“The Biggest Loser” is certainly not afraid of throwing curveballs at its contestants or its viewers, and last night was no exception. After Jay was eliminated at the end of the last episode, host Alison Sweeney invited the black team into the room and detailed what the next week would hold–namely, that there would be two contestants going home this next week. There would be a red line, in which the person with the lowest percentage of weight loss would automatically be eliminated, and then there would be the regular yellow line, and the team that lost the weigh in would send someone else home as well.
So when Brett and Cara, the red team trainers, found out about the double elimination, they decided that no one from their group would be going home, and they set off to train at an MMA gym. It turns out that the owner of the gym is a guy who trained Rulon for the Olympics in 2004. Pretty cool. Even cooler that the guy didn’t judge Rulon for gaining all that weight.
Then came the main challenge, and it was a team oriented one in which they had to volley giant red and black balls from one end of a football field to the other and through a goal post. The first team to get six balls of their color to the other end and through the post would win, and the prize was a 3-pound advantage at the weigh in. Wow. The red team, not surprisingly, was coordinated and easily won, 6-1.
So since the black team knew they were likely to lose after having won the last few weigh-ins, they also figured someone from their team would also fall below the red line. But wanting to protect Arthur and the younger women, Marci and Deni decided that they would purposely throw the weigh in and then let the chips fall for the yellow line where they may. They of course wanted Jesse to follow along with this, but he lashed out, saying he was also there for himself. Hmmm.
Then after the last chance workouts, blah blah blah, it was time for the (hour-long) weigh-in process. The red team went first. Austin lost 7 pounds and Ken lost 5; Justin lost 7 while Rulon lost 4, putting Rulon in short-term danger; Kaylee lost a whopping 7, while Moses lost 11; but then Jen gained 2 pounds. Yikes. She acted like she tried but I really doubt that. I mean, why hang around when you know you’ll be the next one from your team to go?
Then the black team was up. Arthur lost 9 pounds; Olivia lost 4, while Sarah lost 4; Irene lost 3 and Hannah lost just 1; Courtney lost 2, and Marci gained 1 pound. No surprise there, and she even proceeded to be brutally honest with Allie and the trainers. Jesse gained 3 pounds, and after all that lashing out, he said he didn’t want to put Arthur in danger, so he accepted going home. But then Deni still had to weigh in, and she gained 8 pounds! Wow.
So Deni fell way under the red line, and she was headed home. Then there was the issue that, since all those parents gained weight and they also had a 3-pound disadvantage, the black team lost the weigh in badly, so they had to vote someone else off. Well, duh…that would have to be Jesse. And it was….the first five that voted chose him and that was that.
Deni has gone from 256 down to 170, which is awesome; and Jesse has gone from 293 to 227. We’re now down to 14 contestants, which seems like a lot still, but well, it’s still only February.
Thanks for reading, everyone, and see you all next week….
