Biggest Loser: A Hard Day’s Night

After last week’s exciting show of lies and emerging heroes and villains, we approach this week with a sense of excitement and hope that Jillian will absolutely kick Brendan’s ass for throwing the weigh in.  To be blunt, the previews lied to us.  Oh, sure we had plenty of game play, but this time it was producer forced.  And Brendan went on unscathed…bummer.  But before we dig right into to our fat free Greek yogurt, let’s review some of the comments from last week.  Gasmii—you sure know this show—can’t tell you how much I appreciate your input.  Brendan is a cocky Boston bastard so unless he saves a bunch of kids from a burning orphanage, he’s going to have to really work his way up.   (Amen, Proda and Diana).  Patrick is definitely emerging as one of my favorites also—not only because he seems like a genuinely nice guy—but he’s rocking it on the scales and working his ass off, so I definitely agree with you, Kczar.  And Diana—LOL on your “No Bite It” story…

We start this week right where we left off last week with Rick being blindsided by his team.

Et tu, Frado?

Allison tells the black team to remain right where they are and she calls in the blue team and Patrick.  She tells them once again the game has changed and they now need to keep their friends close and their enemies closer. Only one person’s weight will matter this week at the weigh in.  The blue team will pick which black team member will go on the scale and vice versa.  So…who do you want to go on that scale?  Jesse immediately re-explains everything to us, because like normal network TV viewers, we must be complete morons.

Try the Learning Channel, people, so I don’t have ‘splain things to you.

We go through a whole montage of the players telling us it is all about an eye on everyone and a game of chess, etc., etc.  Then we are in Jesse’s bedroom, where he’s waking up with his sleep apnea machine.  He pads out of the room and right into Jessica’s room.

Want to play strip chess?

Jesse tells us he is a big target because he had such a big number last week and might fall off this week.  To make sure that doesn’t happen again, I guess his plan is to scare the crap out of his female teammates.  Or in this case, work with them because he’s a nice guy and not Brendan.  Jesse is worried about Jessica because she’s had some low numbers so they decided to hit the gym bright and early.  At a more human hour, (9:00AM), Bob is explaining to us and his team the whole challenge AGAIN in case we were distracted by the pre-dawn almost porn at the ranch.  Jillian tells us she is going to set her sights on Wheezy because she will certainly be the person picked by the blue team to weigh in.  So, Wheezy is running and crying and stopping and basically getting her ass handed to her by Jillian, who yelts at her that she always has a story on why she can’t do something.

We check in with newcomer Anna who tells us she is worried about being an outsider.  I like Anna and I’d like to spend more time with her, but I’m completely distracted by the Toga party Brendan apparently thinks he is attending.

Worst Frat party ever

Jillian now focuses her barely self-contained rage motivation on Frado.  She tells us she is so over the whole mastermind that Frado is.  She really believes Frado is the one pulling all the strings with the black team’s game playing and you know what?  Maybe she’s right.  Sure, he didn’t throw the weigh in last week, but he could have certainly talked Brendan into it.  Why can’t we see that story?  Jill goes further with it calling Frado “The Godfather”.  In the movie, Frado (actually Fredo) gets killed by the The Godfather, but Jillian expresses absolutely no interest in my movie trivia.  Non-movie-dead Frado stalks around the gym and then jumps back up on the treadmill to make his point that he really is trying.  And…he wipes out.  His shorts get caught in the treadmill and like any good mafia soldier, Brendan picks them out for him.

Brendan:  “Being a soldier isn’t pretty.”

Jill thinks Frado is nothing but drama as Frado walks out of the gym and into the field, maybe looking for the bus or taxi that took Montina home last week.

The hills are alive, with the sound of music self-absorbed, heavy handed drama

Jillian lets Frado wander around aimlessly as she tells us that it’s an alpha male thing.  You know what?  I think that’s kind of a cop out.  It is like guys saying “it is a female thing”.  She tells us the problem with teams is other people pay for the actions of a few.  She goes back in to work with Anna, the outsider and tries to reassure her by saying, “work within your capacity”.  And she is being way too nice.  WTF?  Who is this and what happened to Jillian?  Why is she treating Anna like a lost cause?  She should be pushing her so hard in the event she is the one picked or if there is some challenge ahead that would spare Wheezy’s inevitable nomination.   On the lighter side of things, Bob likes to break up his day with amusement park rides.

