In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
The racers take a train to Vienna, Austria, and though they don't all leave Gdansk at the same time, a long layover in Warsaw allows the trailing Afghanimals and blondes to catch up so that everyone arrives in Vienna at the same time. Their first stop is the Opera House, where a guy in a Rigoletto costume gives them their Detour clue. They can either put together a crystal chandelier (which nobody does) or search through a ballroom full of dancers to find exact matches for the masks they're currently wearing. Or, they can bag that entirely and go for a bungee-jumping Fast Forward. Jason & Amy race Nicole & Travis to that one until the ER docs give up the chase. Just as well for them, because Jason & Amy end up waiting in vain at the top of the tower for dangerous winds to die down. The Detour proves deceptively tricky for some teams, but they're all out of there by the time Jason & Amy give up on the Fast Forward and return, now in last place. Which I'm sure they think blows.
The other teams head to a Roadblock to sing Schubert's "Die Forelle" in German with the Vienna Boys Choir, which is not only outside almost everyone' s comfort zone, it takes almost everyone more than one attempt, allowing Jason & Amy to catch up. Each Roadblocker works individually with a singing instructor, most of them getting out of there after a couple of tries. On their way out, Nicky & Kim are briefly tempted to poach Jason & Amy's taxi but reconsider, and then Marie purposely steals Jason & Amy's cab and plans to pin it on the Afghanimals, screwing two teams in one stroke. Obviously Jason & Amy are pretty upset to find their cab gone when they come out of the Roadblock.
Then it's on to a palace where the teams have to negotiate a hedgerow maze to find the clue sending them to the Pit Stop. Nicky & Kim find that clue first, just ahead of the ER docs, but a long uphill footrace goes to Nicole & Travis. And Nicky & Kim come in second, just ahead of the Afghanimals, which for the baseball wives is like first. Marie & Tim are the fourth team at the mat, and Jason & Amy -- who by now know exactly what went down -- are right behind them, which leads to an ugly scene at the mat. Jason & Amy are mad, Marie is unrepentant and Tim looks like he'd rather be under the mat than on it.
Meanwhile, it's a lengthy toss-up as to whether Okie Tim or Ally is the worse singer, until the both get out of there after five tries. The blondes are in the lead all the way to the last clue, with the Okies closing in fast -- but it's not enough, and Tim & Danny end up Philiminated. I'm not sure if there's ever been a season that would have gone well for those two, but this one wasn't it.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"Gdansk is Poland's principal seaport and the birthplace of Solidarity, the worker's movement that helped bring down the communist government," Phil tells us over some dizzying shots of the city's towering harbor cranes and buildings. We also get another look at Solidarity Square, which was a much less eventful place last week than it was a couple of decades ago. "Situated on the Baltic Sea, it is also home to Europe's longest wooden pier." And Phil's now standing on it again, saying that Sopot Pier is also the start of the sixth leg in a race around the world.
We flash back to last week's close three-way finish, which Tim & Marie won by a hair, thus earning the right to start this leg in first place at 8:33 AM. That's a suspiciously civilized hour, if you ask me. The clue tells them to take a train to Vienna, Austria. Phil says it's a 640-mile trip to Austria's capital, where they'll have to find the famous Vienna State Opera House. We can already see that it's spectacular both inside and out. They'll have to find "Rigoletto," who is actually some slouching guy in a jester outfit who will lead them to the costume department to find their clue. Oh, man, Danny's going to have PTSD flashbacks when he finds out about that last part.
In their pre-leg interview, the exes claim to be happy to not only be in the lead but also about how they used the Express Pass last week. I have to admit that they certainly wouldn't have won the leg without it, which rarely happens. But now they decide to piss away their one-minute lead by waiting for Jason & Amy, or "Jamy," as Marie calls them. Marie interviews that they've kind of been helping each other. Remember that for later.
So "Jamy" opens their second place clue at 8:34 AM, and Amy jumps up and down upon learning they're going to Austria. "That's where the Sound of Music is!" she geeks. And look how that ended. She says that they have to be getting close to winning a leg, after coming in second thrice in a row. Which is one more time than I thought it was. Must be getting old.
