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I know it seems like I have a cold heart, but really, I get goose bumps every time I watch the opening to this show. It’s something about the combination of the inspiring music and…okay, it’s really those shots of Bob without his shirt on that just get me all tingly. I’m only human. Sometimes I feel so inspired that I want to gain a bunch of weight so I can go on the show and then I can be in the opening....and you know, see Bob with his shirt off in person.
Last week on the show, the Blue Team lost the weigh-in, much to Bob’s distress. They then ate their own by turning on team leader Jerry, who was the opposite of happy about being voted out. So far, the contestants have lost 448 pounds and it’s only the fourth week.
Eat Me, Baby!….. Said the cupcake to Bob…what did you think I meant?
It seems no one cried any tears over Jerry’s ouster last week because it isn’t even mentioned this week. When we next see our contestants, they are filing in to the kitchen to meet Alison. On a table next to her are three covered dishes. She asks the trainers to step forward and remove the lids. When they take the lids off, we see that the plates are loaded with cupcakes. Big fancy ones. I’m not sure, but I think I saw Bob drool. He gets down and eyes a few of them really closely. This will be another temptation challenge, Ali says. Sacrifices have been made by the teams and now it’s the trainers’ turn. The tables have turned because the trainers will be participating in this challenge.
There are rewards in some of the cupcakes and each reward will give the team whose trainer finds it a 15 second advantage at the next team challenge. The winner of the challenge will receive a reward that will definitely give them an edge at this week’s weigh-in. Ali sees that Bob is struggling and asks him when he last had a cupcake. He replies that he had one about a month ago, but he only ate half of it. It was good, he says. Neil pipes up and says that Bob should eat a cupcake. The other teams urge Kim and Jillian not to give in to the cupcakes. Isabeau thinks they should practice what they preach. Kim and Jillian quickly refuse to eat the cupcakes, but Bob is a little slower to answer. It’s obvious he’s wavering: he loves him some cupcakes. This makes me love him more. I love a man with weaknesses. In the end, Bob decides to not eat the cupcake. I imagine him formulating a complicated plan to sneak back into the kitchen after hours to eat a cupcake…..because that’s what I would do. Before everyone leaves the kitchen, we get some really gratuitous food porn shots of the cupcakes. And now I want a cupcake.
In order to counteract the effects of the cupcakes on his team’s psyche, Bob takes his peeps to Subway. He wants to show them they can eat out in the real world and have healthy options. He pimps the Fresh Fit Meal and we see lots of shots of sandwiches and bread. And now I want to go to Subway….and then eat a cupcake.
So Complicated You Need a Schematic
It’s time for another reward challenge and the producers have outdone themselves. What I mean by “outdone” is that they’ve come up with the most bizarre and slightly hard-to-follow challenge ever. Luckily, it won’t take all day. All three teams and their trainers march up the side of a mountain in order to reach the starting point of the challenge. They’re all out of breath when they get there….except for the three trainers, who probably did their taxes on the way up.
Everyone quickly notices a set of three flags – in all three team colors – on another hilltop. Here’s the challenge and bear with me on this: the first team will estimate how long it will take their entire team to run get their flag and return. The next team can either challenge the first team to run the race in that time or they can “bid” to run it faster. It’s kind of like Name That Tune with running. The reward for winning this challenge is so big Alison can’t even reveal what it is. That means that it actually is a really big prize or the producers haven’t thought up a reward yet and are just buying time.
The Black Team will sit out two players and Neil will sit out on the Blue Team. As the Black Team decides who will participate in the challenge, Jillian is adamant about Hollie running the race. Hollie isn’t feeling so confident, in spite of Jillian’s attempts to motivate her.
So begins the bidding war over running the race. I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow because really, it’s not all that exciting. The Black Team begins the bidding with an estimated running time of 7 minutes. The other two teams bid them down to 5:25, at which point, the Red Team challenges The Black Team to run the race in that time.
Now it’s time for the Black Team to actually run the race. Did I mention that the trainers must run the race with their team? The entire Black Team sets off running down the hill together. Jillian is holding hands with the girls – Hollie and either Julie or Isabeau, I still can’t tell them apart. Jez quickly pulls out in front as they run down the hill. Jill manages to let go of Hollie’s hand long enough for Hollie to completely eat it and fall flat on her face. Jillian helps her back up and pulls her along. At the 3 minute mark, the team reaches the flag, Jillian’s grabs it and they all head back up the hill. Hollie struggles, limping up the hill. With one minute remaining, Jill reaches the finish line. Unfortunately, her team is moving slower than she is and they don’t make it back in the allotted time.
