Biggest Loser: U Say Goodbye and I Say Hello

Okay, last week was the whole fake-out, you’re on the show, you’re not on the show, you must hurt yourself or faint and then you’re still not on this show…Basically, the least athletic folks were not asked to join the campus, but fear not:  NBC always has a plan.  Conan will tell you it is not always a good one, but they do have a plan.  But enough of that—it is time for the real show!  The dramatic opening is about the same as always except now Bob must be single, because he is featured shirtless.  As BL is likes to do, they spend about fifteen minutes reviewing what we just saw last week.  Moving on…

Fourteen people made it.  At the horseless ranch, the first person they meet is Allison.  Allison is one of the most awkward TV hosts this side of a Chenbot.  I’ve never seen her soap, but holy cow she kills me on this show.  And holy cow, check out that skirt:

Holy dead cow

There are 14 brand new faces and names to learn, so let’s get started.  Lisa is the first on camera and she says that with every pound, it hides a piece of who she used to be.

And under those pounds, there are ounces and under those ounces…

We again meet Jessica (nominated by me for this season’s drama queen) and Brendan (Boston Brendan) and then Allison speaks up.  “You weren’t given a spot; you earned it.  That was the easy part.  The hard part is keeping it.”  She says they are now adding 700 lbs.

We get to eat first?

The show has magnanimously decided to let Bob and Jillian the chance to save one person who didn’t make it last week.  This is not one of the ones saved.

Which sucks because makeover week would have been awesome

Bob calls Aaron, who has a young son named London.  It is important we know this because I predict his name will get mentioned 3.2 million times during Aaron’s time on the show.

What do you mean the calls are coming from inside the ranch?

Jill decides to call the girl she almost killed in Boston.  Her name is Elizabeth and she had to be whisked away in an ambulance after her short time with Jill.  She should screen her calls.

Um, uh, hi, um, you have reached Moviefone…at 7pm..

So these two get dropped off about 8 miles outside the ranch with their yellow shirts on and trek up to meet the rest of the players.

Did a truck driver drop them off at Mobil?

As all 16 players converge, there are hugs and smiles all around.  Buzz kill Ally interrupts them to tell them although they are wearing matching shirts they are not playing as teams.  I guess non-primary color t-shirts are not in NBC’s budget, so they had to double up.  It is an individual game with a quarter of a million dollars on the line.  She tells them to hit the gym and meet the trainers.

The Not-Rockys

So, they’re all cheering and yelling on their way to the gym and Jill already looks pissed, like WTF is that noise?  They all burst through the doors and BJ (Bob/Jill) gets them on the treadmills.  Bob starts in on them all “Boiler Room” style saying they might think they know what goes on in the house, but they have no idea.  He’s screaming at them and trying to scare everyone, “Losers get Extra gum!”.  Bob, you’re still Bob, silly boy.  Now do something useful and take off your shirt and be sensitive.  So the first day is a grueling four hour workout.  BL is doing all these split screens 24-esque style.  Jill decides to attack Jesse first.  That woman is just not happy until people start puking, so I’d say she’s having a very good day.

Another reason not to snack while watching this show

I love the smell of vomit in the morning

People are blowing chunks everywhere:  on the floors, on the equipment.  I hope they take that extra t-shirt money and pay the cleaning crew well.  Next we reacquaint ourselves with Patrick, from Mississippi, who appears to be lifting about 4lbs.

Are those drink coasters?

Jill asks Patrick how this happened.  He responds he met his wife and got comfortable.  So, comfortable is 400lbs?  How’d you like it if your wife got “comfortable” with the 180lb next door neighbor?  Hmph, still comfy?  But he doesn’t need me to ride his ass, when Jill is already all over him.

Tina, our resident older person, wipes out on the treadmill and everybody claps.  Haha—not like that—they waited until she got back on.  But that would have been hilarious in a 5^th grade kind of way.  She tells us that she’s looking around at all these young kids and feels like she has something to prove.  Adam tells us he wanted to give up (this is day one, right???) but failure is not an option.  Sure it is, Adam.  People fail all the time.  Rick has been on his back for 45 minutes in pain and Elizabeth (asthma girl) is about ready to pass out.  As if that weren’t drama enough for the first day in the gym, Jill’s losing her shit on non-host Allie (although I’d love to see her lose her shit with host Allison just for giggles).  Apparently, Allie had the nerve to roll her eyes at Jill.  That is one seriously dumb brave soul.  Jillian gets all Bill Cosby on her, “You roll your eyes at me, I’ll roll that little head of yours”.  It just struck me that if this whole personal training thing doesn’t work out for Jillian, she’d make an excellent prison guard.  It is always important to keep your options open, Jillbear.  You did see Bob without his shirt in the opening, right?  He’s taking his very seriously…

Unless she goes topless, this kingdom will be mine. Mwhahahaha…

And now it’s off to Dr. Death’s office.  His real name is Dr. Huizenga and he and his 80’s hair has graced this show for seasons to be the contestants’ very own grim reaper.

