Preview of "Second Place Isn't Good Enough"

It's here.
Already?
Yeppers. The finale of The Amazing Race Canada's fourth season is upon us.

There are SPOILERS ahead. Do I really have to warn you?

So, if you've been watching the entire season, you could pretty much guess we would be left with Jillian & Emmett, Steph & Kristen and Joel & Ashley as our F3 in the end game. You certainly would not have predicted this outcome pre-season. I know that some of you would have had Anthony and Brandon, Stephane and Antoine or Frankie and Amy in that mix somewhere.

But no. That's not the way it played out. And except for that little blip with the Stephane & Antoine elimination order, I have been right all season. I've gotten you down to the Final 3. Spoilers have been good this season. Very good. In fact, this season was the easiest yet.

As for the finale...
Here are the original spoilers from live sightings:

• The finale was filmed Tuesday, May 24, 2016. (production delayed filming for the Victoria Day holiday Monday) Teams were seen departing from the Saint John, New Brunswick Hilton early that morning. Teams flew into Montreal via Halifax and Toronto.
• Helicopters were used to film establishing shots of Montreal, and I think it's safe to say they also followed teams in the customary race to the finish line.
• Crews were spotted taking down the rigging for the task at the Biosphere - the dome from the Expo '67 site.
• One team was spotted (somewhere) in Little Italy, trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab. When the witness told them to call an Uber, the girl yelled back, "We can't!"
• Emmett and Jillian were spotted outside of St-Viateur Bagel Shop, which is very close to the above sighting.
• Teams were spotted in the Old Port.
• Mont Royal was closed to the public, specifically the Belvedere Lookout and Chalet Kondiaronk. Some people, hoping to go up to the popular lookout were told there was a mayonnaise commercial being filmed.

In French or English, this sign fooled no one.

All of these sightings made me feel great because I predicted not only Montreal as the final leg, but Mont Royal as the finish line. Now, let's look at the info from the preview and sneak peek:

• The Biosphere task is a high-wire Roadblock, and probably the first stop. There is one just like this in every season finale. [S1 was the L Tower, Toronto; S2 was the Museum of Natural History, Ottawa; S3 was B.C. Place, Vancouver] In fact, this one looks very similar to the S2 task. Emmett, Steph and Joel do this one. (edited)
• St-Viateur Bagel task is also a Roadblock. It appears teams must put on chefs' uniforms and deliver spikes of bagels. It also looks like the team member who didn't do the Biosphere Roadblock will have to do this, so it will be Jillian, Kristen and Ashley. (edited)
• There is a screencap of Steph and Kristen running into the Cirque du Soleil headquarters, although the actual task may be next door at Ecole Nationale de Cirque. There are three individual maneuvers, with each  team member required to do at least one of the tasks. (In other words, no one teammate can do all 3)
• The Bank of Montreal in Old Montreal (which is the original bank & Museum) is shown in the preview, and teams are seen searching for information in a reference book. Perhaps figure out distances or days traveled. There are also shots of the final memory challenge which appears to be some sort of computerized/digital puzzle. The preview has a quick shot of a screen with Canada, Vietnam and Cuba, so they must have to match events, objects or locales to each leg - with the correct solution giving them the final clue directing them to the finish line. For one split second, we see what could be the Havana Pitstop greeter...but that's just my guess. I only suspect these two things (the book & the digital map) are part of the same task, and I will update this if I find out otherwise. 
• Shots of Emmett and Jillian running up Mont Royal, presumably towards the finish line.

What day were we in Prince Rupert???

Sounds like a great finale. Right? Oh, sure. So, see you then!

Oh. Wait.
You're asking WHO WINS?

Okay then. Let's look at our options.

First of all, let's look at the stats of each of the F3.

Impressive, right?
Okay, now throw it out. No, really. I mean it. It's totally meaningless. Any one of these teams could win. Did we learn nothing from Mickey and Pete?

Joel and Ashley
After seeing the edits of the three teams at the Leg 10 Pitstop, I would have sworn come hell or high water that Joel and Ashley would be the winners. They are also incredible when it comes to attention to detail, a necessity in the final memory challenge. Then came the post-episode 10 Amy vs Ashley shitstorm on Twitter - the fallout from Ashley going to the dark side and deceiving poor innocent Frankie and Amy.(***see my thoughts on that below.)

But wait, there's more. Apparently, Amy couldn't let it go. She then tweeted, "@AshCallingbull you're a fake bitch who I thought was my friend. Good luck in the finale." Don't you love Twitter feuds? I do. But I love, love, love it when you don't even have to read between the lines. Like this one. It tells me one thing, and that is...Joel and Ashley don't win. Amy just couldn't hold the sarcasm back, wishing Ashley good luck for an outcome Amy already knows. She deleted it after the damage was done - an action that only adds to the theory. Unless of course we have a secret fake-out here. And if that is the case, I say well-played. Well played, indeed.

