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Recap: 'The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business' Finale - The winner is...

The teams went from Switzerland to Brazil to Florida for the million

By Daniel Fienberg Sunday, May 8, 2011 11:25 PM

Big Easy mixes a drink on Sunday's 'Amazing Race' finale

Credit: CBS

"The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business" was the first "Amazing Race" season to air in high definition, so perhaps Sunday's (May 8) finale was an appropriate one: No, it didn't wrap up with a winning team who particularly represented the season as a whole, but the real winner ended up being viewers who got to watch in HD. The finale was beautiful, but it wasn't entirely satisfying.

Actually, I take that back.

[More after the break, just so I don't spoil anything...]

The winning team declared early in the episode that they were doing this for the single mother who raised them and when Kisha & Jen reached the final Pit Stop in first, they announced their intention to help their mom start a business.

"She did everything for us and it's our turn to pay her back," Jen declared.

So if "The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business" was going to air its finale on Mother's Day, it actually got the most appropriate winner possible.

As for Jen & Kisha themselves? Well, Flight Time gave them credit by calling them the season's most consistent team and looking at the record, he may have been correct. The 12th Leg of the Race was the only one that Jen & Kisha completed in first, but they were second three times, third twice, fourth four times and fifth and sixth once apiece in early legs. No, they never won a Leg, but they were also never in any real danger of going home on any particular leg and they were reliably close to the top. So no, this wasn't a dominating season for Kisha & Jen, but it was a season where they were in contention every step of the way and then, when they reached a final leg that required no particular achievement, but only proficiency and a little luck, they were ready to capitalize.

Part of me feels like if you win an "Amazing Race" season, you probably ought to have had at least one memorable moment for three months of television. I don't think Jen & Kisha did anything even vaguely memorable over the whole run, but this "Amazing Race" season was almost conspicuously designed to prevent memorable moments. That's what I have to surmise from a finale that lacked any sort of cumulative challenge of any kind. So it's also appropriate that a team you barely remembered participating in the Race won in a season no contestant was required to remember any portion of the race.

It was also a two-hour, two-Leg finale episode in which the first hour/Leg was easily the more dramatic and entertaining leg, but complaining about anti-climactic Race architecture is almost beside the point by now. We've had three or four consecutive seasons of largely faulty Race construction. That ship has sailed.

So let's look at the two hours and the key factors in getting Kisha & Jen to the end in first.

Hour One - Rio De Janeiro

I came into Sunday's finale prepared to be OK with any result, but rooting for Justin & Zev. Alas, they were the first team sent packing and, unfortunately, they were eliminated due to a few factors, including: A bad cab driver, a stupid Detour selection and an entire Leg seemingly designed just to torture them. There was no drama to their departure, only sadness because of how well they competed throughout and how gamely they participated in this Leg From Hell.

After leaving Switzerland for Brazil, the leg began with a Roadblock that asked one contestant to learn the samba and lead a samba squad on a one-block dance-march, keeping the rhythm throughout.

"I'm not a good dancer at all. I hate dancing, cuz I have White Boy Rhythm," Zev observed, but he was stuck doing the Roadblock (and doing the Roadblock last week) because Justin had taken a disproportionate number of earlier tasks. Zev tried and he participated gamely -- even enthusiastically smacking a dancer in the butt at one point -- but he couldn't figure out the dance and although Justin & Zev got to the Roadblock with a solid lead, they were passed first by Gary and life-long dancer Mallory and then by Kisha & Jen. Sadly, Zev squandered small leads over those two teams, but also a more substantial lead -- at least 30 minutes -- over the Globetrotters. But for all of the lead-squandering, Justin and Zev were still very close heading to the Detour.

But before the Detour, there was a catch: All of the teams had to stop and get a 15-minute Brazilian Wax.

"I can do that. I already get 'em anyways," said Mallory (whose Leg was as smooth as Zev & Justin's was bumpy [not a waxing reference]) proudly, before adding, "It's funny to be waxed beside your dad."

Although Justin & Zev left the Roadblock slightly ahead of the Globetrotters, they got to the waxing after them because of a weak cabbie. But they had a bigger problem once they arrived: The Globetrotters and Gary were all men I'd describe as "average" on a hairiness scale. Justin & Zev are men of a nearly Robin Williams level of hairiness.

