Anyway, since Nicole was voted off by a slim margin last week, with Filipe, Sione and Helen all voting for Ron, there was hell to be paid by Ron, who Kristin said is competitive, manipulative, and that they call him “The Godfather.” Wow. But check this out….when they all went back to the dorms, Mike and Ron said they felt betrayed, and Ron said “Thanks to all of you who voted to keep me here, but for those who didn’t, may you be struck down and die.” Holy crap, did Ron just say that? Then he went on some rant to Filipe about Filipe lying to Ron’s face, and Filipe didn’t defend himself, but he was clearly upset that Ron called him a liar. Let’s face it, this is a game and now that game was on.

So the initial challenge this week was a gameplay inducer if there ever was one. There were about 100 covered silver trays, and under each one was either a high calorie snack, or a few packs of sugarless gum with $500 or $1000. But there was one that held “the golden ticket,” which granted that person the one and only vote at this week’s weigh in, provided that person was above the yellow line. But as the contestants opened a tray, they had to eat what was under the cover before moving on to another tray. The calories could, and would, add up fast. But nobody wanted somebody else to have that golden ticket, so they all indulged, knowing that their trainers would be pissed. Well, Kristin actually ate maybe one snack and then stopped, thinking that if she ate less than everyone else, she had a better chance of avoiding potential elimination. I like Kristin, and now that Ron has been exposed as a gameplayer as well as his son Mikey, I want Kristin to win.

Anyway, Laura wound up with the golden ticket, and she immediately tried to convince her game partner Tara to throw the weigh in so that Laura would have an easy choice. But Tara wasn’t sure she wanted to disrespect the reason they were all there, and feared that Laura might fall below the line with her anyway. Needless to say, Bob and Jillian were extremely annoyed, and vowed to make everyone work extra hard in the gym that week.

Kristin then brought Laura breakfast in bed, which was quite hilarious. Then Jillian brought her team to Subway for some product placement, and Jerry and Coleen from last season were on hand to show everyone how they were both still living the healthy lifestyle they learned at the ranch.

Then it was time for the main challenge, which took place at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, one of the most storied football venues in the country. But they weren’t there to play football. The teams, broken into men vs. women, had to run up and down the stairs, ultimately grabbing their own colored flag to bring back to the starting point. The two players who brought their flags first would face off in a second heat to determine the winner, who would claim the prize of a family spa vacation. Not surprisingly, it came down to Sione and Tara. But for as much as Sione kept saying he wanted to win, he was once again no match for the fiery Tara. Okay, so we’re back to this again. I’m now fully convinced that Tara threw the challenge last week to make everyone like her more.

They then showed Kristin going for a walk with Helen, Sione and Filipe, ironically the alliance that voted to send Ron home the previous week. Kristin kept her mouth shut when Filipe asked for Kristin to join their alliance, and that was smart. Then there was another product placement as Bob treated his team to the DVD of “Marley and Me” while showing them the difference between air popped popcorn and movie theater popcorn. I’ll tell you what the difference is, Bob…..your version is like eating unsalted cardboard while the theater version is crunchy, oily and wonderfully salty. Of course, that’s why I have a bit of a spare tire, so I won’t say Bob is wrong.

Then came the weigh in. Mikey went first and lost 5 pounds, which is not what he wanted. Ron lost 9, which he was happy about but not happy that he did better than Mikey. Whatever, dude. Tara was next and lost only 3 pounds. Jillian was pissed and thought that Tara purposely threw the weigh in, but Tara vowed that she didn’t and I have to say I believed her. Kristin lost 6 pounds which made me really happy, but Helen lost 2 and was in danger of falling below the line. Filipe lost 7 but Sione only lost 4, putting he and Helen at the bottom. Now it was Laura’s turn. Would she fall below the line and lose her vote, or would she be faced with the task of voting off either Helen or Sione?
Laura lost 8 pounds, which not only gave her that one vote, but put her in first place for the week. Wow.

So as she contemplated what to do and listened to Helen say Laura was like a daughter to her and Sione say she was like a sister to him, Sione and Filipe then did some weird Hawaiian dance and chant for good luck. Then as they showed them at the chopping block, Mrs. Mike said something that made total sense….that is, who would Tara want voted off? Clearly that would be Sione, her biggest rival and a big threat to win it all. Helen is not going to win, and she will likely get herself voted off soon. And sure enough, Laura used her power to vote Sione off and send him home.