The Black Team is now out of the challenge and the Red and Blue teams have to bid against each other to runt the race. The bidding begins with the Red Team at 6:25 and ends with the Blue Team challenging the Red Team to run the race in 5:55. The Red Team is undefeated in challenges and they’re pretty fired up to keep their winning streak alive. Phil immediately barrels down the hill, while Kim brings up the rear with Amy and David. With 4 minutes left, Phil reaches the flag and starts back up the hill with it. The entire team catches up with him and they all take turns carrying the flag. Amy has no energy left and Kim practically has to drag her up the hill. In the end, they all get back to the finish line in time – with 18 seconds to spare, actually – and the Red Team wins yet another challenge. Alison reminds them that this win will give them a major advantage at the next weigh-in.
Bob calls the whole challenge “a bummer” because the Blue Team didn’t even try to run the race: they just let the other teams take the challenge instead. Patty says the team used fear as a crutch.
Riding a Stationary Bike Into HELL
The Blue Team needs a serious attitude re-adjustment, so Bob takes them on a little field trip. This really isn’t one of those fun field trips like Disneyland, it’s more along the lines of those field trips you took in grade school to see how the grocery store works. Okay, am I the only one who had to go on those? Alas, our Blue Teamers are having a déjà vu kind of experience. It may look like the gym at the Biggest Loser Campus, but they’re actually at a 24 Hour Fitness in the real world. Bob tells his team that he brought them there because he wanted to get them away from the campus so they could focus in the team. He then leads them in a spin class. He pushes all of them, but is especially hard on Patty. Bob gives Patty his motivational speech about being a role model to other overweight moms. She breaks down, but keeps pedaling. He makes her say “I’m worth it” with conviction and, eventually, it seems like she believes it….and I fall more in love with Bob than I was before.
GOOOOOOOOAL!!! <--Lamest title ever, but funny if you say it in that soccer announcer’s voice
Later, back on campus, the trainers meet with their teams to give them their 24 Hour Fitness goal t-shirts. Honestly, I’m still recapping without a VCR here people and I can’t type and watch the TV screen at the same time. I didn’t see what everyone’s shirts said. Phil’s says “To be a firefighter,” while Julie’s says “To finish what I started.” She tells Jillian that she’s never been able to stick to a diet and that’s what she wants to do here. Bill’s shirt says “To become half the man, so I can become twice the man.” Nice.
The Black Team then puts on an impromptu fashion show for Jill. Some of them wear their no baggy clothes, while Julie tries on Hollie’s jeans: since Julie started out heavier than Hollie, it’s a big deal that Hollie’s old jeans now fit her. Seeing the successes of her team, Jillian almost startes to cry. She says she really needed the boost today. Note that I said Jillian almost cried. If she had cried, that would mean that she is human and not cyborg. Because cyborgs have no tear ducts, Jill kept dry.
The Blue Team goal shirts include Ryan’s “To give my wife the man she fell in love with” and Nicole’s less sentimental “To fit in a hot pair of designer jeans.” Bob talks to the team about the upcoming weigh in and Kae admits she’s feeling nervous. She feels stronger, but not thinner. Bob then brings up the “special prize” the Red Team won at the challenge and they all speculate about what it could be.
A Major Award
At the last chance workout, the trainers pretty much run their teams into the ground. The losers all look like they want to commit homicide. Jill is especially tough on Isabeau, who seems to be having some confidence issues. Jillian forces her to run her ass off at high speed on the treadmill until Isabeau promises not to doubt herself – or, more importantly, Jillian - ever again.
Before the weigh-in, David is sure the Red Team will be fine, but says it’s nice to have the reward from the challenge…..whatever it is. Alison reminds the Red Team that if they were to lose tonight, they would be down to 3 people. A Blue Team loss would make it two losses in a row. Ali compliments the Red Team for rocking another challenge and tells them that they won a big advantage this week. She asks if there has been any speculation about what the reward is. Before anyone can really tell her what their guesses are, Alison reveals that the Red Team won immunity this week. They celebrate while the other two teams grumble. Hollie is just pissed off. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head like the good sport that she is. Neil says they might have done things differently if they had known what the reward was. Yes Neil – hindsight = 20-20.
