Biggest Loser–David and Who?

Welcome back to the only show that makes me feel totally hot for about 8 weeks!  Thanks for all the great comments from last week.  Let’s dig right in again, shall we?

Okay, for the first five minutes of the show this week is a reminder of what we already know, but apparently have forgotten over the last seven days—5 couples are with the two shadowy unknown trainers and the remaining 6 chose to train with Bob and Jillian.  Those who went to the mystery trainers automatically receive four weeks of immunity (and a case of vodka, which surprisingly wasn’t announced).  One month of immunity on this show can seem like a lifetime.  Kind of like two hours on NBC can feel like a lifetime.  Well, that’s true until they throw in a new twist for week 2.  If Bob and Jillian’s team lose more weight than the outcast team (as a total percentage of weight loss), they get immunity for one week.  Oh, Lordy.  Like this show isn’t long enough?  My theory:  these people are all way to big to show the dramatic results for makeover week and the week or two before the finale and so they’re definitely going to be padding in extra time.  Last season was a testament to that.  So, since they can’t realistically make the show 52 weeks long (or just turn the damn thing into “The Truman Show”), they’ll try and stretch it out as long as they can.

And in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening and good night!

Before all that, let’s revisit Irene who is crying because her Mom went home on the last show.  She’s by herself, no one to be a partner with, no one to support her etc.  Okay, we’re done with that.  Just once, I’d like to see the other half of the couple who remains on the ranch after a vote off act absolutely thrilled that person is gone.  They get the whole room to themselves to entertain lonely ranch-mates on cold and hungry nights.  I just gave myself the willies.  So, Irene is sad.  Check.

Obligatory sad shot.  She already did the Risky Business dance.

The rest of Team Ranch (Bob and Jillian’s couples) are all hanging out, talking about how much room they have at the ranch without the other couples there.

The couch does not agree

Suddenly, Alison walks in and they all gasp in surprise.  Um, folks?  She probably has a key to the place.  She brings a DVD for them to watch and sadly it is not “Smokey and the Bandit III:  Smokey IS the Bandit”.  It is the weigh in of the other team (renamed here as Team Genius, for the obvious reason they chose 4 WEEKS of freakin’ immunity).  The video shows bits and pieces of how that team crushed them on the scale.  Then she tells them this week’s deal:  If they lose more weight than Team Genius, their whole team gets immunity for one whole week.  Plus the team with the highest percentage wins $10,000.  Vodka is not mentioned.  Team Ranch watches Team Genius train and they talk about how hard they’re working.  This whole scene would have been way more interesting, if the DVD showed Team Genius eating and sleeping.

But this would have been kick ass

In the gym, Bob’s working with one set of people while Jillian’s outside boxing with the rest.  She has her sights set on the Green team, which is father/daughter Jay and Jennifer.  She yells at Jay, saying he is a co-dependent and screams that Jennifer never reaches for anything.  Except Ding Dongs.  She pulls them aside for a heart to heart and tears flow as Jennifer tells Jay although she loves him, she has to be here for herself, not him.  She has to quit feeling bad when he doesn’t lose weight.  I love it when people around me are bigger than me, so I’m not sure what the big deal is, but I’m extremely shallow, so there you have it.  They hug it out and end scene.

Lose weight, but please don’t be thinner than me.   Love ya!

Courtney of the Aqua team makes me love her even more when she and Marci (Mom) sit down and Courtney explains that it is not her Mom’s fault she is the way she is.  Courtney?  Don’t you know that kids your age (21 in her case) are supposed to blame all their shortcomings on their parents and take no responsibility for themselves?  Geez.

But I will blame her for this perm.  Feel better?

Bob is inside working with Arthur, the biggest guy on Team Ranch and he is pushing him do go to 5.0 on the treadmill for thirty seconds.  He accomplishes this and there are smiles and cheers all around.  Then there is an actual scene of the unknowns in their unknown place with their unknown trainers.  Oh, wait—now we know where they’re training!  They’re at Biggest Loser’s Fitness Ridge in Malibu.  Seriously?  They should be out in the woods, fending for themselves.  Killing rabbits with their bare hands and then eating only the white meat.  (Do rabbits have white meat?).  Or at least fighting off zombies.  They’re at a facility probably even nicer than the Ranch.  I’m disappointed.  I was hoping it was more of the Russian scene from Rocky IV, where they’re all pulling plows in knee deep snow, while “Living in America” plays in the background.  So—they’re boring.  Back to Team Ranch, who decides to do a night workout.  Thankfully, they’re idea of working off calories at night is not the same as mine and they head to the gym.  And here we have a mysterious box, delivered to them by Team Genius.

The note was already opened when they got there.  Alison is a nosy bitch.

It turns out the other team sent them a couple of dozen of doughnuts in the [producers’] hopes of sabotaging the other team.  Really?  Arthur hilariously makes comments about how cruel it is to send fat people doughnuts and they take the box out of the gym and start stomping on them.  Because just throwing them away would not be as dramatic.  But don’t worry, Arthur is there to make even that portion of this scene dramatic.  Now, I like Arthur.  I do.  But this week he is just a little over the top for me.  He throws the boxes away after telling himself (and us) he won’t just taste one.  Then, shockingly, two of the smashed doughnuts fall to the ground and there’s this whole Sophie’s Choice melodrama about taking one little bite and a three second rule and you get the general idea.  In short, he does not eat the doughnut as he tearfully tells us how hard that was.  While I agree that would be monumentally tough for anyone on a strict diet, my guess is it is oh, I don’t know…about a THOUSAND times easier when there is a camera in your face?