Jillian and Emmett
Oh sure, you could go with the speculation that points out the fact that Emmett recently started a new business, including construction of a building. Takes money, they say. Like the kind one would get from being a co-winner of TARC. But Emmett is not poor. He's money-smart, successful, and makes local and national TV appearances. Next theory, please. Well, you could argue that production has - out of necessity, repeatedly tried to put a good spin on all the Jemmett shortcomings. You know what I'm talking about. All the bickering, the whining, the gameplay, etc, etc. For me, Jillian and Emmett's edit at the Leg 10 Pitstop was "winner-friendly." A little too winner-friendly, and a definite attempt to misdirect. Jon seemed to go on about what Jillian and Emmett needed to do to win. Here's another thought. There are two shots in the preview that are of interest. The first is the podium at the finish line, with teams gathered and cheering on the winners. The second is of Jillian and Emmett running up the road to the top of Mont Royal. Here's where we get picky. Look at the shadows. Yes, that's right, the shadows. (trust me, this is not the first time fans have done this) In my opinion, the shadows cast by Jillian and Emmett are a bit longer than those of the teams at the finish line. So, I got to say, it will be close but Jillian and Emmett do not win. Unless of course, it's all been a secret double-fake out trick. Or maybe, just maybe, those podium shots were of Jon and the teams rehearsing or setting up the winner's run. And if that's the case, I say, fool me twice, shame on me.

Steph and Kristen
You could say production has done the same thing with Steph and Kristen as they did with Jillian and Emmett, putting a good spin on their shortcomings too. And you'd be right. Like the whole thing about the Express Pass lies and the no U-Turn deal with Ashley. Jon's Pitstop winner talk with the girls wasn't quite as blatant as the one he had with Jemmett. Then there was all that talk and promotion about Steph and Kristen being the first all-female team to win. The thing is, Steph and Kristen have proven to be the best team this season, and they seem to keep their shit together when Emmett and Jillian panic and fall apart. Their only bad placement was when they went for the Express Pass in Calgary. So yeah, I would have to give the advantage to them. Yes, today I shall say Steph and Kristen win season 4. I think Steph and Kristen will succeed where my beloved S2 Hockey Girls failed.

That's today. Ask me again before the finale next Tuesday, and I may have a different opinion.

*** Oh, and one more thing. My thoughts on "The Incident" because like Amy, I can't let it go. Besides, I was away when it all went down. Why do I always miss the good bits?

What happened? Amy, helped by Frankie, learned the latin names of the plants. When the judge told Amy she used the wrong language, Frankie read the clue again. "Your answer must include the entire English name of each plant." BUT THEN FRANKIE SECOND GUESSED THE CLUE, saying "I don't know if you have to do both or just the English." Frankie, Frankie, Frankie! The judge specifically told Amy she was using the wrong language!

Tired and with her nerves obviously frazzled, Frankie asked Ashley if they had to give both names for each plant. Ashley told her they did, then added Steph and Kristen did as well.

Frankie and Amy asked for help and took advice from a F4 competitor. It's the penultimate leg, for Christ sakes! We aren't talking leg 5 in Prince Rupert when Amy asked for help too. (For the record, I always cringe when a team asks for help, even in the early legs. It just seems so ugly and awkward.) Do I really have to explain how bad asking for help or taking advice is at this stage of the game? Sure, it was an act of desperation, it was hard to watch and I felt sorry for them, but it was still a bad idea.

Ashley did it. She went to the dark side. Ashley intentionally deceived Frankie and Amy to insure her and Joel's survival. Some have rightfully argued that Jillian and Emmett would have made a better target. They are a far stronger team than Frankie and Amy. But, Jillian and Emmett - who were also struggling with the specifics of the clue, never asked for help. So trying to deceive Jillian and Emmett was never an option. What if Ashley had actually helped Frankie and Amy instead? You could argue such a move would have resulted in a Jillian and Emmett elimination. Now that would have been the smart move, albeit very risky, because Joel was still attempting the task.

Was Ashley's move a great idea? Meh, probably not. Frankie & Amy and Jillian & Emmett were in bad shape anyway at that point. Would I have done the same thing?

HELL YES, YOU BET I WOULD! 

Although I might have wimped out and gone with a much more innocent sounding, "I don't know" or "we don't understand the clue either." And you have to know that Ashley didn't arrive at the roadblock thinking, "Today, I am going to screw someone over real bad." The opportunity was handed to her and she took advantage of it. To me, that's the end of the story. It is - as fans say time and time again, A GAME. For cash and prizes. There are no friends "in the race." Not even in the Canadian version. So when Amy pulled the "I thought you were my friend"-card, it kind of grated on my nerves. Having said that, I think we're going to see a great "After the Race" recap show, the likes of which we haven't seen since season 2 when Rex dropped the F-bomb at Pierre and Michel. Can't wait.