'The Amazing Race' Finale Recap: Jason And Amy Beat Out Marie And Tim To Win Season 23

by UInterviewDecember 9, 2013, 12:00 amNews >

The final four couples traveled around Tokyo and Alaska in the season 23 finale of The Amazing Race, with Jason Case and Amy Diaz.

The Final Four Teams Head To Tokyo

But first, married couple, Nicole and Travis, and Jason and Amy are furious at cousins Leo and Jamal. They team up with exes Tim and Marie to leave Leo and Jamal out in the cold. It’s a temporary alliance, to say the least. When all six contestants touch down in Tokyo, Nicole and Travis are ready to leave Tim and Marie in the dust, only to realize they don’t have an address needed to go to the next clue. In the end, none of the teams gets ahead, and they all follow each other to the next leg of the race.

Leo and Jamal were crafty and changed their flights so that they could land in Tokyo ten minutes before the rest of the contestants. As a result, the cousins are the first to try their hands at the first challenge: Human Bowling – where one must roll down a hill and bowl a strike. It takes them a few tries, but eventually the men make it through. All other teams follow soon after.

Next the teams are met with a Call It Up phone booth challenge. Amy and Travis go head to head trying to submerge themselves underwater long enough to dial the phone and get the clue: “Wasabi taberu, Welcome to Tokyo.”

Leo And Jamal Are Eliminated

After losing a challenge last week, Leo and Jamal have to pass a Speed Bump challenge before moving on in the competition. Today, they are zoo keepers tasked with capturing a rhino that has escaped from a local zoo. Leo and Jamal struggle to join a large group of Japanese men, supposedly real animal wranglers. While they run after a few men dressed as a rhino, Amy and Nicole compete in a Road Block building an accurate model of a robot statue. To the women’s displeasure, Marie caught up to them and left the challenge first, leaving Amy and Nicole to build their robots on their own.

Things get heated when Amy and Nicole continue to mess up the robot, and Travis is getting particularly antsy on the sidelines, yelling at Nicole and making his disappointment known (loudly). Amy finishes first, and angers Jason by stopping to help Nicole, who must now compete against Leo and Jamal, before leaving.

Jason And Amy Beat Marie And Tim

In the end, Marie and Tim win this leg of the race, with Jason and Amy coming in second and Nicole and Travis third, meaning Leo and Jamal are eliminated. The remaining three teams are whisked off on a flight to Juneau, Alaska for the last hour of competition. After a boat race and a Road Block with push planes, the real challenge comes when Nicole, Marie and Amy go up against one another trying to drop a bag of flour onto a target on the ground from a helicopter 150 feet in the air, traveling at 60 mph. Amy heroically gets it on her second try, while Marie takes 12 and Nicole, unfortunately, takes 20.

Next, the teams must retrieve a clue from a glacier, something Tim is oddly excited about. Tim and Marie are in second place, but they’re not worrying, even though Jason and Amy sailed through this particular challenge ahead of them. The next challenge, in which the teams must build totem poles in a way that will spell out the names of each currency they have encountered throughout this Amazing Race, is equally as easy for Amy and Jason.

Marie and Tim are not too far behind, and Nicole and Travis are completely done for at this point. The two teams eventually make their way to the final stretch (a cab ride and then a quick run to the finish line). Jason and Amy make it before Marie and Tim even pull up, and, just like that, the cute couple is named the winners of The Amazing Race, and one million dollars!

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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