“The Biggest Loser” has a history and a tendency to throw curveballs at us. But last night they took things to extremes. First, host Allison Sweeney started off live by telling us there would be a weigh in at the end of the episode, but not of a current contestant. Instead, it would be a viewer of the show who has been inspired to lose a lot of weight. Then, the nine contestants were ushered into the gym, where they would be congratulated for getting this far, and given their individual colors back since there would be no more blue team vs. black team.

Then things got really interesting. All of the contestants this season who have been eliminated were brought back in, and one of them would be allowed back into the game. Here we go again, right? Well, it was even crazier than you may have thought. Each eliminated contestant weighed in, but the weight wouldn’t get them back….instead, the remaining contestants on the ranch would vote for who they wanted to come back.

Darrell has lost 104 pounds….Sherry 62 pounds, Miggy 49, Vicky 73, Melissa 51, Lance 91, Cheryl 51, John 85, Patti 46, Maria 57, James 72 and Cherita 47. Each one got to plead their case and they each did, except for Cherita who pleaded for her daughter Vicky to have a chance on the ranch. You may remember they were sent home the first day, and then again when the yellow team beat them at the chance to return a month later. So while Vicky had a sympathy vote, John was a friend and favorite of many of those remaining. It was close, and aside from Darrell and James each garnering one vote, Vicky had four votes to John’s three. Vicky was back in!

But wait, there’s more. The rest of the eliminated contestants would have a challenge to determine one more that could return. Come on, already! The challenge was who could do 1000 steps the fastest. Melissa was determined to win from the start, with Miggy also being competitive. But let’s face it…..we know the producers were just looking for a way to get Melissa back on the ranch since there had been a lack of gameplay in recent weeks. To accentuate that fact, Melissa and Vicky had immunity this week. Then came more drama….Ashley accused Stephanie of throwing a recent weigh in to send Ashley’s mom, Sherry, home. This seemed a bit far-fetched but there is something sneaky about Stephanie.

Then after TiVo’ing through the last chance workouts, it was time for the weigh in. Vicky was first and lost 2 pounds, and Melissa lost 4. For the moment, Melissa wasn’t playing the game, and both of them were immune, so wiped off the board.

O’Neal was next and lost 4 pounds, followed by Ashley who lost 5. Michael lost 8, Koli 6 and Drea 5. Daris lost 7, and then Sam lost 2. Uh-oh. Sunshine, who kept claiming she would be going to the Final 4, lost 6, putting her money where her mouth was. Stephanie lost 1 pound, putting her and Sam below the yellow line. This was sort of inevitable, because Sam lost 14 pounds the previous week while Stephanie had lost 9.

But let’s face it, Stephanie has dodged a bullet a few times recently, and Sam is a bit too popular to be sent home now. So after Koli voted for Stephanie and Melissa voted for Sam, Stephanie received the next four votes and was sent home. I think that was the right way to go, and it was time for Stephanie to go home and begin vying for the $100K at-home prize. That is, unless they bring her back again (note sarcasm).

Then it was time to bring home the inspired home viewer, Wayne. Wayne began his journey at a whopping 674 pounds, and he stepped on the scale looking like a shell of his former self. He now weighs 256, down an unbelievable 418 total pounds. Wow. Of course, Mrs. Mike noted that Allison was overly dramatic about the whole thing.

Okay, so now we’ve gone from 9 finalists to 11 and then back to 10. And Melissa is back. Ugh. I can’t stand how almost every season the producers of this show try hard to make it about gameplay. I know the show helps people lose weight, get healthy and get their lives back on track. But sometimes they throw so many curveballs that it gets difficult to keep track of without a calculator.

Regardless, it’s gonna be exciting over the next two months to see how it all shakes out. What do you think? Are you annoyed by the curves too? Let me know and then we’ll meet back here next week!

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.

After meeting with each team and giving them different test results and respective inspiration to lose weight, they had this week’s challenge with host Alison Sweeney. Each team had to walk a balance beam across a pool and put a corresponding colored ball into a cage, and the team with 10 balls first won. The prize was immunity, but then the team that finished last would have a 2 pound penalty at the weigh in. Yikes. The red team of Lance and Melissa won, and the white team of Michael and Maria finished last, mainly because Maria, who was terrified of water, fell on her face, literally, and messed up her nose and broke a finger. Somehow, though, she got out of the hospital and hit the ground running with her workouts.

Then, after having the Dr. Huizenga blues and dealing with the blues of Week 2, they all weighed in. The red team went first because they had immunity. Lance lost 8 pounds and Melissa gained a pound. Melissa loosely admitted to playing the game, but she backpedaled a bit when Bob called her out, to which Bob laughed in her face……the gray team of Sam and Koli went next and lost 17 pounds…Ashley and Sherry of the pink team lost 13 pounds…..Miggy and Migdalia of the green team lost 12…..then the purple team of Patti and Stephanie lost 4 and 3 pounds, respectively, for a total of 7, and they were in immediate danger of falling below the yellow line…..the orange team of Cheryl and Daris went next and lost 10 pounds….John, the remaining twin brother from the brown team, lost 10 pounds after being told he needed to lose at least 6 to be safe….then the black team of Andrea and Darrell lost 15 pounds….so it was down to the white team. Michael and Maria had to lose something like a combined 13 pounds to be safe, because they also had a two pound penalty. Well, they exceeded expectations, losing 10 and 11 pounds, respectively, for 21 total and another week on campus.

