Money Hungry: They’re Hongry

Good mornin’, chunky-butts!  Are you hungry?  Are you MONEY HUNGRY?  Yeah?  Let’s go!

Good lord, VH1 has created a big, fat, hot mess.  And I mean that literally.  I saw some of the previews for this show for the past few weeks, and I was like, “So what, it’s just Biggest Loser done VH1-style. What’s new?”  Yeah.  It’s Biggest Loser meets Rock of Love Bus (because it sure ain’t the classy show that the original ROL was) meets….awful, mean-spirited video editors and people who paid $10,000 to be on TV and act like damn fools.

You heard me. Each of these teams of weight loss contestants paid VH1 $10,000 to be able to participate in the show.  The theory is that since they put up a sizeable chunk of money, they should be pretty damn motivated to lose a sizeable chunk of weight.  Then, well, there’s the $100,000 pot at the end that they could win, too.  Me, I’d mostly be out to protect my own $10,000 with my life.  And, I’ll never not remind you that I’m bad at math, but twelve teams times $10K = $120,000, right?  So VH1 is not only planning to make money off the show in viewership and ad sales, but they’re pocketing $20K on top of that?

Well, I guess someone’s got to pay for this awful mansion the tubby teams are going to live in.  And someone’s got to buy the flimsy Sears workout equipment.  And someone’s gotta hire some random Hollywood trainer to keep the contestants moving.  And someone’s gotta get some skinny, weird doctor on staff to fix the fatties when they fall.  And someone’s gotta buy all the food…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s start again.

First of all, please know that I’m formerly obese.  In fact, I’m technically overweight right now and am actively trying to lose 10 lbs so my pants fit better again.  Nothing like having a permanent mark on your gut where the buttons and seams were, right?  At my heaviest, I was over 100 lbs heavier than I am now.  I lost weight the good ol’ fashioned way–I ate (a lot) less and moved (a bit) more.  For me, weight loss has been about diet first, exercise second.  (And now, as I’m battling these ten pounds, it seems that the exercise has become more important.  Good thing I like to do it!)  I actually know quite a bit about the weight loss process and nutrition in general. And I spent about ten years being a big ugly fat-ass. On top of that, I’m a bleeding heart who gets choked up at the slightest little thing.  Having said that…It pains me to do it, but, well, Imma gonna have to make some fat jokes.  It has to be done.  Chances are, I’m going to make the jokes, and then I’ll feel sick to my stomach later that night, for saying something mean about someone.  (And chances are, some of you will think I wasn’t mean enough!  Life is all about balance, I say.)  So, that, my friends, is my disclaimer so that I can sleep at night.

Now, let’s go talk about these clowny lard-asses!

We join the troops as they’re shuttled to their mansion in a big party bus.  Man, is that bus FULL.  Every seat is taken, and it’s taken by a big person.  In some cases, a HUGE person.  The bus sways and jostles everyone, and I worry about their stopping distance should the driver see a child dart into the street after a ball.  I’m not worried about it tipping over, though.  Its center of gravity is pretty dang low right now.

Smells like ham.

We get to hear from a few of the teams along this bus ride.  There’s the mother-daughter team.  Mom’s not actually terribly large, but her daughter needs some help.  She’s “thought about” lap-band and gastric bypass, but she wants to lose weight the natural way.  She says.  Really, she wants to do lap-band or gastric bypass, but someone told her she needed to TRY doing it for realsies on her own first…or maybe the docs warned her that she’d just gain it all back right away if she didn’t learn how to eat and exercise properly.

There’s also the big ex-football player bouncer team.  The biggest guy looks like a super-sized Serj Tankien from System of a Down or something.  From the preview clips, Serj’s got a temper, too.  Can’t wait to see that guy steamrolling towards someone for stealing the last celery stalk.

Then there’s the Pair of Joe Pescis, two bald guys from Brooklyn with the “Do I amuse you?” nasal voices and accents.  They’re astonished at the size of some of their competitors (I’m telling you, they’re HUGE), making mean jokes about them not being able to reach to wipe their asses.   Well, I…can neither make a further mean joke about that nor try to defend it, because I’m sure there’s actually a hygiene issue or two among the group.  (Balance is hard!)  But, uh, yeah, I bet some of them DO have trouble wiping their own asses.

There’s a terribly funny moment next, where this big ol’ party bus needs to make it through a relatively slim opening in a fence to get up the driveway to the Money Hungry house.  Not only is there a narrow opening, but there’s a pretty good hill to the driveway, too.  The party bus is riding too low, thanks to all the beef inside, and can’t make it up the hill.  The exhaust pipe is scraping up the street as the driver tries, and the transmission’s about to throw a rod or five.  People on the bus start joking about it, but it soon becomes deadly serious.  They’re going to have to WALK up the driveway to the house.  Quelle horror!

