Well that wasn’t the greatest finale – and not just because we were off the mark on the winner! At least we pinpointed the “million dollar” winning quote, but who knew that the book smarts quote would end up being literal! We knew that quote would have an effect on the outcome. Maybe we read too much into the editing, but I liked our ending! (It would have been much more exciting!) We thought getting rid of Dustin and Kandice would be Tyler and James’ Achilles heel, but the editors were telling us just how Tyler and James won the race.

Their win was right in front of my nose. Last week when Tyler called James “eagle eyes,” I knew it was an important quote, but I didn’t make the connection to them winning. Also as jenjk pointed out, the episode title referred to Tyler and James. The editors even showed us who won in the previews last week by their expressions when they ran to the mat! I thought mavs had a good point earlier in the season about the models commenting on how winning would affect their recovering addict lifestyle so I expected some kind of endcap confessional to that point. Their edit was the most sympathetic overall – we just thought they were boring! Their hissy fit in the airport was good misdirection. I didn't expect them to win.

I posted that Rob and Kim would never win after their stupid, stupid comments in India. It never dawned on me at the time that I would consider them as potential winners; they came in second. In retrospect, their edit was too negative for them to be the winners. I realized pretty early on in the show with all their fighting that it didn’t look good for them. Their story was one of endurance (I really hoped they were going to catch the models when they were running downtown especially when Tyler and James commented on what good shape they are in.) They were gracious losers. Now if they don’t ever encounter any stress in their lives, they may have a good marriage!

Lyn and Karlyn’s edit the first half of the show was so positive, I was wondering if those “angels” were going to win it! Lyn had a majority of the confessionals, if not all, (I am not going to rewatch that show!), so I did think that if they were winners we would have heard a lot more from Lyn and a lot less from Karlyn. I did feel bad for them when they didn’t make the plane, but it was their mistake in going to Orly Airport instead of Charles de Gaulle.

What have I have learned this season? Never to count anyone out! At some point in the season I discounted all three teams in the final three! Their stories were all laid out in the first episode. Perhaps we have a Survivor bias and expect things to mean more than they do. Maybe michel should rename this thread the “where we will definitely figure out the final three and then take a stab in the dark at who the editors are trying to hide as the winner.” Maybe with TAR 11, third time’s a charm. The nature of a race is to hide the winner and the editors have done a good job of that. This was a fun season to analyze since the stories were all woven together from the beginning – alliances, rivalries, karma. The ending was a bit disappointing because we in this thread thought Tyler and James were too boring to be the winners, and the finale was a let-down. I really missed not having a task right before the final mat. It added some interest to the ending instead of just making it a cab race. (Their ease in getting a cab to drive 56 miles out of NYC was astounding. In my experience, cab drivers don’t want to leave Manhattan for an outer borough, never mind going two counties away.)

Thanks again to Michel for starting this thread. Everyone have a great holiday!