(Spoiler Alert: Please do not read on if you haven’t watched Thursday’s “Amazing Race” Season 29 finale)
Brooke Cambi, a 36-year-old prosecutor from New York, and Scott Flanary, a 24-year-old Kellan Lutz lookalike from Charlotte, North Carolina, won “The Amazing Race” Season 29 in Thursday’s finale of the CBS hit.
Their win is notable because Cambi’s hysterical reaction to all adversity, emotional outbursts, and perpetual meltdowns jeopardized the team’s standing multiple times during the competitive trek around the world.
Flanary came off as a sympathetic character grooming a tough customer. On his own, Flanary faced his fear of heights on multiple occasions included window washing a skyscraper in Brazil and bungee jumping through a 240 foot-gorge in Greece.
TheWrap had predicted Cambi to be an all-star before the season began.
The three remaining teams had raced from Seoul, South Korea to Chicago to find the eliminated teams and host Phil Keoghan at the finish line on the shores of Lake Michigan.
After a three week, 36,000 mile trip around the world, their final tasks centered around Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs.
This season filmed during June and July 2016, before the lovable losers shocked the world and won the World Series in a dramatic Game 7, extra innings, rain-delayed finish to break their 108-year championship drought. Producers inserted some post-production dialogue from Keoghan to include the championship and amplify the mystique of the iconic location.
This 29th season of the 15-time Emmy winning show also included stops in Panama, Brazil, Zanzibar, Norway, Italy, and Vietnam.
For the first time, 22 strangers paired up into two-person teams in a schoolyard pick on the starting line — and the new format worked.
Executive Producers Bertram van Musnter, Elise Doganieri and Casting Director Lynne Spillman found a full cast of lead characters, no “extras.”
Unlike previous seasons where the two-person teams often suffered from one clunker team member — camouflaged in the edit under proverbial team nicknames like “the frat boys” or “the dancers” — each of the 22 racers on this season was identifiable, memorable and got a full story arc.
“The Amazing Race” has been renewed for a 3oth season to air sometime during the 2017-18 TV season. CBS would be smart to repeat the “strangers” format, but with a pool of returning all-star individuals forming new two person teams at the starting line — perhaps with some extras not getting picked and ending up left behind.
While we can suggest and critique, the format and timing for production has not yet been determined.
Co-Creator Doganieri assured TheWrap that van Munster “is already in the office with a map on the wall. He’s starting to point at countries.”