Supay

The extra flag was Egypt, no?

Being held at JFK Airport (blink and you miss it from the first few minutes of the episode).

All the tasks with sneak peek previews have appeared - figures that the final memory challenge of three would be omitted on purpose.

Where the heck's the updated intro/opening? (Even the latest All-Stars updated it for the final episode!)

Ah, that famed Principality of Macau (sic): (Just like when YouTubers Meghan and Joey were on Unfinished Business!)

With all due respect to John Seavey, all 26 seasons before the current incarnation had at minimum one episode with self-driving out of 13 (Classic to the first All-Stars except Family Edition) / 11 (12 and 13) / 12 (14 to the present plus Family Edition) legs, without including the premieres/finales on domestic US turf. Not since the Dark Age between 21 and 24 a.k.a. the abrupt suspension in a theretofore uninterrupted quota of "one new country per season" has there been such an ominous change to the show.

The clearest instance of the above would be the second Russian leg from Season 17: The lady who got hit by a watermelon in the face and her vivacious friend had taken a cab from a watchtower to a cathedral when it dawned on them that the clue stated, "make your way by foot". They headed back to where they had first hailed that taxi, walked this time around to where it originally dropped them off, and eventually got to the PitStop with no penalty assessed. In fact, this iconic F/F team placed 2nd out of 7th! This tidbit comes around full circle to the latest episode because their route/course was the last one to visit Hong Kong before now, albeit with a completely different tone, NEL and all:

Cole & Sheri overcame their SB such that Brodie & Kurt and Rachel & Zach both got eliminated in/around Denpasar, while Ashley & Burnie are suspected to be the final boot in South China. Thus, the finalists racing through SoCal are C & S, Matt & Dana, and Korey & Tyler. Source: natives of Shenzhen through Baidu

Mexico City, Mexico Cartagena, Colombia Cartagena, Colombia Geneva, Switzerland Chamonix, France Yerevan, Armenia Tbilisi, Georgia Dubai, United Arab Emirates Bali, Indonesia Bali, Indonesia Shenzhen, China Los Angeles, California The first half of Season 20 did indeed mingle with the second half of Season 23 to produce this brainchild - contrast Season 25 being a hybrid of 3/12/17 (and the current one as 2/11 during the opposite time of year).

Both share the same tropical Latin environment regardless. Finale's in Los Angeles for the third time and the first for a winter season.

Er, wouldn't that be "penultimate episode" since it's before the Zev & Justin boot in Brazil? Anyhow, barring the handful of teams Marked for Elimination, there's also the case of Flight Time & Big Easy on Season 15.

Ever since Season 19, it's uncanny how every four seasons end in an all-couple finale with a same-sex team booted on the penultimate leg. Ernie & Cindy had arguably the most negative edit among their F3, Jason & Amy the most neutral - if such a pattern continues, then it might boil down to which of Green and Reporters is more positive. ;)

Talk about setting a new record in the worst way possible - penultimate cities, let alone countries should never be this close together on two consecutive seasons going in the same direction (c.f. Shanghai - Seoul, Rio de Janeiro - Panama City, Loire Valley - Belfast). Let's see if the finale can salvage this inexplicable choice of location for Leg 11.

Nor is it necessarily Incheon that's the destination, but rather Gimhae/PUS, a.k.a. Busan, which also features nonstop connections to HKG via several carriers.

It can only mean South Korea barring a random connection to Fiji or another Polynesian nation.

Nay, screencap analysis shows Green running to the Mat with Paparazzi's dropped backpacks in the foreground - if the latter had incurred a penalty, Phil would more likely have turned them back to fix their mistake seeing as teams flying to the finale city post-AS1 have been bunched together without exception (including the last two seasons).

Damn, this is like the worst year in TAR history* for parent/child teams: the dad/daughter pair got booted in 7th place back in Tbilisi and the mom/son came in last on a F6 NEL in Dubai. Source: native Balinese Dhana Nyoman and his fellow Indonesian contacts for/from RFF * Two dad/daughter teams eliminated before the finale of this summer's Canadian edition, then JamesEarl & Denise in the most recent episode.

Congrats to a "confidential" news outlet for revealing that Logan & Chris are indeed in the finals - it appears that the still image of the Paps on NY waters from the Season Preview was no red herring: Source: Dan's Papers (local Hamptons bulletin)

The naysayers for Season 26 feel otherwise. Anyhow, rather miffed that novel nearby places like Doha and Vientiane got passed for two retread tourist resorts - and an English-speaking country as the penultimate destination, which the finish of Season 22 already showed was anti-climactic?

Roy Biv is missing a middle initial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TOzERRCKGk

Would it be fair to say that Puck from San Francisco was the original Dr. Will? Is it not true that the Bostonian triad of Kameelah, Genesis, and Jason plus their fourth-wheel Elka set the stage for the non-couple trio that was Danielle (Reyes), Amy, and Jason with reformed ex-enemy Lisa on the side? And did the unique trashiness of the original Las Vegas roommates forecast the debauchery of North America's sole attempt at a wintertime BB (that is, until the folks in the Great White North got their own version) nearly six years in advance? MTV's pioneer in RTV certainly replicated itself by the time that the concept of a show starring cohabiting strangers crossed over from Europe to CBS. Which other analogous connections exist between these RW and BB?