In third place, Nicole & Travis depart at 8:35 AM, interviewing about how happy they are to have the Express Pass they got from Tim & Marie last week. As we see the six of them running for cabs in a big, mixed-up group, Travis says this gives them a little security to avoid being Philiminated before the final leg. He knows they've only got three legs left to use it, right?
The five lead teams make it to Warsaw and commence what's going to be a four-and-a-half hour layover. They spot a couple of noisy clowns hugging someone on the platform, but to Okie Tim's relief, these are literal clowns and not the Afghanimals. Until the pair of clowns to come down the escalator are the Afghanimals, who show up with the blondes. The five former lead teams all bust out their Oscar-loser smiles for the occasion. With all seven teams now together, some just now realize that this means the end of Brandon & Adam. But the Afghanimals deny having U-Turned them, even when Danny asks them straight out. There are skeptical looks all around, though of course Marie lacks the tact to stop at just a skeptical look. "You're such liars! You did U-Turn them!" she accuses. Leo & Jamal maintain that they never saw the Hairballs (which is not only not true but also doesn't preclude them from having U-Turned them), and they interview that they'll do what it takes to get ahead. Though they don't explain to us how the act of transparently and provably lying to all the other teams is supposed to accomplish that.
It's a bright, sunny early morning when the train pulls into Vienna and the teams race for taxis. Jason & Amy are the first pair to get a cab and reach the Opera House, telling their driver to wait for them. Other teams are close behind, and they pretty much all run in together to find the Rigoletto character crouching on the stairs theatrically, then silently leading them all the way up to the top balcony. They all marvel at the interior's soaring architecture, and Okie Tim interviews that the only theaters he's ever been in had movie screens. You know, I bet the Vienna Opera House has a movie screen somewhere too. I'm just saying. Eventually the racers are led to the costume department, which appears to be on the top floor. Rigoletto capers around and finally speaks in a weird Yoda voice as he starts handing out clues. I don't know that much about opera; is Rigoletto supposed to be so creepy?
Teams spread out along the top balcony to read their clues, which includes both a Detour and a Fast Forward. "Light Brigade" is the half of the Detour in which the racers have to dress up as court servants, complete with white gloves and powdered wigs, and put together an elaborate crystal chandelier in order to earn their clue from the Chamberlain. Keep in mind that per Phil, "if they don't get it on their first try, their hopes of finishing this Detour will come crashing down." Apparently because the chandelier will be raised to the ceiling and then dropped to smash on the floor, as seen in a demonstration. Nobody is going to do this task, so we never get to find out whether the racers will be required to stand underneath the chandelier.
On the other hand, for the "Masquerade" half of the Detour, they'll have to put on multicolored masks and join a dance in a ballroom where dancers are wearing similar -- but mostly not quite identical -- ornate masks. Each team will have to match their masks exactly to that of a dancing couple in order to get their clue from the "hostess." Both the Afghanimals and the blondes decide to do that one, while Marie seems more interested in the Fast Forward at first. "The Fast Forward is weather-dependent," she reads. Interesting, except for how the weather seemed perfect when they were coming over here from the train station.
Nicole & Travis decide to go for it, and all Phil tells us about it for now is that the teams will have to go to the Donauturm, a space-needle-looking thing that Phil says is the highest structure in Vienna. Not that Phil needs to say much; the only thing that kind of building is used for is climbing or jumping off of. Jason & Amy are going to try for it as well, while Tim & Marie decide to stick around and try the Masquerade Detour, as do the Okies and the baseball wives. On their way out, Amy & Jason and the ER docs realize that they're both going for it, so it's looking like it's going to end up as a taxi race. Amy tells Jason the weather-dependent part. "So it's outside?" Jason asks. Yes, at the very least, one would think. Looking at a tree blowing in a brisk wind, Travis says it's breezy but nice. You know, technically any activity is weather-dependent, because one F5 tornado up the ass will clear an hour or two off of anyone's calendar.
Meanwhile, other teams -- Leo & Jamal, Tim & Marie, Nicky & Kim, and Tim & Danny -- are getting directions to the Masquerade Detour and finding out it's within running distance. But Danny somehow steps wrong on a water hose stretched along the sidewalk and turns his ankle. Fortunately his partner has a solution: "Walk it off." Thanks, Dr. Tim.
