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.Michelle and Matt Patterson were adamant from the jump that they didn’t necessarily want to work with other teams on The Amazing Race. And, given their run on the vast majority of their time on the season, nor did they need to.Before the season started, Phil Keoghan teased the married parents were one of his favorite teams in a long time, and that Michelle was “possibly the most competitive person that we’ve had on race in — I can’t even think how long.” Admittedly, fans were not necessarily privy to that competitive fire in the first couple of legs. Granted, the two did incredibly well, finishing in third and second place to kick off the race, not showing any slip-ups that come in the early portion. But they remained relatively quiet in the edit, until they were ready to truly emerge as this season’s frontrunners.That time came during a stressful day in Morocco. Michelle and Matt had a surprisingly hard-boiled approach to the Scramble, having little to no trouble with both navigation and the tasks. As a result, they easily cruised into first place, a placement they soon would become quite comfortable with. In Albania, their self-driving skills put them in the Driver’s Seat for the leg not once, but twice. And it was here they began to get some eyes on them, not only for the decisions they made as to which teams to help and which to hurt, but that they were beginning to pull away from the rest of the pack.
?SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox ? Matt cited William Shakespeare’s penchant for “deception and sleight of hand.” And being so out in front allowed him and Michelle to partake in some of their own. They lied about using their Express Pass, in the hopes that others wouldn’t target them for having the advantage. When they found out an Intersection was coming up, they purposely hung back to guide Daisha Wilks and Dalton Hamby to the next task to avoid having to wait. But they followed up that cooperation with some competition, as they promptly shook the small-town sweethearts from their tail to use their Express Pass, netting a third first-place finish in a row.As the legs progressed, Michelle and Matt’s target was amassing like a school of like-minded fish. And, in Sri Lanka, it was time they finally got caught. A U-Turn Vote greeted the teams as soon as they landed, and it was no surprise to anybody — including them — that they were the name on the most boards. What was more surprising, however, was what they were able to do afterward. While at one point they were in last place, they jumped all the way up to third with one single task. At the airport in the next leg, Matt crowed how they had missed their shot. The only issue: There was one bullet left in the chamber. Touching down in Laos, Michelle and Matt had an uncharacteristically tough time navigating to their first task, putting them in a rare spot, the back of the pack. And that’s when an opportunity appeared to the other teams: Another chance to land the killing blow. Between another double U-Turn and the Roadblock, every other team colluded in trying to prevent Matt and Michelle from catching up. After racing for eight legs declaring they didn’t need the other teams, it was the collective effort of those very same people to ensure their shocking ouster.Now, out of the race, Matt and Michelle get into why they got so lost to the extent that it ended their race, why they chose to not work with any other teams, and their reaction to watching back all the alliances this season.
Let’s get into what got you on the race. What’s your history with the show, and what made you decide to go from fans to racers?Matt Patterson: [Points to Michelle.]Michelle Patterson: I was not always gonna race with Matt, but I always wanted to go on. I watched with my mom and my sisters my whole entire life. So I don’t know, maybe it started when I was like eight or so. We’ve just always watched together. And they were the ones who were always screaming at the TV, like, “What’s wrong with these people?! It’s right there!” And I’m like, “So you guys do it!” Of course, they never applied. And then when I got to be like older, not even older than 18, I asked my mom. I was like, “Let’s just go on.” She’s like, “What, are you crazy?! We can’t do that!” I asked my sisters. No one wants to do it. Finally, it takes me getting married to force him to do it with me. It took a few years, though, of convincing. We started watching together, and that’s when you were finally like, “Alright, we could kind of do this. There’s some things we could handle.”Matt: I didn’t watch the show too much. And then when Michelle got me into it, I was like, “Oh, this is kind of up my alley.”Michelle: Plus a million dollars.Matt: Well, yeah! And then our son got sick on Christmas Day. We’ve got nothing to do. Michelle’s like, “You know what we should do? Let’s send a video and audition for The Amazing Race!” And I’m like, “Okay. One take, no script, no editing. Just one time, send, forget.” And we did it, banter, our normal selves. We’re like, “That was fun. We’re not going to hear back.”Michelle: Our interview was horrible. Matt: I don’t think it was horrible! It was real.Michelle: It was real. But I’m like, “Who wants that?” I wanted to put cue cards up on the wall, practice everything, and cut up a video. And he’s like, “We’re not doing