Sione was at peace with the decision, and they showed him at home with his family being more active and being a better father and husband than he had been before. Good for him. But he’s also gone down from 372 pounds to 235. And trust me, dude is not done yet. I’m quite sure Sione is going to battle Nicole for that $100K.

So that’s it. We’re down to the teams of Ron and Mike and Tara and Laura, with individual players Kristin, Filipe and Helen. Ron was shown telling Mikey that having two of the players who voted for Ron last week fall below the line was the perfect scenario for both of them. But I think Ron is setting himself up to turn the house against he and his son. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, aren’t you all so thrilled that gameplay is back? Ugh.

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.

Naturally, Tara won the race, but Sione would have won if he hadn’t pulled up lame in the final mile. Still, he limped to the finish line, but he came in second. Everyone else finished except Ron, who walked four miles because of his bad knees. So then Alison asked if anyone ate the cookies. No one gave Sione any penalty, but Helen ate one cookie to penalize Tara and add five minutes to her time. That gave Sione the victory, which ultimately was fair because of his injury, but still pissed off Tara especially because she was sabotaged by her own teammate.

Along with Mikey’s brother Max, Aubrey’s dad is huge, admittedly weighing over 500 pounds. Aubrey tried to tell him he needs to get his act together, but the dad isn’t buying into it just yet, and that bums her out.

Finally, everyone was back and had their last chance workout, their only workout of the week with Bob and Jillian training them. Then came the weigh in. Would the black team finally lose a challenge? Mikey lost 8 pounds, Laura 6, Tara 2, Sione 4, Filipe 7 and Helen 7. All pretty good numbers, except for Tara, who is clearly hitting a wall at this point. The total was 34 pounds, or 2.35%. The blue team now consists of Aubrey, Cathy, Kristin and Ron, and is shrinking every week. Aubrey lost 5 pounds, Ron 10, but Kristin gained a pound and her mom Cathy lost just one pound, handing the blue team another loss. Cathy stepped up and asked for her team to send her home, an unselfish act and an outcome her team ultimately, unanimously, agreed with.

Cathy went home to Green Bay and to date has lost 78 pounds, down from 293 to 215, and she vowed that we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between her and Kristin at the finale. You go, Cathy! See you all next week, when there are sure to be more twists and turns. Ugh, is anyone else annoyed with this show’s format as I am?

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!

For the main challenge, the two teams had to face off on stationery bikes, and pedal, taking turns, for 24 straight hours. They could eat and sleep when they weren’t on the bike, but they had to finish and the team with the most miles won. This was a struggle for them all, and some of them wanted to quit with like 10 hours left. But they decided to tough it out and they all felt good about that. In the end, the blue team rode for 264 miles and the black team 301, including Tara’s leading 58.8 miles (of course).

The show last night began with a Prevention Magazine pop quiz, and the black team won that and a spa vacation for all of the team members. Then came the last chance workout, and then the weigh in. But now that it was blue vs. black, things would be different. They would weigh in as a team, and the losing team would vote to send someone home…just like in “Biggest Loser” seasons past.

The blue team went first. Dane lost 13, Aubrey 5, Mandi 7, Ron 5, Kristen 10, and Cathy 14! Dane has lost 100 pounds in just 8 weeks, which is mind-boggling. Then the black team weighed in…Helen lost 7 pounds, Laura 8, Tara 11 (of course) and she has lost 83 pounds to date, Mike lost 10 and has lost 91 so far, Filipe 8, and Sione 10 and he’s lost 86 pounds. Wow. So the black team won the weigh in and the blue team had to vote someone off their squad.

In the deliberation room, Ron preached that he wanted to stay and that he was voting for Dane because he thought Dane could succeed at home. Well, yeah, but Dane gets rewarded that way for losing 100 pounds? Ron, meanwhile, has a bad knee and can’t exercise like the others. Aubrey couldn’t decide, so she voted for Kristin. Dane and Mandi voted for Ron, but then Ron, Cathy and Kristin all voted for Dane, sending him home. There was no gameplay involved in this at all, though Dane suspected Ron wanted to kick Dane off because he was a bigger threat to his son Mike. But I don’t think so. These contestants are all too nice.