Big Black Gay Guy (BBGG) is all “Oh HAYELL NO” about it.  But waddle they all do, up the hill to the house.  Big Fat Blonde, the largest woman on the show (I think, and will be proven right soon enough during the first weigh-in) talks about schvitzing as she’s walking up the driveway.  Everyone’s out of breath. I can’t wait til the end of the season when they skip the fancy dramatic camera work and show us that the driveway’s grade is, like, 1% and is only 50-feet long.  The way they’re talking about it now, it’s like it’s Mount Everest.

Mr. MTV Sports himself comes out to meet everyone in the driveway.  Yes, Dan Cortese is still alive.  So THAT is where the other $20,000 went!  It must’ve gone to the Pretentious Name Pronounciation fund, because he’s no longer “Dan Corteez” but is “Dan Cor-tay-zee.”  Puhleez, Corteez!

Anyway, he’s still cute, 43 years old and rockin’ the J. Crew cotton bomber jacket and 20-something slang.  Actually, he sounds more like a Southern Baptist preacher, asking for Amens and shit.  The crowd fist-pumps and cheers.  Dan explains the premise of the show, and he takes away all my jokes about where that extra $20K goes.  Sad panda.  Turns out, the last two teams standing will get their $10,000 back, and then the final team will get the $100,000 pot.  Sigh.  Fine.

“Also, two of you will be killed.”

This may come as a shock to you, but these people are excited about winning $100,000.  I think they’re also excited to be on TV, and I think they all paid $10,000 so they could lose weight on TV without having the shit scared out of them by Jillian all the livelong day.

Dan tells them all to head inside and check out their house.  And, man alive, it is cheesy.  There’s a gigantic cheeseburger settee in the foyer, and did I not yet mention the gigantic scale icon above the door, complete with a needle that spins around like Dumbo stepped onto the freight scale?  Talk about setting these guys up for failure.  There’s also a 10-foot-tall milkshake statue and a gigantic box of french fry pillows in the foyer.  It’s like the Silver Spoons house on acid.

“One of these things is not like the other…”

An olde-tyme popcorn machine awaits in another room, which BBGG immediately partakes of.  He scoops the popcorn like a tyrannasaurus rex.  Seriously, do his arms not work?  Too flaily in the BBGG way?  Also, every time he’s interviewed, he hams up the prissy act to the nth degree.  He is a walking, talking, eating stereotype.  I can’t tell yet if I love him or hate him.  We’re leaning towards hate right now.

There’s a vending machine full of goodies in another room, but it has no buttons.  Oh, but it does have a sign that says, “In case of emergency, break glass.”  Har har.  Fat people can’t control their cravings, awesome.

Big Black Gay Guy and Big Fat Blonde (BFB) do a quick dance battle in the dining room before heading off to do body shots.  My heart breaks a little when BFB suggests the body shots with all the confidence in the world but then shrieks in surprise when BBGG actually licks her.  See, I don’t think anyone’s actually ever taken her up on her brazen body shot offers before.  I tooooootally know what she’s doing–she’s the big tough fat girl who is cool and funny because that’s how she copes.  But she’s actually scared and naive inside. I bet this is how she is at fat camp, too.  Also, are they doing shots of Frangelico or Amaretto or something?  It’s not a bottle I recognize as being body-shot-y.  Then again, I don’t do body shots.  I just drink my shit and be done with it.

“Your schvitz is delicious.”

Oh, then BBGG lays down for his turn at a body shot.  He places a full glass inside his belly button cavity (proclaiming it as clean first!  ew!), and BFB takes the whole glass in her mouth to do the shot.  Again, thank you for perpetuating stereotypes.

Closest to cock she’s ever been.

Dan Cortayzee shouts for everyone to meet him downstairs.  It’s time for introductions and t-shirt distribution.  Each team explains how they came up with the ten grand to be on the show, tells us what they do, and then tells us their cheesy team name.  I may use their team names, I may not.  Depends on if I like it, and if I don’t come up with a better nickname for them on my own.  We’ll see.  With 24 people rambling around, we’re all bound to get confused now and then.  Try to stay with me.

BFB and her partner are up first. BFB is either really tall or her partner’s really short, or both.  I think she’s just tall–she seems to be the same height as Cortayzee.  They tell us how they met at fat camp and have been buddies ever since.  BFB has never been asked out on a date.  She wants guys to be all up in her grill, asking her out.  From the way she’s talking, she likes the bruthas. (Or J-Lo—hard to tell.) Anyway, their team name is “The Slenderellas.”  I make icky face at that.  They’re “BFB and partner” for now, thanks.  (Sorry, no-name partner!)