If I were an obstetrician, I’d call all the women sluts and tell them they’re babies are ugly

Lisa gets to see a very large close-up of her belly while he tells her that not only is she a smoker, her cholesterol is ridiculously high.  I’ve noticed his voice has gotten higher over the years—not sure what’s going on there.  His Dragulator magic “BL Inner Age” machine shows that although she is only 31, her body is actually 62.  Which sadly does not qualify her for discount movie tickets.  He tells her it is reversible and she needs to kick ass.  Personally, I’d kick his.  The guy is a serious downer.

Next, he shows Tina (grandma) a heart with a bunch of fat on it.

Then you dip this in garlic and cornmeal and deep fry, girrrrrl…now we’re talking!

Aaron gets to find out that not only is he literally 51% fat, he also has diabetes.  Rick (our older guy) has a heart attack risk of 32%.  Dr. Death gets him on Paltalk (Skype for rich people?) to see his family and make him feel worse.

We rented these babies to make you feel worse.  Quit squirming, rent-a-baby.

Next up is Allie.  She is the 22 year old who had gastric bypass when she was fourteen.  Dr. Death gets all fired up and I don’t blame him.  He blames the doctor, her parents, society, Kohl’s (never been a Vera Wang fan) for the shape she is in now.  He gets her on the Paltalk with her Mom and her sister and through tears, Allie tells her Mom she needs her help.  (Spoiler Alert—this will be important later).

Okay with all that fun out of the way, it is time to head to the kitchen!  Bob and Jill talk to the contestants about eating wholesome food, veggies and overall common sense stuff.  Jill tells the group that a calorie is a unit of energy.  Stick to lean and green and don’t drink your calories unless it is the smoothest tequila this side of the Rio Grande.

oh infierno sí!

They talk more about the food they used to eat, big ol’ nasty sandwiches called the Terminator and the Gravedigger, etc.  Jill looks so disgusted about french fries actually being on a sandwich, it makes me wonder if she doesn’t really dig the smell of vomit.  She’s an odd bird, this one.  I’m not trying to act superior, Jillian, but french fries are made from potatoes which in my grocery store are sold in the veggie area.  Along with the caramel dip for the apples, so–HA!.

The next morning it is all about the workout.  Bob tells us they need to leave that gym a mess.  Mark compares it to medieval times (the plague?  You need to fortify the gym?  That’s not a javelin in Bob’s shorts and he is happy to see you??) and more people vomit.  Jill decides to ride Jessica.

I will create my own ranch, with horses

Elizabeth, our asthma girl, is not breathing and Jill tells the medics she’s fine.

I’m feeling better!

Rick survived the first day and is kicking ass today.  Boston Brendan, on the other hand, makes the near-fatal mistake of asking Bob if he’s almost done yet.  Bob pulls out a sarcastic Boston accent and asks, “Why???  Is it haaaaaard?”

Blood from the last person who asked that.  Head was crushed like a melon.  It didn’t make the edit.

Boston Brendan is kind of a crier.  He has a one on one with Bob and tells him he can’t believe he did this to himself.  Cue:  Inspirational music.  He’s now talking about the girl he didn’t marry.  He pushed her out of his life because he didn’t deserve her.  Bob tells him he can’t live in the past and besides, she’s probably banging his best friend now.  Okay, back on the treadmill!  Good talk.

BJ does this whole bad acting segment, where a “special delivery” shows up magically outside the gym doors.  It’s all those sandwiches some of the contestants were talking about earlier.  Dang—FedEx is fast—that was like 10 minutes ago.  Jill tells us this food is like heroin—it is death, it is unhealthy and it’s bad for your sex life.  Well, the whole heroin and death thing—fine, but french fries on a sandwich can kill my sex life??!!  You know what else is bad for your sex life?  Being shacked up for weeks at a time with a bunch of vomiting people who are either married or have no self confidence to even think about having sex and the only freaking release is Extra gum and Subway.  I’ll risk it with the fries.

All the players are chillin’ in the house when Ally just walks in (how rude) and lets them know this season will be different.  We’re going to ask you to gain weight and then teach you to smoke.  Kidding!  They are doing the first weigh in tonight!  All the contestants are shocked…just shocked, I say.  Frado tells us he shouldn’t have had that last apple.

