3/2 - TAR 33 Finale Show Discussion

TV TODAY
The Amazing Race 33's Ryan Ferguson and Dusty Harris Recap Their Up-and-Down Journey and Hitting Rock Bottom
MARCH 3, 2022 – 9:21 PM – 0 COMMENTS
1
Mike Bloom
By MIKE BLOOM @amikebloomtype
Ryan Ferguson (L) and Dusty Harris (R)
Ryan Ferguson (L) and Dusty Harris (R) (Sonja Flemming/CBS)
Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.

Dusty Harris would be the first to tell you he’s a man of high highs and low lows. It helps him fill in the blanks of the superhumanly calm and patient Ryan Ferguson, and vice versa. The best friends experienced similar volatility during The Amazing Race 33. The first half was marked with some extremely strong finishes, making them the team to beat. But costly errors had them facing several setbacks, most prominently in the final leg.


Ryan and Dusty came to the race looking to make up for lost time, as the best friends had missed out on a decade of memories due to Ryan’s wrongful incarceration. So it was a nice fringe benefit when they found themselves doing incredibly well. They finished first in three out of the first five legs, setting themselves up undeniably as the team to beat. But every dog has its day, and this dog does not mix well with cheese. In Corsica, Ryan and Dusty confidently took a cheese-making Detour, only for their patience to boil over when their milk wouldn’t. Their choice put them in last place for the first time in the race. But a canyoneering Roadblock had them not only catch up but even pass four other teams, giving them an epic comeback to crow about.

Unfortunately for Ryan and Dusty, it was just the beginning of their trips to the back of the pack. Partially due to the staggered group start times, the guys frustratingly maintained their third-place finish the next two legs. But the lowest was yet to come under the watchful eyes of the Oracle of Delphi. Tasked with finding a coin in a field of rocks, Dusty toiled, struggled, and nearly reached his breaking point temper-wise. But Ryan brought him back to a calm place, which promptly got amped up when they discovered they had survived the last non-elimination leg of the season. By the time the final leg hit, Ryan and Dusty were uncaged and ready to go, the first time they would start the same time as the other teams. But the pattern repeated when the very first clue stumped them. It put them back in last place, sending their chances of winning down as smoothly as an elevator.

Now out of the race, and with Ryan unable to talk with us at the moment, Dusty speaks with Parade.com about their early dominance, hitting his rock bottom moment, and what he learned about Ryan in his time on the race.

Related: The Amazing Race Season 33: Everything We Know So Far

I’ll start with where Phil left you at the finish line. Have you indeed not gone in an elevator or even wanted to hear the word “elevator” since this was filmed last fall?
I mean, there are three things that have come from the show with hatred. It’s elevators, it’s cheese, and it’s rocks. The number “1025” is burned and etched into my memory. It was something so foolish to take us out before we even got started. I mean, Ryan and I talked about this every single day. No, no elevators. I tend to take the stairs now. But it was gut-wrenching to watch that again.

After you fall behind so early on, how much hope do you have that there could be a task that allowed you to catch up? And how much did that erode over the day?
After the elevator incident, we realized we were probably way behind. We saw the two lockboxes open. All we wanted was to get into the dance and start recording and progress with everyone. And sp, in our mind, we’re like, “Okay, level playing field, we’re all going off at the same time.” And Ryan and I had won most of the legs where we had started in the front and tied with people. And so after the elevator, in the back of our minds, we both kind of realized, “Penn and Kim and Raquel and Cayla, they don’t slip up.” That’s the thing that the world needs to know. They’re absolute savages.

So I tried to stay positive. But like in Greece, we said, “Let’s just enjoy the ride. And let’s be respectful of The Amazing Race. And let’s give it everything we have.” And there’s a small part of you that’s like, “Something can happen.” It’s Amazing Race, right? There’s always a chance. But to be completely frank, we kind of knew the boat had sailed. No pun intended.

You had come into that final leg having finished third or lower every leg since Leg 6. Did that take the wind out of your sails at all? Or just give you more motivation to push to the front of the pack?
It was rough finishing third for three or four legs. That whole time, we’re not sleeping; we’re thinking, “Raquel and Cayla and Penn and Kim are going to U-Turn us at some point. They don’t want us to get into the front.” So behind the scenes, there was stress and the pressure cooker of just being terrified of what one of these two teams was going to do to us. We all love each other. I think every cast can say that. But it is a war. And so there’s this just gut feeling of dread that something’s happening.

