Let's get into it. As noted, teams leave Saint John and has to fly via non-sponsor airline, Air Canada. Those guys flew a lot of legs this year, not sure why they didn't stay as sponsor. Oh well, reasons must. And in Montreal, they have to find Cirque de Soleil HQ (a bit bigger and fancier than Gord and Wayne HQ but I like our coziness). At the Cirque, they have to do three tasks. Use a bungee type apparatus to bounce to a trapeze, balance and roll on a giant ball across a distance, the climb a Chinese pole where they can find the clue. Not that easy. I'm thinking Gord would bounce (he's got more weight and height on me) and I would do the balance and climb.
Teams dash out the airport, grabbing taxis with Joel and Ashley left behind. But not by much. There's not much difference in their arrival time at the Cirque. Emmett gives his cabbie $50 to wait for them. Once inside, all have to dress up in costume. And while everyone looks pretty decent, Joel is by far the most... I don't know the word to use without being mean...interesting. Yeah, let's go with that. Methinks he's got a new style of regalia for the next pow-wow. I don't know Joel, think about it.
Kristen's bouncing but having trouble reaching for the trapeze. Emmett's onboard and boom, he grabs it and moves on. Jillian decides to take the ball roll and unlike the last roadblock of the previous leg, they really read the clue this time. Nothing says she has to stand so she tries to roll it while on her hands and knees on the ball. Doesn't work. She falls. More than once.
Meanwhile Joel, in his new style of mechanic coveralls, bounces and grabs the trapeze bar. Kristen is still struggling. So much so that Steph takes over. Also taking over the balance task from Jillian is Emmett, who has experience with hay bale rolling. Who know that was a thing? But an interesting thing that would make a great task for Season 5 of Amazing Race Canada. So if you're reading this anyone, think about it. Heck, maybe I'll just mention it on twitter like I did with the ladder racing idea. But Emmett's experience on the bales works and he gets it done. Ashley says her dance experience will help her. It does but she falls just as she's about to reach the end. Steph has grabbed the trapeze bar.
Because one team member can't do all the tasks, Jillian has to climb the Chinese poll to get her clue. And rushes up there like a pro, grabbing the clue and sliding down. Ashley is done the ball rolling and Joel is keen to climb. Team Big Brother are excited to be out in first with a clue to head to the old Bank of Montreal building. All they have to do is get to their cabbie who is supposed to wait after being paid $50. But he, the cab and their $50 are long gone. So they have to call a cab. Or try to catch one. And Ashley and Joel are done, quickly followed by Steph and Kristen. A cab does pull up and two teams run for it. But it's for Ashley so there is no cabotage today. The Softballers also flag down a cab and are gone, leaving Team Big Brother stranded at the Cirque in last place, even though they finish the task first.
At the bank, teams have to decipher a bunch of gibberish into an old tyme BMO message using an old tyme code book used by the bank back in the old tyme days. I didn't know banks did that kind of stuff back then. That's a neat bit of history. Once they read the proper message to the teller, he'll give them a key which they'll take to the vault to open a safety deposit box to get their next clue. Obvious sponsor task but like the Hotels.com one, not a pushover. This one will take time and patience. Joel and Ashley are the first to arrive and get on the decoding. Steph and Kristen show up with Jillian and Emmett coming in much later due to the cab situation.
Softballers think they have it; nope they don't. Joel and Ashley think they have it; yes they do. Here's your key, down to the vault get your next clue. Over to the old Expo 67 site for a Roadblock. Can't recall the clue but Joel takes it. Ashley's really happy when she realizes that he'll have to rappel upwards 120 feet in the old Buckminster Fuller designed dome, traverse across it on a line, then rappel down to the ground, grabbing the clue on the way down. They're off, getting there with no problems. Joel gets suited up and started climbing. Tough stuff, hard work, I bet.
Steph and Kristen realize what they did wrong and get the message right. They head to island arriving just as Joel is reaching the top. Steph takes this task, keen to catch up. And she's fast. Joel is working as hard as he can to stay ahead but Steph has youth on her side. She's also a high end athlete so there's that working for her, too. And the injured hand doesn't come in play. Joel grabs the clue first and they are off to St Viatear Bagel. It will be another roadblock where racers will have to load over 2 dozen bagels on three sticks in the proper order and deliver these bagels to a shop in the general vicinity. But they'll have to do this three times in a row, coming back to the bagel shop to get the next order.
Steph finishes rappelling and the Softballers are leaving the dome just as Jillian and Emmett are pulling up. Yep, it seems to happen in every TAR Canada final leg. One team always falls behind, too far to catch up, as the remaining two teams race to the finish. Will Big Brother be that team this year? Let's see.
At the bagel shop, Ashley has to do the roadblock and start piling bagels on the poles for the first delivery. She gets about halfway through when she realizes that she's piled them in the wrong order. So she has to remove all of them and start again. Now Kristen has come in to do her roadblock. Ashley is the first out the door, heading to Chez Vito and gets direction from helpful locals. Kristen is right behind. But Ashley fails to realize that there are four corners in each intersection. And even though she's on the right one, she can't find Chez Vito. She moves away and starts looking around. That allows Kristen to catch, up, find Chez Vito and move ahead. While Kristen is dropping off her bagels, Ashley asks a nice Montreal resident if he knows where Chez Vito is. The camera pulls out and boom, she's right in front of it. That was some excellent camera work there, especially since it was probably on the fly. Excellent work.