Justin made the obligatory "40 Year Old Virgin" reference to Kelly Clarkson, but also got off properly hostile one-liners to his waxer like, "What's the penalty for knocking her out cold?" He was not pleased. And Zev, concerned mostly for his nipples, wasn't much happier. Fortunately, it wasn't a "task" that required a certain level of hairlessness. Unfortunately, it wasn't a "task" that required a certain level of hairlessness. That meant Justin & Zev got to depart after 15 minutes. It also meant that they left with some really impressive partial waxing.

Ultimately, for all of that struggle, they were really sent home because of a dumb Detour selection. The choice: On the Rocks or On the Beach. In On the Rocks, teams had to mix a caipirinha and then prepare 100 to the satisfaction of a strict bartender. In On the Beach, teams had to prowl a beach with a circular rack of bikinis and get women to try on bikinis and buy $60 worth.

On the Rocks was unquestionably the better task, one that allowed teams to control their own destiny. Even in a country known for exhibitionism -- this episode set an "Amazing Race" record for pixelation -- you can't count on wandering a beach convincing women to change into skimpy bathing suits for you and your camera and then have them pay you for the privilege. It's especially hard when you don't realize that people in Brazil speak Portuguese, not Spanish. Justin's Spanish was totally fine, but he was getting a lot of blank stares. Justin & Zev were the only team to think On the Beach was a good idea and by the time they quit and returned to On the Rocks, they were too far behind to do anything, since it was a mechanical task which the other three teams did at roughly the same pace.

Oh well.

It was farewell to Justin & Zev, but at least the first hour was entertaining, featured a couple decent tasks and offered gorgeous photography.

On to...

Hour Two - Miami Beach

The teams were equalized on a flight back to Miami Beach, but one team was eliminated almost immediately upon leaving the airport. The Globetrotters and Kisha & Jen all got cabs quickly and found cabbies capable of quickly taking them to the site of the first Roadblock. Gary & Mallory, who began the Leg in first, did not. They got Sterling. Sterling didn't care they were in a race and wasn't about to pause to call to ask for directions. Entirely due to poor cab luck, Gary & Mallory fell out of contention at the very start of the Leg and they never caught up. From there, it was a two-team race to the end.

How did Jen & Kisha win? Well, it didn't have anything to do with either of the tasks.

The first Roadblock asked one player to use a huge fork-lift to carry a boat to a loading dock. Although several contestants professed to some prior experience with fork-lifts, it didn't matter. The machinery was so complicated that the whole job was being backseat coached by pros. Flight Time finished a little ahead of Kisha, but not much.

The teams were neck-and-neck to a surprise second Roadblock at the Jules' Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, where teams had to use a bob dive -- an individual submarine suit of sorts -- to wander underwater, past a mermaid musical act, to find a clue at the bottom of a treasure chest. The bob dive suits were cool and the mermaid show was awesome, but the task itself was very slow and very methodical. You basically moved forward and opened the first chest you got to and then moved on to the next. There was no skill and there wasn't even any luck. You just kept moving forward. Big Easy finished the Roadblock first, but all praise to Jen, who had a hydrophobia that reared its ugly head the first time they did "Amazing Race." This time, she told us that she'd taken swimming lessons and while it wasn't like she plunged through the water like an otter, it was nice to see a contestant in an All-Star Season who took pains to overcome previous handicaps.

And here's where first place was determined: The Globetrotters' cab driver paused to ask for directions heading to their next destination. Jen & Kisha's driver knew where he was going. And that was that.

Kisha & Jen got to the next route marketer in first and navigated a shallow stretch of ocean on foot first and took a high speed boat to their final challenge in first.

And that final challenge? Nobody was asked to put Roadblocks or Detours or Pit Stop Greeters in order. Instead, the teams had to go into a 55+ trailer park community and set up a trailer based on a picture from a brochure. Easy enough, right? Wrong. They happened to be attempting to complete a task that featured many small, light parts in the middle of a near-hurricane. When they thought they had set their trailer up perfectly, they had to get approval from Miss Rose, a stern woman with a beehive hairdo and exacting standards. Jen & Kisha finished this first and were just a seven-mile bike ride from the million.

It was a gorgeous last bike, but it wasn't suspenseful, because despite a plethora over overhead shots, there was never an overhead shot showing the Globetrotters and Jen & Kisha in the same frame, so there was never an illusion that the Globetrotters night catch up.

"They're too far ahead of us," Big Easy said, when the reality of their deficit set in.

So congratulations to Jen & Kisha. They had more memorable moments in their first season, but they have a million bucks to show for this second time racing. That sounds like finished business to me.

Some other thoughts on Sunday's finale:

*** That's two straight wins for all-female teams after zero for the first 16 seasons. I'm sure that's notable. In some way.

