‘The Amazing Race 27’ finale review: Did Justin & Diana, Kelsey & Joey, or Logan & Chris win?

“The Amazing Race” is a show all about moments. There’s a heck of a lot of downtime that exists in transit, but one tiny decision can change everything.

The very beginning of Friday night’s season 27 finale contained one of these moments, and it changed the entire course of the episode. Justin & Diana made the mistake to let their cab driver go in New York, and as a result of that, they had to find a way to secure a new cab and catch up. Meanwhile, Kelsey & Joey managed to get out of the first task (basically a firefighting training exercise) so far ahead that it felt that the predictable finish of them winning the season would become a reality.

Congratulations to the Green Team for at least keeping it interesting. While they fell behind by a good stretch of time, they blew through some of the middle tasks in the Hamptons before getting to the end: Putting together chairs and then arranging them in the right order. This was a physical / mental hybrid task, and we actually liked the structure of these since they had at least some element of skill to them. The problem as just this one decision from earlier in the episode cost them the Race.

For the record, we don’t think there was anything Logan & Chris could’ve done to steal the reporters’ taxi earlier in the episode, and they had a very tiny chance of winning based on how they bombed the memory task. The one thing that this moment would’ve changed is that it would’ve forced Kelsey & Joey to find a new cab, and therefore they would have probably lost the Race. See? Decisions can even change the game in unexpected ways.

We feel like Kelsey & Joey are very good winners; they are likable, but at the same time we wish the show hadn’t made this as obvious all season. Neither the Green Team nor the Paparazzi had a winners’ edit most of the season, and by and large, we think the show likes to have a champ you can get behind.

Hey, at least the Green Team probably gets an invitation to an all-star season. Finale Grade: B.

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