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Episode 12 ended at Ellis Beach, on the North Coast of Australia. After a rest period, the teams departed for the final leg of this race in the following order:

1. Best Friends: David & Jeff departed at 1:47 a.m.
2. Engaged: Kelly & Jon departed at 2:14 a.m..
3. Gay Couple: Reichen & Chip departed at 2:38 a.m.

They were provided with $1.00 for this leg of the race.

The Beginning Of The End

Best Friends (David and Jeff) were first out of the gate for this last leg. They read the clue, which instructed them to travel to drive 20 miles to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. There, they'd participate in a traditional aboriginal ceremony and receive their next clue. My first thought in hearing that was that this would be a bunching point -- I couldn't believe anyone would be performing ceremonies at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park at 2 in the morning.

Best Friends didn't seem concerned about that as they ran off, though. In voiceover, Jeff exulted that "David and I are going to win the game. We have performed exactly the way we wanted to, and we've probably made the least amount of mistakes of the three teams that remain at this point." I could not help but agree -- as long as the Best Friends exactly had intended to by-pass clues, practically drown a woman during the Fast Forward, nearly get themselves eliminated, and generally stumble their way through. Okay, maybe I did disagree after all. But I admired their plucky denial, and I enjoyed the shot of them being unable to close the door of their vehicle as a reminder that yes, it is denial on their part.

The Gay Couple (Chip and Reichen) were next to depart (and handled closing the door of the vehicle in fine style). They remarked in voiceover that they thought people might be surprised they made it as far as they did, because they're gay. Reichen remarked in voiceover, "I sometimes think people perceive all gay people as really queeny and really effeminate. But I want other people to look at us and see "strong," "prepared," and "out to win." He seems to be setting up a contrast there, but I'm not seeing being queeny and effeminate as precluding being strong or prepared or out to win. Season 2, Team Cha Cha Cha made it to fourth from the end; while they were quite a bit less "butch" than Chip and Reichen, they were still a strong, prepared and competitive team.

Last out was Team Engaged (Kelly and Jon). They might have been third to leave, but they were as happy as if they were in first place. "I can't believe we made it this far," said Kelly in interview. "That freaks me out. Because not only do I think that we don't deserve to be here, because we're so stupid, but I also think that it's so surreal, there's an actual million dollar pot at the end." Personally, I was a little freaked out too, because Kelly said what I was thinking!

And Kelly and Jon were also right to be as happy as if they were in first place, because they practically were in the lead. As I suspected, the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park had hours of operation that did not include 2 a.m. The park opened at 6 a.m., which meant that all of the teams arrived at the park before it opened and thus all were virtually in first place.

Once the park did open, the teams ran flat out to the site of the ceremony. They were told that all of the Tjapukai ceremonies begin with fire, and for a moment I had a Survivor flashback. But this firemaking ceremony was very beautiful, and while I tend to be skeptical of "cultural parks," it was lovely to see them making the fire -- and amazing when the fire was thrown to a nearby island and a flame exploded. (Undoubtedly staged, but I'm willing to suspend a bit of disbelief here.) That flame was a signal, and their next clue was brought out in traditional "message sticks" (cylinders containing the clues). The teams had been quiet and respectful during the ceremony, but once they heard the message sticks had their clues, there was a rushed grab.

A Leap Of Faith

The teams were instructed to drive 15 miles to the airport in Cairns, where they'd find their next clue in the General Aviation Terminal.

With everyone leaving the cultural park at the same time, all the teams were jockeying for position as they drove out. David and Jeff were first, followed by Kelly and Jon, and then Chip and Reichen. There had traditionally been some competition and teasing between Team Engaged and Team Gay Couple, so Chip, driving for Gay Couple, decided to make a move to get in front of Engaged. However, driving quickly on the rainy street, Chip ended up spinning the car in front of Engaged and then off the road. My heart jumped as the vehicle started spinning, picturing a collision, but fortunately it cleared the street and was off in the grass on the side of the road well before Engaged reached them. Kelly told Jon, "Keep going. They're okay. They're fine." I don't often give Kelly the benefit of the doubt, but I do think that she had been concerned about Chip and Reichen and really had checked to make certain they were okay as Jon drove by. Reassured, Jon started laughing like a fool, and I can't fault him either because I was too. Poor Chip! He tried to make his big move, and just ended up further behind. Reichen solemnly told him, "We can't do that again."

