The Amazing Race: The Finish Line, Episode 12

Peggy's in white and Jon is in black this week – making them look like the angel and devil of reality TV hosting. Unfortunately, I assume this means Jon & Al are not on the All Star version of the race that is filming now. Boo. Peggy and Jon are excited because it's down to the final three! Peggy says that she and Jon will have all three final teams on the show next week. Should be good.

As a surprise, Peggy introduces Jessica Shaw from Entertainment Weekly. She says that the beauty queens are “kind of evil,” but she loved watching them and thinks they deserved to be in the final three. I agree, Jessica.

Peggy fishes for viewer calls and then turns to Rob & Kimberly getting pelted with tomatoes by gleefully belligerent Spaniards on this week's show. Jon says that he probably would have gotten frustrated by all the tomato tossing too! It's hard to find a little clue in those tomatoes.

Jessica says that the Detour clue told them they'd be pelted, so she thought Kimberly should just buck up and deal with it. And the other thing the Detour made Jessica think is that Rob is the worst boyfriend on the planet! Could he be any meaner to her? Peggy agrees. She notes that Rob is so mean to Kimberly and then does the “psycho thing” and suddenly turns sweet and nice afterwards.

Jon agrees. When there's a crisis is when you're supposed to be the most supportive. He thinks Rob's behavior just shows you what's going to happen in the future if they get married! Jessica says that on the mat this week Rob was talking about wanting to marry Kimberly and Jessica was screaming for her to “run!”

Peggy asks the others if they would have ever chosen the tomato Detour, knowing you had to search through the tomato pile. Jon says he would have never chosen that Detour, especially considering the brutal salt search Detour earlier on the race.

Jessica says that the “needle-in-a-haystack” challenges tend to be the ones teams lose the race on. However, in this case, the Detour got Rob & Kimberly and Lyn & Karlyn into the final three.

I agree. I was amazed how many teams picked the tomatoes. The random search challenges would really scare me. I'd only try one if I couldn't do the other or was desperately behind and it was the only chance.

Now Peggy mentions the Roadblock and the lovely camel kabobs the teams enjoyed. She says they didn't actually look that bad, although she could have done without the camel head decorations. We then see a clip of the teams grinding meet and making camel kabobs. The beauty queens joke, Rob screams at Kimberly, you know, the usual.

After the clip, Peggy says that Dustin & Kandice immediately grabbed a local when they got on the plane to direct them to the Roadblock. She asks the others if they think being able to do that is fair. Jessica says she doesn't really like that and thinks the producers should re-evaluate those rules. She thinks racing is about being innovative and smart, not just kidnapping locals.

But Jon says “kudos to them” for realizing that getting a local would help them. He understands what Jessica is saying, but if it's legal then you should do it. Peggy wonders if the beauty queens blonde hair is what gets folks in the car. Jessica wonders what's going on in the guy's life that he has all that time to help the girls. Jon says that the camera crews are really unusual and they think it's a lot of fun to watch!

Jeremy from Chicago now makes his weekly call and says that he thinks if the rules say you can get a local to help you – go for it. I agree, Jeremy. He then asks everyone if they were Dustin & Kandice if they could pick any two teams to race against in the finals, who would they pick. Jon and Peggy decide on Team Kentucky and the Cho Brothers. Jessica agrees because the Chos would hang out and wait for you at every turn and so would Team Kentucky, making it easy to run over them and get to the finals. Everyone laughs.

Peggy says Jeremy's question brings up a good point. Who is racing most competitively? Jon thinks Lyn & Karlyn proved themselves on this leg of the race. They didn't have any of their six pack friends to help them and they made it to the final three.

Jessica says she didn't like the way they played this leg. She thought Karlyn was a horrible brat and really rude to Lyn during the Roadblock. The blondes cheered each other on and Karlyn was nasty to her partner. Jon says she is mean.

Vanessa from Canada now calls in and says she enjoyed last night's episode. She agrees with everyone that Karlyn is a real sourpuss. She says it's like Season Three when you wanted Zach to win but wished Flo didn't have to win with him. She says Lyn seems very nice. Good point, Vanessa.

Vanessa says that Lyn knew how to grind the meat much better than Kimberly and that she is a sweetheart. She also thinks the remaining two teams think 'Bama can't win because they would lose the footrace – but they're the team left that she's rooting for. She doesn't like Rob & Kimberly and how he calls her “dude.” Peggy agrees completely. Jessica says she's more okay with that then the emotional abuse he engages in!

We now get our Wikipedia fact of the week. “One legend attributes the founding of Barcelona to Hercules 400 years before the building of Rome.” Well, make that the mythological legend of the week.