Yeah, she’s tall.

Joes Pesci are next, and they continue their bald Brooklyn gambler stereotype for us.  They raised their money by gambling, but then they spent it all, so then they had to raise it all over again.  Do they amuse you?  Do they look like a clown to you?  (My Pesci impression reeks of Cyndi Lauper, sorry.)    These bozos are team “Mission Slimpossible.”  Oh Christ.  Joes Pesci it is.

“My gold toot!  Marv, where’s my gold toot!”

Serj Tankien and his island-looking partner Po (I want to call him Poi!) are bouncers.  No shit, Sherlock.  And they borrowed money from their bar to be able to compete.  They are “The Regulators.”  Eh, that doesn’t work for me.  Serj and Poi.  Thanks.

Okay, he looks nothing like Serj Tankian.  But Po looks like Poi!

Two women who hit the hair color a little hard raised the money by selling their cars…and asking one woman’s husband to strip…for $89.  Eighty.  Nine.  Poor guy.  Anyway, they’re the “Rocker Moms”.  So far, I got nothin’, so their name sticks.  I also think they’re the most genuine team so far, and will work pretty dang hard to keep that money they raised.  Seriously, think about losing $10,000.  Ouch.

I got nothin’.

Another two-woman team heads up, and they’re kinda boring.  They cashed out their 401(k)s to be here.  Which is pretty dumb in this economy….you gotta let that shit RIDE.  But anyway, one of them looks like a heavy blonde Rachel Dratch in her later interviews, so while they call themselves “Chicago Deep Dish,” I call them Chicago Deep Dratch.

See it in that second pic?

The next two-woman team is a pair of teachers.  One is recently divorced and is like, “Um, shit, I let myself go.”  The other claims her boyfriend loves her just the way she is, but he knows she wants to feel better about herself.  Further, she doesn’t want to look like the “abominal” snowman when she walks down the aisle, so it’s time to lose weight now.  I would have laughed at “doesn’t want to look like a snowman” but her addition of “abominable,” mispronounced or not, ruins the joke.  Anyway, they’re calling themselves “Grading Curves.”  I’ll call them Snowman Teachers. (I just need to be able to remember who they are!)

Teachers…

Snowman…

Abominable snowman…

Obama-nal snowman!

Annnnd another two-women pair is up.  It’s two black women, one of whom raised $9950 of their pot.  The other one apparently freaked out about having to come up with the other $50.  Nice.  Their team name is “Double Chocolate.”  Original.  They actually seem pretty genuine too, and I have no reason to beat up on ‘em (yet).

Double Mr. Hankey

Next up is the mother-daughter team we met at the beginning.  Daughter doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously.  She teamed up with Mom because she had the money, and because she thinks mom’s going to be a good motivator for when she loses her shit.  We’ll see.  They’re team “Family Sized.”  Well, I’m glad there are no other family teams at play here, or that would be mighty presumptuous.  I don’t want to call them by that dumb name, so they’re just Mother-Daughter to me.

Mommy gives me $10,000 every day!  And I eat it!

Next up is team Harry Met Sally–a man and a woman trying to be just friends.  Apparently, they were both married (to other people) and now both are divorced.  And the dude reminds me in later interviews of Corky Thatcher from Life Goes on (what a swell guy he was), so while they call themselves “No Excuses” (ugh), I call them Team Corky Thatcher.  Cortayzee makes a dumb joke about them hooking up, “I’m just tellin’ you now, it’s called ‘weight loss? Love GAIN.’”  BARF.

No, they don’t look uncomfortable at ALL with the schtick THEY came up with to make them memorable.

Next up is the team that everyone hates, because they seem to only be here to publicize themselves and their comedy, NOT to lose weight.  You know how these weight loss contestants get really defensive when it seems like someone’s not taking it seriously?  (And man would they lose their shit if this team actually WON something the other teams “worked so hard for”.)  The one guy is tall and handsome and just my type, but not really that overweight. (I like something to hold on to–he’s just perfect.)  The other one is short and lumpy.  Glad he’s there to maybe lose a few.  Anyway, they call themselves “A Pair of Nuts.”  I call them Team Fraud.

Did the short one take a dump in his washer when he last did laundry?

Oh, then we have the plus-sized models.  Who were also in a plus-sized girl singing group together.  I make audible gagging noises as one of them starts to sing in this terrible Angelique from ROL2 way.  Like she thinks she’s Cher or something?  I can’t take it and fast forward until her mouth stops moving.  The other ladies think she sucks, and I could go with the “they’re just jealous” comment, but no….that lady sucks.  They’re the “Roll Models”.  Ugh, no.  Team Cher.