At General Aviation, the teams grabbed clues and numbers indicating the order of their arrival: Best Friends; Engaged; Gay Couple. In reading the clues, the teams found this was a Detour. A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons. This choice was between Wing It or Wander It. For Wing It, the teams would have to do a tandem skydive from a height of 10,000 feet. It's a scary task, but one that can be done quickly. For Wander It, teams had to drive to a particular mangrove forest, find a boat, use it to navigate out, and then find their way to the sky dive landing zone to get their next clue. It's not a difficult task, but it is lengthy. I can only imagine the producers really wanted the teams to skydive, because I can't believe that any team would have felt they had the time to do such a lengthy navigation at this point in the race! Of course, all three teams opted for Wing It.

Some of the team members were nervous, particularly Kelly, but all of them did the jump without problems and really seemed to enjoy it. Reichen remarked in voiceover that he wasn't nervous because he'd rather be up there than in the back of the car with Chip driving! Jon stroked Kelly's hair as she waited, in a very sweet manner. As usual, though, Jon followed that up with something that lowered him again in my estimation -- in this case, suggesting after the jump that the camera people check Kelly's pants because he suspected she'd wet herself.

Heading To Hawaii

At the end of the skydiving, the teams received their next instructions: fly to the Big Island of Hawaii, 4,700 miles away.

The three teams headed off, and while ordinarily we've seen teams imitating one another, this time everyone followed a different strategy in getting their tickets:

• David and Jeff decided to immediately get tickets to Hawaii by way of Sydney. They would have tickets to Hawaii in hand, but in Sydney -- a major city and the hub for Qantas -- they could also ferret out whatever better flights they could find. Best Friends were the first to fly out of Cairns.
• Kelly and Jon investigated and found out that the only Qantas flights from Sydney to Hawaii left the next day, so they proceeded to ask about other routes. They decided to fly through Tokyo to Hawaii.
• While Best Friends and Engaged had gone to the international terminal, Chip and Reichen had gone to the domestic terminal. In their experience, Qantas was a helpful, accommodating airline and would provide whatever service was needed wherever you asked. They figured, correctly, that the domestic terminal would be less crowded than the international terminal, so they decided to take advantage of Quantas's good nature. However, they ended up having the same flights to Tokyo and Hawaii as Engaged did.

While Engaged and Gay Couple already had tickets for the Tokyo flight, they had a very tight connection -- less than an hour -- at Narita Airport. Chip and Reichen, who were first off the plane, were directed to Terminal One for their flight. Kelly and Jon, who were behind, were misdirected, and had to play catch-up. Fortunately for them, they found a guardian angel in the form of a female airline employee who literally ran them through the system to try to get them on the flight. (She was great -- she was as fast in high heels as Engaged was with their flat shoes. I want her on the next incarnation of The Amazing Race.) But for all of their guardian angel's efforts, Kelly and Jon were just too late. There was not enough time for them to get their boarding passes and complete security in time to make it on the flight. To rub salt in their wounds, Engaged had to watch Gay Couple board the flight while they were left behind. The only break Engaged got was not seeing that Chip and Reichen had been upgraded from Economy to Business Class when they were seated.

Left at Tokyo Airport, Kelly was really upset that Chip and Reichen got on the flight that they missed. She threw her arms around Jon and cried. Jon said, "Maybe they're going to get a serious case of diarrhea on the plane and they will have severe cramps and they won't be able to run." At this, Kelly started laughing and perked up a bit. I don't particularly care for Jon and Kelly but I think their personalities are well suited for each other. Engaged ended up booking a flight that would arrive at 8:05 a.m., which was one hour and 10 minutes later than Chip and Reichen's flight.

Rock, Paper, Chisel

Chip and Reichen were the first to arrive at the Kona Airport. They found a car at the airport and hopped in to take a drive. The route marker had said they had to travel to the southernmost point in the U.S, Kauna Bay. As the two were driving toward this point, Reichen said that it felt good to be "home" in the U.S. again. He also said that he knew he and Chip were ahead of Jon and Kelly, but they did not know where Jeff and David were in the race. Reichen was sure they figured out a way to get to Hawaii; he just didn't know when.

Meanwhile, Jeff and David were just getting on a plane to Hawaii from Sydney. They seemed to realize they were behind the other teams and in a voiceover said they were hoping the leading teams would make a mistake that would allow David and Jeff to catch up.

As Chip and Reichen were heading toward the next route marker, Kelly and Jon arrived in Kona, got into a car, and hustled towards the route marker as well. Jon told Kelly in the car that of the two, Chip was more aggressive than Reichen. He said that Chip "would cut somebody's throat" to get ahead in the race. Jon admitted that he would cut somebody's throat too. Yikes!

