I thought U&J were just being nice to the cabbie too, but my husband pointed out that it must be a rule of the game that you are not allowed to stiff people or steal things to win. In some cases, the cabbies have said it's OK if you don't have enough, but in this case he made a fuss. That is why U&J begged for the money, otherwise they would have been disqualified. Otherwise they would have just ran to the finish line and promised the guy to write him a check for three times the amount after they won.
I thought U&J getting on the plane was suspicious. I would not be surprised if the producers were involved, but was it really better for them for U&J to win? It seems like they would get even more publicity if Romber won. U&J will just be a publicity blip, Romber would be a storm.
Maybe. But it could have played either way, with better press for Romber had they won.
Over the last few weeks, I've noticed that entertainment writers, fed by the show's PR people who already knew who won, were ALL writing negative things about Romber. (Earlier it was 50-50) That translated into more viewers, but also set up expectations for U&J, the "nice" people, to win and for the "rotten" people to lose.
I was a huge Romber fan, and noted the negative turn with great dismay. It seemed predictive. Boo hiss once again to the media for dumping on talented, bright, great-looking Romber and to the TAR editors who showed them in the worst possible light. If anyone believes that they were the only team badmouthing the competition, I have a nice bridge for sale. Truth is, the other teams hated them from the start of the race because they didn't "deserve" to be in the race.