***SPOILERS***

I didn’t take many notes since I was good to just be up and watching the show. But I wasn’t going to miss the finale just because of the flu.

From the First Pit Stop:

1. The 17 hour train from Shanghai to Xi’an - I loved the conversation between El Hornio and Kris/Jon where El Hornio asked Jon if Kris ever acted like a “raging #####” to him. And then he said that Kris was always so nice that her raging ##### moment was probably like Rebecca’s nicest moment. Oooh, the look on Rebecca’s face was priceless. Heh.

2. Detour - Spray vs. Scroll. I would have liked to see how long the scroll task might have taken a team to do. Oh well - the spraying of the cars looked kind of tedious to me.

3. From Detour to the Terracotta Warrior Museum - now somewhere recently I saw something about this, so it was kind of funny to get the feeling of deja vu that it was being mentioned again. Hornio were smart to wait to open the clue far from where the clue box actually was. I wonder how much time Kris/Jon lost because they fell for the ruse?

And Hayden is in Race Killer Fatigue early in the leg. Really, I felt for her. As I said to ECD, it’s easy for us to sit in our cozy chairs watching them Race on TV and marvel at the meltdowns. But we have no idea how hard the Race is, especially in the last legs - not much sleep, jet lag, irregular meals, etc. It all adds up to monumental stress, so Hayden had my sympathies last night.

4. Most hilarious moment of the episode is the conversation Kris/Jon have in the cab about the differences between Chinese and English - no common roots, how the Chinese sound angry no matter what they’re saying. And then she says “I love you” in the same tone as their cabbie has been using on his cell phone. Jon says something back in the same tone and they laugh. We laughed hard. I love them!

5. Mount Hua: Teams need to take shuttle to mountain. All teams but Hayden/Aaron doing well while H/A have a bad cabbie and she’s just breaking down. He’s not as calm as he has been, too.

Teams take cable cars to top of mountain where they’re supposed to go up the North Face to the Roadblock task. Hornio leads Kris/Jon up wrong face, but K/J figure it out sooner. Meanwhile, Freddy/Kendra have smoked everyone and get there first.

6. Roadblock: Open the lock. Man, that reminded me of the haystacks task when the sisters got Philiminated. The ladies’ hands all looked really rough and painful after working the key for hours. Kendra starts 1st. Kris is 2nd. Rebecca is 3rd. Hayden is last. Kris opens her lock first with Kendra next. Then comes a sad moment when Hayden’s key breaks in a lock and they have to go back down to the bottom to get a new key. Oh, man. She threatens to quit, but to her credit she gets a new key and goes back up to keep trying since Rebecca is still there working it too. And then Rebecca’s lock opens. Oh, man.

Some might fault them for quitting the task and taking the time penalty by skipping directly to the Pit Stop. I have mixed feelings on it. They were facing the closing of the mountain at 7pm (HoOp factor) in addition to the still unopened lock. If she had continued trying until 7pm with no success, they would have had a 12 hour wait to restart the task in the morning. Strategically, it was smarter to take the shorter penalty and hope that one of the other teams really got screwed up on the way to the Pit Stop. As it turned out, it didn’t work out, which is the natural Race justice of quitting the task, imho.

Besides, she was done. I don’t think she could have continued the final leg even if they had made it.

7. Pit Stop: 1st - Kris/jon (yay!); 2nd - Freddy/Kendra; 3rd - Hornio; last - Hayden/Aaron, who are Philiminated. And then sweet Aaron drops to a knee and proposes to the woman he clearly loves for better or worse, in sickness and health, yadda, yadda, yadda, because he’s definitely seen her at her worst and still wants to marry her. He’s a good guy and she’s a fortunate gal.

Sidenote: Since I’m home sick, I managed to catch the top 4 teams interview on CBS’ Early Show this morning. Aaron is going to culinary school so they will get married next December, Freddy/Kendra are getting married this spring, Kris moved to Arizona to be near Jon, and Hornio are just friends. Kudos to Rebecca for being kind to Adam - she gave him props for doing the Race since he had never left his hometown and managed to travel the world (albeit carried by her, but anyway...).

From the Second Pit Stop:

8. Kris/Jon depart at 5:27am; Freddy/Kendra depart at 6:46am; Hornio depart at 11:20am. Wow, there’s some serious time between the first teams and Hornio.

Now the whole booking of travel only at a travel agency or business center is probably in place after 9/11. Or maybe not, we are talking about China. Poor K/J suffer from HoOp problems on booking their flight to Honolulu. They also suffer from the American Airlines dude who essentially lied to them about flight times to keep them on his airline. So Freddy/Kendra end up on the flight that gets to Hawaii almost 30 minutes before K/J. Hornio is so far behind, it’s almost laughable.

Interestingly, all teams attempt to bump up to earlier connecting flights and all are equally rejected. Ugly moments include Kendra hysterically crying about her fictitious sick child in Honolulu and Adam berating the desk clerk as being “really mean.” Charming.

9. Detour: Outfits/Outriggers - F/K and Hornio opt for canoeing, as ECD and I would have. If you’re a strong canoer, then 2 miles is easy. K/J opt for hunting down the snazzy Hawaiian shirt/dress combo, which turns out to have been smart because they take the lead. Yay!

Teams are told to head for Kamaka Air for the next clue.

10. Which turns out to be the Roadblock - Ocean Diving. Jon, Freddy, and Adam (heh) all do the task. We cracked up at Adam’s little girl screaming before the shute opened - at that point he enjoyed the ride.

Teams now head to the point of origin - Chicago!

11. Freddy/Kendra luck out on the early flight (again) and are now in 1st place, although K/J manage to catch up and end up on the same train to downtown and the final task - eating a pizza. Yes, it’s Chicago deep dish, which is not as easy to eat in bulk as one might think.

Kendra’s model stomach probably isn’t used to that much food in it, although I have to give her credit - she managed to choke it all down. Her belching was beautiful, although I was afraid she was going belch the contents of her stomach back onto the table at one point.

Somehow, Kris/Jon arrive at the pizza place well after F/K have finished eating, but they’re having trouble getting a cab, so I don’t know what happened from the train station to the pizza joint. She pounds down the pizza, good girl, and they’re off.

Hornio and the pizza - she asks for soy cheese and he won’t eat the tomatoes. This is why you didn’t win.

12. F/K get a cab and then ask a cop that’s driving by to help them find Ping Tom (the location of the Winner’s Mat). “It’s an emergency,” Freddy says, which is what they all have said while overseas, but as Kendra reminded him, “You can’t say that to police.”

So through clever (?) editing, we don’t know if Kris/Jon have managed to catch Freddy/Kendra, whose cab is a bit lost. And then we see both teams arrive at the route flags and running. But wait! Kris/Jon get caught by a train and have to wait for it to pass and that means that Freddy/Kendra are the team that comes running into view of the loser teams and Phil at the Winner’s Mat.

*disappointment*

They jump on Phil when they get to the Mat, but he’s happy and laughing with them and tell them that they’ve just won $1M. Hayden’s crying - happy tears? still fatigued? sad it wasn’t her? Who knows.

Kris/Jon run(ner) up. They are 2nd. And then Hornio arrives. They are 3rd. Good Race - just three weeks until Season 7…

...where we get spitting llamas and an extremely confident Rob and Ambuh. Can’t wait!