Anybody have any more quarters for this thing?

We are being force fed images of the blue team working in synch.  Back on Peyton Place, Frado is boxing Jill and he apologizes for disrespecting her.  Jill puts on her therapist hat and tries to get to the bottom of Frado. But once again, I am distracted.

Well, helloooo there…I love a guy with good equipment.

Frado tells Jill he moved out at 17 because he fought with his Father and he is afraid he is turning into his Dad.  So, he’s being rebellious.

And I’m sure it’s my fault he moved out, Frado’s Dad

And it is time for the first challenge, this week at a Four Seasons Hotel.  Allison lectures the team on the importance of exercising and proper gum maintenance but emphasizes eating well.  And in walk Curtis Stone and Lorena Garcia.

The Ken and Barbie of cooking healthy.  Most boring dolls ever.

So the challenge is this—Allison takes 3 blue and 3 black team members and puts them in the kitchen.  From the blue team, Jessica, Lisa and Aaron will be cooking with Curtis.  Which excites Lisa to no end (she’s the one who molested Curtis a couple of weeks ago) and should scare the gel off of Curtis.  From the black team and cooking with Lorena are Wheezy, Anna and Patrick.  Each team will cook an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert.  How hard is it to microwave some Friday’s wings, cook a frozen pizza and pop the top off some Breyer’s?  Man, I would so kick butt on this show.  The real chefs are not allowed to touch the food at all.  Or the cooking utensils.  Or themselves because of inevitable blindness.  They both totally cheat at this by the way.  No the “themselves” part, but it would have been interesting.  And gross.  This is a kitchen, people!  The remaining players, not in the kitchen, will do a blind taste test to determine the winner.

All the amateur cooks start grabbing at ingredients, Top Chef style, but with a lot less aggression.  And knowledge.  And taste.  As they are all taking directions from the real chefs on making shrimp ceviche, tuna tacos, peach cream puffs, etc, Allison comes in to scream:  “10 minutes!”.

Not Padma

Allison also takes this time to yell at Lorena to quit touching, quit touching!  Poor Lorena is just so close to Patrick, she can’t help herself.

I’m Latin—I can’t fight the love

Right smack in the action we get our trainer’s recapper’s tip:   If you ever have to do a timed cooking challenge in your own kitchen, it is imperative you remove the plastic from the Ho-Ho’s before serving.  Fine diners like to feel their desserts are really put out there—naked, yet tasteful.

Now the contestants are done with the cooking and are able to watch the judging on a little monitor set up in the kitchen.  Can we just pause here to discuss how incredibly easy it would be to throw this stuff together when you have two chefs telling you exactly what you should do?  Is that really a challenge?  I would have preferred to see them bumbling around the kitchen trying figure out what a leek was or serving raw pork butt.

Frado and Adam are the first two judges and already, Frado has a strategy.  He knows two people on his team (Aaron and Ada) don’t know anything at all about cooking so he is going to purposely pick the worst tasting dish so his team wins.  This would have been an excellent strategy if you know, he was judging all three dishes or if he had shared this nugget of genius with the other two team members judging.  He tries Wheezy’s ceviche and nearly gags, which everyone sees…LOL and then picks it as the winning dish.  Adam picks the salad Aaron made and they are tied.  Next up are entrees for Ada (Black team) and Mark (Blue team).  Ada and Mark both pick the Blue team’s dish, so it is now 3-1.  Jesse and Brendan are there to judge the dessert and Brendan share with us that presentation is everything when you go to a restaurant.

Like this, Chef Boyardork?

Puh—lease.  Both Brendan and Jesse pick the Black team’s peach cobbler (Anna’s dish) so it is now tied.  Oh, man…I haven’t been this tense since the World Cup.

Ah, soccer…football….whatever….

The tie breaker goes as follows:  All three player/judges have to guess how many calories each team’s dessert contains.  Closest team to the right answer wins the big prize of the mysterious 10 seconds.  Frado and Brendan immediately start a pissing contest, with Frado ridiculously telling us that since Brendan can’t cook, he knows nothing about calories.  Dummy.  I can cook but no nothing about calories, so what does that tell you?  Right—nothing.  So they act like big idiots arguing and poor Ada looks like she wants the earth to swallow her up.  BECAUSE SHE JUST HASN’T BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH BULLS**T.  And finally, it is time for the answers.  Black team guesses 185 and Blue guesses 109.  Blue is closest so they win the big mysterious advantage.