So Ashley drops her bagels off just after Kristen. Back to the dome Emmett is flying to get the other roadblock done. Although Kristen made the first delivery, it seems like Ashley is much faster loading the orders on the sticks. she's out first for the second delivery, this one a bit farther away. But Ashley's not an athlete like Kristen, who we can see coming right behind her on the street. Another great bit camera work. Kristen again delivers first and Ashley is started to feel the pain of this roadblock.
Big Brother finally makes it to the bagel shop and Jillian must do the task. So she's in loading bagels fast. And she's out the door, looking for Chez Vito. I think she gets directions but keeps repeating the name so she can remember. But then seems to forget her directions and asks a nice lady for help. But she can't remember the name. She had it just a second ago but it's gone. Jillian says Chez V something and the lady says "I just got a bagel from there." And gives her directions. Jillian is so pleased cause she would hate to screw up this task. But soon she realizes that she's heading back to where she started cause that's where the lady got her bagel. Understandable Jillian's upset, freaks outs only slightly. Emmett's cool,don't worry.
So Jillian loads up on another order, and picks the store Jeans, Jeans, Jeans cause she can remember that.
But the other two teams have already delivered to Jeans, Jeans, Jeans, and are heading to the last place. Kristan finishes the task ahead of Ashley and it's off to the Moment Factory, a multimedia place. Looks really cool as well. And here is the last task of the season, the final memory task. All the locales they visited are on the cool multimedia board along with a bunch of sayings, titles, words that were used in various task in these locales. And some red herrings just to mess them up. And it looks like it's now just a race between the Softballers and Team Enoch as they both arrive not far apart from each other at the Moment Factory.
That scenario becomes more entrenched when Jillian shows up at Jeans, Jeans, Jeans, and her order is wrong. Yep, she loaded the bagels by reading the top of the list, not realizing that those were supposed to be the ones on the top of the poles, not the first ones you put on the pole. Again, she's understandably upset. But she has a plan! A cunning plan! Instead of returning to the shop to fix it, she'll do right there. On the street. Brilliant. So she starts well, pulling a bunch of bagels of one pole. Then a few off the other. Then one bagel falls on the ground. And man, you could not write a more perfect piece of comedic timing that follows. There's a beat as she stares at the fallen bagel. Then another beat. And you know she's dying inside because of that lone fallen bagel. She's blown the task and their chance to win the race. All gone cause of that damn bagel on the ground. Beat. And then fuckitall, toss a bunch of bagels on the ground, along with a few more. Head back to the beginning. As I said, that was just a perfect bit of TV right there. Every finale, the producers always seem to find just one scene, a little bit of stuff, that just makes you go, wow. Awesome. Last year was the handing of the beer jug to Jon in Whistler. This year was Jillian and the Fallen Bagel. Classic.
And now she's very upset, hot, tired and crying because she believes she's let Emmett down. Understandable. But Emmett, man. He's the Fonz out there. So cool. "Ehh. Don't worry about it." And that's one bit I like about Emmett. Through all of Jillian's histrionics, he's been cool. He doesn't freak out. Maybe a bit too cool at times, maybe a bit more emotion and use of his verbal skills, cause he does have them, but just not enough. Or maybe they didn't edit enough of them in. but man, that dude has patience. And yeah, they look to be done. And they believe they are done.
Back at the Moment Factory, both teams are close. But not close enough. It's tough trying to remember. They may have taken notes but like many of these tasks, notes don't seem to be allowed. So there's a lot of second guessing, removing correct things, getting names wrong. The first two teams are still there when Jillian and Emmett show up. And they can hear the other teams and believe they still have a chance cause they were paying attention. And in their first try, the only have one incorrect answer. But which one? Steph and Kristin are in the same boat; only one wrong. So they make a change and boom, they are done. Finished. Head to the Finish Line at the top of Mont Royal. And it looks like Jillian and Emmett are done, too. Not sure how far behind. But you never know. Unfortunately, Joel and Ashley are struggling and maybe they'll be the third left behind. Man, the lead went back and forth on this leg so many times. And so quickly.
And though it looks like Steph and Kristen have fallen behind because their cab took to the bottom of Mont Royal rather than the top (a nice little red herring at the end), they land on the big mat first, winning Season 4 of Amazing Race Canada. And not just being the first female team to win TAR Canada, they are the first women to be part of a TAR Canada winning team. The previous three winners were all-male teams. Jillian and Emmett come in second with Joel and Ashley finishing third.
I'm pleased with the result, although I was pulling for my fellow Cree Joel and Ashley. But Steph and Kristen were one of the toughest teams out there and played a solid race. They had a great story throughout the race, with the lying of the Express Pass, the U-Turning and the sliced finger. And they had some touching and funny moments. Overall, a really good team to watch. As for the season, it was a pretty solid one as well. There were few slow moments, but the cast was really solid this year, no real weak personalities that much. And even though there were some teams that seemed tougher, no one team dominated the entire race. There were also a number of surprises on who went out earlier, some dark horses, drama with Express Passes, U-Turns, lies, injuries and puns. Let's not forget Lowell who brought TAR punning to new level. And Jon is continuing to up his game, getting more comfortable in his role, improvising as well.
And though Gord and I will be interviewing the winners and posting that, and doing our final video blog, I'd like to first thank CTV/Bellmedia for once again treating us so special and giving us access to the teams and casting producer Mike Bickerton for interviews. As well as teams for being good sports and playing along. As well as the producers, and all our fans for tuning in. Before this final episode even aired, Gord and Wayne HQ notched over 25,000 page views of our blog. Which is pretty amazing for a bunch of beer drinking dudes from Edmonton. So thank you all for paying attention. If there is a Season 5, and I'm about 80-90 percent sure there will be, we probably be back here again. Or maybe we'll be on the race. You never know what happens. Thanks for the great season.