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With just four duos left, Season 36 of The Amazing Race is anyone’s for the taking. But who’s got what it takes to leave the other teams in the dirt and snatch that big prize?
The penultimate leg kicks off with a deep dive at Sosua Beach in the Dominican Republic. The first DETOUR gives them a choice between assembling diving rigs and crafting some tasty cocktails. All four teams choose the cocktails. (Who can blame them? Though I doubt any sampling is allowed on the race. Their loss is the pirates’ gain!). After Ricky and Cesar whip through their drinks, they lead the pack heading toward Cabarete Beach. Leticia, a former bartender, also has no trouble shaking up something fierce, and hey — at least she has Rod for emotional support and neck kisses.
In the next ROADBLOCK, players must windsurf for 60 seconds to get their next clue. Leticia takes a rough spill into the water, with the sail knocking her right in the head on her way down. But she gets back on the horse surfboard and bangs it out on her very next try. Next, they’re off to Olympus Beach to find a clue in a dune buggy. Meanwhile, poor Ricky can’t maintain his balance on the board, which gives Juan a chance to gain some time and slip into second place. And poor Ricky looks exhausted. People have called the Race a lot of things in these last couple decades, but easy, it is not.
Rod and Leticia are first to learn they must kayak to the next Pit Stop at Wilson’s Bar. Leticia says she knows they can kayak, and that’s riiiiight about when we see them capsizing. Despite that, they arrive in first place and live to race another day. Unfortunately, Vinny and Amber aren’t so lucky and they’re eliminated from the race. Amber may not have won a million dollars, but she does cop a ring when Vinny surprises her with a proposal on the mat! (She said yes!!!)
The final leg takes place in Philadelphia, where teams must race to Lincoln Financial Field for their next clue. The next task: A mascot training course! After donning a large-headed Amazing Race mascot costume, they must hop, skip and jump their way through the course alongside some of Philly’s most famous mascots. Ricky nails his target with the t-shirt launcher, allowing him and Cesar to take the lead and race off to Pat’s and Geno’s — two of the city’s famous cheesesteak spots. Then, it’s off to Headhouse Square where they must recite the preamble of the Declaration of Independence by memory. Cesar worries since English is his second language, and with Rod and Leticia hot on their trail, the pressure is on!
Meanwhile, Juan and Shane are wrongly told that Pat’s is a pizza place and wind up in New Jersey. (Yes, I considered many Jersey jabs for this part of our recap, but it seems like such low-hanging fruit.) Could this be the beginning of the end of these two?
Ricky and Cesar pass their test and race off to find the Betsy Ross house, while Rod continues to botch his lines. (Too many concussions, he jokes. Or maybe the former pro-footballer is serious?)
In the last ROADBLOCK, teams get a history lesson from three historic figures, then must piece together America’s first official flag. Cesar makes quick work of the flag and after finding their next clue, they’re faced with a 3D Liberty Bell puzzle. Juan and Shane are second to arrive to Liberty Bell puzzle after passing Rod and Leticia at the flag roadblock, but there’s seemingly no stopping Ricky and Cesar, who are the first to arrive at the season’s final clue. The finish line is located at Glen Foerd Estate and whoever gets there first wins the cash.
And let’s be real: No editing trickery could convince me that Ricky and Cesar weren’t clearly taking this home… and that they did! They cross the finish line first and become the official winners of The Amazing Race Season 36! Despite crossing state lines, Juan and Shane place second, leaving Rod and Leticia in third.
So did the right team win? Grade the finale and season below, then let us know what you thought in the comments!
Happy for Ricky & Cesar, they clearly dominated the whole season. But this season was a hot mess in general.
Congrats to Ricky & Cesar. I didn’t want them to win because I tend to cheer for the underdog but I respect their game.
Wondered why the show seemed to cater to Cesar and Ricky. The show did not travel around the world but stayed in Spanish speaking countries. Then ended in Philadelphia where one of them had lived. Very very interesting. I used to like this show, but may never watch another season.
This was one of the seasons filmed during Covid which limited where they could go. It’s my understanding that restrictions were looser where they went. To be fair, there were other teams who had someone who spoke Spanish – Juan and Shane, for example – and it isn’t the first time the race has ended in a location one of the final teams was familiar with.
Bs, no one was as fluent as Ricky and Cesar, they totally catered to them, they weren’t even a strong team, they just had the language advantage and the other teams were extremely weak.
