Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 44 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Fast Forward, Fall Back
By M. Giant | Season 23 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.03.2013
Meanwhile, the Fast Forward continues to fail to live up to its name as Jason tells Amy that they could easily end up burning a whole hour up here. She finally agrees to bag it and go back to the opera house, though she's pretty bitterly disappointed. Jason's already over it, and in fact may have been over it since they were first told it was too windy.
Tim & Danny find a match for their masks in fifth place, and then Tim & Marie have to watch the baseball wives getting a cab before them as well. Nicole & Travis finish the Detour in sixth place, and then get into a cab just after the Okies. And yet they are still ahead of Tim & Marie, who finished the Detour first but are leaving it sixth. Finally Jason & Amy show up at the Detour, knowing that they're in last place and deep trouble as they get started searching. But that could work out okay as long as they and the exes don't have any cab-related reversals of fortune.
The Ice-Ghanimals are the first to arrive at what looks like a massive Renaissance estate in the middle of the city .They run onto the grounds and read a clue just outside the front entrance that asks, "Who's a choir boy at heart?" And here's Phil to explain the relevance of the question: "The Vienna Boys Choir was established in 1498. These talented vocalists perform in hundreds of concerts every year." They sure look young for being 500 years old, too. We cut from footage of them in performance to footage of them in the rehearsal hall inside the Roadblock venue, as Phil says that for this Roadblock, the racers will have to "join the choir and learn how to sing 'Die Forelle,' by famous Austrian composer Franz Schubert." We get a close-up of the sheet music as Phil adds, "They will be judged on their pronunciation of the German lyrics and their musicality." Well, that's totally fair, because everyone has pretty much the same level of musical ability. Phil stands next to the suited, bespectacled guy at the piano, saying, "When the choir master feels they have put on a great performance, he'll hand over the next clue."
Jamal and Ally agree to take this for their respective teams, so they head inside and each pick a vocal coach from among a line of them waiting in the front hall. They are led into separate music rooms -- of which there seems to be no shortage in this building -- to sit down and go over the score syllable by syllable. Jamal says he has never spoken a word of German in his life, which makes me say Schadenfruede. But at least he's happy with his instructor. Whereas Ally turns out to have no skills with foreign languages at all. Given her skills with English, this is not terribly surprising. The baseball wives get there, and Nicky gets to work with the preexisting advantage of having a Czech dad who speaks German. Alas, Kim compares her to Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding: "The hot girl that cannot sing." For some reason Nicky hides her face in embarrassment rather than playing to what Kim just said is her strength in this area.