The Amazing Race 9: The Finish Line, Episode 11

Peggy Bunker and Jon Weiss are here to dish about monkeys, Mojo, and hippies without pants. Should be a good show! Peggy welcomes us and asks viewers to call in. She then introduces team Mojo. Peggy tells Monica & Joseph that they did a terrific job and really hung in there almost to the end of the race. She asks how it was watching the last episode. Joseph thinks they did pretty good. He says the producers didn’t show them missing a cab, but they think they did well.

Monica said she thought they did well. She says that they were all excited on the bus thinking they were probably in first place – instead of last (hah!). So she was in a terrible mood at the monkey roadblock. Monica says she doesn’t know what happened with the cab at the bus terminal. Their cabbie sent them to a closed bus terminal instead of the open one. Jon commiserates with them on getting bad intel from the cabbie, but then gives them a stinger by noting that the key to the race is to double-check on any information you get. Ouch! He says you learn afterwards.

Monica says that in America, there aren’t buses that leave at midnight or 4 a.m. So it seemed reasonable to them that the bus wouldn’t go until the morning. Peggy points out that a lot of people believe it was the pot detour that was Mojo’s downfall. Joseph says that they only got to the pit stop about eight minutes behind Ray & Yolanda and that they had to look for a cab for about 20 minutes after the detour. Jon says the cab was the determining factor.

Monica notes that they only got to the monkeys about 15 minutes after the other teams. She says that they would have gone for the fast forward if they had been there. She then starts to say that she doesn’t know if she would have eaten the bugs before correcting herself and claiming she would have eaten the bugs – she just doesn’t know how long it would have taken her. Color me majorly skeptical. I have a hard time seeing whiny Monica getting through that task! Joseph says you can always do what ifs. Who knows?

Peggy points out that Monica & Joseph did a lot of incredible things on the race, like scaling the waterfall, parachuting out of planes, and other things. Both say they can’t believe all the things they got to do on the race. Joseph says the waterfall was scary. Monica says that she’s a thrill seeker, but the most she’d done before was river rafting. She was excited whenever she opened a clue. She thought the sky diving was great, but it’s really something doing it over Australia! Joseph points out he could hear Monica screaming the entire way down.

Peggy now takes a call from Jamison in Massachusetts. He greets Mojo and congratulates them. He asks Monica about the first leg of the race. Was she really going to cry if they didn’t get on the flight they wanted? Joseph says he can answer that, and yes, she would have cried. Monica agrees. She gets easily excited, and when she gets let down she cries easily. She says that getting on the last flight in the first leg was a letdown.

Peggy says, “Let’s talk about the waterworks for a second.” She says it shouldn’t be a big deal. The only time it really slowed the team down was at the yield when they were crying and bickering after the yield time had expired. Jon laughs heartily at this fond recollection of Mojo silliness. Joseph and Monica wince a bit.

Jon points out that Joseph was very supportive during the pot detour when Monica kept dropping the pots and crying. Peggy asks Joseph if he was ever bothered by the waterworks during the race. He says yes! Of course he was. It got on his nerves. So then, her crying did have a negative impact on the team at more than just the yield. Joseph goes on to say that you just have to support your teammate on the race. Monica says – and I quote – “I wouldn’t say I was a crier.” Ahem. She then says that she cried so much on the race because of the lack of food and sleep and the pressure of racing. All true things. It just made her cry. Jon says that you’re an emotional wreck toward the end of the race.

Peggy uses the food reference to take us to a clip of the team that got more food than they wanted last week – BJ & Tyler. We see the hippies begging for money and struggling to get a flight. Then we see them crunching and munching on enormous bowls of bugs. Yum. BJ exclaims, “This is like a Turkish prison!” before they finish their task and win the fast forward, getting to the pit stop first.

At the end of the clip the camera goes to Mojo, who have priceless expressions of disgust on their faces as they watch their enemies, the hippies, go on to the final three. Meanwhile, Peggy is praising the hippies for their fortitude, saying they should get the mil just for doing that task! Mojo nod vaguely and Monica has a sickly smile on her face. Hysterical!

Peggy asks Mojo again if they could have done the fast forward task. She says it turned her stomach just to watch. Joseph says he thinks they would have forced their way through it. He probably would. Monica weakly says she would have tried. She probably would... have tried weakly, and then cried and quit. She says she’s not really that finnicky, but she would have tried. Jon says when you’re at the fast forward, you have to do it. You were allowed to throw up, so it was cool. Monica agrees about the throwing up. Jon is giggling hysterically.

Jeremy from Chicago now calls in and congratulates Mojo for coming so close to the finals. Jeremy wants to know about the exit comments Monica made last week. He says Monica made a comment about Joseph being her rock, etc. He asks, if they had made it all the way to the end, does Monica think Joseph would have proposed? He also wants to know what their worst roadblock and detour were. Monica says that she thinks if Joseph really wanted to propose, he would have done so anyway. They both know marriage is hard and they have certain aspirations they want to accomplish before marriage. Peggy points out that they’re only in their early 20s and that they have time. Jon agrees. So do I!