that. You got two minutes and 30 seconds.”Matt: We’re very different in that sense. Michelle likes to plan and prepare. And I’m like, “Just get in the car. We’ll figure it out.” So we got the call. Long story short, here we are with you, Mike, after a pretty crazy run around the world. Well, let’s get into how that run ended so abruptly. Things got off to a rough start in Laos when you get lost getting to the Detour, to the point where you actually switch options. What was it that had you struggling so much with navigation?Matt: I think one of the mistakes was that we had predetermined, if there’s cooking, we’re gonna cook. Because Michelle is a very good cook. And going into it, we agreed on it.Michelle: Watching from home, we decided that, when we were doing our homework of going back and watching all the seasons with our notebook, we’re like, “The cooking challenge always seems pretty easy, and no one goes for it. “And I think our issue too was we were so leader of the pack. And we were so dearly at this point trying to get away from people, because people were just following and following and following. And I think that really just cooked us. We were trying too hard to get away. First off, nobody in Laos speaks English. Which, of course, not going to expect that. But everywhere else, there’s a little bit of English. The taxi driver from the airport is probably going to be like the best English-speaking person you’re going to get. And I should have realized that when we chose to do the market challenge, and we have to search for these items, it’s probably not a good idea. But you’re not thinking this. Our taxi driver ends up pulling up to the totally wrong area. You could see in the back, when we hop out of our car, it kind of looks like we’re kind of like trying to push Dasiha and Dalton. Because we see the next clue box, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, don’t let them see the next clue box!” We were so lost that we actually found the next clue box before finding where we needed to go.Matt: That clue box that Conner and Garrett couldn’t find for a long time.Michelle: That’s how turned around we were.Matt: And then race brain comes in. You’re not like, “Okay, we know where the beer is. The market can’t be that far away, because it all has to be within a somewhat confined area. It was chaos. Would you say that’s the reason you went home, rather than the U-Turn or the other teams working together?Matt: I attribute that to our ultimate demise. I stand on get to the U-Turn first, then you don’t have to worry about a U-turn. Yeah, that’s arrogant and cocky, and it sounds like a jerk. But like that’s how I feel, and I have to apply that same logic to us. We ran our bad leg on the day we couldn’t afford to run the bad leg, because of every factor.Michelle: The issue was us getting lost. The issue was not the U-Turn. The issue is, too, you ask 20 people for directions. One person tells you, “Oh, go this way. Go this way.” We’re in another country. We’re like, “We’re gonna go the way they tell us to go.” So you go left when you’re supposed you’re actually supposed to go right. You run 200 meters, and you’re like, “Oh God, I gotta ask someone else.” And they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, keep going.” And you’re like, “Oh, okay, no problem.” Run another 200 meters, and we’re like half a mile away. And we just think, “Keep going, keep going, keep going. It must be near a main road.” It was just a mess. Matt: Yeah, tough break. Here we are. And hindsight is 20/20, right? Physical challenge, it’s right here. And Laos Roasters is a very simple notable name you could Google. The “Larb Hut” — I don’t even want to try to pronounce it, because I’m gonna butcher it — it wasn’t a storefront. This was not a brick-and-mortar ramen spot.Michelle: This was no Dunkin’ Donuts. Matt: Like “grandma set up a wok in the corner.” The other place had like a real address, and it was a big win. It didn’t really show too much. But in Morocco, the leg we won, we were nowhere near anybody. We didn’t see anyone in Albania. We were finishing like three hours ahead of the second-place team.Michelle: More like two.Matt: So you get accustomed to your own space. You’re in control of your own stuff. And then you saw in this episode, you hit the street, and we’re all just like roaches scattering around the streets. And we hadn’t been in that environment in like a very long time in this. And, like Michelle said, we were so just used to getting away from this. And, again, race brain, hindsight’s 20/20, if we were like, “Let’s just run with the pack, we only have to beat one team. The cab driver didn’t speak any English. Maybe the market’s going to be tough. Maybe just go to the place that you see rather than having to navigate. But it ultimately boils down to us making some wrong decisions, which we hadn’t up to that point, and then getting lost and not being able to rely on the people. Because, prior to that, the people in every country were some of our best help. The part where the people in Albania where no one could get help, we had not run into that problem. Anyone we asked was as nice as can be, literally all over the world.Michelle: Also in Albania, we were targeting coffee shops. Every place there is a café.Matt: Everything’s a café. Like guys are just drinking espresso with cigarettes in tracksuits, and I’m like, “This is great!”Michelle: This is our people! So we would like walk in, be like, “Can we get an espresso?” So you pay so cheap for this little espresso, and they want to give you all the info. So that was our strategy.Matt: And leaning on the people hurt us a little bit too. Because we’re very social people. New York, New Jersey, you grow up around everyone from everywhere. You know how to approach people and disarm them, so they’re not like [Makes a recoiling gesture.]