Last night on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” they showed O’Neal sweating it out as he was about to join the blue team, but did not know which blue team member was eliminated until they walked through the door one by one, with his daughter Sunshine being the last to enter the room. Of course, it makes you wonder why he didn’t ask one of the other blue teamers who was eliminated rather than to be left hanging like that. Naturally, O’Neal was thrilled that it was Miggy who was sent home and not Sunshine.

Host Allison Sweeney then told the teams that they would be working real jobs this week. They had limited workout time because they would be bused to the Feed America food bank to work, having to pack their lunch and everything, to simulate what it would be like once they get home.

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Every season on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” the producers have a way of changing things up to the point of having us all scratch our heads. Last night there was more of that, though some of the curves came from natural causes. The first of those was at the start of the episode when Miggy had to call 911 in the middle of the night due to abdominal pain, and was rushed to the hospital.

Then came the return of the blue and yellow teams, who would weigh in to determine which team was coming back to the ranch. The other contestants had no idea that one team would return after 30 days, so they were all surprised and kind of nervous. Host Allison Sweeney instructed the blue and yellow teams to go and weigh in, but instead they were met in the gym by Bob and Jillian, who put them through a last chance workout.

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It’s getting testy on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” After last week’s challenges and weigh in, it’s clear that Michael is watching his back, as are Miggy and Migdalia. Meanwhile, Lance and Melissa are still liars, and nobody likes a liar.

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NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” consistently transforms the lives of its contestants, but that doesn’t mean every one of them really wants to be on that ranch and do the necessary work to change their bodies. Last night we saw two instances of just that, despite what those contestants would tell you.

They began by reminding us that there were two teams, blue and yellow, that had been sent home on Day 1 for 30 days. At his point, it was halfway through the 30 days, and each team was working extremely hard to earn that spot back on the ranch.

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Last night on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” they began with Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels talking about how Week 2 is notoriously difficult for contestants. That’s because they typically lose a lot of weight in Week 1 and then their bodies start to rebound and fight back after that.

So Bob went to work with Michael, who came in at 526 pounds, the heaviest contestant ever on the show. Then they showed Dr. Huizenga lecturing the group and discussing how unhealthy they all were. But before he got to the dirty scoop on exactly how unhealthy they were, he had Michael and his mom Maria meet with Bob…and they put weights on Bob that were equivalent to Michael’s excess “baggage.” Then seeing how Bob was practically immobile, it hit Michael how hard just how obese he was and how much he needed to be on this show.

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It’s hard to believe we’re just a few short weeks away from the finale of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” but there it is. Last night we went from six contestants to five, and either they are going to have a final 3 again, or they are going to throw us another curveball and let someone else back in….these tricky producers have done it before, and I have a funny feeling it’s coming.

Meanwhile, last night the six hopefuls were treated to makeovers, led by “Project Runway’s” Tim Gunn, and a TV Guide sponsored event that had each contestant share their personal journey wth their families and an audience of about 300. Most of them looked pretty good, but I’m not sure why they insisted on cutting Rebecca’s hair so short…both her and Amanda were made to look like ten years older.

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Last night on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” it was clear that having friends in this game is just as important as whether or not you lose weight. But more on that in a bit.

First, they began by showing the blue team coming back in from elimination, and everyone on the black team was utterly surprised that they had sent Coach Mo home instead of Tracy. The blue team was collectively defending itself and it didn’t seem like they had a good answer, other than maybe Tracy had brainwashed them all. They all stood by their decision. Okay, we’re going to start giving them the benefit of the doubt here…maybe they gave Coach Mo what he wished for and let Tracy hang around so they could eliminate her at a better time.

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So after Mandi of the blue team was eliminated last week on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” host Alison Sweeney had the black team also come back in for another announcement. Uh-oh, another twist? These producers can’t sit still, can they? Anyway, the twist this week was that everyone would be going home to be with their families for a full week, and then return to Hollywood to weigh in. Everyone was excited and it was great to see the familys’ reactions, except for Ron’s son and Mike’s brother Max, who is also huge and could have been and still should be a contestant on the show.

But wait, they can’t make it easy, can they? Each contestant, within minutes of being home, received a package from “The Biggest Loser,” a tin of giant sugar cookies, and a DVD of Alison telling them they would each be running a half-marathon this week. The winner would take home $10,000. Wow. But wait, there’ s a catch. For each cookie that someone eats, they can add 5 minutes to someone else’s time. They all joked around that they wanted to add as many five minute increments to Tara’s time as possible, but not many of them actually at the cookies as we’ll find out shortly.

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So last week “The Biggest Loser” left us all hanging with Mikey about to get on the scale. If he lost 10 pounds or more, everyone would be staying another week. Well, did you think they were going to start a show with someone being eliminated? Nope, Mikey lost 11. But then Alison Sweeney had them all go outside where there would be a pop challenge in which everyone had to lean against a wall with a medicine ball in his/her lap and stay there. Also, this week, the blue and black teams would be facing off individually, with the winner of this challenge setting the matchups. Of course, Tara won. I mean, she wins all these things unless Laura brings her down. So since the black team has an extra contestant, Tara had to sit out one person from her team at the weigh in, and she chose herself since she had been losing double-digits every single week so far. I thought it was a smart move. The matchups were Mike/Cathy, Sione/Mandi, Filipe/Kristin, Helen/Ron and Aubrey/Laura.

Then came the challenge, a relay race in which the teams had to drag medicine balls through water, up stairs and onto a basketball court while doing squats. My legs hurt just thinking about it all. The winner would have 24 hours of luxury at a spa resort. Of course, the black team has Tara so they won, but barely. And the entire team started getting into trouble at dinner, eating badly, drinking tequila shots and even smoking (I’m not sure if anyone but Helen was smoking, but still…). Anyway, the black team knew they shouldn’t have done this, as they consumed like 15,000 calories as a team and the blue team only consumed 1600 calories at their meal. The black team was also incredibly cocky. But when they returned to the ranch and Jillian gave them an earful, Filipe flipped out and he and Sione went running back to Bob, or as Jillian said, “running back to Daddy.” Pretty funny, but sad and weird. Those guys need to loosen up and get over it. Maybe Jillian is harsh, but she wants to win too.

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Now that last season of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” has set the tone for future seasons as far as gameplay, the contestants on this season’s “Biggest Loser: Couples” are clearly not in it for the game. For the most part, these are all good people with good hearts who just want to lose weight and try and support each other in the process.

This week’s episode began on Tuesday night with a challenge that would determine new teams with new trainers. It would be from here on out blue vs. black, but some contestants would have to switch trainers. The challenge was to do 100 up-downs, football training camp-style, but in mud. The first to 100 would get to choose their trainer, and the rest would deal with a flip of Alison Sweeney’s coin. As it turned out, Tara won the challenge (of course) and they were able to stay with Jillian. Filipe and Sione had to switch to Jillian and Mandi and Aubrey had to switch to Bob. In all, I think 6 or 7 of them had a different trainer. But I didn’t expect them to act like it was the end of the world, and they did. What’s worse, Bob Harper started crying. I mean, come on!

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