When Chip and Reichen arrived at the route marker, they found that their task was a Roadblock. A Roadblock is a task that only one team member may perform. In this Roadblock, the person had to swim out to a floating tiki head, dive underneath the waves and grab a rock at the bottom of the ocean. The person must bring the rock back to the beach and crack the rock open with chiseling tools. The next clue was embedded inside the rock. Chip performed this task. He retrieved the rock quickly enough from the bottom of the ocean floor, but it seemed to take him a very long time to get the rock open. At one point, Chip started cussing at the rock. It seemed like the cussing did the trick because soon after that, the rock busted open.

The teams' next task was to drive themselves 60 miles to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The teams had to find a lookout point and then follow a marked path over hardened lava to the next route marker. Reichen said in the car that at this point, their goal was to not make any mistakes and arrive at the finish line.

Jon and Kelly arrived at the Roadblock as Chip and Reichen were heading to the National Park. Kelly did not want to do the Roadblock, so Jon performed the tasks (but for once Kelly asked if that was okay with him). He said he "did not want to get [his] underwear wet" so he decided to do the Roadblock completely naked. Right before he dove into the ocean, Kelly yelled, "That's a full moon, baby!" and "Be very, very careful! Don't damage the merchandise!" Jon emerged from the ocean with a large rock and all the merchandise intact. The editors of TAR4 had to make heavy use of pixel technology during this segment to blur out bits under water and on the beach. Jon decided to crack open the rock commando-style as well. Kelly even suggested, "Do you want to put your panties back on?" but apparently Jon, uh, liked the breeze. As Jon was tapping on the chiseling tools to break open the rock, Kelly said, "It's like Adam building his first house." I'm not exactly sure that Adam and Eve existed during a time when metal tools were abundant, but there was something primal about Jon in his glory trying to get the rock open. Jon and Kelly were on the road to the National Park about the same time that Chip and Reichen arrived.

The Flight to Phoenix

Chip and Reichen walked through the marked route and found that their next destination was the anchor of the U.S.S. Arizona in Phoenix. The ship was one of those attacked at Pearl Harbor, and the anchor is a monument in Phoenix. Chip and Reichen next had to decide which airport to use to get to Phoenix. They were on the big island in Hawaii and they could have gone to either the Kona or Hilo airport. They decided to go to the airport that was closer, which was Hilo. Jon and Kelly decide to go to Kona because they thought there would be more choices of flights. In turns out that both were right.

Chip and Reichen got a flight from Hilo that arrived in Honolulu at 8:17 p.m. Then they were booked on a flight that departed from Honolulu at 11:15 p.m. This flight would arrive in Phoenix at 8:15 a.m. (Note: If they were arriving in Honolulu at 8:17 p.m., that means that they spent about 12 hours on the big island driving around, doing the Roadblock and going to the National Park.)

Chip and Reichen were on a flight to Honolulu by the time that Jon and Kelly arrived at the Kona airport. Jon and Kelly barely made it onto a flight to Honolulu that left about 5-10 minutes after they arrived at the Kona airport. When Chip and Reichen arrived in Honolulu, they got on the phones to try to get the first seats on the plane flights to Phoenix so they would be the first team out and would be able to grab the first cab to the final destination.

Kelly and Jon booked tickets to Phoenix on the same flight as Chip and Reichen. Chip and Reichen started asking people (fellow passengers on the flight to Phoenix) where this monument was. They got some very specific answers about the monument. One gentleman called a friend of his on his cell phone and got the address of the monument. Soon after, Chip and Reichen ignored Jon and Kelly when they saw them at the airport. The couple was trying to stay in the game and did not want distractions.

Anchors, Whites, And Bikes

When the flight to Phoenix landed, both teams were running like bats out of Hades to the entrance of the airport and were looking for taxis. Chip and Reichen's strategy of getting seats toward the front of the plane worked for them because they stepped into a taxi right as Jon and Kelly were emerging from the airport. Chip offered the cab driver $50 to get them to the destination as quickly as possible. Jon meanwhile gave his cab driver a $100 bonus to let the driver know how serious he and Kelly were about getting to the next stop right away.

Kelly and Jon had a bit of trouble finding the anchor and Kelly said, "They had the exact address, I'm sure." Kelly was right, of course; Chip and Reichen found the anchor with little trouble. Chip and Reichen picked up the next route marker and found that the next stop was the southeast entrance to the Sun Devil Stadium. Jon and Kelly were not far behind Chip and Reichen. They found the route marker too and ran back to their cab. Jon nearly demolished the merchandise when he slipped trying to hop a wall, but all seemed okay.