It was just these foolish little mistakes. We would do all the things well, and anything we always felt like if we could get better at it, we tended to get better at it and get it done. One bad decision can ruin the whole thing. And when we started level on the top of the building in L.A., we felt very good about our chances of winning this. And it just wasn’t our day. Again, it was something that so foolish took us out of our race. But you see, the rest of the leg, we kill it. But you just can’t make one mistake, especially when you’re competing against Penn and Kim and Raquel and Cayla. They are too good.

Let’s go back to your early success at the beginning of the race. Did your dominance surprise you in those first few legs?
I mean, it was great. At the same time, though, our conversation every single night with having success early in the race was, “Man, there’s a target on our back now.” At that point, we finished second, first, second, first, and first. I’m like, “Ryan, have a chance to maybe be the best Amazing Race team ever. At that point, in my mind, I’m like, “Let’s not just win it. Let’s go down in lore.” And so I think that kind of got to us a little bit with how we finished personally. But I think it just put a target on our back. I mean, you hear Penn and Kim and Raquel and Cayla say they were tired of us winning. They just weren’t going to cough up that first group the rest of the race. And I think they did everything in their power to make sure we didn’t get in front. So it is what it is. I mean, it’s just such a hard pill to swallow. Because I feel like we’re a great team as well. I mean, I know third places don’t show it. But in my gut feeling, we should have won.

To that point, I know there were clips where Raquel and Cayla were talking about you gloating about your track record. Is that true?
I mean, I’m just the guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve. So in my mind, I’m like, “We’re starting level with you again, guys. How does that feel? You’ve had this opportunity to save 15 minutes in front of us.” I think the 15-minute thing, so many people don’t give this credit. When you’re competing against people that are so good, 15 minutes is such an eternity. I mean, I think we may have gotten a little too big for our britches at the beginning. A little humble pie is always good. But I just want everyone to know that that’s just the human I am. If it’s going right, it’s going to be great. If it’s going bad, it’s going to be bad. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. It’s kind of who I am.

Let’s talk about the first major roadblock you hit on the race (though it was a Detour): The cheese-making in France. How did it feel to crumble that way and come back so fiercely?
I think I said it on the mat. It was the best that we ran. Maybe not the best result. But we were dead to rights standing there going over from the cheese-making to the donkeys. And so in the car, you didn’t hear this, but I’m begging for something physical. And lo and behold, we get two opportunities. And so, I think it just showed our resiliency as a team. I really think it just showed our friendship as well. That was the most important thing to me on this race. We wanted to win so bad. But really, I wanted to just get to the end and have the full experience with my best friend. I mean, this is just such an opportunity to make up for lost time. And I know everyone talks about these kinds of things. But to get to do it on this platform, especially with Ryan and everything he had been through. It meant the world to me to do that.

Getting into your dark place, let’s go to the rocks. You’ve talked a lot about what this moment meant to you. But can you elaborate now that you’ve watched it back?
Man, the rocks. I was dreading this episode. Because I just didn’t know what was going to be aired. I just have no idea what it’s going to look like. But it was truly beautiful. And so I just got to take my hat off to CBS and Amazing Race. It was awful. It was the worst experience ever. In the back of my mind, I’m like, “What the hell am I doing here? I’m blowing this for Ryan.” Our biggest fear was: 1. Losing first, and 2. Being the one to take us out of the race. And so it’s just all these emotions, thinking about home and my son, thinking that I’m letting my best friend down who gave me this opportunity to race with him. I mean, it crushed me. It was inhumane. I remember looking at everyone around me, I’m like, “This is the most inhumane thing I’ve ever been through.”

And so it all boiled over. And I was very worried about what was about to happen. And so for Ryan to have the due diligence and know-all to bring me up there, which I don’t even know if you’re really supposed to do but at this point. I was like, “I’m gonna go stay with my buddy and take in the scenes.” So it was a feeling of dread, a feeling that I let my best friend down. We’ve been through so much to get to this point. And with that task, it’s luck. There’s no skill to this, like zero skill whatsoever. And I’m about to be eliminated for something that really was just luck. So I was crushed. And I just a lot of things started coming into my mind. Thinking about my father, my son, my family, what am I doing here? I just want to go home; maybe it’s time to go home.

But then Ryan just had to talk to me. And he was like, “Buckle your shoes up, buddy. Your son is going to watch this. Make him proud.” And I’m just so blessed that he had that conversation. I’m literally about to cry again. You know, I know I’m a wild guy. But I allowed therapy to happen. I think it was 38 years of built-up stuff that came out. And it’s just crazy that it happened on a platform like The Amazing Race. But it changed my life. I never want to do it again. But it is something that changed my life.

