Goat Farmers Brent & Josh Surprising Winners of The Amazing Race

Well, the Beakman Boys, aka the Goat Farmers, aka Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, were not one of the teams I was wanting to win The Amazing Race, or even one of the teams I thought had a chance to win The Amazing Race, but, it was the Goat Farmers who won the $1 million on the latest running of The Amazing Race.

Why are the Goat Farmers called the Beakman Boys, I am sitting here wondering? I know why the Sri Lankan twins were calling them the Evil Gays, but I don't know where this Beakman name comes from.

I thought for sure it was going to be the Chippendales, the aforementioned twins, or Trey & Lexi who would be the winner, what with the Goat Farmers having never won a leg, having come in last a time or two, always being near the bottom, screwing up badly a number of times.

With New York City being the final destination, and with New York City being where the Goat Farmers lived, it seemed they had a bit of an advantage upon landing back in America. But, that hometown advantage really did not seem to be much of a factor.

I was a little appalled when, after successfully completing the pizza delivery task, that neither the Chippendales or Trey & Lexi knew their clue was the UN symbol.

The final Roadblock Challenge of matching the hello and goodbye greetings with the flag of each of the nations where they heard the greeting seemed real difficult. Lexi got to the challenge first, followed by Josh of the Goat Farmers, then James of the Chippendales. I figured James would not do well with this,  what with the Chippendales meatheadedness having been on display earlier, at Coney Island.

However, it was Lexi who struggled. I don't know how close it actually was, but the editing made it seem as if James got the final clue not all that long after Josh. And then it was a taxi race to something called Gotham Hall.

I really wish The Amazing Race would come up with different endings besides using a taxi race time and again. And this time, with the taxi race being in New York City, with its legendary bad traffic, well, I did not like it.

The Chippendales seemed to take coming in second with good grace, even though Jaymes' dream of helping his dad out financially in his struggle with cancer was dashed. Methinks Jaymes likely will find himself being able to help his dad anyway, what with the humongous amount of good karma that boy spread around the world.

It was also a nice thing that the Chippendales each got a Ford Escape for winning the last leg before the final destination. We'd learned earlier in the episode about James' desperate wish to give his mom a car so she did not have to walk to work anymore.

All  in all, a good iteration of The Amazing Race. Don't remember such extreme underdogs winning before.

The Amazing Race Needs to U-Turn the U-Turn

To my viewing eyes the Amazing Race U-Turn twist gimmick is the worst twist gimmick any Reality TV show I watch has added since the dawn of the genre.

Worse than any Survivor twist gimmick, as in worse than Redemption Island, Exile Island or any other Survivor twist gimmick I am not remembering right now.

I don't remember if any U-Turned pair of Amazing Race racers has survived being U-Turned. Thus making it a far more dire penalty than the Speed Bump penalty a team gets when they come in last to the Pitstop on a non-elimination leg.

Basically the Amazing Race U-Turn allows one team to knock another team out of the race.

In the latest episode of the Amazing Race it was Ryan & Abbie who got U-Turned via a conspiracy between Natalie & Nadaya, Trey & Lexi and the Chippendales, with the Chippendales first to the U-Turn, then staying true to the conspiracy by U-Turning Ryan & Abbie, with Trey & Lexi next to the U-Turn, also staying true to the conspiracy by choosing to U-Turn the Chippendales who were already past the U-Turn and thus immune from being U-Turned, which then gave Ryan & Abbie no chance to U-Turn the Goat Farmers, thus insuring Ryan & Abbie would be eliminated by Phil if they ever made it to the pitstop.

With only 5 teams remaining in the race the U-Turn is just way too drastic a game changer.

In the past there may have been a villainous team or two I did not mind seeing get U-Turned, but on this iteration of the Amazing Race I pretty much was liking all the remaining teams, but would have preferred to have the Goat Farmers eliminated, thus leaving 4 really strong teams to compete for the win.

I'm good with any of the Final Four winning, but I think I'd be most pleased to see the Chippendales or the Sri Lankan American twins win. I don't think we've ever seen an Amazing Race team as constantly chipper as the Chippendales, Jaymes & James.