About Last Night: Wednesday

Mini caps of The Biggest Loser and Flipping Out

Biggest Loser: Bluzgirl

So, the fake season premiere of Biggest Loser (I always drop the pretentious “The”) aired last night and OMG, Biggest Loser is turning into American Idol. But with more talent. Bob Harper, Jillian Michaels (fresh from her latest kill and looking furious) and Allison Sweeney (second only to the Chenbot for awkward TV show hosts) travel to 7 different cities to search for the perfect candidates. They could have gone to my local Wal-Mart and saved themselves some serious traveling time. Way to expand that carbon footprint. And there are also special guests, like Doc Hollywood (the medical doctor we like to call the Grim Reaper) and some previous successful contestants, who apparently don’t have jobs.

Here is how it worked: They travel to a city, gather a bunch of people (big and not so big) outside, call for the 3 contenders. These contenders give us their backstories and then they have their first weigh-in in front of the entire crowd. Then these 3 complete a challenge and only two of them get to go to the ranch. Ouch–that is harsh. Way to crush the spirit even harder. But as we true blue BL fans know, we have not seen the last of our first round eliminated players.

The show visited Detroit, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, Phoenix, Oklahoma City and Boston. A total of 14 contestants were chosen to head straight to the ranch. The losers got sent packing. Lots of horribly sad backstories this time, but don’t worry Gasmii, there’s always a lot to laugh about with Biggest Loser and we’ll uncover all of it. Details to come…

Flipping Out: St. Claire of Assisi

This week’s episode starts out in the best way possible, which is, it’s the Monday morning meeting, over the weekend Jeff came up with a new policy based on an irrational whim, and now he’s ready to inflict misery on the staff. This week’s whim: his two housekeepers, Jett and Zoila, must now earn money for the design business also. And instead of being paid more, their compensation will be getting to keep their jobs.

In Jett’s case, the extra work isn’t a big deal, pretty much involving going around to the properties and tidying things up. But all Jeff has for Zoila to do is increase her productivity, which means, he will be pestering her way, way more than normal. If you enjoy typical Jeff-Zoila squabbling, and amplify it by a thousand, (or until you’re really uncomfortable watching it, whichever comes first), and that’s this episode. Even Jenni, Trace, and Sarah, who live with the squabbling, have to step in and tell him he’s being irrational—the house is way less dirty than he thinks it is, Zoila is working extremely hard, and she’s, you know, almost SEVENTY. Eventually Zoila gets so worn out she breaks down in tears, and to apologize, Jeff buys her a car. Later he tells the audience, “We don’t have the kind of relationship where you have to say, ‘I love you.’” At least Zoila gets a car out of it.

We also have a second story centered around the Cole salon remodeling. The owner, Chaz, used to have several murals with sentimental value painted on the salon walls and wanted to preserve them. But because these didn’t fit with Jeff’s design vision, they had to go, and Jeff has systematically cajoled Chaz into letting them be torn down one-by-one. There’s one mural left, so Jeff is giddy with excitement that he’ll soon have the salon space entirely to himself. But then he learns Chaz loves the murals because his brother died while they were being painted, and his mother died shortly after. So he relents. In a talking-head, Jenni explains how Jeff often doesn’t realize that people have sentimental attachments to things. Recently they were driving by a cemetery and Jeff said, “Oh, wow, that’s built on an awesome piece of land.”

Lots of other work is going on in the Jeff Lewis-verse, but we don’t see much of it. The New York Dr. project, (aka the one with the lesbians), seems to be finished. And in the aftermath of last week’s Cinco de Mayo disaster, things seem calmer at Casa Vega. For now, anyway.