*** Line of the episode: Mallory popping up from her Brazilian wax, looking over at her father and giggling, "Oh, memories!" Mallory survived two consecutive Races without having a full-on mental break. And the Pit Stop father-daughter moment with Gary got me just a little misty.

*** Justin and Zev also had a very touching send-off on the beach in Brazil. "This would be romantic if we were a couple," Justin said.

*** The bartender wasted a TON of booze rejecting improper caipirinha. I'd have consumed all of them. Justin and Zev appeared to be the only team to score a caipirinha for the road, since they finished that Detour knowing they were done.

*** There was a minimum of fighting this season, so most of the defeated teams in the final gauntlet looked happy for Jen & Kisha, even Luke & Margie, who might not have been so friendly at the end of their original season. The gauntlet mostly raised one big question: Who the heck were Amanda & Kris and why were they participating in an All-Star season?

Anyway, this recap is too long anyway...

What'd you think of the finale?

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Daniel Fienberg
Executive Editor

A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.

Related Searches: TV, recaps, The Amazing Race, The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, finale

Tyler

Dan, I disagree with your interpretation of Zev & Justin's Detour choice. The mojito task was a make-work task. It wasn't particularly difficult but you can only make a drink so fast. Given that Gary & Mallory were about 30 minutes ahead of the Globetrotters but were still working when the slower teams arrived, it looked like the task took about 45 minutes to an hour, meaning that each drink took about 45 seconds to a minute to make.

I guess it's possible that Zev & Justin could have made their drinks faster, but I don't think they could have made up 20 minutes by doing a simple, make-work task better than the other teams. Knowing they were at least 15-20 minutes behind, their best choice, in that situation, was to choose the bikini Detour and hope they could get lucky and bang it out in 10 or 15 minutes.

This actually seemed to be exactly the kind of Detour you'd been looking for this season. Both sides had pros and cons (Rocks: easy but slow, Tops: difficult but potentially fast) and a team with good salesman skills (or a little luck) could have made a big leap over the teams that chose the tortoise task. I think Zev & Justin made the right call, they just couldn't get it done.
May 8, 2011 at 11:50PM EST Reply to Comment
- dan Tyler - You could be right. I just don't know that two dorky American guys speaking Spanish on a beach in Brazil had any reasonable way of thinking they were going to complete that task quickly. Their only shot, as Justin admitted immediately, was to find somebody drunk who was willing to overpay them for a single bikini or two...
  
  -Daniel
  May 9, 2011 at 12:02AM EST
- FFC Agree. I don't believe Zev & Justin's detour choice had anything to do with their elimination. As someone who was hoping they would win (or at least make the final 3), I was pleased when they chose the bikini task because it was pretty clear to me that was their only hope to make the final 3 (as they would have been so far behind the other three teams who were mixing the drinks).
  May 9, 2011 at 12:05AM EST
- Adam B. Thirded; there was no way to gain time on the caipirhina task; they had to try the other path.
  May 9, 2011 at 10:20AM EST
joe

I don't understand why the producers let unlucky cab selection play a role in the final leg at all. Just give them all their own cars and make them find places with maps and by asking directions, that way people can only screw themselves over, while actually letting teams control their own destiny through directional and driving skill.
May 8, 2011 at 11:57PM EST Reply to Comment
- Great solution for all the Finales from now on...
  Dan, Make it happen!
  May 9, 2011 at 12:02AM EST
- Tyler I think they've decided not to have teams drive themselves to avoid any potential accidents from racers careening around populated cities with their minds only on the prize. The potential for accidents would be greatly increased. I'd like to see them use more public transportation, especially when they end up in cities with it readily available (New York, Chicago, San Francisco). But they usually avoid that to avoid spoilers getting out.
  May 9, 2011 at 12:11AM EST
- belinda That's true! Cab karma seems to play a substantial role in the finale in almost all of the seasons, which could easily be rectified by having the contestants drive themselves instead.
  May 9, 2011 at 1:57AM EST
- HWah I'm assuming Joe meant that they should give them drivers. Letting them drive themselves means that only the lawyers win and god knows who and or what are hurt on the way.
  