Nope, not BS. Juan was born in Columbia and was fluent in Spanish and one of the girlfriends was from Mexico and also fluent in Spanish.
It was catered to the Spanish speaking pairs.
And many of the tasks were areas in which either Cesar or Ricky was familiar with or had prior experience.
They mention it in virtually every episode.
Most of the pairs didn’t express it.
You can put up blinders, but if you go back with the episodes it’s pretty blatant that there were few tasks they struggled with and also note when those tasks were given to them in the leg.
I don’t have blinders. You make it sound like the tasks were created with them in mind, which isn’t the case. Maybe you should do some research on how the season was structured and why.
Not so. It was post COVID.
Where were the masks throughout the show, if it was COVID?
Plus, the show went to two new countries.
You had not one, but both partners who spoke Spanish.
How many tasks did we hear Ricky say he had experience in?
For two very overweight people, they didn’t seem to lose a pound with all the running they did.
Why, because they were set up to have tasks to cater to their strengths and keep them in front of the line.
As if the producers had no prior idea of any of this?
It was set up this way to give them an advantage.
You want a cast a blind eye that’s ok.
That’s fine.
Not a blind eye and it was filmed during the pandemic. Do a little research and you’ll find that this was a season that was conducted with Covid protocols, which dictated where they went and what they did. I also heard many other contestants talk about tasks they had experience in; that’s the case every single season. Stop making it all some sort of fix.
You can also tell it was during covid because they flew charter…they never went to airports.
I saw masks on many people throughout the show, and I was curious about it. Filming during COVID makes that make sense now. Depending on which period during COVID, and the general attitude in each country toward the wearing of masks, there would have been lots of people still wearing them, but also more and more over time who stopped.
Boring. We knew who was going to win before the episodes began
Yes as this was originally season 35 but season 36 had already shot the 90 minute episodes and they had also intended to go back to the 60 minute format but cbs liked the 90 minute format so they had to re-edit the episodes and add 30 minutes
This was not filmed during covid.
Yes, it was. It was filmed in 2022 and many pandemic protocols were still in place, especially with regards to travel protocols.
They decide on the destinations and tasks before they select teams, so there’s no way they catered this race to any one team. At least 3 teams had a fluent Spanish speaker. Many races have gone to cities where people have lived in or visited before, which doesn’t provide as much advantage as you’d think. The first AR ended in New York, and the team that were NYC natives came in second or third. It might be the editing that seems to give more screen time to certain teams, but the show itself would be very difficult to steer any team to be certain to win.
Ahhh, they never got lost once, never had a taxi driver who didn’t know where he was going. They passed to many test with judges favoring them for the win.
I agree.. Everything was catered to them. Picking Philadelphia as the final destination.. So fixed. I watched this race since day 1 & this was the worse..
There were a few contestants that spoke a few Spanish words…. Just the basics. Not fluent as Ricky’s partner was.
Yes there were. Juan of the military pilot team was fluent in Spanish. He was born in South America and lived there during his childhood. One of the earlier girlfriend teams had one who was from Mexico, so she was fluent as well. Way more than the ‘basics’.
Bs.is all I can say.
Agree with your comments. Felt the entire race seemed to favor the team that win. Especially they had an advantage in Spanish speaking countries. Especially seemed fixed that one had lived in Philadelphia—the final leg.
Very disappointing season compared to any other season.
Don’t worry, we all know they wouldn’t have stood a chance on a normal race 🤣
Amazing Race is and will ALWAYS be my favorite show. This season was definitely subpar due to the advantages Ricky and Caesar had. Having said that..I will gladly take a subpar season than no season at all!
Yep this was a pathetic season and tailord made. They never had a languaqge barrier and nothing really physically challening which of course would have make them fail big time.
Talk about an agenda
I don’t think it was a conspiracy but they did have an advantage over some teams with the language skills. But they were pretty adapt at quite a few tasks language had nothing to do with it. And Ricky (?) was a super fan so of course he was prepared for running the race. They were a very nice team, but this was not the best season for sure. I will look forward to next year.
Totally agree. Especially ending in Philadelphia was a HUGE advantage to them, and the show knew it. The pilots wouldn’t have gotten lost if one of them lived in Philadelphia.
Totally agree this race was predetermined which team would win. That became evident as the race progressed.
