Katie and Rachel are off at 8:34. In other words, almost two hours behind Jill and Thomas, who used their Express Pass to "save" themselves. Unless that tent Detour took two hours, they should be feeling a little foolish right now. In any case, the volleyball team isn't giving up. "This is not Amazing Friend," Rachel interviews, like anyone asked. She says they'll do what it takes to win, and then clarifies to Katie that the two of them are amazing friends. Whatever. On the way to Narvik, they comment that they already know Nat is afraid of heights, so they're hoping she'll choke. So clearly they're not Nat's amazing friends.

Team @ does board a gondola up to the mountaintop, and Kat is trying to buck Nat up while Nat tries and fails to keep her eyeballs from leaking. In a pre-race interview, Nat says she's given Kat permission in advance to "push me off the ledge" if necessary, and Kat says she'll do exactly that if need be. Up in the gondola, Kat idly observes, "This might be the highest--" and then shuts up in a hurry. Nat checks her blood sugar, which she thinks is a little high due to her nerves. Or -- and I'm no endocrinologist -- from wanting to strangle Kat, maybe.

That's a pretty spectacular view in all directions as they get off the gondola at the top and find nothing there but a clue box, which Nat takes as a good sign. An even better sign is that it's a Fast Forward. Phil explains that this one requires teams to go to "this restaurant" (which actually looks more like a barn) out in the boondocks and "participate in a traditional Norwegian Christmas ritual. What they don't know is that it involves eating an entire roasted sheep's head." Ew, even the skull? I hate sheep skull. When each team member has eaten her half of the head, they get to go straight to the Pit Stop. Obviously Nat is thrilled, not only by the Fast Forward but by the fact that she doesn't have to bungee-jump down the mountain.

Brook and Claire are the next team to find the gondola station, and they wait excitedly on the platform while the gondola carrying Team @ returns. Gary and Mallory have fallen behind enough that Brook and Claire end up boarding the car by themselves, leaving Gary and Mallory flummoxed at ground level. This, by the way, is the first episode this season that my wife Trash has watched with me, and Mallory has emerged as her favorite because of how Mallory is clearly insane.