  Racers driving last leg=someone dead.
  May 9, 2011 at 2:08AM EST
I didn't so much as think that Zev and Justin chose the "wrong" task but rather picked the one they thought the others might not be doing to try and catch up. Only after seeing that it wasn't going anywhere did they decide to switch. They definitely had resigned themselves to last place when they showed up at the bar. Hated to see them go early tonight.
I agree that it totally sucks to see a cab ride immediately take a team out of contention in the finale. It seems like it happens every season though so you'd think the producers would find a way to change it up so it wouldn't happen.
May 9, 2011 at 12:01AM EST Reply to Comment
- dan Mike - Well they *definitely* chose the wrong task, because they chose a task they couldn't complete. You and Tyler may be right that they made the decision to pick the one they didn't think they other teams would pick because they thought they might make up time. But given Zev's distaste for crowds and social tasks, having to do that task was doomed from the start...
  
  -Daniel
  May 9, 2011 at 12:04AM EST
- Come on, if you at age 27 had the chance to walk around a Rio beach getting already scantily clad girls to try on bikinis for you, that would be the task you would choose no matter what!
  May 9, 2011 at 12:06AM EST
Too Late Kev

I think a team with at least one woman might have done better on the bikini task. Zev & Justin might have come off as weird pervy guys. I also wondered why they didn't work the "we're on The Amazing Race" angle; it could only have helped.

I really wanted to see Zev & Justin in the final three and then winning the whole thing. Part of that might be I have a kid with Asperger Syndrome myself.

But given the final three, I was okay with the order in which they finished. It was a shame that taxi drivers had such an effect on both hours tonight, though.
May 9, 2011 at 12:28AM EST Reply to Comment
SaveFarris

While I was pulling for the Globetrotters, Keisha & Jen will always have a special place in my heart ... for being the first team to call Luke a b*tch.

As for the whole "Cabs vs. No Cabs on the last leg" debate, you HAVE to use cabs. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble. However, better leg design would definitely alleviate some of those issues and make cab-picking (while a skill) not as important to the final outcome. (If the last leg doesn't include a memory challenge, it's at least has a puzzle [Translating the Spanish name of a Cigar Bar in TAR 7, Decyphering which casino to go to in TAR 15]. Here, the big brainteaser was ... Subtract 4 from 33. Not even Kent could have screwed that up.
May 9, 2011 at 8:46AM EST Reply to Comment
rachelmed

Yup. Just overall disappointing. DIsappointed that Zev and Justin didn't make it to finale. Disappointed that cabs played such a huge part in the finale. Disappointed in the lackluster finale roadblocks and detours. Really disappointed that there was no final memory challenge. I always like playing along and seeing if I can remember all the details too. It might have even been fun if they made them try to remember things from their previous season that were deciding factors in their elimination. I don't know. I just didn't think recreating a trailer park front yard was worthy of a final deciding task.

Here's to next year!
May 9, 2011 at 12:10PM EST Reply to Comment
Kujo

The final task just wasn't hard enough, despite the hurricane-ish winds. The final task of the finale leg should be the hardest task in the whole damn race.

Overall, an uneven, lackluster season.

Regardless, I'm really happy K&J won. Talk about ultimate redemption for making arguably the biggest blunder in TAR history (the infamous pee break).

I hope the next season has harder task, and more fighting.
May 9, 2011 at 3:18PM EST Reply to Comment
Jim D.

It was a bland, disappointing finale, with little opportunity for teams to fall behind or catch up o the actual tasks. I expected better for what was essentially an 'all star' season. The ideal final leg should be an extended version that really tests every aspect of a teamâ€™s abilities. Ideally, it should include a mental or memory challenge, a physical challenge, a geography or direction-based task and a task that requires interaction with people. These are supposedly the top three teams â€“ they should be pushed to show what they can do, especially in a season with experienced racers. I would even go one step further and restrict contestants from telling cab drivers and others that they are in a race for a million dollars.
May 9, 2011 at 11:03PM EST Reply to Comment
Rahul

From an interview with Justin.

Justin: "We actually chose the drinks first but when we got to the drinks we saw that everybody was far enough ahead of us that we thought it would be hard to catch up, so then we decided our only hope was to try the other side of the detour. We suspected it would be tough but I don't think we realized how tough until we got there."

Thats what I figured. They made the right move, didn't work out.
May 10, 2011 at 12:19PM EST Reply to Comment
Katelin

Thought the Harlem Globetrotters essentially gloating at the drinks bar when it was completely obvious that Zev & Justin were doomed was in really bad taste. I think that the Harlem Globetrotters didn't come across in the best light this round what with also them taking Christina's wallet and not returning it and all those groundless accusations and carry on last week over Vixen.
May 10, 2011 at 10:35PM EST Reply to Comment

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Recapping Television's Hottest Shows with Monkeys as Critics