A credit to whiny bitchy people everywhere - Last night's final installment of The Amazing Race 3 was enthralling -- like watching a trainwreck. Never have so many Americans witnessed the intimate details of a nervous breakdown, and I know countless psychiatrists were out there thinking "I know some very effective drugs that could help this poor girl." Yet in the end, Flo perservered. No, wait, that's not right. St. Zachary dragged her lazy, complaining butt to the finish line by showing a preternatural ability not to blow his cool and get medieval on her oh-so-deserving ass. No wonder the producers' editing has been showing us Evil Flo for the last three weeks. With everyone on the planet rooting against her, you knew they'd all be tuning in to see if somehow, some way, Terry & Ian or Ken & Gerard could stop her. But alas, it was not to be. As Jamie put it, "how reassuring to see that bad people sometimes do finish first."

I started out loving the premise of this series (the first time I'd seen TAR), but I have to say I'm pretty disgusted by the ending. I realize it's silly to complain about "reality TV" not being real, but there was more underhandedness going on here than mere editing. The game turned out to be far more about luck than I ever would have expected, and, above a certain minimal requirement, there was no need for any true travel savvy or geographical mastery. Moreover, it was profoundly disappointing to see the hand of the producers reaching in repeatedly to "even the playing field," thereby nullifying all the advantage the better teams had built up. In the end it came down to who could catch a cab in Seattle the fastest. And for that, you win a million dollars? The utter unsportsmanship shown by Flo in the last few episodes, her inability to contribute to her own team's victory, and the way in which Zach singlehandedly brought her across the finish line first, made a complete mockery of the premise that the best "team" won.