After the food challenge, the teams separate and start trying to decide who to pick on the other team to weigh in.  During the black team’s discussion, Jessica’s name is thrown out and predictably, Wheezy is the first pick on the blue team.  Patrick, with the black team now (in case you forgot), thinks it should come down to an ol’ fashioned shoot-out between Jessica and Wheezy.  Wheezy’s reaction:

Nomnomnomnom

The physical challenge this week is a rowing challenge.  Wait…

Ally, if someone asks you to go on a 3 hour tour, RUN!

The teams will participate in a traditional dragon boat race.  One person steers, the other all row.  They have to go 500m out, turn around and 500m back.  Allison reminds them they are all only as weak as the weakest player.  OMG—so original!  Then she says it is the ultimate team sport.  Right next to Doubles Beer Pong, naturally.  This is where winning the food challenge pays off for the blue team.  They get a 10 second head start.  They all take a few seconds to strategize who is doing what and black team will have Anna steer (because you know if they lose, they would now have a valid reason to kick her out) and blue picks Jessica to steer.  And they’re off.  Well, the blue team is off.  Ten second advantage, remember?  Jesse endears me to him forever with his comment about how they didn’t really get a blazing fast start.  In fact, he says, it wasn’t like wind was whipping through their hair.  LOL.  And before you know it, the black team is in the water.  Well—in a boat in the water, but that would have been awesome, kind of.  Anna does a kick butt job steering and they are gaining some serious ground.

Every float trip I’ve ever been on—minus the beers, smokes, nakedness and people trying to get healthy.

Although the blue team messes up on the turn, the black team is just too far behind to catch up and the blue team wins again.  And Anna cries.  She knows that even though a real dragon boat racing team would love to have her as navigational teammate, she’s kind of screwed being the outcast here.  I have to point out they’re all just kind of hanging out in their boats, hilariously waiting for the tide to bring them in or Navy Seals to rescue them or something.  Brendan immediately starts bitching about the blue team being sore winners.  Um, Brendan?  That’s called happiness.  I know it is not familiar to you because it doesn’t involve kicking puppies or making handicapped people cry, but it really seems to be just joy.  So, STFU.  So this means the black team have to think about two people to pick from the blue team to weigh in as they have the decision to block their first pick.

When they start that discussion, Jillian comes in and they inform her they lost the challenge.  Well, both of them.  But Wheezy tells Jill it is really okay because they were in synch.  Oh, man, you would have thought she told Jill Ziploc bags leak.  Jillian lights into her that she doesn’t believe Wheezy is trying hard enough because Brendan and Frado have her back.  Jillian does a nice job making Wheezy feel nice and guilty about the fact that if SHE loses the challenge, it could very well be Anna going home.  Jillian’s really good at this guilt stuff.  She’s totally Catholic.  Or Jewish.  Or both.  And with that, Wheezy’s got a big ol’ target on her back and not just from the other team.  Jillian begins the barrage of screamsults (screaming insults) in the gym to get Wheezy more motivated.  “Why are you here?” “Who let this happen?” “Fight back, Elizabeth—from now on, this is your fault!”.

Jamie Lee would never screamsult or yelt

Back with the happy-go-lucky blue team, Mark tells us each member of his team is acting like it could be them on the scale for the whole team.  Meaning, of course, they’re all working very hard.  Deeper meaning, of course, they are so screwed.  And it is time for the weigh in.

Ally have a hot date after this or what?  What’s with the sparkly  ear bobs?

Before we get to the actual weigh in, there is that little business of “Who is going to lose it for us?”  But even before we do that, Glamour Ally (new from Mattel!) has to ask Adam if he is going to use his 3lb weight advantage.  He says no.  Alrighty then.  Spoiler alert:  Dumbass.  Frado agrees with me (thank you, Godfather) and tells us he’s been telling Adam he needs to use that thing as it is creating a huge target on his back, which is getting bigger and bigger.  The target, not his back.  Wait, do watch Survivor?  Isn’t Brendan’s hair looking like crazy Marty’s hair?

