The Amazing Race Episode 23.06 Choir Boy at Heart

TIM & DANNY ELIMINATED IN VIENNA

In Vienna, Austria, dating couple Jason & Amy survived a wild leg that included getting their taxi stolen by Tim & Marie. Meanwhile, Oklahoman Tim's trouble at a singing Roadblock led to his and Danny's elimination.

ALL ABOARD!

At 8:33am, exes Tim & Marie stood on Sopot Pier in first place and ripped open their clue instructing them to travel 640 miles by train to Vienna, Austria. Once there, they had to make their way to the world famous Vienna State Opera House and find Rigoletto, who would lead them to the costume department where they would receive their next clue. Picking up where they left off in the previous leg, Tim & Marie continued working with dating couple Jason & Amy and married ER doctors Nicole & Travis. The three teams who engaged in a competitive sprint to the mat for first place now rode in taxis together to the train station, hoping to get a lead on the Afghanimals. Acting as leader for the group of six, Amy purchased tickets for a train that would arrive in Vienna at 6:40am. The teams, including baseball wives Nicky & Kim and best friends Tim & Danny, boarded the train that first stopped in Warsaw at 4:44pm and continued to Vienna at just before 9:00pm. With no Leo & Jamal and Ally & Ashley aboard, Marie wondered, "Is that good? Is that bad? Are they gonna figure out another way?"

"YOU'RE SUCH LIARS!"

Waiting patiently on the platform in Warsaw for their 8:54pm connecting train to Vienna, the five teams hoped they wouldn't see Leo & Jamal or Ally & Ashley appear. However, their dreams were dashed when the Afghanimals and NHL ice crew members came busting down the escalator, excited to catch up once again. Almost immediately, the curious frontrunners questioned the Afghanimals on what happened in the last leg after Tim & Danny U-Turned them. Leo & Jamal claimed that they never saw childhood friends Brandon & Adam and, when asked directly, the Afghanimals denied U-Turning them. Marie immediately blurted out, "You're such liars!" On why they lied about U-Turning Brandon & Adam, Jamal later commented, "I'm sorry but right now we'll do whatever we can to get ahead."

MORNING AT THE OPERA

Arriving in Vienna the next morning, the seven teams raced in taxis to the Vienna State Opera House, where they ran into the impressive building to find Rigoletto waiting for them. The operatic court jester slowly led the teams up the opera house's sweeping marble staircases and into the majestic theater through the highest balcony seats, which overlooked the stage below. Oklahoman Tim marveled, "I've never been in a theater like that. The only theater I've been in had a movie screen." Leading the teams into a backstage workroom that housed the many elaborate costumes worn in opera productions at the theater, Rigoletto presented them with their next clue, which contained both a Detour and a Fast Forward.AN IMPORTANT DECISION

In the Detour, teams had the choice of either Light Brigade or Masquerade. Light Brigade required teams to dress up as court servants and properly assemble an elaborate crystal chandelier. If they completed it to the satisfaction of the chamberlain, he would hand over the next clue. However, if they didn't get it on the first try, their hopes (and chandelier) would come crashing down. Masquerade required teams to wear ornate masks and join a lavish Viennese ball. Teams would enter an elegant ballroom where dancers were wearing intricately designed masks with subtle differences in color and pattern. With an attention to fine detail, teams had to match the masks they were wearing with that of a dancing couple. When the hostess determined they had a perfect match, she would hand them their next clue. With most teams choosing Masquerade, a few of them mulled over the Fast Forward that required them to travel to the Donauturm, the highest structure in Vienna. With no other information available about the task other than it being weather dependent, everyone decided to skip the Fast Forward except for allies Nicole & Travis and Jason & Amy, who told each other of their decision while running down the opera house steps. Getting a jump on the ER doctors into a taxi, Jason & Amy, wanting to finally win a leg, told their driver to hurry to the Donauturm. In a taxi a few minutes behind, Nicole & Travis reconsidered their plan now that Jason & Amy had a lead. Not wanting to risk losing out on the Fast Forward, the married ER doctors changed their mind and headed to Masquerade with the other five teams.

MASQUERADE

Entering the Osterreichisches Theater Museum, cousins Leo & Jamal walked up to a table and found a selection of very similar masks to choose from. After they each chose one and tied it around their head, they realized Jamal would need to find Leo's mask and Leo would need to find Jamal's, since they couldn't look at their own. With sunlight pouring in through large windows onto the dance floor, Leo & Jamal began watching the dancing couples glide past them, trying to catch a glimpse of the masks they wore before they twirled on. Leo immediately thought he spotted Jamal's mask, but the two masks had different colors in a small section just above the eye. Similarly, Jamal thought he found Leo's mask, but two of the colors above the eye didn't match between the masks.

