Amazing Race finale – Another Race wraps up in Hawaii

This is the season finale and I have to say as a long-time fan that this is one of the best Races I've seen. None of the teams were so grating to wish for their early departure (e.g. Rob & Amber) although there were some clear favorites. I'm kinda rooting for Margie and her deaf son Luke to win tonight, even though they occasionally played upon the "I've got a handicap but I can still race" angle (e.g. Charla & Mirna). Tammy & Victor make a good team, but I feel these Chinese-Americans were helped considerably by three legs in China. Jaime & Cara could be the first all-female team to win the Race tonight.

OK, starting out: teams must make their way from Beijing to Maui, Hawaii where they need to find a clue box on the beach. Airplane reservations are not available until the morning, so everybody's bunched on the same flight to Maui. It looks like Team Ginger abandoned their backpacks at the airport, which can't please the TSA. Once at the beach, each team must prepare a pig for a luau and then carry the 140-pound pig 200 yards down the beach. Team Say What arrives last but they totally pass the other two teams who can't seem to handle the weight of the pig. It helps that they carried the pig on their shoulders while the others used their arms in a dead-weight lift.

After this task, teams must take a watercraft to McGregor Point and search among 100 buoys in the ocean for the next clue. Margie & Luke arrive first and find the clue pretty quick. Tammy & Victor are next, followed by Jaime & Cara in their green bikinis. Back at the beach, Team Say What head to the next task where there's a bunch of surfboards. Team Ginger finds the next buoy clue followed closely behind by Team Esquire. Everybody is pretty close together.

At the clue box, it's the Roadblock: one team member must search among a pile of hundreds of surfboards to find pictures relating to the previous eleven legs of the Race and then arrange them in chronological order. Luke chooses to do this one and he's doing a fantastic job, stacking them in correct order effortlessly. Meanwhile, the other two teams are having taxi problems. The cab driver for Jaime & Cara takes them to the wrong place and then his dispatcher yells on the radio that she is not Team Ginger's "personal concierge." Awk-ward! Tammy & Victor arrive at the surfboards next while Team Ginger is nowhere in sight.

After such a perfect run, Luke gets hung up on the last two surfboards and just starts putting up random pictures that have nothing to do with the Race. He needs the foot massage and fried seafood from the Beijing leg but he puts up a surfboard with a Grateful Dead skull. Victor is quickly gaining ground. He finishes first and Team Esquire heads to the Finish Line at a golf course.

As Tammy & Victor head off, Luke helps Jaime with the first surfboard. In exchange, she shows him the fried scorpion board and they both (finally) finish the Roadblock. But Tammy & Victor are fighting no traffic in a cab that needs no gas, so they arrive first and win the Amazing Race. Jaime & Cara arrive next, followed by Margie & Luke, who is beating himself up for missing the surfboard Roadblock. But there's a tearful resolution at the mat as Luke thanks his remarkable mother for everything she's done.

Final standings:

#1 – Team Esquire – Tammy & Victor – WINNERS OF THE AMAZING RACE
#2 – Team Ginger – Jaime & Cara
#3 – Team Say What? – Margie & Luke