So that left the purple team of Patti and Stephanie below the yellow line, and while at this stage it’s hard to see anyone go home, it was especially hard to see Patti be sent packing because she had diabetes and really needed to lose weight for health reasons. Patti pleaded to the rest of the teams that they should send her home and keep Stephanie there, and so we knew at this point it would be anti-climactic at the voting table, and it was…..everyone they showed with a vote chose Patti, so she went home.

So far, Patti has gone from 243 pounds down to 200, so she is on her way. Meanwhile, Bob and Jillian along with Dr. H really have their work cut out for them this season. But they prove every time that it can be done.

Thanks for reading and see you guys next week….

Every season on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” seems to out-do the season before. The hit reality show returned for its ninth season last night, and as you might suspect, the contestants were larger than last season. So much so, that trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels agreed that they were intimidated by the fact that they had to whip this bunch into shape, literally.

The theme this season is families, and this time as each pair of contestants were notified that they were selected to be on the show, they also had to have their initial weigh in in public, in front of their families, friends, and entire towns. Yikes.

The biggest pair were twin brothers James and John, weighing in at 485 and 484 total almost half a ton. The biggest individual was Michael, from Chicago, who was selected with his mom, Maria. Michael weighed in at a svelte 526 pounds, the largest contestant on the show to date and naturally a tremendous challenge for himself and the trainers.

After the teams arrived at the Biggest Loser ranch, they were presented with their first challenge by host Alison Sweeney, which was to get on stationery bikes and pedal the equivalent of a marathon, 26.2 miles. Biking that distance might be akin to running or jogging 5 miles or so, something this group has probably not done in years, if ever. Anyway, the first nine teams (out of 11) to finish would get to stay, and the last two teams would be going home…already. The winner of the race would have immunity at this week’s weigh in.

As they were pedaling, I kept thinking that I hoped the two large brothers, and Michael, would not be sent home so soon. Well, the blue team’s Cherita was having bad stomach cramps and needed assistance from Dr. Huizenga, and could not continue. Her daughter finished, but the blue team, well as the yellow team of O’Neal and Sunshine, finished last. The green team of Migdalia and Miggy won the immunity.

So the two teams that lost had to hop back in the limos that brought them to the ranch, but as they began to drive away Bob and Jillian stopped the cars. They wouldn’ be staying, but they would be going home for 30 days, and then the team which lost the highest percentage of weight during that time would get to come back to the ranch.

The first morning on the ranch, Bob and Jillian turned on the fire alarm to wake everyone up and get them into the gym, where they proceeded to push the crap out of the contestants. Jillian managed to take mild-mannered Cheryl from the orange team, and bring out her inner “badass.” After the last chance workout, it was time for the weigh in.

The green team, with immunity, went first and Migdalia lost 16 pounds while Miggy lost 13, giving them 29 pounds of weight loss. Not bad at all. Then the Gray team of Sam and Koli (who, by the way, are of the same descent as Filipe and Sione, and are also cousins!) lost 18 and 29 pounds for a total of 47. Orange was next, and Cheryl lost 14 while her son Daris lost 29 for a total of 43. Daris is a cross betwen Matt Hoover from Season 2 and Justin Guarini.

The brown team of Andrea and Darrell was next and lost 14 and 30 pounds, respectively, for 44 total pounds lost. Then the brown team of James and John, and not surprisingly, they lost the exact same amount, 23 pounds each. But based on their total weight, it was a low percentage. Uh-oh. Next was the red (hillbilly) team of Melissa and Lance, who lost 19 and 21 pounds for 40 total. Mrs. Mike and I have already tabbed Melissa as the most annoying contestant this season.

Then the purple team of Patti and daughter Stephanie, and they lost 23 and 18 pounds for 41 total. Patti’s 23 pounds was the most in a single week by any female on the show, ever. Next was the pink team of Ashley and Sherry, who, with their blonde hair and pink shirts reminded us of Helen and Shannon from a few seasons back. Anyway, they lost 21 and 17 pounds for 38 total. Finally, it was Michael and Maria. Maria went first and lost 13, so Michael was told he had to have lost 25 pounds to stay on the ranch. He crushed it, losing a whopping 34 pounds, and then joking, “Are my abs showing?” Ha! So they were staying, which meant James and John had to face the prospect that one of them would be voted off the ranch.

That sucks, because those two guys both needed to be there. But that’s how they play this game. So how do you vote in this case? Well, James has a bad knee and is limited as to what he can do with workouts. John has a family and a job he would have to return to if he went home, while James was not working and could devote entire days to the gym as well as a pool at his home. After one vote for John, the next five votes went to send James home, and that’s what happened.

They showed James at home and he had lost an astounding 100 pounds in just two months. Good for him! I wonder if John was able to mirror James’ weight loss on the ranch.

So here we go folks, Season 9 is already underway, and it once again promises to be a good one. Thanks for reading and see you all next week!