S03.E12: Here's to You, Canada... Cheers

[radishcake]

The final three teams race to Vancouver and Whistler and face with the most terrifying challenge ever. The first one to cross the finish line will be crowned the season-three champions.

[Shermie]

Just watched the finale from the East Coast feed, but I won't comment yet. Some great challenges though, and I loved the shoutout to Jon's Olympic moment of fame.

[Bunnyette]

No surprise there, Gino & Jesse win...

[Sarahendipity]

Yeah no surprise, especially once they got their sob story at the beginning.

So fun to see the race where I live, so frustrating to watch them take a cab when running 200 meters would take them there.

[xcrayon2215x]

Had Brent not screwed up the first task so much they probably would have won. Gino and Jesse have won a lot of good stuff from the 4 legs from before and the whole Race.

[Starchild]

We should have a race where candidates have to be above a certain age, or below a certain fitness level, just to see some variety on the final mat.

[Artsda]

Congrats Gino and Jesse. Deserving winners.

[shok]

, and I loved the shoutout to Jon's Olympic moment of fame.

 

My favourite part of the show. It made me smile.

 

The rest of the show...meh. Probably because of who the finalists were I just couldn't get enthused. Must say though that I really really really don't like the idea of a needle in the haystack type of a challenge on the final leg. By that time the race should be determined on ability, not luck.

[HistoryGirl]

Best line of the season (and ever?) goes to Brent. 

 

Sean: Sorry that took so long!

Brent: That's okay! But I think Season 4 started... 

 

I'm still laughing thinking about it. I also thought it was so special that he went up to give his brother a pep talk and support him on that bike challenge.  

[lizzie3]

Must say though that I really really really don't like the idea of a needle in the haystack type of a challenge on the final leg. By that time the race should be determined on ability, not luck.

 

I was getting frustrated with that challenge as well.  It was pretty much luck, and I didn't think that was entirely fair, especially for the final leg of the race.

 

Otherwise, I really enjoyed this season, despite the predictable win (although Gino & Jesse may have won me over a little bit with their love for their mom!).  I love watching the teams travel around our gorgeous country, and Jon is an awesome host. So glad it got renewed for Season 4! 

[Rachel RSL]

Gino and Jesse seems like nice guys so I'm ok with them winning. Sean puking at the finish line? Perfect ending! All in all though, not the most exciting finale. I agree that needle/haystack tasks should NEVER be in the final leg. And why was there so much math this season? I'd be screwed. Hilarious how the Puke Brothers just copied their answer off the other team's board though!

 

Jon with the beer was the best part! 

[Shermie]

Of course Sean puked on the final mat, wow, how does he function in real life?

I have no issue with needle in a haystack challenges in the final leg because it's a chance for a team lagging behind to catch up. Brent and Sean did it much quicker than the other two teams, and I don't think that was editing. Had they not been so far behind, they might have caught up at that point. Although I wish both team members participated in the hunt.

What I don't like in the final leg are "one at a time" challenges because it's all about who had the best cab and good luck with the lights, neither which they can control. I like the final leg to be filled with challenges that the racers have control over how well they do.

No issue with Gino and Jesse winning, although it was rather anti-climactic. Please no teams of alpha males next year, and it would be nice to see several people over 50.

[Caelicola]

Hi everyone! I somehow forgot the existence of this forum up until now, but at least I remembered in time to comment the finale!

I wasn't rooting for Jesse and Gino, but since they don't hit any of my instant turn-off buttons I wasn't rooting against them either.

I have only three dealbreaking issues with racers, and they are rudeness to locals and/or cab drivers (J&G were never anything but polite to everyone they met, reserving the aggressiveness for the competition); quitting a task without really trying to finish it (no way they were ever gonna do that); mistreating and/or abusing your partner (they clearly adore each other, and any brief spat ended in a hug). So, I would have preferred Brent and Sean to win, because I liked them more, but I can live with these winners, and they certainly did pretty much everything right this leg.

As for the leg itself, I thought I would be angrier at a needle-in-a-haystack task in the finals, but it wasn't really based only on luck, with a little attention to detail you could crack it pretty quickly, as Sean did.

The bicycle task was a little anticlimactic at first, mostly because Gino and Matt pretty much breezed through it, so I didn't really realize how terrified I would be until I saw Brent dangling from a rope in the fucking void, and I got actual chills down my spine.

All in all, I keep enjoying TAR Canada way more than TAR actual (especially the blind date season, come on), and while Phil is still the best in my book, Jon Montgomery is an absolute delight, and his sincere enthusiasm and encouragement for all the teams is one of the highlights of the show.

Well done, Amazing Race Canada, once again I've been thoroughly entertained all season long.