“I’ve never had a singing lesson in my l-i-i-i-i-f-e….and I want to be with you for a-l-l-l-l-w-a-y-s…”

Stupid gimmicks suck.

Finally, we meet Big Black Gay Guy and his partner.  They got their money by swindling BBGG’s grandpa.  BBGG’s partner didn’t raise a dime, is totally riding BBGG’s rather large coattails.  Well, okay then.  They’re “Team Flabulous.”  You already know that I’m just going to keep going with BBGG and partner.  It’s easier to type!  Two B’s and two G’s, baby!

To make sure we think he’s childish, he carries around this toy microphone.  I bet he does not get laid.

The first weigh-in isn’t until tomorrow, and the teams get to totally chow down on a last meal before things really get started.  There’s a table laden with turkey, cheeseburgers, rack of lamb, gigantic shrimp, spaghetti, and more.  What followed was the typical local news coverage of someone fat eating something, shown up close so all you see is big ham-cheeks chewing on big mouthfuls of food.  The VH1 editor monkeys added in slurping sounds to make sure you knew that the fat people were eating a lot.  Not that they weren’t eating a lot, but c’mon.  Joes Pesci were all aghast at this behavior, saying it was like pirhanas descended on the table, devouring everything in sight.

What?!!  They’re going to let them EAT?!  What kind of intervention is THIS?!

BBGG is excited to pig out, because he loves to eat. And he thinks it’s fine that he gains a few pounds tonight, because weigh in is tomorrow, and then he’ll lose it and poop it out, too.  Cool, I’m glad he’s taking ALL of biology into account when he gets himself ready for battle.  He’s also drinking a LOT.  Like, bottles of wine.  Also, his mouth moves funny sometimes, like he’s actually wearing a fat suit or something.  And for the love of god, take off the stupid glasses!

I notice BFB watching him constantly.  I’m sure she’s developing an inappropriate, never-gonna-happen-which-makes-it-safe crush on our lovely BBGG.  Who’s wearing gray nail polish, by the way.

BBGG gets dronk and obnoxious. His partner’s trying to get him to cool it, and he clumsy-drunkily breaks a glass against the wine bottle in his hand, right in his partner’s face.  She’s had enough and walks out to the pool to get away from him.  He bellows after her, over and over, like the obnoxious ass he is.  Imagine a drunk 400-lb sassy black man shouting on repeat.  NO THANKS.

Well, now the party’s outside.  Part of Team Fraud pulls part of Double Chocolate up onto a wicker ottoman to dance, and it breaks.  Yep.  Then BFB’s chair collapses under her.  Yep.  More stereotypes!   BBGG gets into the hot tub with a big splash, then takes off his pants.  Did I mention he’s drunk?    He’s now in the pool, talking up his hard nipples and hoisting his moobs to his face to suck on them himself.  A gigantic censor bar hides what must be visible under water.  Classy.

Thank you.  We all needed to see this.

Oh, then he heads inside to puke.  This is just awesome.  We get to see it up until it actually ejects from his body (as he STANDS over the toilet), and we see everyone waving the stench around after.  His poor partner is holding a bucket to his head when he’s in bed so he can puke some more.  She hides her nose in her shirt until she can escape.  Poor, poor girl.

The next morning, BBGG is feeling some pain.  As he says it, he feels like he got hit by a semi that backed up over him and then ran over him again.  The helpful VH1 editors add in some sound effects to make sure we weren’t bored during this conversation.

Well, buck up, BBGG.  It’s time to meet your gym.  Cortayzee shoves them all out of the house and down the driveway to the big white tent that’s functioning as their gym.  We see treadmills and ellipticals and rowing machines and weights and stability balls and all of the other usual gym matter.  Joes Pesci are somehow surprised that they’re being furnished with “an actual gym!”  Why is that a surprise?  Did you think you’d be walking around the neighborhood and doing body-weight iso-and plyometrics to lose weight?  Nah, this is a golden opportunity for some fitness equipment manufacturer to get in some good advertising.

Cortayzee brings out Dr. Ichabod for his introduction.  He’ll be the in-house doctor on staff for the duration of the show.  He acts like these people are here for actual weight loss and not just money, encouraging them to stick with their lifestyle changes and such.  We all know that these people are going to do that water-loading strategy and basic starvation in order to keep their $10K!  Also, when someone almost passes out later in the episode, it’s a medic who assists him, not the team doctor, so I call bullshit.  (Cortayzee specifically said, “If you feel faint, this is who you’ll talk to.”  LIAR.)