Red Team
Phil; 358 (5 lbs / 45 lbs total)
Amy: 278 (1 lb/ 19 lbs total)
David: 337 (1 lb / 31 lbs total)
Bryan: 319 (2 lbs / 27 lbs total)
Red Team totals: pounds lost: 9 / percentage of weight lost: 69%
Kim says she’s very disappointed with this week’s numbers. The team looks pretty embarrassed.
Black Team
Hollie: 236 (3 lbs / 19 lbs total)
Jez: 308 (8 lbs / 37 lbs total)
Jim: 314 (11 lbs / 47 lbs total)
Isabeau: 272 (8 lbs / 26 lbs total)
Bill: 285 (13 lbs / 49 lbs total)
Julie: 203 (7 lbs / 15 lbs total)
Black Team totals: pounds lost: 50 / percentage of weight lost: 3%
Blue Team
Alison informs the Blue Team that they must lose more than 43 pounds to avoid going to elimination.
Neil: 375 (11 lbs / 46 lbs total)
Kae: 191 (6 lbs / 34 lbs total)
Nicole: 258 (4 lbs / 21 lbs total)
Patty: 255 (5 lbs / 25 lbs total)
Ryan: 341 (6 lbs / 33 lbs total)
The Blue Team loses again. Bob looks crushed. I just want to hug him. A lot.
Blue Team totals: pounds lost: 32 / percentage of weight lot: yeah, nobody even did the math for me this week and since I don’t see that it makes much of a difference, I will not be doing the math either. So there. Because Kae had the highest percentage of weight loss, she’s safe from elimination this week.
Bob calls the Red Team’s numbers this week “embarrassing” and is infuriated that the Red Team is safe while the Blue Team has to go to elimination.
Heavy Heavy Heavy
It’s now elimination day and Bob meets with the Blue Team. All of them are pretty down as Bob asks what they’ve decided about the elimination this week. When someone lets fly with the idea of risking a tie, Bob shoots them down, saying that it’s a dumb idea. In the case of a tie, the other teams make the decision about who will be eliminated. Bob forbids them to take the easy way out and put their fates in the hands of the other teams. I love it when he’s forceful.
All of a sudden, the Blue Team is in the elimination room. There’s no lead-in at all. These three-team weigh-ins are really eating up time. Sitting across from them is Alison, wearing Caroline’s favorite Kermit Green, except she still looks cute, darn it.
There’s also no lead-in for the votes, so here you go:
Kae chooses someone who she calls a “wonderful person and a hard worker”: Neil
Patty says remaining team has to be strong with their weight loss numbers. She voted for the person she feels hasn’t quite hit their stride yet. With a heavy heart, she votes for Nicole.
Neil says he chose a person that exudes strength and will be able to do this on their own: Patty
Nicole says that they have to ensure the team is full of people who can lose lots of weight. With a heavy, heavy, heavy heart (yes, that was 3 times), Nicole votes for Patty.
Ryan says he wants to make sure the people he’s closest to are still around. I guess that doesn’t include Patty, because he casts the final vote to eliminate her.
Patty says she’s not ready to go home – there are lots of distractions at home. That means she’ll have to work that much harder to reach her goals. Patty says she’s grateful for the friends she’s made. Cut to Nicole doing the ugly cry. Patty says she loves all of them. They hug and cry and then Patty is gone.
Alison sympathizes with the Blue Team: she knows this has been emotional and she really wants them to go for it this next week. The game, Ali intones, is about to change. Everyone looks puzzled as she goes on: it’s a new game with new rules. The other teams file into the elimination room and stand behind the Blue Team, still seated at the table. Alison then announces that the Biggest Loser Campus will be shutting down for a week. The kitchen will shut down, the dorms will be off limits and the gym will be on lockdown. What does this mean? I can only imagine that next week’s challenge will involve panhandling or racing while pushing grocery carts loaded with all of their possessions. We’ll just have to wait and see because this one is a “To be continued” episode. When you think about it, isn’t every episode of this show “to be continued”?
In a follow-up with Patty we learn that she now weighs 219 pounds, bringing her total weight loss to 61 pounds. Patty tells us she has more confidence in herself and more energy to play with her kids.
Next Week: The Biggest Loser Campus shuts down and yet, Jillian is still able to abuse her team. Plus, it’s time for the Major Medical Emergency (i.e. sprained ankle/stubbed toe/wounded pride) of the season. They showed stock footage of an ambulance and people looking upset. This could be totally serious. Totally.
What would your goal t-shirt say? PM me and share!
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I love the way you break down the weight loss. 
