‘Amazing Race’ Week 5: Holderness pair travels to France. How’d they finish?
Kim and Penn Holderness, part of the Raleigh family known for “Christmas Jammies” and other viral videos, are competing on this season of CBS’s “The Amazing Race,” and The News & Observer is following their journey on the show each week.
Last week’s episode featured the six remaining teams in Switzerland for another leg of the race, completing challenges that involved bungee jumping from a dam and climbing a lot of stairs.
The Holdernesses finished in 3rd place last week after racing neck-and-neck with a couple other teams throughout the leg.
Last week also turned out to be a non-elimination leg of the race, allowing father-daughter duo Arun and Natalia to stay in the race despite finishing in last place.
That means six teams are still left competing this week, and they’re set to travel to Corsica, France.
So, what challenges did the teams complete this week? How did the Holdernesses place? Who was eliminated?
Let’s find out in this recap of Week 5 of “The Amazing Race.”
How did the Holderness team place this week?
Kim and Penn had an impressive showing this week, finishing in 1st place and winning $5,000 each. This marks the duo’s second 1st place finish in the race.
What challenges did teams complete this week?
The episode opened with the teams boarding a chartered flight from Lugano, Switzerland, the location of last week’s pit stop, to Corsica, France.
Kim and Penn got some screentime early on, talking in an interview about how they had “sized up” the competition. They talked about Ryan and Dusty being fierce competitors, saying that it would be difficult for another team to beat them and that it would likely come down to Ryan and Dusty beating themselves by making a misstep in the race. (Was that foreshadowing? Keep reading to find out.)
After touching down in Corsica, the teams kicked off this week’s leg of the race.
The teams left in groups according to their placings last week, so frontrunners Ryan and Dusty and twins Lulu and Lala left first, followed by the Holdernesses, flight attendants Cayla and Raquel and married educators Akbar and Sheri. Arun and Natalia left last.
The teams opened their first clue, which instructed them to travel to Corte to find their next clue.
Along with the clue, which was for a detour challenge, teams found containers of fresh goat milk. For the detour, teams could choose between making cheese with the milk or traveling along a trail with a mule carrying the milk.
Kim and Penn chose the mule challenge, with Raquel and Cayla joining them. Both teams worked to put harnesses on their mules, then made their way up the trail — but not before having to correct and redo the harnesses at least once.
Despite their minor struggles, Kim and Penn left the detour challenge in 1st place.
Everyone seemed to complete the cheese challenge with ease except Ryan and Dusty, who ended up switching detours, then ran into more issues as their car struggled to make it up the hill as they left for the mule detour. They successfully completed the mule challenge, but left the detour in last place.
Kim and Penn found the next clue for a roadblock challenge, which required one team member to “make a splash” by following a trail and sliding down a series of rocks and natural waterslides, as well as ziplining. The duo chose Penn to complete the task, and he found the team’s next clue in the water.
Penn finished the roadblock in 1st place, then raced to this leg’s pit stop using the clue.
In order to make it to the pit stop, teams had to inflate kayaks, then paddle upstream on a river to the final location.
Episode highlight from the Holderness duo
Of course, our highlight this week is the Holdernesses’ 1st place finish.
We especially enjoyed their post-win interview, when Kim opened up about the race being outside of her comfort zone.
She said that going forward, she wants to “chill out” and enjoy the race more — adding that it’s “a lot of fun to win.”
We agree, and we’re excited to watch the duo as they continue in the race.
How did the other teams do this week?
▪ Flight attendants Raquel and Cayla stuck with Penn and Kim for much of this leg and finished just behind them in 2nd place.
▪ Ryan and Dusty, best friends who have been fierce competitors throughout the race, struggled this week at the cheese-making challenge and fell behind. Despite their struggles, though, the duo made up lost ground and finished in 3rd place.
▪ Father and daughter Arun and Natalia, who were saved from elimination last week, finished in 4th place this week.
▪ Twin sisters and radio hosts Lulu and Lala finished in 5th place after letting Raquel and Cayla in front of them at the roadblock challenge, then misreading the final clue and having to return their belongings to their vans and start over inflating the kayak.
Which team was eliminated this week?
Married educators Akbar and Sheri finished in 6th place this week and were eliminated. Akbar struggled with the roadblock challenge, and the pair couldn’t catch up after that.
Looking forward to next week’s episode
The preview for next week’s episode shows the teams remaining in France and eating bug-infested cheese. (Yum.)
Will Penn and Kim have another 1st place finish? Who will be eliminated?
We’re down to five teams, and the race is heating up.
We’ll see you back here next week.
More about Kim & Penn Holderness
Most people recognize Kim and Penn from their online videos posted on “The Holderness Family” accounts — most notably “Christmas Jammies,” which went viral in 2013 and has more than 18 million views to-date.
Prior to making the switch to full-time content creation, Kim and Penn both worked in TV news. They have a combined 25 years of experience in the industry, including Penn’s six years as an evening anchor at WNCN/CBS 17 in Raleigh.
Following the success of “Jammies,” the Raleigh couple, along with their two children, now “chronicle their marriage and their family with funny music videos, vlogs, skits and a podcast.” The couple also released a book in March 2021.
Previous ‘Amazing Race’ recaps
Catch up on our previous coverage of Kim and Penn and their journey on “The Amazing Race” with these stories:
▪ Raleigh’s Holderness Family of ‘Christmas Jammies’ fame to compete on ‘The Amazing Race’
▪ Week 2 recap: Glasgow, Scotland
▪ Week 4 recap: Switzerland, part two
How to watch ‘The Amazing Race’
New episodes of “The Amazing Race” air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBS.
You can also stream episodes after they air at cbs.com/shows/amazing_race.
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 10:15 PM with the headline "‘Amazing Race’ Week 5: Holderness pair travels to France. How’d they finish?."
