'The Amazing Race 35' Winners Greg and John Franklin Talk the Biggest Key to Their Dominance
Greg Franklin (L) and John Franklin (R)
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The Machines. That's what Greg and John Franklin were dubbed a little over halfway through The Amazing Race 35, and the nickname works on so many levels. Working in tech, the brothers are used to machine learning, and even applied some debugging behavior to the race itself. But the two also seemed to be superhuman in their performance for the majority of the season. After a top three finish in Thailand, and a back of the pack finish in Vietnam, the two hit the ground running when they got to India. For the subsequent eight legs, they never finished below second place, including netting an astounding four first-place finishes in a row.
Without a doubt, Greg and John were the team to beat going into the finale in Seattle. But any momentum you built up gong into the final leg can be shattered like a fragile glass ball. And that nearly happened for Greg and John at the get-go of the "Scramble," as their struggles in glassblowing had them sweating in more ways than one. But the brothers do what they do best: Keep calm and debug. They happened to get through their hardest task first, and jumped up a placement when they aced the physical acrobatics challenge. They came into the final memory task in second place, and that's where their machine-like brains really came through. John's great memory got them a million dollars, as they surged to the front of the pack. The two excitedly charged to the finish line, with enough energy to light up the Seattle night sky.
The day after the finale, Greg and John talk with Parade.com about their rally in the final leg, what contributed the most to their dominance this season, and the records they set with their representation.
Related: Everything to Know About The Amazing Race 35
First off, congrats, gentlemen! I know there was a big viewing party in New York last night for the finale. What was it like to get to re-experience your win surrounded by so many fans and previous and current racers?
Greg Franklin: I mean, we kept talking about it. Johnny wore a suit; I wore a suit. It felt like it was a wedding. Having everyone around us one of the best days of our lives. And it's very rare that you get to experience something like that twice. Because we experienced it the first time. [It was] surreal, felt like a dream. Experiencing it the second time almost felt as exciting as the first time. Everyone's screaming, jumping up and down. I'm gonna replay that in my head just for fun.
Well let's get into how you got to that excitement at the finish line. Because, when you were struggling with the glassblowing, it looked like you would be out of it quickly. Was it hard not to melt down in that moment like the glass you were working with?
John Franklin: Honestly, we did. We were melting right alongside that glass for a little bit of it. I think we were at some points thinking, "Okay, this might be it. We could be third." And one thing that really helps is hyping the other one up when they're down. When Gregory and I lost that leg stopping us from the five-peat, he was pretty upset. And I was like, "Hey, we're still in this. Let's keep going." And when we were on our way to the final challenge, I was thinking, "This might be Joel and Garrett today." And Gregory was really telling me, "There's still hope. We know we have that mental ability for a final challenge. We've seen the race. We know what's going to happen." And I think that really helped us get through.
So to that point about the final task, we had heard that you have an excellent memory, John. Once you saw what it was, did you feel you actually had a chance at first again?
Greg: I mean, honestly, when we first got there, Joel and Garett's was just a wall of kayaks. They had so many kayaks up. And so we knew that we had to really get to work. And like I said, Johnny has a great memory. So he started to read the challenge. And the biggest thing about that challenge was we knew that we had to get it done quick, because we knew that we were behind. We knew for a fact that once we gave it a first check, we were going to have to go back and debug and figure out what we did wrong. So the fact that we got on the first try, that was almost as exciting as winning the race.
John: We were so ready to react. We were ready to bring some kayaks down. And we were waiting with bated breath every time Joel and Garrett got a check. We could hear, "Check!" in the distance and just waiting to see if it's going to be celebratory, or if we still had more time. So that was stressful, to say the least.
Greg: Honestly, the hardest part about that challenge were the pictures. I don't know if they showed it in the race. But we had the different challenge names, but then we also had to match the photo of where the [Pit Stop] was with the country. That part was difficult, especially in Asia where a lot of temples looked similar.
That's really interesting. Because you could write down Roadblock prompts and Detour options after a leg to memorize them. But it's a lot harder to write down a visual description of the Pit Stop to study.
John: Yeah, I mean we had time on our hands, and there are artists who play this game. But it's gonna take a lot of time to draw those places.
Well, let's go from the end of the race to the beginning. How long had you been watching the race before you applied? And what made you decide to make that leap from fans to racers?
John: I got into the show through my girlfriend who loves everything and anything reality TV. And after watching the past four or five seasons, I got Gregory on board. And we had some downtime last year and just put in our first application for the show. It was just a three-minute video, not high production quality. We just put it in [and] forgot about it until we got that call from L.A.
Greg: I feel like a lot of TV shows, you look and you're like, "Oh I can do that." When you're sitting on your couch, it looks easy. And so we really wanted to test it out. This seemed like one of those shows more than Survivor, more than Big Brother, that we were like, 'Okay, I actually think that we can do this. That actually looks like something we can actually do pretty well at."
Did you always want to race together? Or did you consider other partners?
Greg and John: [Simultaneously.] Touchy subject.
[Laughs.] It worked out well for you!
John: Yeah, it worked out for the best. But my girlfriend is the one who I intended to apply with for years, for four or five years. And it wasn't until, again, Gregory and I had literally 30 minutes of downtime, that we actually made the effort to put the application in. And it just happened to work out, honestly. So my girlfriend, props to her for getting me on and supporting me along the way. But if I could do it again, she's right there with me.