En route to the Fast Forward, Nicole & Travis realize that Jason & Amy are ahead of them. So they decide to cut their losses, abandon the chase, and go to the Masquerade task instead. Not to give anything away, but this will prove to be the right call for more than one reason.
Leo & Jamal are the first to reach the Österreichisches Theatermuseum, a name so long that it requires the smaller subtitle letters just to fit across the screen. Inside, they find a couple of tables of masks (some pointy on top and some not), but all of them elaborate and multicolored. The Afghanimals tie them on as Jamal explains the task to Leo, and then the door opens to the ballroom, where dancers in formalwear and similar masks are waltzing to the "Blue Danube." The cousins wind through the room until Leo finds what he thinks is a match for Jamal's mask. But a freeze-frame of the mask in question, shown to the one Jamal is wearing, shows that Jamal's is blue just over the eyes, whereas the one that Leo found is black in that area. It's a pretty subtle difference, so much so that the Amazing Editors have to highlight and zoom in on the area, then throw in a big Family Feud "X" and a buzzer noise just to make sure we get the point. The mask on the woman is also only a near-match for Leo's, but they don't know this until they bring the couple out to the hostess for inspection. "I’m sorry, that's not the perfect match," she tells them. Good eyes on that girl, I'm thinking. Soon Nicky & Kim and Tim & Marie arrive at the Detour and join in the search. But you know, for themselves.
In the cab to the Fast Forward, Amy is clearly wanting this bad. "Having the opportunity to come in first using a Fast Forward, it just felt right," she interviews. Does skipping most of a leg ever seem like a bad idea to anyone? Has anyone ever done a Fast Forward and gotten eliminated in the same leg? I'm sure John would have found a way last season if he'd stuck around longer. Soon they can spot the tower in the distance from their cab, and figure that they'll probably be bungee-jumping from it. "I'm a little terrified of this," Jason admits. When they reach the building, they take a number (1, obviously) at the entrance. Then we cut to Phil standing out on the platform with the bungee harness on, telling us that they can "leap at the chance to win the Fast Forward and go directly to the Pit Stop." All it takes is a 500-foot bungee jump. Which Phil does not perform for the camera, alas.
Amy's heart is racing as they ride the elevator up to the observation deck. But when they come outside, a guide tells them he's really sorry, but it's too windy to jump right now. I suppose that Fast Forward or no, it won't save any time in the long run if a gust bashes you against the side of the building while you're hundreds of feet in the air. The guide says it might be better in ten or fifteen minutes -- don't ask me how he could possibly know that -- but the shot of leaves blowing in the wind is not encouraging. Jason thinks they should bail on this right away, but Amy would rather wait, like the wind is on a schedule and she's taking the guide at his word. "You're gonna bank on the weather?" Jason asks, as we see a potted plant nearby being blown over. Apparently she is.
Post-ads, they're still disagreeing. But Jason ends up giving in and agreeing to wait, though he's clearly not happy about it. Amy tries to explain further until he cuts her off with a brusque, "I'm waitin'." Teamwork!
At the Detour, Marie is getting loud and snippy with Tim, as usual. Nicole finds a match for Travis's mask, but that dancer's partner isn't wearing one that matches Nicole's. Ally & Ashley show up at the ballroom, with Tim & Danny right behind them. Tim & Marie are actually the first team to finish this (her obvious eye for detail is another clue supporting my totally unqualified and pop-culture-based diagnosis of her spectrum disorder), and their clue tells them to find their clue at a place called Wiener Sängerknaben. Even if there were no clues there, I'd still go just for the name. Leo finds another close-but-no-cigar, the baseball wives find a perfect match and leave in second place, the Afghanimals finish in third on their third try, and Ally & Ashley get their clue in fourth place on their first try. And somehow the Ice-Ghanimals are in taxis and en route to the clue while the exes are still trying to hail a cab. Perhaps Marie's reputation has preceded her among Europe's cabdrivers.
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 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 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.
The Okies just beat the ER docs to the clue outside, and Tim and Travis will be doing this one for their teams. And Marie snaps at the other Tim when their taxi arrives, "Get out of the car and get our bags!" You can't fake that kind of love.
