By the time the next group of three cars arrives (looks like there's more than one group on the cable loop), Michael and Kevin have also found the gondola station, so they get to ride up right behind the other dad team. That way Mallory and Michael can wave dorkily at each other. "They're our best friends," Mallory says, apparently under the impression they're on Amazing Friend.

Jill and Thomas are the next to arrive at the gondola station, where she commits the offense of taking his raincoat out of the car. Maybe if she'd gone to Notre Dame she would have known not to do that.

Up top, Brook and Claire have found the clue box in second place, so we get to learn what the teams not doing the Fast Forward will be doing instead: going to Skjombrua Bridge to find their next clue. Now Brook and Claire have to wait for a ride back down, and while waiting on the upper platform, Brook mimes hauling Gary and Mallory's car in. They trade places, and the two dad teams open the clues on the mountaintop. Neither team seems inclined to go for the Fast Forward, until Mallory reads from the clue, "A Christmas ritual? I love Christmas!" Looks like she's getting overruled, though. Maybe next time, Cindy Lou Who.

On the way to the Fast Forward, it has belatedly occurred to Team @ that they might be doing an eating challenge, which could be problematic because Kat's a vegetarian. "I haven't eaten meat in 22 years," she says in a pre-race interview. We see the sheep's head being placed on the table as a reminder of what's at stake. Don't worry, Kat; that looks disgusting even if you're not a vegetarian.

Jill and Thomas's gondola car going up passes those of the three teams that are ahead of them, lighting a bit of a fire under the lead teams' asses. Do the other teams know that the Express Pass is no longer a factor, even to the minimal extent that it ever was? Jill and Thomas get their clue as the other three teams get into their cars back on ground level.

Nat and Kat arrive at the "restaurant," blathering about how they hope they'll get little outfits to put on, but it looks like the stone-faced bouncer in the Erik the Viking getup has beaten them to it. They enter the dreary place, which looks more like the mess hall at a logging camp, singing out "Merry Christmas" to everyone. Of course I'm pretty sure this was filmed in June, and the Christmas atmosphere is about as merry as the kind you see on sitcoms. Nobody's smiling, and a woman's playing a mournful tune on a Scandinavian instrument that has a bow, strings, and keys called the nyckelharpa (although it might be a happy tune; the nyckelharpa is such a mournful instrument to begin with it throws off the baseline). Nat describes it as "romantic," which means whoever she's dating has a pretty low bar to shoot for. But there are also glasses of water on the table, which they know is a bad sign.