BLOWING IN THE WIND

As Nicky & Kim and Tim & Marie joined Leo & Jamal in the ballroom, dating couple Jason & Amy anxiously neared the Donauturm in their taxi, wanting to win the Fast Forward and finally secure a victory after three consecutive second place finishes. Seeing the imposing tower standing tall above the skyline, the dating couple nervously anticipated a bungee jump in their very near future. They were correct. In this Fast Forward, each team member had to make a 500-foot bungee jump off of the Donauturm. Riding the elevator to the top of the tower, Amy jumped around, telling Jason, "I'm freaking out!" However, when the dating couple walked out onto the platform, they had an entirely different reason to freak out than they had expected. The safety instructor told the couple they couldn't jump at the time because the high winds made it too dangerous. The instructor added that the weather could change in ten or fifteen minutes if they wanted to wait. While Amy wanted to wait, Jason wasn't interested in gambling on the winds dying down. But after listening to her pleas, Jason grudgingly relented, adding, "I think it's dumb."

LOSING TIME

As Jason & Amy remained at a standstill atop the Donauturm, the remaining six teams all moved across the dance floor searching for their matching masks. After arriving in third place, Tim & Marie found their matches with relative ease and, in first place, they ripped open their clue, sending them to Wiener Sangerknaben. However, the exes just as quickly lost their lead trying to find a taxi outside of the theater museum as Marie asked, "Is this a sick joke?" Cousins Leo & Jamal, NHL ice crew members Ally & Ashley, baseball wives Nicky & Kim, best friends Tim & Danny, and married ER doctors Nicole & Travis all finished the Detour and sped away in taxis before Tim & Marie finally flagged down one of their own. With the wind remaining at a persistently high speed, Jason finally convinced Amy that the best approach would be to cut their losses and leave the Donauturm. Disappointed but still hopeful, the dating couple took a taxi to the Osterreichisches Theater Museum, where they immediately became more worried to see no other teams in the ballroom. Knowing they were in last place, Jason & Amy quickly found their matching masks and hustled into a taxi to Wiener Sangerknaben. A concerned Amy told Jason, "I just hope that we are able to catch up on the Roadblock."

SING!

On the well-manicured grounds just outside of the Palais Augarten, cousins Leo & Jamal and NHL ice crew members Ally & Ashley ripped open their clue to find a Roadblock. In it, one team member had to join the world famous Vienna Boys' Choir and learn how to sing Die Forelle by Austrian composer Franz Schubert. They would be judged on their pronunciation of the German lyrics and their musicality. When the choirmaster felt they put on a great performance, he would hand them their next clue. Entering the Palais Augarten , the home and boarding school of the Vienna Boys' Choir, Jamal and Ally each chose an instructor and began their tutorial session in a practice room. Jamal never spoke a word of German before, but with his instructor's help, he quickly picked up the pronunciations and showed glimpses of musicality when he starting singing the melody. Meanwhile, Ally started the task excited because she loved to sing and perform, but her inability to speak other languages soon caused problems. As she mangled line after line of the famous German song, her instructor put his hand to his face in exasperation.

MUSIC AND LYRICS

The next four teams arrived at Wiener Sangerknaben with a wide range of aptitude for singing in a foreign language. Nicky had no issues learning German due to her family heritage, but her singing voice was bad enough for Kim to call her "the hot girl who cannot sing." Oklahoman Tim professed he had a hard enough time singing in English, much less German, so he knew he had a difficult task ahead. In contrast, Travis, a musician and singer as well as ER doctor, grasped the lyrics and melody with incredible ease, belting out the song almost immediately. Tim (of Tim & Marie) later commented that the biggest issue for him was the pronunciation of the German words, requiring a substantial amount of time with his instructor to master it. Running onto the Palais Augarten grounds, last place team Jason & Amy spotted other taxis and knew they had caught up to the other teams. Relieved at still having a shot to stay in the Race, Amy got off to a solid start in her practice room, singing in tune while Jason reunited with the other six non-participants, who were all shocked to see him walk into the performance room. Jason told the teams about the strong winds at the Donauturm, adding with a nervous laugh, "We'll see how she does here."