[Starchild]

Of course Sean puked on the final mat, wow, how does he function in real life?

He doesn't run anywhere.

[SnideAsides]

And why was there so much math this season? I'd be screwed.

Short answer? Where the first season was the producers trying to make a race with the general tone of TAR: China Rush, and the second was trying to do TAR Australia, this season they were riffing on the decidedly less spectacular TAR Latin America.

[tankgirl73]

What I don't like in the final leg are "one at a time" challenges because it's all about who had the best cab and good luck with the lights, neither which they can control. I like the final leg to be filled with challenges that the racers have control over how well they do.

 

This was my thought. I think that Nick and Matt actually succeeded better at the challenges -- they either finished them just as fast (champagne, bicycle, ski jump) or faster (math) than Gino and Jesse. But they got behind in the running-to-cabs aspect of things. So in the end, it wasn't the challenges themselves that mattered in winning -- it was navigating between the challenges.

 

I was rooting for Sean and Brent and hoped the math gimme was their turnaround but I guess they were just too far behind. I loved how supportive they were for each other, as opposed to say Dujean and Leilani's "it's a frigging monkey bars, what's wrong with you".  I'm sad that once we saw Brent and Sean in the gondola, we didn't see them again -- we never saw their ski jump. I'm glad though that the 2nd and 3rd place teams got their fair moments and celebrations on the mat. I've seen other competitive shows where once the winner is announced and celebrated, the 2nd place is ignored and never gets their goodbye package. The top three here were all celebrated as winners.

 

Do 2nd and 3rd get some sort of consolation prize? Or only whatever prizes they might have won along the way?

[innocuouspuff]

No real memory task, eh? Just ordering the cities in the math task. Whistler is of course beautiful and probably the most interesting thing about an unsurprising ep.

[Kel Varnsen]

Had Brent not screwed up the first task so much they probably would have won. Gino and Jesse have won a lot of good stuff from the 4 legs from before and the whole Race.

Not sure about that. If they nailed the bike riding task at BC place, they would have had to have done the map reading task on their own without just copying, so who knows if they would have done that one as quickly or not.

 

Must say though that I really really really don't like the idea of a needle in the haystack type of a challenge on the final leg. By that time the race should be determined on ability, not luck.

Although really the ski matching task was a needle in a haystack, but if Matt had actually read the clue, he might have finished it first.  Also kind of disappointed that when Matt did the ski jump part he didn't do an elbow drop or something when he was flying through the air.

 

Overall I thought it was a pretty good finale, pretty suspenseful with a decent number of lead changes.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Kel Varnsen

[etagloh]

One thing that TARCan seems more able to do than TAR-US is have the final leg in relatively open environments. The tasks themselves werein private locations, but the leg was run in public.

I think tankgirl73's right that Gino & Jesse got all the taxi breaks, and Shermie's right that those breaks were the main separator between them and the wrestlers, because the two Road Blocks were one-at-a-time challenges. That doesn't feel so good, and it fits the US pattern of having to rely upon cabs and road travel in the final leg. (I assume the drive from the ski-jump task to the final bathmat was a relatively straight shot, but it was also a drive, which was unusual.)

The brothers certainly earned their win, but it was all a bit meh.

[Shermie]

Actually, tankgirl, they did show Brent and Sean's ski jump in the post race montage after they reached the mat. It was a short clip, but Sean did do the jump.

That gondola looked amazing, I would love to ride on that!

[anhydrite]

I thought this finale to be quite underwhelming. The description of the episode said that it was the most extreme finale or whatever, but frankly this episode completely bored me. Too many one-at-a-time challenges and no real opportunity for placement switches outside of the taxi raides, except at the map challenge. And speaking of, I also thought it was quite poor from the part of production to allow one team to basically just copy someone else's answer without even anything. This is the final leg guys! I wont blame B/S from doing something that wasn't explicetly forbidden, but that felt a bit to me like exploiting a computer bug to get ahead or something.

 

Otherwise, I'm fine with the winners. They may have been boring alpha-males, but they were always nice to each other and to the locals, and competent racers. So good for them.

 

After having three "themed" finales (family only, friends only, guys only), I wonder what's the next theme going to be. Maybe couples only :P

[Kel Varnsen]

I thought this finale to be quite underwhelming. The description of the episode said that it was the most extreme finale or whatever, but frankly this episode completely bored me. Too many one-at-a-time challenges and no real opportunity for placement switches outside of the taxi raides, except at the map

The only thing i remember being one at a time was the bike challenge, The maps weren't, the wine thing wasn't and find a ski wasn't. I guess the ski jump thing was but it didn't seem to be the kind of thing they would have to do more than once.