The Amazing Race/Heartwarming

• In Season 3, Zach and Flo escape elimination for the first time due to a non-elimination leg, and Flo lets loose some of the most heartfelt words about her teammate, about how he stayed positive no matter what despite her giving up. Even if she was seen as one of the most useless and annoying people to have ever run the race, these words were especially heart wrenching.
  • Similarly to Flo, Ian was seen as somewhat of a blowhard during the Season 3. He constantly bickered with his wife Teri, but when they both won the penultimate leg, Ian recites some genuinely sweet words to Phil about her, saying that Teri was not only his lover, but his friend.
• In Season 4, Reichen and Chip's Fast Forward meeting the world's most adorable orang-utans.
• In Season 5, after running an impressive race at that point, but ultimately coming in last, Charla and Mirna end their race by thanking Phil for the experience, and Charla talked about how she showed the world what she could do.
• Season 12's finale. Between Rachel declaring T.K. her favorite person, Ronald finding first place in his daughter Christina's heart, and the cheers of "Grandpa! Grandpa!" for Nicholas and Donald, the entire Final 3 had heartwarming moments to go around and made it seem that they were all winners.
• Upon getting eliminated for losing a passport in Season 15, Zev (who has Asperger's) went out, not by saying, "I showed the world what disadvantaged people could do", but, "I showed myself what I could do".
• In Season 17, Nick and Vicki go through some heavy arguing in Ghana, with Vicki being on the receiving end of a "Shut Up!" and being blamed for not being able to push a hoop with a stick. It's harder than it sounds. Later on in Leg 6, Nick steps back and they work together as a team to triumph over a detour that required switching, then switching BACK (from identifying music in a room full of pianos, to finding frames of film in a gigantic stack of film comprising an entire movie, then back to the pianos) Only to have to have Nick dress in a dress and shove cow manure on potatoes. After the detour, 6th place had finished and they ran over to the mat in last. It was a non-elimination leg.
  • Also in Season 17, one team was comprised of a mother and daughter, who had pretty much never met.
  • Yet again in Season 17, Chad and Stephanie were a team of a dating couple, who had quite a bit of friction in the race, but learned in Moscow to start trusting each other, and they became much friendlier to each other. The next leg, in Oman, Chad decided to propose to Stephanie using his mother's ring, which he had brought with him, waiting for the right moment to propose. She accepted, and their status changed from "Dating" to "Engaged". What's more they came in first on that leg, for the first time all race!
• Upon winning Season 18, Kisha and Jen donated all the prize money to their mom so she could start her own business.
  • Even better: the episode where they won just happened to air on Mother's Day.
• In season 20, Bopper and Mark come in last, after Bopper had been talking about how he's on the Race to help his daughter, who has numerous health issues. It turns out to be a non-elimination leg, but before that's revealed, Art and JJ, who had just received $10,000 for finishing first, told him they'd share it with him.
• A few times over the course of the series, a team gets trapped in a Roadblock. In spite of best efforts, the challenging member just can't seem to clear it. Multiple times. There is talk of quitting (or at least taking the 4-hour skipping penalty). There are Rousing Speeches to not give up. And then, eventually, once he/she finally clears it, the nearby natives who had watched the whole thing cheer and give what looks a lot like a group hug. That team, as expected, usually winds up coming in last, though if it turns out to be a non-elimination leg, it just makes it even more heartwarming.
• In season 2 of the Australian series, father and daughter team Ross and Tarryn won the first leg and with it, a salvage pass, which gave them the choice of an extra headstart on the next leg of 1 hour or saving the team who came last on that first leg from elimination. They chose to save the last team, sisters Lucy and Emilia. Cue tears, hugs and the sisters admitting they knew from the beginning that Ross and Tarryn were 'their kind of people' when they saw Ross give his daughter a kiss right before the start of the race.

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