. We couldn’t do that in Laos. I didn’t realize that would be such a problem. I had never really heard of Laos prior to this, and then you go into the history of it all. And there’s good reason they don’t speak English here, you know. So, hindsight’s 20/20. That’s my catchphrase of this. [Laughs.]Well let’s continue talking about people, this time in the form of the other racers. You stated multiple times this season that you didn’t want to work with other teams. But were you aware of how that was coming across to everyone else? Were you surprised to find out how much the other teams worked together to try to get you out this past leg?Matt: First off, let me say one thing quick. In Morocco, in the Sramble, I gave Doug and Dylan a one directions. Doug and Dylan will vouch. I told them exactly where they needed to go. Michelle: You didn’t need to draw a diagram of where to go. You didn’t need to give them a map!Interesting. So you didn’t lead them astray, as the edit indicated?Matt: No! Like I’m this evil guy picking on this 70 year old. Who does 300 mile hikes, by the way! We’re talking like he’s this geriatric couch potato guy. He’s more active than us!Michelle: Yes, I understand why people have alliances. I understand working together and building relationships. I do think we tried to do that. We tried early on, but it failed. It just doesn’t get shown. We tried to have an alliance with Conner and Garrett, and it was a mutual alliance. We seemed like a good fit together. We kind of saw each other as like, “We’re gonna make it to the end. Let’s do this.” Morocco starts. We see Conner and Garrett and Ali and Joanna smush together like peanut butter and jelly. And I was like, “Oh, this is a thing…”Matt: And this was right before the slipper challenge. Which is why when that happened, I was like, “Look at them back there!” Because like I felt like we ended up together on the boat in Leg 1, then Leg 2 was pretty chaotic. And then in Leg 3, when we came in sixth, no fault of our own; it was like a needle in a haystack.Michelle: All these challenges, people don’t realize that we were never near anyone. Even in Morocco Leg 3, when we came in the middle, we were alone at at pots with Jen and Jody, far behind everyone else. We get to the next challenge, we were doing the buggies. Other teams are helping each other, but we were like on the outs. No one was trying to really ask us for help; we weren’t asking anyone for help. We were just trying to survive.Matt: It’s like the pack mentality kicks in, like Lord of the Flies. We could have been the nicest, most helpful people. If the mob had a chance to bury you when you’re down, they’re gonna do it. And, for better or for worse, I think that’s human nature when it’s competition and there’s a large sum of money at the end of the rainbow. Michelle: I just don’t think it would have mattered if we were friends or not ,because of the target of winning leg after leg after leg. And people are like, “Oh, you should have slowed it down.” Like, how!? We’re just gonna stand at the finish line for an hour?Matt: And the thing is, with sports, they’ll tell you like the injuries happen when you’re playing at 75%. If you’re going 100%, you’re usually going to be okay. So the problems start when like you’re not going full throttle. And like Michelle said, are we going to wait on the mat?Michelle: We would have had the target regardless.Matt: I would have liked to, in Laos, just stay with the pack, do the physical challenge with the beer. But I think that is different than going out of our way to be an alliance.So what’s been your reaction to seeing all the working together that’s been happening this season?Matt: Look how fake the alliances were! The “Boss Lady” alliance?! LOL! LMAO! I was watching that on my couch, just like this. [Facepalms.] Michelle: I actually feel like it made women look bad.Matt: I mean, I’m a man; I don’t speak on anything woman-related. But it was no alliance, if you ask me. That thing didn’t hold a drop of water. No less literal betraying each other! “Boss Lady Alliance on one!” Please.Michelle: We should have been in that.Matt: Why waste your energy like that? And I stand on that. Honestly, the portrayal of alliances in the show, it makes them look even worse!Michelle: At least we were rocking on our own!Matt: And it’s not like some anti-Matt and Michelle alliance took us out. It was just opportunistic. I’m not mad at it. That’s okay. The opportunity presented itself. It’s within the rules of the game.Michelle: We would have made the same decision.Matt: More power to you. So it’s not like some alliance we didn’t want to be a part of led to our demise. It was just opportunity and some shrewd decision making to “slay the dragon.”
Related: ‘The Amazing Race’s Doug and Dylan React to Controversial U-Turn Penalty — And Reveal the Strategy Behind Their Votes (Exclusive)
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