I don’t even notice the cameras!  Really!

And now we’re off to Doc Hollywood, otherwise known as….

Dr. Rob Huizenga and his mysterious wood pile

We’ll gloss over the doctor visits.  It’s all bad news for our obese contestants and why wouldn’t it be?  If they were the picture of inner health, they wouldn’t be on this show.  Just as if they had a perfectly happy life, albeit with several extra hundred pounds, they wouldn’t be here.  Everybody is sick and they need to get better.  For added guilt, Jesse and Arthur receive a visit from his daughter and baby granddaughter, while in the doctor’s office.  They just kind of barged right in, so thank goodness that weren’t laying back, feet in stirrups at that point.  Back at the Ranch, they find a DVD with the instructions “Play Me”.

Don’t do it—Arthur’s friend did just a week ago, got a phone call and then…

The DVD does not show imminent death for our viewers, but that would be a hell of a show.  Talk about digging out those smashed and Arthur-pawed doughnuts and saying “Screw all this!”… The DVD is the other team again pushing all their buttons with their successful weight loss stories.  One more reminder, folks—this was from week one.  If I quit drinking beer for a week, I’d drop a dress size.   If I wore dresses.  So why bother with the beer thing?  Anyway, this of course turns into a total throw down (of silliness) and God love Marci (Courtney’s Mom), who says (paraphrased), “I don’t care what they say.  It’s not about them.  It’s about me.”

That’s right, cool Mom.  Eye of the Tiger, Eye of the Tiger

And we’re off to the challenge!  Alison tells the group the winner of this week’s challenge will win a team 3lb advantage.  Team Genius has already competed and Team Ranch has to beat their time.  They basically have to line up a bunch of rafts and create a bridge.  They get together to strategize or in the case of Team Ranch, they get together to talk over each other and not strategize at all.  This challenge will be a nightmare.  Oh, and it was.  Big time.

Strategery at its finest
They were supposed to beat the other team’s time of 38 minutes and 23 seconds.  They didn’t even get halfway across the water in that time.  They were flailing about on the rafts and it was pretty painful to watch.  Simply pathetic.

But guess what that does for the rest of the show?  Yep, we get to hear about “David and Goliath” for the remaining 40+ minutes.  They had a bad weigh in last week, the were decimated at the challenge, they’re ugly and their mothers are dressing them funny, etc.  Bob shrieks all this at them during the Last Chance workout.  He’s flying solo (and maybe commando?) because Jillian is out (suspiciously?) sick.  So, they go back and forth between the two teams showing all their training and really the only thing remotely interesting is when they show someone from Team Genius, there are these little butterfly things flying across the screen.  Is there a bug infestation at Fitness Ridge or is this something just to distract us from the pressing needing DAVID to beat GOLIATH?  I could not capture it on the online version of the show, but I swear it was there.    Here is Moses from Team Genius.  Try to peel your eyes off the awesome modern wood paneling and imagine a bunch of floaty things hanging around his face.  That’s what it looked like.  Really.  Just a couple of Bud Lights, why?

Harvey, my six foot tall rabbit totally saw it too.

And it is time for the weigh in for Team Genius!  Anyone want to take bets on how this will go?  Just to be clear—I do like this show overall.  I wouldn’t spend time every week watching and doing something I dislike.  Save that for the real job.  This week’s storyline just kind of got to me.  Alison reveals that Team Genius lost 79lbs.  Add the 3lb advantage from not sucking at the challenge and it is a total of 82lbs.  An uphill battle for Team (David) Ranch.   Alison goes on to remind Team Ranch that last week Team Genius destroyed them.  Bob did not appreciate her phraseology–for sure.

Bob:  “How ’bout I destroy you?”  Alison:  “Like Jillian’s claws weren’t enough??”

Lonely, sad Irene starts us off and does a great job losing 10lbs.

Come on Irene…Toora, loora, toora loorye aye

Next up are the bad hair sisters and they each lose 6lbs.

And are overwhelming thrilled.  Can’t you tell by how the bangs are smiling?

The creepy crackhead twins did not do well as a team, with Dan losing only 5lbs.

He’s the one on the right.  In front of that sad, sad “-5″…

Cute Courtney and Eye of the Tiger Marci are up next and although Courtney did okay, losing 10lbs, Mama Marci only lost 6lbs.  Normally, she would be happy about this, but the weight of immunity is a heavy one indeed.

The Green Team (Jay and Jennifer) add to the total with 18lbs.

Quit losing more than me!  I mean, I support you…I do…

So, that leaves the Blue Team of Jesse and doughnut dumpster diver Arthur.  Arthur acts all cocky, telling the group, “We’ve got this, we’ve got this.”  Normally, this would signal disaster, but alas not this week.  Jesse loses 8lbs and Arthur drops 13lbs.  And then we are “treated” to a little Arthur dancing on the scale.  Once again, I like Arthur, but he is quickly becoming a small dose kind of guy…

Scale:  “Simmer down, Dancing Queen.”

Meaning Team Ranch wins the weigh in over Team Genius with a total of 90lbs lost.  So no one is going home this week.  Sigh.  Not that I long for people to fail, but seriously?  There are still like 100 contestants left.  They really need to start doing some double eliminations.  Or just send people home for the hell of it.  For bad hair, maybe?  Nasty teeth and general poor hygiene?

Until next time…