Talk to me more about your dynamic with Ryan. First, how did you two end up on The Amazing Race together?
So The Amazing Race had approached Ryan about being a contestant. And actually, his dad was going to do it with him at first. But he had some health issues. I think he had hip surgery prior to starting the race back in 2020. And so, lo and behold, I get the lucky phone call. He calls me early in the morning, and Ryan’s a guy who likes to sleep in. So I’m at first like, “What’s going on?” And he’s basically like, “Can you take a month of work off?” And I’m thinking, “What are you getting me into?” It’s always something with this guy.

He presented this opportunity. And I was immediately in 100%. It was actually funny. Ryan’s like, “What about work?” And I’m like, “I’ll quit work right now. If this is real, I’m going to do this with Ryan.” I was just so blessed to have the opportunity to do it with him. It would have been amazing to see Bill do it with Ryan as well. And I would have loved to watch that. But I’m so blessed that I got the opportunity. Bill would have been a formidable foe to these people, man. He’s well-traveled. It would have been cool to see that as well. Maybe down the road.

So did you see your best friend in a new light racing around the world together?
Honestly, I was blown away by Ryan prior to the race. I mean, everything he’s been through, just to have the temperaments, talents, convictions that he has for going through hell and back. But spending this time with him, you really get to know one another. There’s a lot of downtime. He’s the most incredible human being I’ve ever met. And I’ve said this multiple times. I love my wife. Ashley, I love you. But there’s no one else in the world that I could do this race with. Because I run like a psychopath. I mean, it’s the highest highs and the lowest of lows. My wife is very similar to me, so it would be great TV.

But Ryan is just the most impressive guy I’ve met. He’s gone through everything he has and stays calm and full of life. I just respect him. I love him, man. The opportunity he gave me changed my life, but the main part of it was just spending time with him. He’s just the most even-keel cool cucumber you’re ever going to meet. And he gives a damn about everyone! Ryan’s goal now is to bring a voice to these people that are wrongfully convicted. I just have so much respect for him not to be diabolical, to not be mad at the systems. I mean, he is mad at some systems. But he’s doing what’s right for everyone and giving a voice to these people. I’m just blown away by his resiliency and who he is as a person. He’s amazing.

The Amazing Race 33 Winners Kim and Penn Holderness Talk Mental Health Representation and Their Record-Breaking Run
MARCH 3, 2022 – 2:00 PM – 0 COMMENTS
5
Mike Bloom
By MIKE BLOOM @amikebloomtype
Kim Holderness (L) and Penn Holderness (R)
Kim Holderness (L) and Penn Holderness (R) (Sonja Flemming/CBS)
Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.

“I’m doing the best I can.” It’s been the motto of married couple and internet personalities Kim and Penn Holderness for years, an all-encompassing phrase for the stresses of parenthood, anxiety, and ADHD. But when it came to The Amazing Race, the best they could do was pretty darn good. Their understanding of each other and intense studying came in clutch on the race, claiming four first-place finishes along the way. And their fifth was the most important, as all that preparation paid off in a payday worth a million dollars.


Though Kim and Penn were both comfortable with The Amazing Race as well as having a camera in front of them, having reoriented their lifestyle to being content creators, the start was admittedly not smooth. London proved to be tough on the married couple, as navigational issues coupled with overthinking had them finishing in the middle of the pack. Fortunately, that would be the lowest they placed the entire season. All it took was a change of scenery for them to literally change their tune in Scotland, where a song and dance task right in their wheelhouse gave them the start of many first places. Unfortunately, that momentum halted when the race shut down for 19 months due to the pandemic. And when they were asked to return a year and a half later, the Holderness family had a tough time letting go and getting back out into the world.

Luckily, they did, and the rest was history. The restart put them in the front of the pack, as they were able to fit back into race mode naturally. And it wasn’t long before they became team number one again, winning three legs in a row in France and Germany. While other teams struggled, Kim and Penn comfortably found themselves in the final leg. But just when first place mattered most, they found themselves behind Raquel Moore and Cayla Platt immediately. Regardless, they kept doing the best they could and caught up to them in the final task, just a short run from victory. And as Penn himself would tell you, Kim became the hero of the team. Her literal picture-perfect preparation gave them a last-minute surge, as they crossed the finish line in disbelief as the victors of this season.