You were by far the most dominant team on the race. After the first four legs, you didn't finish below second place for the rest of the season. Were you surprised by your performance? What was your reaction in the moment?
Greg: Like I said, before coming into the race, we really wanted to see, "Okay, is this as easy as it looks on TV?" And the first few legs were like, "Okay, maybe it's not that easy. Maybe this is pretty hard." But I mean, it is pretty hard. But I think the big thing for that second half of the race was really the switch between trusting taxi drivers to trusting our own directions. Most of the first legs, were all Tuk Tuks and taxis and boats and other people. We're relying on other people where we don't have much control. But as soon as we're able to self-drive and get our own directions and figure it out all by ourselves, then we got confident. And then we knew that we were able to pull it out.
You guys obviously garnered a reputation, even being dubbed "The Machines." And we saw a couple of points where other teams actually declined to help you because you were so strong. Did you feel that teams treated you differently when you were labeled the frontrunners?
John: It's easy to put ourselves in their shoes and say, "Okay, we should not help the people with a streak right now." And there was also the possibility of another U-Turn. And I think the teams were pretty explicit who they were thinking about. And Gregory and I were just like, "Hey, if we're getting first, maybe with a Detour, we'll stay in the race." We were just ready to be better prepared for anything. But thankfully, this wasn't the season that had a late game U-Turn.
I'm really intrigued by your dynamic. I feel like we didn't really see the two of you argue, certainly not to the extent of the other teams. Was that the case?
Greg: I mean, I feel like the thing that worked really well for Johnny and I is that in the moment when you're making a decision, and when the pressure is on, that's not the time to fight. You can talk about it afterwards. You can debrief post-leg. But in that moment, you just got to make a decision. So sometimes, we really started to learn, Johnny is going to make this decision, or I'm going to make this decision, or we're going to leave it up to chance who's gonna make the decision.
John: Yeah, decision making for sure. We had moments where there was friction, like trying to decide whether or not to help teams in Germany, whether or not to keep going after teams that already explored paths that they said were closed. I remember these moments where it was like, "Gregory, I think we should do this." And, "Johnny, I don't think we should do this." And just trying to resolve it as quickly as possible and knowing whatever happens after that happens.
We've had a few teams this season talk about alliances. I know you had your dynamic with your fellow Franklins in Morgan and Lena. But was there anyone else you'd say you were working with?
John: We didn't see a pattern of alliances with the rest of the teams. We were all just pretty friendly with each other. And I think when there's a lack of dissonance, it's hard for people to then find alliances. But yeah, it was it was unique in that way. There weren't too many.
Greg: Yeah, there weren't too many alliances. And, I mean, we really liked working with Morgan and Lena just because they reminded us of our sister and they're Black and they have similar relationships. So we just love hanging out with them. We did find out later that there were some alliances between the teams. But I don't think it came out too much. It didn't show on TV, and it didn't really show on the show, either. We didn't feel like we were on the outs or anything.
John: Season 32 made me like aware of the social consequence to it.
Let's talk representation. You are the first all-male Black team to win The Amazing Race. You are the first Black men to win since Uchenna back in season 7. And you're the first all-Black team to win since Kisha and Jen in season 18. What's your reaction to that?
Greg: I think that was a big reason why we were chosen to be on the race as well. I mean, there's not too many people in our situation, Black, educated, in tech. There are not that many Black people in tech; that is a unicorn of a find. So I mean, having that representation, and even afterwards, we were talking with some of the producers, and they were talking about like how we're good inspiration to their kids. Just kind of seeing someone like them on TV, especially something like reality TV, like The Amazing Race, where a lot of them are straight white couples, or straight white males. So, yeah, it's good to have representation.
What was the thing you learned most about your brother racing around the world together?
John: It's funny, because we were traveling around the world, seeing all these places, but what was kind of new for me to see was Gregory. Meeting the teams, the cast, how he interacted with them and seeing his "social game"--but just how he is socially as a person--with new people and how he showcases himself to the world. I think it was new to meet people at the same time with him and just see him be such a delight and have people fall in love with him over the season. That was just super special.
Greg: John and I, we know each other pretty well. So it's hard to learn something new. But I would say for John, his approach to issues. I always knew he was very logical. That was our biggest point of tension growing up is that I'm more emotional, and he's more logical. And so kind of seeing that play out in a project. Because I know how that works as far as, "Okay, who's gonna take out the trash?" Just general day to day things. But we've never worked together before. We've never had a job together. And this felt like we had a job together. It felt like we had a project. We had a goal together. And so seeing his approach very logically was fun to see it. It was an inspiration.
John: Yeah, I feel like in board games with teams, we're usually broken up and we don't get the work together. So it was nice to showcase it a little bit.
Finally, if you get a call to go onto an all-winners season of The Amazing Race, are you doing it? Or are you going out on top?
Greg: Not only would we come back, I genuinely think we have a very good chance of winning. A very, very good chance.
John: Yeah, I think we'd both take it up in a heartbeat. And we're patient. We'll wait! If it's season 40, season 45. We'll stay in shape. We're ready.
