Amazing Race All-Stars - Finale
By Stephanie DeGateo
May 13, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The teams are in Guam, where Kandice and Dustin, who won the last leg (again) are leaving at 11:53 a.m. They are directed to fly to Oahu and then helicopter to the island of Lanai, in Hawaii. Eric and Danielle leave the pit stop at 12:55 p.m., meaning that the Beauty Queens have less than an hour lead to get on a better flight out. Charla and Mirna leave at 1:29 p.m.
Kandice and Dustin do achieve their goal of getting on the first flight out of Guam, but Eric and Danielle and Charla and Mirna have booked onto the same connecting flight into Oahu, so it's no real advantage. When the second flight with Eric and Danielle and Charla and Mirna land, the crazy cousins realize there is an earlier flight to Oahu which will get them in 40 minutes ahead of the flight that they and the rest of the teams are booked on. They take a big risk and attempt to get on the earlier flight. If they cannot get on, they will not make the connection that the other teams are taking, but of course, crazy wins out and they get on the earlier flight. Eric and Danielle and Dustin and Kandice are bewildered by their absence, but share a moment of solidarity in celebrating their missing the flight.
The earlier flight gets in on time, but the second flight gets in 20 minutes early, leaving Charla and Mirna only a twenty minute lead. Their lead is further diminished when the helicopter charters they are taking to Lanai leave in ten minute intervals. Eric and Danielle get the second charter, Dustin and Kandice the third.
Once on Lanai, they get their next clue, which is a detour. The choice is "Under" or "Over". In Under, the teams must take a boat to a under water cave, where both team members must dive for the clue which is attached to an underwater buoy. In Over, the teams must take a boat to an inlet, where they will stand on a paddle board and paddle to a buoy to get their next clue. Charla and Mirna chose Over, and Charla does a great job at managing the paddle boats. As Mirna points out, her low center of gravity may be a plus. Eric and Danielle and Danielle and Kandice chose the Under task and it proves somewhat challenging, as the water from the cave spews water at random intervals. Charla and Mirna leave the detour task first and are directed to Shipwreck Beach, where they are to hike one mile on the beach to get to their clue.
Any lead that Charla and Mirna had is eaten up by the hike, as both of the other, more physical teams pass them. Once the teams get to the clue box, they are told to kayak to a buoy near the eponymous shipwreck and get the clue. Eric and Danielle do a bang up job on this activity, working together to get the clue and head to their next and final destination, San Francisco. Dustin and Kandice do not fare nearly as well. Kandice wants to push the kayak into deeper waters, Dustin wants to paddle and they are not communicating particularly well. They eventually get in the boat and get the clue, but they are not happy with each other. In what has to be the healthiest fight ever to appear in a reality show, the two friends "have it out" on the car ride to the airport. Kandice is not appreciative that Dustin was not listening to her and essentially dictating how the team should approach the kayaking. As they "fight" they are fairly controlled, tears are shed, but voices are not raised. Kandice really cuts Dustin to the quick, though, when she calls her a bad teammate. Dustin counters that she is only doing the race to spend time with her. And just like that, they are BFF again. I really don't miss the dysfunction of Jonathan and Victoria, but that – well, as constructive as their argument was, it wasn't very entertaining.
Charla and Mirna finally finish the kayaking task, which was extremely difficult for them. At the airport, each of the teams is distressed to find out that they will all be on the same flight to Oakland. Once they all land, the teams are directed to the Old Mint in downtown San Francisco. Dustin and Kandice make it there slightly ahead of Eric and Danielle. Once there they are given their next clue. One member of each team is sent into a vault where they find a list of questions, a list of each of the teams that competed in the race and an electronic safe. The team member is asked to answer the questions which are about particular teams that raced – Which team is the least trustworthy; which team has the best sense of humor; which team is the most overrated; which team will you keep in touch with the longest? Each of the teams is assigned a number on the list. The team member must then enter the code that results in their answers from the questions. Not surprisingly, all the teams indicated that Rob and Amber were the most overrated. In one of the more shocking answers, Eric indicates that he thought Mirna and Charla had the best sense of humor. Really?? They must be really different off camera, because the Mirna I saw just wasn't getting any jokes that were lobbed her way. She certainly is funny, but not in a good sense of humor way. Anyway, Eric and Kandice do the initial code entering for their teams and when Mirna and Charla get there, Mirna takes the code entering for her team.
The kicker to this task is that when the second team member gets in, they can leave when they break the code or when ten minutes expire whichever comes first. The only person to break the code is Danielle. Kandice and Charla are released from the vault after the expiration of the ten minutes.
This task was really irksome to me. It seemed to reward teams that bad mouthed other teams behind their backs. Unless the team members didn't sit around and talk about how much they thought Rob and Amber or Bill and Joe stabbed them in the back or couldn't be trusted, the answer to that question is just conjecture. Really, what was the point? But Eric and Danielle were on the same page, as it were, and they left with a slight lead to the final pit stop, the Botanical Gardens.
The editors do an admirable job trying to create suspense. Eric and Danielle seem like they are hitting red lights fairly often, Dustin and Kandice are cruising through green lights. In the end, though, Eric and Danielle enter the garden and are greeted by all the eliminated teams and Phil. The fake all-star team, ostensibly dating, has won a million bucks. They hug each other, hug Phil, and hug the other teams. Eventually Phil gives them a product placed phone to "call home" and on the other line is Jeremy, Eric's former partner and their phone conversation is warmer and more filled with sexual bantering than any discussion he and Danielle had during the race. (In interviews after the race, Danielle and Eric admitted they broke up "after" the race. I still question whether they were even dating or if they just hooked up a few times after they met on their original race and the whole dating thing was their hook into the show).
Dustin and Kandice come in second and are understandably disappointed, but gracious in defeat. Charla and Mirna then enter and everyone cheers them too. Hugs and smiles all around and we're out. The Amazing Race is not coming back until the fall at least and I think the break will do some good. I hope the producers come back with better-planned legs and more compelling teams. At least, I hope it is more exciting then this all-star edition.