SHOW TIME

After more practicing, the virtuosos-in-training finally felt confident enough for their first performance with the choir. Entering the performance room first, Travis mentally prepared himself as the choirmaster clapped his hands to signal the boys into place. After a brief piano and vocal introduction sung by the choir, Travis hit his cue and began to belt out the German lyrics. While he started well enough, the ER doctor got tripped up halfway through the first verse, causing the choirmaster to stop playing the piano. When Jamal's first attempt failed too, he said, "I need to be on beat with the chorus and the pianist." Ally flubbed her first attempt right from the start as she tripped over words she just couldn't pronounce and quickly retreated to her practice room. After Nicky's near tone deaf first try, her instructor kindly told her, "It's not the right melody." Tim (of Tim & Marie) fared best in his first attempt, making it further through the song than anyone else, but it still wasn't enough. On his way back to practice, he told his instructor, "I need the phonetic pronunciation of everything." Only one racer didn't make an appearance in the performance room: Oklahoman Tim. Between Tim's inability to learn foreign languages and sing (i.e. the entire task) and his instructor's unorthodox methods to elicit improvement in his struggling pupil's efforts, Tim spent what seemed to Danny an eternity in the practice room. Among the suggestions to Tim, the instructor told him to sing like Justin Timberlake, sing like an opera singer, and sing like a child. None of these ideas worked particularly well, as the instructor said, "Still some way to go."

SECOND TIME'S A CHARM

Walking into the performance room for his second try, Travis hoped the adjustments he made based on the first attempt would pay off. Because he had difficulty hitting some of the higher notes in the second verse, Travis decided to sing Die Forelle an octave lower this time. While this decision meant Travis sang the first verse in a range that truly tested his lower register, in the second verse Travis hit the sweet spot of his tenor range and delivered a performance worthy of the next clue from the choirmaster. After Nicole gave a standing ovation to her husband, the married ER doctors ripped open their clue, sending them to a garden maze on the grounds of Schonbrunn Palace.

GRAND THEFT TAXI

After Nicky croaked out a passable performance in second place, she and Kim ran out of Palais Augarten looking for a taxi. The baseball wives thought they had found one until they saw Jason & Amy's backpacks in the trunk. Knowing they couldn't touch another team's backpack (a Race rule), Nicky & Kim began running away when they noticed that the driver took Jason & Amy's bags out of the trunk. Since the driver took the bags out, Nicky & Kim could now get in the taxi, but they felt bad about the situation and found a different one down the street instead. After Jamal belted out Die Forelle in third place, Tim earned rare praise from his ex Marie after delivering a solid performance in fourth place. Having no taxi, Marie suggested, "Let's go steal somebody's cab." Seeing Jason & Amy's backpacks on the grass, Marie didn't even hesitate to put her bag into the dating couple's now former taxi. While Tim initially protested, he slid next to Marie in the backseat as she instructed him to tell other teams that the Afghanimals took the taxi if anyone asks. Marie later commented, "I'm sure there's gonna be some hard feelings there, but a million dollars [or] drinks with Jay and Amy after the show?" When the driver realized he didn't have the same team in the backseat as before, Marie assured him, "It's okay. We're all blue. Same team." As Ally and Oklahoman Tim still struggled to sing, Amy continued her and Jason's comeback by delivering a clue worthy performance. However, the dating couple's excitement at passing two teams quickly turned to shock and then anger when they found their backpacks on the ground with no taxi in sight. After running down the road to get a different taxi, Amy warned, "Providence Amy will definitely come out if another team took our taxi. I'm going to flip out on that team."

BACK ON TOP

At Schonbrunn Palace, Nicole & Travis and Nicky & Kim entered the Irrgarten, a topiary labyrinth made from tall hedges, and spotted the cluebox in the distance on a platform overlooking the garden. Since every path in the maze didn't lead to the platform, the trick was figuring out which one did. While Nicole & Travis kept finding dead ends, Nicky & Kim found the path that led to the staircase, and their clue, instructing them to find the next Pit Stop at the Gloriette, the centerpiece of the Schonbrunn Garden. With Nicole & Travis getting their clue directly behind Nicky & Kim, the two teams squared off in a footrace up the steep hill on the Schonbrunn Palace grounds that led to the Gloriette where Phil waited. In the end, the "power parents" Nicole & Travis won their second leg of the Race, while Nicky & Kim took their highest placement yet, second place. For their victory, Nicole & Travis won a trip for two from Travelocity to Anguilla. Running into the Pit Stop just behind Nicky & Kim, cousins Leo & Jamal ended the leg in third place.