Inside, Okie Tim is such a completely hopeless singer that I finally figure out who it is he's been reminding me of all this time: Andy Kaufman. His vocalizing is so transcendently awful that it could pass for surrealistic comedy. Travis, on the other hand, plays multiple instruments and sings all the time back home, so I think it's already obvious which of the two of them is going to do better at this.
Jason & Amy belatedly complete the Detour and head to the Roadblock, Amy hoping they'll be able to catch up there. Marie decides that of the two of them, Tim is the choir boy (on multiple levels, probably) so he is soon being coached at length through the German lyrics. He should probably learn German at some point anyway, just so he can mock Marie in a Nazi voice.
Jason & Amy make it to the Roadblock even before anyone has attempted singing, and they're pretty happy to have caught up with all the other teams. But not as happy as Marie is to see Jason show up at the waiting area, given that their arrival means he and Amy are in last place instead of already en route to the Pit Stop.
Travis decides that he's ready to give it a try with the choir, and Jamal's goofy opera-face doesn't put off his teacher from giving him the green light as well. Down in the choir room, Ashley says "hey" to one of the choir boys, who just grins at the camera. Most kids his age would probably blush, but don't forget that this one is in the Vienna Boys Choir and thus has hot and cold running groupies in his dressing room. With racers now on the way to sing, the director calls the choir to order and sits down at the piano. Travis has to stand in the middle of the room, apart from the choir and in front of the other racers, but at least he gets to hold onto his score and doesn't have to do this by memory. On the other hand, neither does the Vienna Boys Choir. They chortle and smirk at Travis's high-commitment but low-skill delivery of the jaunty little march, until the choir master begs him to stop and try again. Travis returns to the music room to work on it some more, and discovers that the problem is that there are notes too high for his range. My problem is that I already cover two shows with competitive singing and I don't really feel like doing a third one.
Jamal's opera-face isn't quite enough to get him through his first attempt, given that even Ally can tell he's not singing the right words. Back to the drawing board for him too. Ally takes up the position, and her clear soprano would be almost refreshing after the two guys, if she could sing at all. She barely makes it two lines before the Austrian Simon Cowell cuts her off. Danny observes that Tim's been downstairs for a long time, and we visit him in the music room with an instructor who is becoming increasingly desperate. He advises Tim to imagine himself as Justin Timberlake, then as an opera singer, then to try singing in a child's voice while lying on the ground, while marching in place, and while slapping his own cheeks. Meanwhile, a portrait of some other composer smirks out into the room like a condescending 18th-century version of The Most Interesting Man In The World. The other Tim is almost ready to go, and when he arrives in the rehearsal hall, Marie thinks he can be the first to get this "because of your weird memory. Just do it." He gets pretty far into the first verse before the director has had enough, but Marie keeps her comments to Tim positive, at least for her. "You made it further than anyone else, so go fix it and hurry up and come back." "Yeah, Tim, go fix it now!" Jason orders in a mockingly Marie-like manner. And why not? Marie doesn't give a crap.
As promised, Nicky's first attempt exposes her as the worst singer yet, and on their way back, her instructor says she needs to work on the melody. Which is true, in the sense that she needs to recognize that there is one. Travis, meanwhile, has decided with his coach to take the arrangement down an octave in order to keep it within the top of his range. Of course, his bottom range has a limit as well, so it sounds pretty weird when he heads upstairs and basically belches the first verse. But I suppose that asking the Vienna Boys Choir to just take it down a fifth is not something that is, quite strictly speaking, done. He survives the first verse solo, the kids take the breakdown, and then Travis blessedly returns to his normal range to bring it on home. This time he gets all the way to the end, and the director stands up from the piano and says, "That was pretty good." Coming from the director of the Vienna Boys Choir, that's…well, a total lie. But the ER docs are still the first team to finish the Roadblock. Now they have to go to what the clue calls Schloss Schönbrunn and Phil calls Schönbrunn Palace. They're soon hopping in a taxi outside as Nicole tells him he was awesome. Unlike the director of the Vienna Boys Choir, I think she means it.