Now out of the race, Kim and Penn talk with Parade.com about the meticulous studying that got them the win, the reaction to their success on the race, and being able to use their time to showcase anxiety and ADHD.

Related: The Amazing Race Season 33: Everything We Know So Far

To start, Kim, you posted a video about your kids reacting to your win. People may not know this, but you did not tell your family about how you did on the race. What was it like to watch their reaction?
Kim Holderness: Well, first of all, CBS makes you sign a really big contract. So we couldn’t spoil the ending. And I think that’s way too much pressure to put on a teenager to have to keep that secret. So the choice was very simple not to tell them. But we still haven’t seen the end of the show.
Penn Holderness: We weren’t looking at the TV. We were looking at the kids.
Kim: They were very surprised. I think it was just a really sweet, sweet moment.

We have to start to where things finished. Because I can’t remember a final leg that close in quite some time.
Penn: There were eight lead changes from Lisbon to L.A. And we know as a big fan of the race that sometimes they have to create a little bit of drama to make it exciting at the end. They did not need to create anything. It was bonkers.

As superfans, you know there would probably be a memory challenge at the end. But what made you figure out it would be something around pictures?
Kim: I mean, down to like Napoleon’s hat. And I mean, I always Yeah, so I just felt like they were going to be the images of the race.
Penn: I thought there were gonna be stairs. Because there were just stairs everywhere. They didn’t even show some of the stairs that we went up!

It’s safe to say your biggest struggles were at the beginning of the race. Most prominently, Penn, when you overthought whether the clue you got at the Roadblock was actually a clue. How were you able to learn from those initial errors?
Penn: Well, I did some writing after the second challenge when I stared at a clue for 45 minutes that was a clue. And I knew it was a clue, because it was a clue! (Laughs.) So after that leg, we looked at each other. And I knew that it was mostly on me. I wrote down three things in my book. One of them was, “Calm down. Slow down and read things. Do things slowly.” The second thing was, “Don’t overthink it,” which obviously I did in that leg. And the last one was just “trust your gut.” There were times when we should be doing something, but we either listened to an outside force, or we panicked and thought about it too much. We put those three things together in Scotland, and we won the leg really easily. And we also realized, “Wait, we’re having fun now too.” So it was the formula for relaxing and enjoying yourself.
Kim: And I will say Penn struggled to find the clue that was a clue. But we made up time, and we still finished fifth that leg, which was our worst finish of the race. And we screwed up royally. We even messed up the cake stuff we really had. We had a terrible day. And we still passed other teams. That was the day I was like, “We may not suck at this after all!”

As you mention, you come in first place in Scotland, then everything gets put on hold for 19 months. How tough was it to come back and get that momentum, especially leaving your family behind again?
Penn: We knew the lead was gone. We knew we would start altogether.
Kim: I was really mad because we won by a lot! (Laughs.)
Penn: We did. We know you’re doing well when you’re barely in the episode. But we had lived together, and we had kind of existed together in this tiny space. And we knew that was going to bode well. Because we’ve grown, I think, as a couple, through counseling and writing this book that we did. But with the physical side of it, we thought we were in okay shape. And we got there, and Mike had turned into a professional bodybuilder.
Kim: He was like three people.
Penn: He was three Mo’s! And everybody else took the time to get in better shape. And we did what we could. But we have jobs and kids. And I was like, “Oh, damn, we’re gonna have to find another way to win this.” Because everyone was superhuman.

That being said, you dominated, getting three first-place victories in a row. I know you tried to remain humble, constantly saying the final leg is all that matters. But how much of a confidence boost was it to see you were doing well?
Penn: Well, we’re old. We’re not that old. We’re older than the other people. When we drove as children, we had to read maps. And a huge part of that restart was self-driving. I think that that helped us get closer to the top of the pack.
Kim: But to your question, I would say even though we would win a leg, I struggled with being super confident about it. I would always say like, “Oh, well, it’s only because we chose this right task. It’s only because we’re good at navigating.” And I still struggle with claiming that we were good at something, but I’ll get there eventually. But it never felt watching it now. I’m like, “Oh, we were pretty good at that.” But living it, I was in a panic most of the time. I was scared. We were just in a panic the entire time.
Penn: Every restart every morning, we just felt awful. (Laughs.) Just no confidence.