Clearly the dominant team won. I’m just glad we won’t have anymore seasons with Covid protocols. It seems to make it harder for teams to truly be able to compete when they’re all on the same flights and start in groups instead of by their time to the pit stop. I was impressed that Juan and Shane were able to get second even after their ‘detour’ to New Jersey!
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I was unclear why this season was switched with last season, when they were back to normal racing. The format this season was just frustrating.
I don’t think it was a fair race when the final team was from Philadelphia, they knew where to go throughout the city. Unfair advantage. Sorry but totally disappointed.
It’s happened before. Several times actually. And the final city is picked before the race starts so there’s no way to predict if someone may be familiar with the area or not. Also, when it’s happened before that team hasn’t always won.
Argument makes no sense.
You can pick the city before the race, but you can also pick the applicant afterwards for the advantage.
It makes perfect sense. And they didn’t ‘pick’ Ricky and Cesar afterwards. Oh, wait, I forgot, this was all rigged. smh
It was switched with last season because of CBS’s mandate of episodes being 1 hour 30 minutes due to the writers strike. They had to go back and re-edit the entire season and that’s why there’s so much more filler type stuff in each episode. Last season was filmed, and edited, with the extended time allotment, as will seasons going forward.
This was probably one of the worst seasons of TAR, but it is what it is.
I’m confused how much time did that take for them to drive? and they still made it seems weird OR Rod was there for a really long time !
Great show and great participants. Looking forward to Season 37. Congrats to all the participants and especially the winners. Well done!
Probably the worst season of Amazing Race I have ever seen. All teams seemed weak, they only stayed in 1 region of the world, which heavily favored Ricky and Cesar, such bs, they were not a stormy lying team, they just had a decided language advantage basically the entire time and the other teams were awful.
Such a crappy season, they only stayed in one part of the world which was a clear advantage for Ricky and Cesar, and then the finale is where one of them is from??? Definitely one of, if not the worst Amazing Race I have ever seen.
Too easy this year and bland. No real challenge of distant travel and foreign language. No u turn or FF. Winners deserved it but never challenged by language barrier or flight travel. I watched every season and this was much easier than past seasons.
Last season much better with travel etc, and in fact was filmed after this season. CBS decided to out that season first then this one out of order.
Plus ending always the same even with some legs with fake edited drama.
I was really surprised at how easy the final leg was. There were no cumulative/memory challenges about the race that we typically see, like country flag quizzes, arranging pit stops on a map or identifying which detour/roadblock was in a certain location. Even the memorization challenge looked like (from the editing) that you could pick up where you left off rather than start from the beginning. A Liberty Bell puzzle as the final task was not much of a challenge. The Covid travel restrictions definitely had a negative impact on how the Race was structured. Not sure Ricky and Cesar would have been as dominant in a more typical race season. I’d like to see them and Juan & Shane come back again for an All Stars season later on.
exactly, any previous seasons with decent physical challenges they would have been out. This was tailor made
I miss the FF’s and U-turns also
I don’t think it was a fair race when the final team was from Philadelphia, they knew where to go throughout the city. Unfair advantage. Sorry but totally disappointed.
How would that have known that particular team would be familiar with the city? It’s not the first time it’s happened.
The locations are chosen in advance
Then you look at the profiles of applicants.
As if, the producers don’t ask these questions like where you are from, what languages you speak in the applications for contestants?
C’mon, how naive is that.
Seriously? Oh my god.
Amazing Race was great except for the mom and son mix up. You need to fix that.
Canceling NCIS Hawaii is wrong and then you quit on a cliff hanger!!!!!!!! And I’m upset seeing all the NEW shows for the fall, spending $ on those instead of a sure thing.
FB is blowing up about the cancellation.
Final comment: CBS SUCKS!!!
Love this show. When is the next one?
I thought this season was great. Everyone did awesome. My favorites won. They worked together and didn’t fight and argue. Great job 👍👏
It didn’t seem fair the one of the contestants had lived in Philly & knew his way around the city. I think you should end in a city unfamiliar to all the contestants.
Are they supposed to wait until they have a final 3 before they pick a final city?? It doesn’t work that way.