But seriously, french fries on apples are delicious

At the scale, Ally tells the group the weight loss should be big because they’ve had two weeks to work on it, since their initial weigh in back home.  Okay, this is where I disagree.  If I knew I was heading to the Biggest Loser ranch in a week, I would know the names of every employee at Taco Bell within a 10 mile radius of my house.  I would eat and drink and smoke and eat french fries on french fries.  And that, my friends, is why I’m sitting here typing instead of you know, actually moving any parts of my body.  Now—the other big difference is the famous yellow line.  Previously, the yellow line represented the two lowest percentage of body weights and those were the people up for elimination.  But this year:

It’s a blood line and it means instant death

Mwhahaha!  I told you!

Actually, the yellow line will not cut the group in half—eight above and eight below.  The eight people below the yellow line will compete in a challenge to save themselves in this game.  Everybody does a terrific job and the numbers are way (no, not weigh) up there.  During the dramatic opera music and the scale making all those dinging (turkey’s done buzzer, I swear) noises, it ends up like this:

Mark:    41lbs

Tina:     16lbs

Patrick: 22lbs

Rick:     35lbs

Allie:     17lbs

Frado:   27lbs

Sophia: 14lbs

Hang on…Is Jill wearing lipstick or did she forget to wipe the blood off her face?

Ada:     18lbs

Burgandy:  12lbs

Jesse:  30lbs

Jessica:     14lbs

Adam:   34lbs.  Adam is the one who recently lost his mother.  He talks about her all the time and I wonder if this is normal grief or if there are other mommy issues.  He tells the group that his heart is big and once he gets the fat off, his heart will shine.

Adam’s shiny heart

Lisa:     16lbs

Brendan:  31lbs

Elizabeth:  12lbs.  She is disappointed because it is not a very high number, compared to everyone else but she is proud of herself and zzzzzzzz….

There’s about 100 people here waiting to get on the scale.  Keep stepping, 12lbs….

Aaron:  32lbs.  He thanks Bob for calling him back on the show.  Bob:  “You’re the only one who picked up…”  Kidding!

When it is all over, there is only one girl above the yellow line (Ada—no camera time at all).  And there is one guy below the yellow line, Patrick of “I met my wife so I got comfortable and ate a VW” fame…  But wait!  Rick has the highest percentage of weight loss, so he actually gets to save one of the players below the yellow line.  The rest of the folks have to save themselves with the challenge, leaving two people up for elimination.  Patrick endears himself to me even less when he says he can kick butt in a challenge as long as it’s not a sewing challenge.

Oh, no you didn’t…

The group heads to a large empty hangar for the challenge.  OMG, they have to fly Oprah’s peeps to Australia!  No, they have to do a running challenge.  Before they get started, Rick decides to pick Patrick to be safe, so it is all women fighting for the chance to stay!  Now, I know a lot of people will argue if they continue to do it this way, it’ll be a show with only men, since men can lose higher amounts of weight easier than women.  But I must say, there have been 3 girl winners in the past nine seasons, so you know…oh, yeah, I guess they’re screwed…

It’s going to be a total sausage fest at the ranch…

Sweet!

So, it’s basically musical chairs but without music, chairs and people falling on the ground.  The girls line up at one end of the hangar and run to the other end and capture the flag.  Once a contestant grabs the flag, she is safe.  The others line up and do it again and again and again and again and again (did I mention this was a 2 hour show?) until there are only 2 people left.  Sophia (who?) gets the first flag.  Elizabeth (wheezy) gets the 2^nd one.  Go, girl.  Jessica gets all roller girl on Burgandy and pushes her out of the way.  (yay, drama!).  Lisa gets the final flag.  So, the bottom three:  Tina (grandma), Allie (gastric bypass) and Jessica (roller girl/drama queen).  Jessica wins the final flag and here come the tears.  The eight people above the yellow line have to decide who to send home.  Both ladies get all weepy, saying they can’t do this at home and they’ve met so many friends.  I’d like to point out, dumbass NBC, you’ve already shown Tina in upcoming episodes, so it’s no surprise that Allie is sent packing.  The boys all say Allie can do better at home, but that’s a load of BS.  Tina is less competition—she’s older and she weighs less.  I wish these people would just come out and say they’re playing a game.  Anybody (with some money) can go to a boot camp with a hardcore personal trainer.  This is a reality show, so cut the crap, please.

Heavy on the BS and not yet light on their feet

So, we know Allie had some Mom issues, what with the gastric bypass being done on her when she was just 14 and never coached to exercise and diet and that’s why she’s all screwed up now.  But holy cow, she calls her Mom to tell her she’s coming home and please rid the house of all the things that are bad for her (chocolate, high fat stuff, extreme surgery), but Mom doesn’t.  So, she decides not to stay there.  She hooks up with her BL family (namely Danny from a couple of seasons ago—love him!) and she continues her journey.  She has lost 60lbs and the little “where is she now” text at the end says she has started speaking to her mother again.  How freakin’ sad…

And that’s it for the official week one!  Will they continue the new process of elimination?  Will it end up being boys vs. girls?