Reichen gave the driver another $50 "to keep [his] motivation up." I'm sure the two cab drivers involved were so very happy to have worked that morning. Jon offered his driver another $100 if he drove "like a madman."

But Chip and Reichen were first at the stadium. The next route marker told them that they had to solve a puzzle for the next clue: "Happy Valentine's Day + White + White." What the teams had to do was convert Happy Valentine's Day to 214, then go to that section of the stadium and use the numbers of the two players named "White" to find the exact row (33) and seat (11) that had the next route marker. Chip and Reichen could not figure out the "White + White" part of the puzzle. They finally went to section 214 and started wandering around it and then they looked up at the stadium and read the players' names and numbers and figured out the riddle.

Chip and Reichen knew that Jon and Kelly were on their heels, so soon after they found the next route markers they decided to get out of the section in question so that Jon and Kelly would not be able to solve the riddle quickly by looking at them (perhaps remembering when Engaged got a hint as to the location of the clues on the beach in the last episode). In fact, Engaged did not have a chance to see Chip and Reichen in the Stadium; however, they did a good job of figuring out the clue, and seemed to put together the pieces faster than the Gay Couple.

The teams' next task was to go to the west entrance of Papago Park. They had to then hop on mountain bikes, follow a marked path and then cross the finish line. Chip and Reichen's cab driver seemed to know where the park was. This team was pretty lucky. I'm not sure if they had a guidebook to Phoenix, but they got the luck of the draw with cab drivers. Kelly and Jon's cab driver also knew the park. I am not familiar with Phoenix, but apparently this is a popular park.

Chip and Reichen arrived at the park and put on the helmets and biked along the path. Phil stood by the finish line while the other teams were standing up and cheering. Close to the end, Chip and Reichen dropped the bikes and ran. As they stepped on to the red carpet, Phil greeted them with: "Four continents, 24 cities, 44,000 miles, Reichen and Chip, you are the official winners of The Amazing Race." Chip roared and threw his hands in the air and hugged Reichen. It was really a nice moment. Despite the fact that the team irritated me from time to time, it was nice to see them so happy. Chip was crying and Reichen was trying to process that he was a co-winner of a million dollars.

Kelly and Jon finished second, and they too were greeted with applause and cheers. When Kelly saw Chip and Reichen standing on the platform, she seemed crestfallen. Kelly cried and threw her arms around Jon. Clearly they were disappointed that they lost. In interview segments, Kelly described this race as a test, and said that neither realized until the end how much they loved each other.

Meanwhile, at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, at 5:30 a.m., David and Jeff read the route marker informing them that Chip and Reichen won and that Kelly and Jon came in second. They were upset that they didn't win and that they were so far behind the other teams. However, they did appreciate having participated in the race, and in interview Jeff said that it had taught him how good his life was compared to so many in the world and not to take things for granted.

The final standings were:

1. Gay Couple: Reichen & Chip - they WON!
2. Engaged: Kelly & Jon
3. Best Friends: David & Jeff

Mary's Final Comments: Despite the fact that I previously said I was not rooting for anyone during this final episode, I realized that I very much wanted Reichen and Chip to win and not Jon and Kelly. So it was an exciting final episode with a touching conclusion. Why didn't Kelly and Jon win? Because they did not sit at the front of the plane. I really do believe that small detail is what put them behind Chip and Reichen. In addition, they did not find out the exact location of the U.S.S. Arizona monument. Finding this out might have saved them some time. In the end, this was a fine season for a great reality tv series! Personally, I'll miss writing the summaries with Molly but perhaps we will collaborate on American Idol 3!

Molly's Final Comments: Wow! This was incredibly exciting finale to the season, and only beaten by the finale of Season 1 (a finale that is my favorite episode of any reality tv show anywhere). It was a thrilling race to the finish, and both teams performed well at the end. This time around, Kelly and Jon had worse luck than Chip and Reichen; but I don't feel they were cheated, because between those two teams Chip and Reichen had been better racers overall. Having reached the end of the season, kudos to the racers, the editors, the camera and sound people, and everyone who set up and cleaned up after all the challenges and tasks of the race. And of course congratulations to Bertram van Munster, the main force behind the race. The challenges and locations were some of the best we've seen. And last but not least, thanks to Mary for letting me participate with her this season, and for being the Tian to my Jaree (minus the swearing and threats of physical harm)!

The Amazing Race 4 is on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m.

Previous seasons of TAR.