In this final episode, teams made their way from Guam to Hawaii. The last three teams left the final Pit Stop with only one hour and forty minutes separating the first place team (the Beauty Queens) and the third place team (Team Schmirna).

All three teams were supposed to be on the same connecting flight to Honolulu, but Charla & Mirna hustled to get on another connecting flight that was scheduled to land 40 minutes ahead of the other teams. It was a pretty ballsy move, considering that had they failed to board that flight, they would have almost certainly missed the second flight as well since it was at a different terminal.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter because Schmirna couldn’t maintain their lead once they got to Shipwreck Beach on the island of Lanai. Eric & Danielle took the lead there because Eric was able to use his muscle against the surf to paddle the kayak to a buoy in front of the shipwreck. The Beauty Queens and Charla & Mirna had a real hard time performing this task.

All teams were on the same flight to Oakland heading to San Francisco. It was interesting that asked for flights to Oakland instead of the San Francisco Airport. The Amazing Race producers must have told teams they had to fly to Oakland explicitly for some reason, because otherwise teams would have flown into SFO.

After leaving Hawaii teams made their way to San Francisco and needed to find the Old Mint. A friend of mine told me he thought he saw Amazing Race markers in front of the Mint one day and I didn’t think anything of it. It was cool to think that the teams were so close to our place, since the Old Mint is only two blocks away. Awesome!

Alas, Danielle’s ability to guess Eric’s responses in the final task leading to the finish line is what won the race for Eric & Danielle. Eric gets the distinction of being the only person to reach the final three twice. Not too shabby. The Beauty Queens were in second place and the Schmirnas were third.

Sadly, since neither the Schmirnas or the Beauty Queens won there still isn’t an all-female team that has won the race. Better luck next season.

Here are the highlights from this final episode:

Episode Stats
Detour: Under or Over. In Under, teams had to swim into an underwater cave. In Over, teams needed to paddle themselves individually on a paddleboard.
Roadblock: None.
Fast Forward: None.
Intersection: None.
Yield: None.
Finish Line: San Francisco Botanical Gardens, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Smartest Play: Tie: The Schmirnas getting an earlier flight to Hawaii and Danielle figuring out the final task before the other teams.
Dumbest Play: The crappy editing by the producers leading into the finish line.
Balls of the Week: None.
Funniest Moment: Team Schmirna trying to paddle a kayak.