Victor and Tammy Win Amazing Race 14

Siblings, Victor and Tammy Jih were crowned the winners of the fourteenth season of The Amazing Race and I was really glad.  They learned to work together more cohesively over the course of the race (even though Victor continued to play the role of the “big brother” right up until the very end) and showed real determination and drive.  Plus, they just dominated most of the legs and I like to see hard work pay off.

Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS ©2008

I was also glad because I seriously could not stand the other two teams.  Jamie and Cara came in second place and, truly, that was way better than what I think they deserved.  Why is Cara friends with someone like Jamie?  She is one of the most rude, abusive people I’ve ever seen on the show and every week, it was shameful to have to watch her insult and demean people all over the world.  It was worst, though, when she would turn on her own teammate.  She screamed and yelled at Cara throughout the race and, in the end, her own behavior and frantic behavior is what cost them.  She kept complaining that they got taxi drivers who didn’t know where they were going.  Don’t you think that after the first couple times, she would have asked the drivers before getting in to the taxi if they knew where they were going.  Sometimes I think they deliberately threw them off track because Jamie was being rude.  Really, the woman was more of a liability than anything else.

Then there was Margie and Luke.  The mother/son team came in third and that’s exactly where they belonged and I’m being generous.  Luke is hearing impaired and, for most of the race, he acted as though being deaf prevented him from reading, using common sense, possessing problem-solving skills or being physically active.  His poor mother (who really enables his whiny behavior) had to work twice as hard and was the only reason they were in the finale at all.  Despite what I think of her as a person, and as a mother, I have to give her a lot of respect for how physically fit and determined she is.  She is strong and it’s too bad she hasn’t instilled that trait in her son.  I felt embarrassed for Luke as he, a fully grown man, threw several temper tantrums that would land my five-year-old on a time-out (in fact, she’s never even acted like he did).  He gave up quickly and if a task looked hard or gross, he let his mother do it.  I was so thrilled when he volunteered for the “foot massage” challenge (can you believe he did that?!) and it turned out to be a very painful experience.  That’s exactly what he deserved!

Tammy and Victor weren’t without fault, however.  I didn’t respect the fact that they used the U-Turn on Keisha and Jen.  I also didn’t like the fact that they borderline abused the fact that they spoke Chinese during the Beijing leg of the race.  It’s one thing to use it to your advantage but it’s another to work the cultural angle to try to block other teams which is what they did when they said stuff like “we’re American-born Chinese people.  Please help us by putting those other teams at the back of the plane” or “please help us, if we don’t win our parents will kill themselves.”  It bordered on ridiculous.  Still, they were the more tolerable of the three teams left standing so I’m glad they won.

What did you think of this season?  Did the right team win?  I would have liked to see Mel and Mike make it further but it just wasn’t meant to be.