There are ways around it though. Do they have to lock in one an ending city or can they have plans for a few different ones, its not like the plans would necessarily be wasted because they could be used for future seasons. Also why does it need to end in the US? It would be much easier to not give a team a big advantage at the end if it was a non-us city and certainly would make it easier if they didn’t lock on the final city until after casting
I guess if it’s a conspiracy so that one team can win, sure. But why would they do that? And why would it be Ricky and Cesar? That’s the thing that no one is addressing. If it really was a conspiracy, why them in particular? I don’t know what the point would be in waiting to decide on an end city until you know who the final teams are so you can either make sure no one’s ever lived there or that the team you want to win has. I don’t think you can turn around creating the tasks in just a couple of days, which is really all they have.
I get that a lot of people aren’t happy with the winners and want to come up with a reason why they won instead of another team, but it makes no sense when you think about the logistics involved.
It finishes in the US so they can bring all competitors back. Much cheaper to fly them all within the states than to another country when they return to the US when they get eliminated. And in terms of filming permits and detours etc all needs to be set up in advance. This isn’t some backyard treasure hunt.
Exactly. The producers know where the contestants are from so they could pick a city unfamiliar to any of them
Really bad season. Do better next time. They just steamrolled to the win each episode so wasn’t surprised. They were surrounded by weaker teams so it’s castings fault.
Bring back more FF and non elimination episodes. Yes people want to see non eliminations and get surprised. Think it’s time for a new twist too.
This race was rigged so disappointing
The team that won, didn’t want them to win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t know why there were no you turns this season. Without them it allowed one team to dominate the race and win it. No surprise they delayed this season and showed a later filmed season last fall. This was a real snooze fest with the winners never in doubt.
Other seasons have also not had a U-Turn but Cesar & Ricky were usually ahead so a U-Turn wouldn’t have stopped them regardless. They’re just a strong, well-rounded team that deserved to win.
One of the worst and anticlimactic seasons ever. I wondered if we had got the same results if they had U-turns and more physical challenges. The winners had it too easy. Was annoying.
One of the weakest seasons to date.
No U turns, clear advantages towards certain teams and no resets throughout the race. There wasn’t even one last memory test at the final pit stop which they always do…
I thought the whole season was dull. The top teams pretty much stayed at the top. The combination of no travel challenges, no language barriers, and rather dull roadblocks/detours + 90 minute episodes made the whole season tedious to watch. There wasn’t any particular tension between the teams and there were no obvious standout moments.
Very disappointed with season 36. No U turn and no memory challenge about places visited.
When it’s the final 3 they should not go to a city where one of them has lived that is an advantage. I’m very disappointed 😞
The entire travel schedule is determined before the race starts so not sure why so many people seem to believe Philadelphia was chosen specifically for Ricky and Cesar. It’s happened before in previous seasons. Sometimes that team wins, sometimes they don’t.
The entire season is laid out before the show even starts. How are they to even know that Ricky and Cesar would make it to the final three? I think a lot of these negative comments are homophobic in nature. They dominated most of the season, so why wouldn’t they have a good chance I’m winning? Also, they were quite a few other teams who also spoke Spanish, so why hold it against Ricky and Cesar only?
Not a fan of these two but, they played the game and won. This season was somewhat boring -no airline fighting travel, no u-turns and the non elimination is not exciting.
I wish they would go back to the initial format and make it exciting and competitive.
This season seemed like a “generic sale” version
The one complaint I had for this Season (Season 36) was that the Mother & Son Team had to wait for their TV crew to catch up with them in order to start their task. They actually had to wait until the TV crew arrived…now that’s BS. This is a race for goodness sake. I would have completed the task because by the time the TV crew arrived, the task would be in process or in completion. Waiting for their TV crew lost them the race in my opinion. I would have been LIVID! Besides that, I’m glad Ricky & Cesar won the Amazing Race. :) :) :)
I believe all the teams except the winning team and two other, had a disadvantage you start and stay in a south American country’s. The winning team speak fluent Spanish, then finish in their home city. At the end it looked like it was all set for them to win. I only seen maybe one or two road blocks that slowed them down other then that they dominated. Congratulation to them on winning.
I believe a more extreme application to apply to the race be brought in. I understand you can’t make everyone happy.
The whole thing seemed rigged for Ricky & Cesar-Spanish speaking in Spanish-speaking countries and the final leg was in Philadelphia where one of them had lived. Definite advantages. However they did play an excellent game. Just did not seem fair to all the other players
exactly, any previous seasons with decent physical challenges they would have been out. This was made for them to win