The Amazing Race's Dating Goths Stay Upbeat to the End

As Amazing Race fans know, no team was eliminated this week. But to tide you over till the next episode, here's an interview with America's favorite ousted racing Goths, Kynt Cothron and Vyxsin Fiala. Alternately called the Pinks, Team Goth or "the Freaks," the heavily eyelinered pair gave us a bright glimpse of the Goth side — until they got lost in Italy and were forced to face a new race penalty (the speed bump) in India. But like the "Goth Energizer Bunnies" they like to call themselves, Kynt and Vyxsin kept going and going. And just when it looked like they might pull off one mother of a comeback, they U-turned the wrong team, then forgot to grab all their gas-delivery receipts. Like Kynt would say, "Oh my Goth," that sucks.

TVGuide.com: You two rocked the yoga speed bump but then you blew the U-turn. How the heck did you pick Gramps and Nick over Nate and Jen?
Kynt: It seems so easy when you see it on TV. You get to see where everybody is. But remember, we were the very first team to get out of there. When we got to the flower detour, it was the first time we made visual contact with another team, Nate and Jen. And they finished the challenge at least 10 minutes before we did. So then it was just rolling the dice — like pick a card, any card. May as well be them.

TVGuide.com: Seems logical. Especially since, by that point, weren't you two working off, what, two seconds of sleep?
Vyxsin: We were tired. But to be honest, we could have stayed at the U-turn for six hours with wonderful, restful sleep and still not have come to the right conclusion because, from my point of view, it was a bit of a guessing game. It seemed unlikely that the teams would have been behind us, but it also seemed extremely unlikely that all the teams would have gone by and not U-turned anyone. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, strategically.
Kynt: Well, we were working on very [little] sleep. If you noticed, we had to spend the night on the street in India. When we got there, it was evening and the newspaper stand didn't open until 6 am.
Vyxsin: And there were rather large bugs and rather large rats. I'm not against rats at all. I used to have pet rats. But if you're a little concerned that they might pounce you, it keeps you from getting a deep, restful sleep. All the teams ended up huddled in this room that was an entrance to a bank.

TVGuide.com: Rats, bugs, sleeping on benches. With all that, was the race still fun?
Vyxsin: It really was. Obviously a million dollars is a million dollars, and we would have loved that money. But, barring that, we got to have the adventure of a lifetime.

TVGuide.com: Have you gone back to your regular jobs?
Kynt: Yeah, we're back to waiting tables.
Vyxsin: Only now people will say, "Can I have your autograph?" I sign and then go, "Would you like more Diet Coke?" It's funny. It's a bizarre sort of fame.

TVGuide.com: Are the tips better?
Kynt: Definitely.

TVGuide.com: When did you go Goth?
Both: In our teens.
Vyxsin: My dad was in the Army, so we moved all the time and I was perpetually the new kid. For a long time I really did try my hardest to fit in and be normal. I just failed miserably. And I realized I could either spend the rest of my life striving to be something that I'm not, failing and feeling bad about who I am, or I could celebrate the fact that, for whatever reason, I'm different, and just enjoy that.
Kynt: For me, I always loved Halloween and scary movies. When I was a teenager, I started getting into fashion and music, and all of these things just came together.

TVGuide.com: On the ferry to Italy, you were shown reapplying your makeup. It must have been hard to keep up your look while racing.
Vyxsin: It was challenging. But we got very adept at applying symmetrical eyebrows in airplane bathrooms when the plane was in turbulence. But if we feel aesthetically put together, it helps our morale.
Kynt: When we look our best, we play our best. Just like football players before a big game when they get their shoulder pads and their helmet on.

TVGuide.com: How long on average did it take to put on your game face?
Kynt: Never more than 30 minutes.
Vyxsin: But that would include getting dressed. And the stuff we do on the show is pretty streamlined — like "Kynt and Vyxsin Light." Kynt nicknamed it "athleti-goth."

TVGuide.com: Kynt, you said all the costumed villagers in Lithuania made you feel normal. Funny, since you guys go out of your way to be different.
Vyxsin: He wasn't saying, "Oh, at last, I feel normal!" It was more like, "Compared to these guys, I feel a little underdressed for once."
Kynt: We were surrounded by elves, dwarves, fairies and little critters. When we got there, it was like we were almost hypnotized by it. We started playing around with all the little creatures and dancing. One of them invited us into their home and we had a biscuit and some tea. That was our favorite moment. Then we looked at each other and we were like...
Vyxsin: ... What are we doing? We've got to get back to racing!