Nicky's second attempt is deemed "…acceptable." Jamal clearly disagrees, or else he's just going to throw up for as Nicky hugs the choir director. She and Kim read their clue outside and find a taxi outside. After asking a driver if he knows how to get to Schloss Schönbrunn, which he does, they go around to the back of the station wagon taxi and see Jason & Amy's backpacks still inside. Knowing they can't touch those, they start to run off in search of another cab. But then Kim looks back and sees that Jason & Amy's driver, for reasons unknown, is taking their luggage out of the car for some reason. She suggests taking that cab now that it's technically empty, but Nicky would rather not "mess with that," so they don't. Plenty of cabs out on the street, so it's not worth the drama anyway. At least, not to most people.
"Don't laugh," Okie Tim says before his first attempt, but his singing makes Nicky sound like Renee Fleming. Even the other racers can't keep a straight face at his atonal bleating, except of course for Danny. He doesn't seem to think it's very funny at all. The director stops Tim less than two lines in and says, "I'm sorry, that's…terrible." All of us are sorry, herr direktor. All of us.
Back to work for Tim, and then Jamal makes a second attempt. His not entirely inaccurate but goofy performance cracks Leo up and no one else, which explains a lot about the two of them. The choir director calls it "very good," and for his trouble he gets picked up by the waist by Jamal and spun around before the Afghanimals take off with their clue in third place. Ex Tim takes a second crack at it, with his instructor conducting him from four feet away. "Oh my God, you did so good," Marie says -- and indeed, the director hands Tim his clue with a "bravo." They're in fourth place as Marie reads the clue in the hallway and then says, "All right, let's go steal somebody's cab." You know, I'm not a lawyer, but that seems kind of premeditated to me.
Amy begins singing, and while she's not exactly a star, at least she doesn't sound like she's performing Klingon opera either. Tim follows Marie out to Jason & Amy's cab, which is still parked there with Jason & Amy's their backpacks on the ground to it. Is he airing them out or something? Tim tries to wave her away, but she insists, "If their bags aren't in it." Once inside, Marie briefs Tim on what their story's going to be: "Yes, the Afghanimals took their cab. We saw it happen." "When?" Tim asks cluelessly. Marie patiently explains that that's what they'll tell everyone. "If their bags aren't in it, it's fair game," she smugs. Of course, everyone will hate her, but it's not like that's been a concern for her before now.
After the ads, Marie further explains her motivation in an interview, (beyond how she's simply horrible person), which is that their driver dropped them off on the wrong side of the building and she figured it would be faster to just take a different cab rather than play the hand they'd been dealt like a couple of chumps. "I don't know how they got out of the car but we didn't touch them," Tim adds in their post-leg interview. Marie concludes, "I'm sure there's probably gonna be some hard feelings there, but a million dollars [vs.] drinks with Jay and Amy after the show." And that's actually a good point -- they might not win the money, anyway, but it's not like she was going to end up friends with them anyway either. Back in Jason & Amy's cab, the driver belatedly realizes that he left the Roadblock with a different team than the one he's been driving around Vienna all morning. He clearly never looked at either team, because they look nothing like each other. On top of everything, Marie insults his intelligence by showing him the blue Route Info clue and claiming they're all on some kind of fictitious blue same team anyway, so it doesn't matter. That would be a terrible show.
Amy becomes the only person to complete the Roadblock on her first try, so she and Jason are out of there in fifth place. "Back in the back again," Ashley remarks as she continues waiting with Danny. Jason & Amy run out of the building and spot their backpacks, though they can't help noticing that these backpacks currently have a conspicuous lack of taxi around them. As they realize this means they'll have to leave the grounds and go to the main road, Amy says, "Jason, someone else took our damn taxi, that's what happened." They seem to find a new taxi out on the street fairly quickly, but Amy vows, "Providence Amy will definitely come out if another team took our taxi." Wait, so Kevin Smith is working on Chasing Amy's crossover sequel with Outside Providence? Do we have a release date?.
The ER docs show up a Schloss Schönbrunn, where part of the grounds -- which are vast, so no wonder all the cabbies know where it is -- are filled with a high-walled hedgerow maze. Even before entering the maze, they can see the clue box standing in a one-story observation platform in the center that overlooks the whole maze. Travis & Nicole venture in as the baseball wives arrive and have their taxi wait. Both teams wander the maze for a while, with all the wrong turns and dead ends that entails, but Nicky & Kim are the first to reach the ramp to the platform and collect the clue. This one tells them to find the Pit Stop at something called the Gloriette. They won't have to leave the Schloss, though; Phil says that's the centerpiece of the garden, as he's standing there with a parasol-wielding greeter near a pond and a colonnade at the top of a hill. Do I have to tell you what may happen to the last team to check in here? Well, obviously Phil does.
