The Amazing Race season finale recap: 'Amazing Race' season 20 finale recap

CBS

Hey there, Race cases. Like many of you, regular recapper Joseph Brannigan Lynch was crippled with sadness after Mark and Bopper’s elimination last week, so I’ll be filling in for TAR‘s season 20 finale. With the loss of those two Kentucky gentlemen, we had left four fairly unpalatable options to win the $1 million. Would it be Big Brother‘s emotionally volatile Brendon and Rachel? Their nemeses Ralph and Vanessa? Strong-arming Border Patrol officers Art and J.J.? Or ragebot army officer Dave and his much, much better half Rachel? Either way, we’ve got a 50-50 chance a Rachel takes home the prize, so get an extra fliptacular haircut and say cheers to all the Rachels as we begin the final two legs!

After a brief rest in Cochin, India, the teams were off to Japan. Team Army (Dave and Rachel) led the pack, followed by Team Big Brother (Brendon and Rachel, a.k.a. Brenchel), the Dating Divorcees (Ralph and Vanessa), and Team Border Patrol (Art and J.J.), though the playing field was evened at Hiroshima’s Itsukushima Shrine when all the teams had to wait until sunrise to receive the next clue. They headed to the Peace Memorial for a service honoring the victims of the 1945 atomic bombings then resumed the Race with a Shinkansen (bullet train) trip to Osaka.

And then! The three greatest words in the world: Japanese game show! And not just any Japanese game show, a game show brilliantly titled Bring That Chicken Home. (Coincidentally, this is the name of my forthcoming memoir.) In this Road Block, one member of each team had to run on a conveyor belt and leap to grab a rubber chicken hanging above. Just in case you need that spelled out, that’s basically a surefire route to comedy gold. After grabbing the chicken, the teammate had to run the entire length of the treadmill and jump on a mat at the other side to collect the next clue.

Despite donning a gigantic helmet that made her look like a Foosball figurine, Vanessa and her twisted ankle had the greatest trouble by far. She took one spill after another, growing more and more exhausted — not to mention developing a serious strawberry on her shoulder. Worried about her health, Ralph begged her to quit, but Vanessa kept at it and finally secured her fowl. Surely, running to the end of the treadmill and jumping to the mat would be easy? Nope! Vanessa had one last shameful fall in her reserves before her team could move on.

NEXT: Will Ralph and Vanessa’s game show cluck-up take them out for good?

While Dating Divorcees fell seemingly fatally behind, the others had moved on to the next Detour: Sushi or Sumo. Everyone but Team Army chose the former option, which basically boiled down to a game of bingo, only with sushi rolls instead of letters. Teams had to identify the correct type of sushi and put it on their board until they had five in a row. After eating their sushi, they could collect the next clue. Elsewhere, Rachel and Dave chose Sumo and took to the streets to snap photos of locals posing in a cutout of three sumo wrestlers.

The sushi challenge proved difficult for Art and J.J. because — surprise, surprise — the names of the sushi were in Japanese! Regardless, they had two advantages over Brenchel: A head start and not being bickering ninnies. Speaking of which! There was a point at which Team Army’s Rachel finally had it with Dave and yelled, “I’m so sick of you!” Finally! Join the club, sister. The frontrunners bickered their way through the entire challenge, which was overlaid with a hilarious graphic each time they snapped a photo that flashed up sumo wrestlers around the picture as a guy shouted “SUMO!” Despite their arguing, Team Army reached the Osaka Castle Pit stop first. By winning their seventh leg, not only did they snag a trip to Phil’s homeland of New Zealand, they also tied the record for the most legs won in a single season on TAR (held by Nick and Starr of season 13 and Meghan and Cheyne from season 15).

Art and J.J. reached the castle next, with Brenchel close behind. It seemed like Ralph and Vanessa had no hope of making it to the finale, but they made quick work of sushi bingo and found themselves very nearly in a three-way with foot race with the guys and Brenchel. When the guys found the mat, the feuding couples reached a make-or-break moment. In the end, Rachel won by a nose. (See what I did there?) I think that qualifies as a good, old-fashioned “Suck it, Vanessa,” courtesy of Big Brother. Meanwhile, can Vanessa please retire the phrase “Cheese and crackers” now? The Dating Divorcees took their elimination so well it was actually kind of boring.

