The littlest mistakes cost you (plus having Producers on your side helps)

Last night was the sea­son end­ing episode of _The Amaz­ing Race_ on CBS. Amber and Rob did not win, they came in sec­ond behind Uchenna and Joyce. As with every final episode, it came down to the last leg, and the small­est lit­tle thing.

Rob and Amber looked like they had it sewn up. They booked the same flight as Uchenna and Joyce from San Juan to Miami, but then asked around (impor­tant _AR_ rule: never take the first answer you get when you ask) and found a plane that was in the process of board­ing, that they could get on as standby.

They raced to the plane and got on as the doors were clos­ing. The walk­way retracted, the pas­sen­gers were in their seats, and then Uchenna and Joyce arrived, hav­ing found out the same infor­ma­tion, but hav­ing found it out too late.

Or had they?

After the com­mer­cial break, it turns out the “pilot agreed” to let them on the plane. They trun­dled the gang­way back out, opened the door, and let Uchenna and Joyce on the same plane as Rob and Amber. In the end, this made for a more excit­ing finale (Ron and Kelly, who missed that flight, were never really again in con­tention). Which leads me to believe that the show’s pro­duc­ers had a hand in reel­ing that plane back in.

The final sprint involved Rob and Amber back out front, but tak­ing bad direc­tions (Calle Ocho and 27th Avenue, they were told, while Uchenna and Joyce got cor­rect direc­tions to Calle Ocho and 11th Avenue) and ignor­ing the rule men­tioned above: never take the first answer you get when you ask. In the end, that jaunt up Calle Ocho cost them $1 mil­lion. Or maybe it was the unprece­dent­edly nice Amer­i­can Air­lines pilot (who should get a com­mis­sion from Uchenna and Joyce).

That’s the game, I guess. My favorite team has still not made it to the top spot in _The Amaz­ing Race_.