If I had a hidden immunity idol, I would only share with my godfather…

Blue team decides to pick Elizabeth (Wheezy).  Surprise, surprise.  Bob tells us he thinks that is incredibly foolish as he has noticed Jillian spending an enormous amount of time with Wheezy.  Well, thanks Clouseau.  I think the state of Maine could hear Jillian yelling at her from inside the gym.  Allison asks Wheezy if the possibility of being picked increased her intensity.  I’d have died laughing if she would have said, “No.  I don’t give a flying s**t.”  The black team decides to pick Jessica and now here is where the blue team can decide to stick with that choice or put someone else up.  They decide, with the ridiculously unhelpful advice from Bob (“roll the dice”) to stick with Jessica and not block the pick at all.  Negative Lisa would have been the obvious second pick (I think) and that was kind of a toss up.  Plus they’d have to deal with her whining if she didn’t hit the number she wanted.  And here we go with the weigh in.  They are still going to weigh all members because the person with the highest percentage of weight, even on the losing team, is still safe.

Anna:  3lbs; Ada:  4lbs (both would have been excellent choices, obviously—but hey, hindsight and all that)…

Brendan pulls an 11lbs, solidifying the fact he totally threw it last week.  Patrick kicks butt again with 9lbs and Frado absolutely slays it with 14lbs.  He tells us it is not exactly a breakthrough but he does feel like a door is opening up.  Nice job, Locksmith Jillian.

Either the camera operators are oompa loompas or this is totally for effect

Elizabeth is the last one to go for the black team and the music pounds wildly and the smell of anxious fear and desperation fills the room.  Who thought stepping on a scale could be so tense?  Oh wait—most of us.  And…she…pulls….5lbs!  That’s pretty good for her, because she’s not that big.  Yay, Wheezy!  But is it enough???

Before we weigh in, the black team is asked who they would have put up instead of Jessica, had the blue team taken the option to block.  Patrick says they would have gone with Jesse.  So, Jesse is first up.  Allison tells us he would have had to lose less than 6lbs to be beaten by Wheezy and he loses…9lbs!  And he is now under 300lbs!  He double dog swears with Ally he won’t be over 300 again.

As Colonel Sanders as my witness…

Um…you might want to say Jerod…

Mark loses 16lbs.  Holy crap—that’s a Thanksgiving turkey!  Adam loses 13lbs.  OMG—that’s a Thanksgiving turkey for when the chubby in-laws can’t make it!  Lisa is up next and she would have and to lose more than 5lbs if she would have been picked and she hits 8lbs.  Aaron gets up there and he lost 9lbs.  Yay, Aaron!  Little what’s-his-name would be so proud.  And it comes to The Chosen Girl.  Jessica.  She had to lose more than 5lbs to beat Wheezy and keep the blue team out of the elimination room with all the glassed-in treats.  She’s so nervous on the scale and she starts crying immediately when the number 4 pops up.  Awwww…I’m happy for Wheezy, but kind of sad for Jessica.

Off to the vote.  Mark votes for Adam and Adam votes for Jessica.  Lisa votes for Jessica and Allison pipes up telling us that is two votes for Jessica.  What is with this show?  We’re not that drunk.  Buzzed, but not wasted.  Let’s finish this—I’m starving.  It was all that turkey talk from earlier.  Basically it comes down to Aaron who casts his vote for Jessica, causing a tie.  Oh, these dummies have now caused the black team to make the decision.  I’m sure that kind of power won’t go straight to Brendan’s big ol’ head.  The blue team needs to figure out how to play a little bit of the game and quit being so flipping nice or the black team will steamroll them.  Mark is still safe because he had the highest weight loss.  Everyone else is fair game to be ousted by the black team.  They all do their little “save me” speeches, with Adam playing the Mom card.

Because that always works

Aaron has London and then Lisa pipes up and says you can send me home, I’m ready.  What is with this chick?  She’s there for 3 weeks and she’s ready to personally train the world?  Well, black team is really not full of dummies and Brendan says it would be unfair to vote for someone on the blue team who did not receive a prior vote (snort, yeah…right—you’re just being nice) which leads it right back to Jessica and Adam.  Without hesitation, Adam is voted out.  Frado tells us he should have gotten rid of that weight advantage because he was too much of a threat—even without it but definitely more so with it.

Adam has done well at home.  He hangs out at the Y and insists on inspiring people.  *sigh*  You know what would be inspiring?  People who have done really well for themselves and now feel the need to “inspire” all of us to just go away.  I want to hang around people who are lazier than me.  Now, that’s inspiring!    :)