A Lot Of Amazing Race Fans Were Happy About Last Week’s Twist, But I Feel Differently

We're still waiting to see who takes home the prize during The Amazing Race Season 37, but it's been a doozy of a season so far. Ahead of the latest batch of episodes, host Phil Keoghan was touting some big changes -- including the already-seen “Fork in the Road” twist for the new season. Across the last few episodes we’ve seen everything from double U-turns to the aforementioned "Fork" and more, but nothing prepared me for the return of the non-elimination leg this week. Apparently fans are here for it.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same way.

Fans Were So Happy About The Return Of The Amazing Race Non-Elimination Leg

In a Reddit thread aptly titled “We are SO back” Amazing Race fans waxed poetic about the (sort of) surprise non-elimination reveal at the end of last week’s episode. In another remarkably close Season 37 finish, Han and Holden got to the mat seemingly just shortly after Carson and Jack mucked their way through the pizza challenge. Based on the rules of the last few seasons, they should have been eliminated, but in a hail Mary moment, Phil announced it was a non-elimination leg. The two siblings will compete again this week.

Whether excited for the twist to return or excited about Han and Holden themselves, fans on Reddit seemed pumped for the events that played out on TAR.

• Ha, my friend and I were watching and I actively said “oh, they got rid of non-elimination legs like three seasons ago”… so I was happy to be immediately corrected.
• When they arrived on the mat it occurred to me that Phil hadn’t said anything about the last team to arrive will be Philiminated. So glad for this team!
• I’ve been sad ever since they eliminated the non-elimination
• Yeah, loved that! Didn't expect it, but they deserved it. Jack / Carson might need to win some cooking classes. 🍕
• The scream I scrumpt tonight when Han & Holden were saved!! I really hope they make this a regular part of the show again!

Some seemed surprised by the twist and some did not, which checks out given our intrepid host did say there would be a twist during the leg and then we made it basically fully through the episode with no real hiccups or changes. But overall, people seemed super excited for the return of the non-elimination leg. Unfortunately, I do not mark myself among them.

Why I’m Less Excited About The Amazing Race’s Latest Twist

As I noted prior, TAR has been chock full of twists and turns in Season 37, some of which I feel have been more successful than others. I was actually loving the larger cast, but I feel several of the teams have been mentally upset about twists other teams had no control over, like when Ana and Jonathan had to assign weight to teams during one challenge.

It’s also worth pointing out that I have actually been a big fan of non-elimination legs throughout the history of The Amazing Race up until they got rid of them back in Season 34 (which in the scheme of things was not that long ago). I'm only annoyed about this happening because:

1. I feel like the return of non-elimination legs should have come with a bit more fanfare and ....
2. making it a surprise sort of made me feel like the show just kept the non-elimination leg in its back pocket until there was a team they really wanted to save. (I have no evidence, it just felt that way.)

Previously, it's been revealed that non-elimination legs are (allegedly) determined by production in advance as part of the roadmap of the season. So, it's more likely this was one of the Season 37 twists the producers already had in the cards. However, because of it coming literally out of left field with no notice for the fans, to me I was more annoyed than excited about Han and Holden getting a pass this week.

This has nothing to do with Han and Holden in particular, but it is worth noting they have been doing a lot more following than leading in recent weeks as the weaker teams kept getting picked off and the stronger teams prevailed. Han and Holden are smart and get through challengers very well, but they suffer from something they call "race brain" --what non-race fans might call "group think"-- and they get frazzled periodically and make mistakes, which puts them behind. We saw that this past week during the mozzarella challenge.

Meanwhile Carson and Jack have been really scrappy and enterprising and have held it together well enough to stick around, making for entertaining TV. I personally do think the best teams this season are basically the strongest left (though an argument could be made about a couple of teams that exited due to twists earlier in the season), but I guess I was ready for Han and Holden to go home last week.

Now it's a new week on the 2025 TV schedule and anybody's game.