TVGuide.com: Did you break any nail-polish bottles in your bag?
Kynt: Thankfully, we did not have any items explode or break, believe it or not. But packing was difficult, because we had so many things we wanted to bring: our hairdryer, our flatiron, our makeup compacts.

TVGuide.com: You did not bring a flatiron on The Amazing Race!
Kynt: I did. I've got a little bit of wave. And I like it to be kind of straight and pointy. I was the first person [on the series] to bring a flatiron. Phil did name us the most fashionable team in Amazing Race history. So we were happy to win something.

TVGuide.com: Too bad it wasn't one of the legs of the race.
Vyxsin: We came in second three times. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Kynt: That's OK. This whole experience has just been such a blessing. I wake up every morning and wonder if it really happened.
Vyxsin: It feels like a crazy, wonderful dream.

TVGuide.com: But then you watch the tape. What's it been like to see the comments the other teams made about you?
Kynt: It gives us a giggle.
Vyxsin: Looking how Kynt and I do, I can't say we haven't been called names before, and sometimes they've been quite a bit harsher and meaner than those. It's unfortunate when people resort to that... but no big deal.

TVGuide.com: What kind of reception but did you generally get?
Kynt: Our look is different, but it's not intimidating, you know? We give off a very friendly vibe. And I think people could pick up on that. Also, I found that because we were something different, usually it was an advantage for us when dealing with people. We weren't the strongest team, the most athletic or the smartest. But we were stubborn. We would never stop. Like Vyxsin said on the first episode, "We were like Gothic Energizer bunnies."

TVGuide.com: Ah, your famous line. A couple of weeks ago, Azaria and Hendekea told me they felt like you two turned it on for the camera. How do you react to that?
Kynt: I don't think that's accurate because they never saw us when cameras weren't around. We were followed by a camera crew 24 hours a day.
Vyxsin: And I would say that of the other teams, too. We never saw any of them not being filmed. I don't feel like we really know the other teams very well outside of the context of The Amazing Race.

TVGuide.com: Didn't you spend some time with them at the Elimination Station in Portugal?
Kynt: Actually not. Because we were so close to the end, they took us to the ending destination.

TVGuide.com: You got the shaft. You didn't win anything and you missed out on the resort part.
Vyxsin: But I wouldn't have traded India and Italy for anything.

TVGuide.com: Speaking of Italy, that's where you had a meltdown. Kynt even threatened to jump out of the car at one point.
Vyxsin: And I don't blame him. We got super lost. When we got to the [accident on the highway] we decided to go on this insane mountain road. So I drove all night long on these tiny, hairpin turns up and down these crazy, super narrow, dark mountain roads. I couldn't even blink. We had no food, no water. And there was no way to get water. And no gas stations. I was pretty much delirious. Honestly, I shouldn't have been driving. No one who's been awake for a few days should be driving. It's just not smart.
Kynt: It was our one bad moment in The Amazing Race,and it was quick.

TVGuide.com: True, and you didn't jump. Vyxsin, how often does he threaten to injure himself to get his way?
Kynt: I'm like, "Vyxsin, gimme that powder or I'm going to stab myself in the eye."
Vyxsin: Honestly, the thing that we joke about with each other is that it took three years of us being together almost constantly and tens of thousands of miles of travel for us to, you know, snap at each other for a minute. It's not so bad.

TVGuide.com: Back when you were doing the furniture hoisting, you mentioned that you did macramé. What else would people be surprised to learn about you?
Vyxsin: That I'm very domestic. I love to cook and to do little house stuff like decorate. Kynt and I have these 1950s gender roles. Even though he's very cute and small and prissy, he's also very much a leader and he was very much the leader of the team.

TVGuide.com: That's the opposite of what they showed and what you claimed earlier this season when you said he brings out your chivalrous side. You made it seem like your gender roles were reversed.
Vyxsin: They sort of bounce back and forth.

TVGuide.com: I've been wondering.... What happened to the clunky shoes? I thought I saw you wearing some. Or did I hallucinate?
Kynt: You might have seen us wearing some toward the beginning. But they had to get left behind — as in, in the garbage in the airport before we went to Ireland. When we got to that first airport, we did some purging. After that, whenever we went to a pit stop, we'd try to lighten our load so that as we approached the end, we'd be sleeker and faster.

TVGuide.com: What else did you dump?
Kynt: Well, when we started, we had a lot more of everything — a lot of warm clothes, more makeup, 17 or 20 powder compacts. Fishnets. By the end, we had just what we needed to survive.
Vyxsin: But Kynt's flatiron did make it all the way to the end. That was never added to the trash list.
Kynt: The flatiron made it around the world!

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