Dane went home and ran a freaking marathon with his wife….wow! They didn’t say how much weight he’s lost but we already knew he lost 100 pounds, and the marathon had to help aid that cause even more.

So that’s it…..it’s now blue vs. black. I’m going to go out on a limb, I have a weird feeling about young Mikey that he could win it all. We’ll see, but it’s sure getting interesting. See you guys next week.

First off, everyone was shown as upset with Joelle at the start of the show, because she had shown the week before that she, out of anyone there, did not want to put the effort in to lose weight like everyone else. And then when two very likeable contestants, Dan and Jerry, fell below Joelle at the weigh-in, everyone seemed pissed off that they had to choose between those two rather than Joelle. Meanwhile, they showed some of the at-home contestants, and Dan’s partner Dave was shown eating a piece of fried chicken. Last week it was a couple of hot dogs. What goes on off-camera, Dave? Dude is sabotaging his team, and I have a bad feeling about that.

Then came the temptation challenge, where a contestant (and their teammate at home) could eat some pizza or other equally calorie-dense item, or eat nothing. The team who ate the most calories would “win” the prize of having their trainer give their team some one-on-one training for a few days. Of course, you should be considered a “winner” if you eat nothing. Carla, Joelle’s best friend and partner back in Detroit, ate 2710 calories, while Joelle ate nothing. But it was enough to get a win, and to have Bob Harper travel with Joelle to Detroit to train the gray team. This was humorous, because Bob has been having trouble whipping Joelle into shape to begin with, but Carla, who is very fiery, was getting angry that Joelle did not mirror her fire and desire to win.

Then back at the ranch, they had the main challenge, which was a “retro” Biggest Loser game….jumping over a swinging styrofoam bar as many times as it takes without breaking said bar. They had issued this same challenge a few seasons ago. Anyway, some of them were out almost immediately, including Joelle. It came down to Tara, who had called her shot and was going to win, as well as Dane and Kristen…Dane was out, leaving Kristen and Tara to battle for over two hours in the blazing California heat. Kristen put up a great fight, but she was no match for the strong-willed Tara, who won immunity for one more week.

At the last chance workout, Joelle was struggling in the gym, again. But Bob didn’t yell at her this time, at least not on camera.

The weigh-in was next, and I’d like to thank TiVo, because NBC drags this on for well over 30 minutes including commercials….okay, it’s mostly commercials. Tara lost 8, Helen 6, Joelle 6, Mandi 8, Felipe 14 (and he woo-hooed for about five minutes), Mike and Ron a combined 20, Dane and Blaine a combined 30, Damien 4, Dan 15, and Kristen 7. Joelle hung around the bottom and finally Damien’s 4 pounds put him at the bottom with Joelle barely above him.

(we interrupt this blog for some product placement….did you know if you eat a 110 calorie Yoplait Light yogurt, you won’t be hungry when you finish reading this blog? You may also try a 5-calorie stick of gum..yeah, that’s mighty satisfying….I’m sorry folks, I know this show is serious and there is probably scientific evidence supporting these claims, but they seem ridiculous at times)

So it came down to Joelle and Damien. All logic points to Joelle being voted off, especially when Tara asked her point blank, “Do you want to be here?” But they had been teasing us with this “shocking” result thing before a few commercial breaks, so you knew it wasn’t going to go like you’d expect. What happened? It became a blue team vs. black team thing again….where Jillian’s team all voted for Damien because they felt he was a bigger threat to win it all. It wound up with a tie in the voting, and Damien was sent home because he had the lowest percentage of weight loss.

I realize this is not like evil Vicky last season, but it’s gameplay nonetheless, and especially annoying when you consider that everyone (minus the producers maybe) wanted Joelle off the ranch. Every season I start out with hope for this show, and every season gameplay rears its ugly head. Oh well, that’s why it’s a reality show. Damien and his fiancee Nicole, meanwhile, have lost a combined 150 pounds to date and are looking forward to their newfound healthy lifestyle. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

See you next week….