Morgan and Lena Franklin’s whirlwind summer of 2023 began with a tightrope walk above downtown Los Angeles and ended near the famous art deco spiral stairs of Nebotičnik, a skyscraper in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. In the month between, the sisters and Boca Raton natives farmed lotus flowers from a muddy pond in Thailand; handled and displayed live fish in a Vietnamese wet market; balanced a tower of pots on their head while performing a Bhavai dance in Jaipur, India; rappelled down the side of a castle in Frankfurt, Germany; and soared above Slovenia’s Lake Bled in a glider.
These were only a few of the challenges—some enjoyed, others endured—of the Franklins’ appearance on season 35 of “The Amazing Race.” In the CBS travel-adventure show, teams of two must race through various world cities by solving puzzles and completing mental and physical “roadblocks” and “detours,” to borrow the series’ argot.
“The Amazing Race” is a high-stress game of inches, where even the slightest delay can mean the difference between survival and elimination. Traveling by plane, boat, taxi, rickshaw, tuktuk and more, the sisters had to learn new skills under immense pressure and in exotic cultures, without the aid of smartphones or GPS, subsisting often on electrolyte tablets and sheer force of will.
“Every task is doable, but if you make a mistake, that could be your demise,” Morgan says. “It is, in a lot of ways, a strategy game—making the best choices that you can, given the information at hand. So it’s very hard to train for ‘The Amazing Race.’
“It’s very much like life,” she adds. “There are some things you can control and some that are not in your control, and you have to deal with both with grace. You can’t be so mad at your taxi driver; they’re just doing their job to the best of their ability.”
If viewers remember one challenge from the Franklins’ time on the show, it’s probably from the season opener in Thailand, when they won an Express Pass by each eating a plate full of fried insects, allowing them to bypass a challenge in episode three.
“The crickets were good,” Morgan says. “I think they should be packaged in a bag and sold as high-protein, crunchy, salty deliciousness. The grubs were terrible—filled with oil and chewy. Lena did not like the tarantula. It was visually a lot to want to put into your mouth. I have a much greater appreciation for cultures that are actually continuing to use, or introducing, bugs as proteins into their diets, because they are viable food sources. But eating a dinner plate full? Not pleasant.”
The eldest of three siblings (their brother is 24), Morgan, 32, and Lena, 30, grew up in west Boca, where both attended Waters Edge Elementary together, and then Bak Middle School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. Lena graduated from Dreyfoos School of the Arts, and then Tulane University. Morgan went on to Atlantic High School in Delray, then Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Though they still consider Boca Raton as home, both have fled the nest for impressive careers in metropolitan cities: Morgan is the global marketing manager for Budweiser in New York and Lena is the vice president of marketing for Def Jam Recordings in Los Angeles, where she has worked with stars such as Kendrick Lamar and Pusha T. Both of their employers were “shockingly supportive,” Morgan says, of their month away from the office.
“Everybody was really excited to see us on national television,” Lena says. “It’s not often you get to see your peer ripping an envelope and having no idea where they go. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so we were grateful that everyone we work with was really supportive.”
Though eliminated in the eighth episode, the Franklins believe the experience strengthened their kinship, which they previously likened to “oil and water.”
“Our reason for doing the race was about our relationship as sisters,” Lena says. “It was the first time that we were able, since we were teenagers, to spend time with each other of this magnitude. And it gave Morgan and I the ability to see each other in a different light, to understand what it means to support each other as adults, and I think the show made us incredibly closer. It’s much easier for us to talk, to work through our problems, to find common ground. The race gave us this reset button that we needed so desperately.”
“We just have so much more to talk about now,” Morgan adds. “It’s not just talking about work or family. We talk about the race; we talk about life experiences. I travel all the time for work; for Lena, her travel bug is at a whole different level and rivaling mine now. We just have a more mature level of respect, having gone through the experience together.”
This article is from the July/August 2024 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