NEXT: The final leg brings those chickens home

The next day, the pressure was on for Team Army as underdogs Brendon and Rachel nipped at their heels only 50 minutes behind them out the gate. Mind you it was 50 minutes that wouldn’t matter when the teams learned there was only one flight to Hawaii a day. And so they all arrived in tandem and headed to The Aloha State’s own Twin Towers, Mauka and Makai. Dave found himself an army vet cabbie, who was wily enough to lose Art and J.J.’s clueless driver en route. That cleared a spot for Brenchel to make up time on the way to the towers.

The task: Ascend and Rappel. After clicking on their belays, both teammates had to pull themselves up the side of the Makai using their upper body strength, scan Honolulu’s skyline to find the Race flag across the water, then rappel down the side of the building. Team Army and Team Big Brother began almost simultaneously while Team Border Patrol got some unfortunate misinformation and ostensibly lost the whole thing straight before they’d really begun. Both Rachels were their team’s weak link, but Brenchel couldn’t overcome the others. Either way, they were both basically finished by the time Art and J.J. even started.

Across the water, blonde Rachel watched the guys make their way up the building while Dave started shaving ice for the Road Block. He finished quickly and reported to — CBS synergy alert! — Hawaii Five-O star Taylor Wily to get his next clue. He and Rachel boarded a helicopter as Team Border Patrol arrived to find Brendon chipping away at the ice. As J.J. hunkered down, Brenchel made a serious oversight when they didn’t read the “make your way to the helicopter on foot” and jumped back in a cab to head to Aloha Stadium. Perhaps Art and J.J. weren’t sure losers after all?

As Brenchel found an empty stadium and started squawking about the screw-up, Team Army simulated an ocean rescue, with Rachel driving a jet ski and towing Dave behind, whose job was to grab a “distressed” swimmer to carry back to shore. Despite choppy water, they completed the challenge quickly and easily. For Brenchel, nothing was quick or easy about their path back to the helipad. She refused to run, threw part of her Race pack at Brendon, and screeched at decibel levels that would traumatize a dog. Shot alert! For anyone who’s been waiting, the time had come. At minute 93, Rachel broke down in tears.

NEXT: Fate smiles on Art and J.J., but can they take it to the mat?

Perhaps Rachel was right to cry. Team Army were on to the next location, Coral Kingdom Gate, and Team Border Patrol had an advantage in the lifeguarding challenge since Art used to work in search and rescue. He steered the jet ski expertly — unlike Dave and Rachel’s cab driver, who drove them at least a mile in the wrong direction. And so Team Border Patrol continued to gain ground as Brenchel searched and rescued.

Team Border Patrol’s luck continued to turn as Rachel and Dave inadvertently skipped the final Road Block: Hawaiian Games. Basically, it was like riding the luge on a less substantial, oiled-up wooden vessel (the Papa Holua) down a grassy hill. After that, they had to pick up a painted rock and roll it into a target 50 feet away as part of a game called ulu maika. While Art took took several unsuccessful passes, Team Army had the ultimate tease dangled in front of them as they ran to the finish line, full of clapping competitors, and were told to turn right back around. Their stupefied looks and Rachel’s half-laughing, half-murmuring noises at hearing the bad news were pretty epic, like, “You’re joking, right? RIGHT?!” Instead — to their credit — they picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and sprinted back into the game.

With Brenchel wrapping up the lifeguarding task, the race very nearly became competitive again. J.J. spotted Team Army returning. Until that minute, he had been convinced he and Art had been condemned to second place. He smiled and yelled, “We’re in the race!” But that smile quickly turned to an expression of despair as Art fell again and again (and again!), effectively losing the lead they hadn’t known they had. Rachel needed only two attempts before she advanced to the rock toss. Some time after Art’s 17th failed attempt, Rachel completed the second half of the task, and TAR 20 was a fait accompli.

From then, it was a struggle for second between Border Patrol and Big Brother. Rachel nailed the sledding but lost her momentum in ulu maika. She did gain a pout that she carried almost all the way to the mat, where they finished in third place. Everyone in the final three got a moment to talk about how close and wise the Race made them, but I was mostly excited to get a few more glimpses of Bopper and Mark. You’re the real winner in my heart, Team Kentucky!

What did you think, Race cases? Are you happy that Team Army took it? Bored? Conflicted? Still hankering to share your thoughts on the way things turned out? Share ’em in the comments, then click below to read what your fellow viEWers said during our live blog with the one and only Phil Keoghan.