shave ice. Dave finishes first, so Dave and Rachel run off to board a helicopter to take them to their next location. When Brenden finishes the task, though, they head to their next location in a cab. When they realize their catastrophic mistake, Brenden blames Rachel (as she's the one who read the clue) and Rachel becomes defensive and yells back. Once they are back at the road block, Rachel walks instead of runs to the helicopter, and Brenden becomes upset with her because they can still win the race. Rachel has a defeatist attitude, though, and insists they have fallen to last place, that they cannot make up enough time to win.
Meanwhile, Art and J.J. have finished the road block and have indeed passed them.
Next, teams must save a swimmer in the water using a wave runner. Dave and Rachel make quick work of the task and move on to complete the next task. The next challenge is a road block where the team member who didn't complete the ice shaving road block has to slide down a hill on a very thin sled. Once down the hill, they must roll a rock into a goal.
When Rachel and Dave arrive at Coral Kingdom Gate, they completely miss the road block somehow and head across the river to the pit stop. Rachel and Dave start celebrating their win prematurely when they reach the mat. Phil tells them they haven't completed the other road block and sends them away to finish the race before he can check them in.
Meanwhile, Art and J.J. have arrived at the sled road block where Art is having a lot of trouble keeping his balance on the thin sled. He tries to get down the hill over and over, but always manages to fall off the sled before he makes it all the way to the bottom. It is quite painful to watch - both because it looks painful and because Art's struggling so much with the challenge. Even thought Art and J.J. are my least favorite team out of the final three, I still feel kind of bad for them.
Dave and Rachel go back to the road block and complete it with no problem. They make it back across the river and check in for real this time, making them the winners of the million dollars and The Amazing Race.
Meanwhile, Rachel and Brenden finally arrive at the last road block of the race where Rachel has no problem getting down the hill on the thin sled. Art makes his way down the hill, too, after many, many, many tries! Art manages to get his rock into his goal before Rachel does, though. Art and J.J. finish the race second. Brenden and Rachel finish in third.
This was one great season of The Amazing Race if you ask me. How do you feel about the finale? Are you happy with Rachel and Dave as the winners or were you routing for Rachel and Brenden or Art and J.J.? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
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