As content creators and podcasters, you’re used to being in front of the camera and being open about yourselves. How much did that prepare you for reality TV and The Amazing Race?
Kim: Keep in mind we shoot most of our videos on a cell phone. We do it in 30 minutes, and we post the next day. So when it comes to anxiety or ADHD, I’m really thrilled that CBS chose to keep those themes in that we talked about. Because I was in active panic a few times. It was really hard to watch, I have to say. I did not enjoy watching myself. Because I know myself and what was going through my mind on those particular days. But nothing really prepared us for this. Between the size of the cameras and there’s audio. The general scope of the production is so vast, and you don’t see that. We were not prepared for that at all.
Penn:We’re used to being on camera. This is a different type of camera. Also, when we do something, and we don’t like how we look, we edit it out. We didn’t have that; the editors were in charge. And I agree with Kim; I love that they kept everything in. I mean, no one gives you this life unscarred. Everybody’s got something. And I don’t know that they’ve really spent as much time on CBS talking about mental health issues as they did this season. And it was great. We’ve gotten so many responses from people saying, “Thanks for showing the good side and the bad side.” I mean, I didn’t need the whole world to see that I could stare at something for 45 minutes and not compute that it’s the actual thing that it is. (Laughs.) But then they did let me explain the side of hyperfocus and how it can be used positively. So I love how they handled it.

And Kim, you could argue that due to your anxiety and anticipation of what could come in the final leg, it caused you to be really meticulous about your notes and win you the race at the last minute.
Kim: Well, I would say for my brand of anxiety, it’s very calming to write and to take notes. So even on a long drive, I was calculating, “If we have 250 kilometers to go, and driven 170…” I was tracking when we arrived at a challenge, how long it took us to do a challenge when other people arrived, how long it took them to do challenges, for no reason. But that is when I started. And it was like therapy to me. It was soothing to draw the pictures of things we saw. And to write down all the numbers of things we saw, was a special sort of calming force for me.

Let’s talk about some stats. You have the fifth-highest racing average of all time, and the third-highest for a winning team after Rachel and Dave and Meghan and Cheyne from seasons 20 and 15, respectively. What’s your reaction to that?
Penn: Oh, wow! If I knew that a clue was a clue, I bet we would have been even higher.
Kim: And you know what we noticed, even pre-pandemic? We were like, “We’re mom and dad; they’re not even going to see us coming.” Even after we won three legs, everyone was saying that Ryan and Dusty were the ones to beat. Even Phil at the end of the rock task. He’s like, “You guys have had the best record.” I was like, “Excuse me?!” I don’t think even production realized that we were doing that.
Penn: At the same time, I also want to add that I’ve read a lot of stuff online. How did nobody think Raquel and Cayla had this?! We were scared of them in that last leg. Maybe it’s just a bias of women on the race. But we were more afraid of them than Ryan and Dusty on that last leg. I’m just going to be honest.

I mean, I would argue when it came to dominating, Ryan and Dusty owned the first third of the race, you owned the middle third, and Raquel and Cayla owned the last third.
Kim: Dusty and I were talking about that last night. It was a very real weird thing that happened. If there had been one more leg, I think it would have been Raquel and Cayla. They were catching fire. Last night and even that day, my first reaction crossing the finish line was obviously joy and elation. It was a great life moment. But also I felt very bad. I was thinking of female/female teams winning this race. I always root for the female/female teams. And so coming to the finish line, we hug, we kiss, and I’m like, “Oh crap. If I’m a fan sitting on the couch, I would have wanted Raquel and Cayla to win. I’m so sorry.” And even last night, I’m like, “I’m so sorry.”
Penn: It was tough to know them and love them. As much as I loved winning, it was really tough to see how it went down.

You have the oldest average age of winning teams on The Amazing Race, edging out Chip and Kim from season 5. What’s your reaction to that?
Penn: I mean, it’s hard to win this race, no matter what age you are. We trained so hard in so many ways that we can have the ability to say that that happened. We don’t feel old normally walking around the street. But there were a lot of young, intelligent, brave, courageous people in this race that could have very easily beaten us. So it means a lot to be able to set that record.
Kim: And, honestly, I think at a certain age, whether it’s marketing or what you’re seeing, they’re trying to sell you on Instagram that when you’re a middle-aged mom, they kind of write you off. With the Instagram influencers in the fitness industry, everything that’s trying to be sold to you is trying to make you younger. And so, as a middle-aged mom, to do something that’s pretty hard and amazing, I hope it shows people that like we’re not done yet. We’re in our mid to late 40s. But we’re not done yet. There are still a lot of cool things we can do.