SHOWDOWN ON THE MAT

As Tim & Marie searched the Irrgarten for their clue, the still fuming Jason & Amy arrived at Schonbrunn Palace and spotted their missing taxi. After identifying Tim & Marie's bags inside, Jason said, "It was one of those moments where your heart just drops. I can't believe they would do something like that." Armed with this knowledge, Jason ran through the Irrgarten like a man possessed, determined to catch up with the team who took their taxi. As Jason & Amy ran up the hill to the Gloriette, they saw Tim & Marie stepping on the mat in fourth place and knew they would have the chance to confront their antagonists. Almost immediately after Phil announced Jason & Amy's arrival in fifth place, the fireworks began. When Jason told Tim & Marie they would never have taken a taxi like that, Marie countered, "You don't know what you would've done if you were in our shoes." Getting riled, Jason asked, "There were two other cabs there. Did we steal anybody else's?" Marie laid her position out clearly to the still angry Jason & Amy, saying, "At the end of the day it's a race. It's a million dollars." Getting the last word, Jason promised, "We're gonna kick their ass. We know we're a better team."

A SONG FOR ELIMINATION

At Wiener Sangerknaben, the battle of unpleasant singing raged on between Ally and Tim. Ashley and Danny both sat in the performance hall, anxious to see which of their partners would have a winning performance first. It appeared they would be waiting quite a while for that outcome. Each performance from Tim and Ally ended prematurely, when the choirmaster cut them off either for a mispronunciation or singing entirely off key. Finally, on Ally's fifth attempt, she concentrated harder than ever on the words, making sure to sing them correctly in order to keep her and Ashley in the Race. After she finished, Ally had a big smile on her face when she received her clue from the choirmaster. As Ally & Ashley frantically searched for a taxi, a dispirited Tim took to the performance stage for a fifth time, hoping his practice on the last part of the song would finally help. While no Pavarotti, Tim managed to hold a tune and finally pronounce the German words that gave him such troubles correctly. After Tim gave the choirmaster a big hug when he took his clue, he and Danny exited the Palais Augarten just as Ally & Ashley found a cab.

ONE LAST CHANCE

On the ground of Schonbrunn Palace, Ally & Ashley felt they had a comfortable lead over Tim & Danny because they didn't spot the Oklahoma best friends anywhere. The NHL ice crew members made it through the the Irrgarten and slowly began their hike up to the Gloriette just as Tim & Danny entered the labyrinth garden unnoticed. Having seen Ally & Ashley, Tim & Danny hurried through the Irrgarten and gained ground on the still slow moving ice crew members inching their way up to Phil. But, in the end it wasn't enough, as Ally & Ashley stepped on the mat in sixth place. Arriving at the Gloriette in last place, best friends Tim & Danny received the bad news from Phil that they were eliminated from the Race. A disappointed Tim said, "We had high expectations. We wanted to go all the way…[but] we made it pretty far for being newbies to the world." Danny added, "We didn't win a million bucks but we have memories that'll last us a lifetime."

2306 ROUTE MARKERS

Roadblock: A Roadblock is a task that only one person can perform. In this Roadblock, that person had to join the world famous Vienna Boys' Choir and learn how to sing Die Forelle by Austrian composer Franz Schubert. They would be judged on their pronunciation of the German lyrics and their musicality. When the choirmaster felt they put on a great performance he would hand them their next clue.

Performed Roadblock: Jamal, Ally, Nicky, Travis, Tim, Tim, Amy

Detour: A Detour is a choice between two tasks. In this Detour, teams had to choose between Light Brigade and Masquerade. Light Brigade required teams to dress up as court servants and properly assemble an elaborate crystal chandelier. If they completed it to the satisfaction of the chamberlain, he would hand over the next clue. However, if they didn't get it on the first try, their hopes (and chandelier) would come crashing down. Masquerade required teams to wear ornate masks and join a lavish Viennese ball. Teams would enter an elegant ballroom where dancers were wearing intricately designed masks with subtle differences in color and pattern. With an attention to fine detail, teams had to match the masks they were wearing with that of a dancing couple. When the hostess determined they had a perfect match, she would hand them their next clue.

Light Brigade:

Masquerade: Nicole & Travis, Nicky & Kim, Leo & Jamal, Tim & Marie, Jason & Amy. Ally & Ashley, Tim & Danny

Fast Forward: A Fast Forward gives teams the opportunity to skip all other tasks and proceed to the Pit Stop. In this Fast Forward, each team member had to make a 500-foot bungee jump off of the Donauturm. No team performed Fast Forward.

Order of Finish: 1. Nicole & Travis 2. Nicky & Kim 3. Leo & Jamal 4. Tim & Marie 5. Jason & Amy 6. Ally & Ashley 7. Tim & Danny ...