by Sandhurst Miggins

The final leg of The Amazing Race starts in the early morning, as Jill and Thomas are let go from the last Pit Stop at 3:57pm. The clue tells them to fly from Seoul, South Korea and head to Los Angeles California. Jill and Thomas don't care about history being made and are focused on winning. Brooke and Claire wear their special cheetah pants for the final leg and Nat and Kat believe they have a leg up on the other teams, because they lived in LA for 4 years.

When they land in LA the race is on to find a cab to take them to the Long Beach Sea Port. Nat and Kat are first to jump into a cab and are off. When they get there, they are told to take an elevator to the top of one of the loading cranes and bungee in order to receive their next clue. Nat's fear of heights returns for this task but she toughs it out to take the lead. Jill and Thomas are right on their heels and so are Brooke and Claire.

After they all jump they must take a helicopter to an undisclosed location. When Nat and Kat arrive at the spot, it turns out they are at the Rose Bowl, and must now decorate three sections of a Rose Parade Float. Nat chooses to do the task. When Jill and Thomas land, their pre-strategy was to allow Thomas to do the final Roadblock, thinking it would be a more physical challenge. When he reads the details they begin to believe that, that was a big mistake as Jill is the more artistic of the two. Brook is excited by the entire challenge and jumps for joy to do the decorating.

Finishing in the order they arrived the teams must now answer three questions that would lead them to their next location. Turns out the producers of The Amazing Race have a sense of humor because none of the taxi drivers in LA seem speak English as a first language and are incapable of helping the teams decipher the clues. Everyone is looking for the internet, but Nat and Kat, on a major roll, are the first to answer the riddles, realizing that they must head to Quixote, studios stage 7. Jill and Thomas have the most frustrating time searching for the internet and this proves to be a major set back for them. Brook and Claire, after stopping at a local hotel, find the answers to the clues and are off to the studio.

For the final test teams must look at a massive screen containing various people wearing hats. They must find the 12 people who greeted them at each Pit Stop on the race and place them in the order they met them. Now this is a difficult task as the screen keeps switching the faces around, however, this is where I start to have a problem with the finale. Nat and Kat decide to pull out their notes that they have been taking over the course of the race to help them remember the order. Now I don't mind studying before the final leg but don't make it an open book test, it just takes away from the drama of possibly being wrong. It should come as no surprise that Nat and Kat finished the task on their first try. Way to take the suspense away. After the doctors made quick work of the challenge, Brook and Claire also got the answer on their first try, also due to their own notes. Que the edited taxi cab race through LA traffic to make it seem that Brook and Claire were actually closer to Nat and Kat than they really were.

In the end the first all female team won the 17th season of the Amazing Race. It was an excellent season of the Race. To any avid fan it was by far the toughest season in years with some of the most dramatic locations and teams that we have see. Thanks CBS for a great Season of The Amazing Race.

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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