Nicky & Kim are plotting their move when the ER docs join them on the platform to get their clue. And soon it's a footrace in which neither party knows where they're going. Nicky & Kim go to ask their cabdriver for directions, but Nicole has realized the Gloriette may be on the grounds, so she and Travis are going to ask somebody handier. The Afghanimals arrive on the scene as the ER docs get directions to the Gloriette from a convenient tour guide and start heading toward it. Soon Nicky & Kim are doing the same, but only after having backtracked to their cab and losing their lead. Again.
As the Afghanimals blunder through the maze until they find the last clue of the leg, the two lead teams are racing each other up the steep hill. After Travis tells Nicole to drop her bag, the two of them are the first to reach the mat. Also again. The greeter welcomes them to Vienna, and Phil tells them they're team number one and the winners of a trip to Anguilla. He also tells them that they've earned themselves a nickname, which Nicole already knows is "Power Parents." Phil allows that it's not a bad nickname to have. It's a bad nickname to say, though, and I'm not fucking doing it.
The baseball wives reach the mat just ahead of the Afghanimals, and they high five before Phil checks them in as teams two and three respectively. I can't believe Nicky and Kim came in second, but then I can't believe they've made it halfway through the race, either.
Back at the Roadblock, Ally's on her second try for the song. "Thank you. Not enough," the director says. "Oh my God, don't go back downstairs," Ashley mutters. She's getting worried. She wouldn't be if she could hear what's going on with Okie Tim, which is more (and more intense) awfulness.
At the Schloss, Marie tells Jason & Amy's driver wait for them, which is rich. Behind them, Amy is acting as though she's almost afraid of what she's going to have to do if she finds out that what happened, happened. Soon the exes are in the maze wandering about, until Marie sees a group of kids up on the central platform where the clue is and brays at them, "Which way? Tell me which way!" The kids excitedly point out directions, and Marie says she loves little kids. Probably because they assume any adult is the boss of them. With their help, Tim & Marie gratefully collect the Pit Stop clue in fourth place and are soon on their way to the Gloriette. The team whose cab they stole look much less excited as they roll up and spot their former taxi waiting. Jason jogs over to check in the back, and recognizes Tim & Marie's backpacks right away. Which is a shame, because I would have loved to see the fallout from Marie actually trying to pin that on the Afghanimals.
Running toward the maze, Amy says, "I cannot even believe them." Jason interviews that his heart dropped and he couldn't believe they would do that either. Uh, have ya met Marie? Jason and Amy run into the maze as Tim & Marie are getting directions to the Gloriette. "Son of a bitch," Tim says when he sees the climb ahead of them. Jason & Amy are getting impatient with each other as they find their way through the maze, no longer having any fun at all after the experience they're having. They're soon running up the hill to the Gloriette behind Tim & Marie. The exes get there ahead of them, though not by much. "We're in trouble," Marie mutters to Tim as she monitors the approach of the couple she screwed. Jason & Amy step onto the mat to Tim -- who is just staring shamefacedly at Phil's feet -- and turn to Phil without looking at the exes. Clearly reading the tension, Phil remarks to Jason & Amy, "Huh, you guys snuck up on us." Jason agrees that sneaky is a good word. "Other people know that term too," he says, giving Tim and Marie some nasty side-eye as we go to the ads. Ooh, it's on now.
That must have been a pretty long, awkward commercial break for the six people at the mat, but when it ends Phil says that Tim & Marie are team number four and Jason & Amy are team number five. For all her big talk earlier, Amy doesn't seem to trust herself to speak now that is just keeping mum. Phil asks her if she's unhappy about that, and Jason the one to speak up, saying, "Our friends here stole our cab, tampered with our bags. I think they should get a penalty." Marie jumps all over that part of it, chirping that they never touched the other team's bags and they were right outside the cab. "We would never take your bags out," she says. The very idea! "Would we take a cab that didn't have any bags in them? Yes. It's a race." Yep, one that likely still has one more U-Turn left. Which is one more than the number of Express Passes Marie still has.
