Watching Reality TV

Welcome to another installment of “The Biggest Loser”!  We’ve got your recaps right here:

• Buddy TV
• NBC.com
• Television without Pity

So we’re not a 2 hour show again, thank goodness.  But we are an hour and a half.  Sheesh.  Want to know what happened last week?  Check here.   We start off right away with another temptation.  It’s… cupcakes.  It’s for the trainers, not the contestants.  Very interesting.  One cupcake gives a 15 second advantage at the next challenge.  But which cupcake is the right one?  It’s apparently Trainer Week, and the trainers (besides being tempted) will be competing in the challenge as well.  Bob looks tempted.  His “thing”, apparently, is cupcakes.  Ultimately, he passes.  No easy way out, these guys are going to win by hard work alone.  Good job.

What are they doing now?  Eating at subway!  Wee!  Bob helps the blue team make the right choices at Subway and how they can eat good food and not bust their diets.  Smart!  Mmm, Subway.  All three teams hike to the top of a mountain where they meet Allison yet again.   The challenge? Running down the mountain and back up again.  They “bid” on how fast they think they can do it, trying to knock out another team by busting their “bid”.  Blue team challenges the black team to get the flag in 5:30 minutes, but red thinks they can do it in 5:29.  Black team says they can do 5:28 but then red says they can do it in 5:27.  They are DETERMINED.  Black says, 5:25.  It’s ON.  Red team tells them to go for it.  Hollie wiped out, but Jillian brushes her off and they’re back on the run.  They have three minutes to get back up the hill.  I’m doubting here.  They can’t do it.  They were SO close.  Hollie was just glad she finished, but I think she could have punched it more than she did.

Now it’s down to red and blue.  Blue challenges red to get it in 5:55.  They can do that, shoot, black almost had it at 5:25, they were seconds away.  But then, this is no black team.  But!  They do it.  Fourth challenge in a row that they’ve won.  Not too shabby.  I’m bummed the black team didn’t win. I’m sort of rooting for them.  The red team has won a major advantage at the weigh in, but they won’t find out until the weigh in.  Blue, meanwhile, feels bad they didn’t even try to win the challenge.

Bob takes the blue team to an actual 24 Hour Fitness gym.  Bob is very disappointed that they didn’t try the challenge.  Bob wanted to remove them from the campus and do a spin class with them.  He worked them HARD.  He’s wanting them to focus and they’re getting it done!  Patty breaks down as Bob tries to get her to tell him that she’s worth it.  It’s an awesome moment (among many; this show just rocks).   We see the blue and red teams back on campus fixing some lunch and making some healthy choices.  And they seem happy about it too.  Good!

Kim brings her team their “goal shirts”.  Jillian does the same.  The goals are awesome.  Makes me wonder what my goal would be.  The black team tries on some of their old clothes, or other people’s clothes.  It’s encouraging like nothing else.  Jillian is floored and very excited for her team.  Meanwhile, Bob is handing out his goal shirts.  It’s a cool segment all around.  Bob wants his team to focus on the weigh in, and not to forget that the red team has some sort of prize or advantage.

We’re at the last chance workout here and the teams are working HARD.  Watching this show from the comfort of my recliner always makes me feel pretty lazy and worthless, you know?  Here’s these people who are working harder than they ever have in their lives and I’m contemplating ice cream for desert  (or is it “dessert”?  I never know and spell check is no help).

So we’re down to the weigh in.  What did the red team win?  IMMUNITY.  Duuuuuude.  No one is going home, no matter what the weigh in says.  That’s a pretty sweet reward.  And it’s a good thing because their numbers were bad.  David and Amy lost only 1 pound each.  Bryan and Phil didn’t do so great either.  A total loss of 9 pounds for the team.  Definitely makes it feel like they’re “cheating” their way through the game, having immunity.  But, oh well.

On the black team, Hollie lost 3 pounds and was pretty upset.  Jez lost 8 pounds, which is pretty good considering everyone else’s numbers.  Jim lost 11 pounds for the second week in a row.  Go Jim!  Isabeau (love her name), lost 8 pounds, a number she actually had in her head before the weigh in.  Bill lost an amazing 13 pounds causing the rest of his team to gasp.  Julie lost 7 pounds (these women are kicking butt here).  The black team lost a total of 50 pounds.  That’s a 3% loss.  AWESOME.

The blue team had their work cut out for them.  Neil is first and he lost an awesome 11 pounds.  Kae goes up and has lost 6 pounds, a very good number.  Nicole goes up and has lost 4 pounds (which is starting to look like a small number).  Patty is next and she lost 5 pounds.  That puts a lot of responsibility on Ryan’s shoulders, who is up next.  He lost a mere 6 pounds.  Not enough to save the blue team from losing the weigh in, unfortunately.  that’s 32 pounds total.  They lost a lot more than the red team, but the red team was given a break.  BOO!  Hiss!  Bob is upset, as he should rightly be.  Kae is her team’s the biggest loser, so she’s immune from being eliminated.

The blue team debates who to vote out.  They want to let it go to a tie so the rest of the house can decide who goes and Bob tries to talk them out of that.  He doesn’t want them putting their fate in someone else’s hands.  Thing is, this is blue’s MO this week.  The easy way out, having other people do the work.  They need to step up.  So at elimination, who will it be?  Did they decide on anyone?  Kae votes Neil, Patty votes Nicole.  Neil votes for Patty and then Nicole votes for Patty as well and then Ryan votes for Patty.  Dang.  I’m sad to see Patty go, I think she had great potential in this show/game.  I’m interested to see her transformation since the show was filmed.

All of the sudden, the rest of the teams are brought into the room.  Allison tells them The Biggest Loser campus is going to be shut down for the next week.  What does this mean?  We don’t get to know.  TO BE CONTINUED.  Assholes.

And Patty?  Since the show, she lost 36 pounds (and counting).  She’s looking good.  She has a ways to go, and she plans to get there.  I’m glad for her.  I want her to keep it up.  She lost a total of 61 pounds (to date).  Go Patty!