Jason says they would never do that to them, so he and Amy understate that they're a little disappointed. Marie tries to argue that Jason & Amy don't know what they would have done in that position (without mentioning that she knew what she was going to do even before she was in the position), and both Jason and Amy yell that they could have done the same thing. At this point, Jason yells at Amy to shut up, because on top of everything else what she needs right now is for her boyfriend to start acting like a high-handed dick. Tim, by the way, has just been standing silently mortified between Amy and Marie this whole time, not looking at anyone and clearly just wanting this to be over. There's an awkward silence, made even louder by the fact that these are the first few full minutes in God knows how many seasons when there hasn't been some kind of music playing.
Marie has the balls to tell Phil that they've been friends this whole time and have been helping each other, "but at the end of the day, it's a race. It's a million dollars." And Jason responds that it doesn't matter anyway. "We went all the way to a Fast Forward, and back and we're still here. We're gonna kick their ass. We know we're a better team." Marie doesn't have a response to that, and Phil and the greeter -- the latter of whom so did not sign up for this -- just nod at Jason all, "Alrighty, then." He does make a good point, except for the part about teammates not telling each other to shut up during conflicts with other teams.
With five teams checked in, that leaves two still racing. That is, if you can call it racing when they're still stalled way back at the Roadblock. Danny and Ashley are waiting to see who's going to come back and what will happen when they do. Tim finishes another run-through in the practice room that his instructor seems excited about, and they head back to the rehearsal hall. Ally's on her way back as well. Tim's second attempt doesn't go much better than his first, though this time he shows enough improvement that one might almost mistake him for someone who may have heard music at some point in his life. They each take a third and fourth try, but Ally actually gets to the end of the piece on her fifth attempt. After along, dramatic pause, the director calls her performance "acceptable" and hands over her clue. It's not looking good for the Okies, but Danny tells Tim that he couldn't have done it any better as the blondes get their clue and take off. Tim's instructor asks him how he feels. "Uh, bad," Tim says, because he's in last place. Danny says they still have a chance, so Tim goes into the song again.
Meanwhile, to make it seem like it could still be close, Ally & Ashley are shown out on the street trying in vain to get a taxi to stop for them. Tim finishes the song and prays silently as the last echoes of the choir fades out. Finally the director says, "Congratulations," because as rotten as Tim still was, there's really no point in torturing him further. The blondes get in a cab, and the Okies do as well. "Can't dance, can't sing," Tim berates himself in the taxi. Danny says they can still race, though. Even with his hurt ankle that he had up on a chair the whole time Tim was doing the Roadblock? Anyway, the blondes arrive at the Schloss while the Okies are still in their cab hoping for some kind of break. And they might be getting one. It takes the blondes a while to find the maze, and longer to get to the clue amid all the dead ends, but they eventually find it as the Okies are running onto the grounds.
On the final walk to the Gloriette, the blondes talk about how happy they are to be in such a beautiful setting. Their mood has rapidly declined after a quick check-in with the Tim & Danny, however: "Dammit, Phil, why do you pick hills? This is gonna suck." By now the Okies have also found the clue, and know enough to follow the blondes up the hill after having stayed out of sight until now to keep the latter team from speeding up. On the final approach Ashley says something about the Stanley Cup finals (because hockey), the Okies say "I love you, man" and "I love you too, bro," and the sixth team to arrive is…Ally & Ashley. They're clearly relieved, and Phil remarks, "There's a lot of girl power on this race." Yes, on other teams.
Tim & Danny finally jog up to the mat after the blondes have vacated it (so it couldn't have been that close after all), and Phil gets right down to the Philiminating. Tim takes it pretty well, though Danny looks like his ankle is now hurting him all the way up to his face. "You can let it out, it's all right," Phil says. Better TV, too. Tim says they had high expectations for themselves, but they also feel pretty good about how they did for a couple of travel newbies. Over a farewell montage of some of their least embarrassing moments of the season, they say all the usual things about how the Amazing Race was an unbelievable experience that they got to do with each other and now memories that will last them a lifetime. Whereas I have forgotten them already.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.