Next up is the first weigh in.  Nothing terribly exciting happens here.  Each person stands on a scale, we get their individual starting weights, and then we get a team weight, and we move on. Mother-Daughter are up first, and Daughter is worried about people she knows seeing how much she actually weighs.  Psst.  You are visibly obese–I don’t think the actual number matters.  (It’s 371 lbs.)  She’s distraught.

The rest of the weigh-ins go smoothly.  I was right, the heaviest girl in the house is BFB, who weighs in at 402 lbs.  Wow.  The heaviest male is Bouncer Serj, at 467 lbs.  BBGG isn’t far behind, at 436 lbs.  Daughter, for all her tears, is the second heaviest female in the house.   (And Serj is only 25 years old.  Wow, he definitely comes across as much older.)

Next, we get to meet the low-rent Bob and Jillian for these losers.  (What?  They’re trying to LOSE weight!)   Anyway, it’s so low-rent that they only have one trainer for all of ‘em, and he’s no one anyone knows.  Of course, he’s introduced as “top trainer in the world” or something, but when a guy’s first two links on Google have nothing to do with him and everything to do with a building contractor in upstate New York, maybe you’re not famous enough yet.  His Twitter is the most boring thing ever, too.  It’s just some random smattering of tweets telling us to watch VH1.  Like, ten whole tweets, all saying the same thing, going back to May.  Even Jesse Pavelka from Diet Tribe (see my previous weight loss show writing!) had a decent website and Facebook fan page.  (Richard Cascioli has one, too, but it’s really not very good.)

Richard gets the gang onto all of the cardio equipment all at once, to teach them the basics of how the machines work.  One of the Pescis is getting coached on the proper form for rowing, and later, BBGG is rowing with what seems to be no tension on the line.  How can you even feel the catch if there’s no tension?  Also, some of the other guys are rowing with their legs spread wide open.  Um, no.  That’s not how that works.  Especially you, BBGG.

In the least flattering editing to ever hit my eyeballs, poor BFB is jumping rope with a camera set at a low angle from the floor, with the camera “bouncing” every time she lands.  Her belly’s moving independently of her body, too, which will happen when you jump rope at 400 lbs.  But still, mean, VH1.  I’m pretty sure they added in that “BOWM” sound from the What’s Happening!! theme to make it even worse.

“Bowm…bowm…bowm…bowm..nenenenenenenenen na na do do doo do doooooooo–WOOOO!”  (<–that’s the What’s Happenning!! theme!)

Hey, now the trainer is telling one of the teachers that the key to weight loss is eating less and moving more.  Holy shit, this man is a rocket scientist, blasting back to us from the future to tell us the cure for obesity!!!  I have never heard this information before!

I really, really, really hate BBGG’s delivery and tone in his confessionals.  I can’t quite pinpoint what’s so annoying about it.  Like, he’s playing everything up so he gets more screen time, and…he’s not quite looking into the camera, and …his head does a “oh no you di’n't” shake with every other word.  And…well, I don’t really know.  It just really fucking irritates me.  And, by the way, he’s mad at himself for being a fat fuck.  Well, welcome to my world.  (I’m mad at you, too.)  (Just kidding!  I was making a self-deprecating joke about my own low self-esteem!  Yay!)

The next morning, Daughter is pretty wiped out.  She’s sore and decides to stay in bed. I’m not sure that’s a wise decision.

Down at the gym, Cher-Angelique model chick is doing her own little dance in the middle of the gym.  She’s counting out step-ball-changes and all of that, to some kind of tune in her head.  She actually has pretty good body awareness and rhythm, but…no one thinks this is cute.  Everyone thinks this is awful.  She looks ridiculous, but she tells us that she prefers to work out by dancing. Okay, well that means you also prefer to get made fun of while you work out, just so you know.  I also don’t think she’s going to get a $100,000 weight loss workout by doing that.  And in my parting shot, I fault her for wearing a single Old Navy cami as a workout shirt.  Do that after you’ve lost the weight, not before.

While several of the contestants are hanging out in the pool, doing pool’s edge pull-ups and other workouts, Team Fraud heads up to get changed into little pink thongs.  Then they come out and parade around in them, and then they sit in the hot tub in them.  That’s what their HILARIOUS schtick is–no wonder they paid VH1 $10K for publicity.  This sucks.  And we spend way too much time watching it.  We won’t spend any more time talking about it.

(Why does the one guy look so familiar?  The tall one?  And does the short one know that with his hair tied up like that, he looks like John Belushi as a sumo wrestler?)

And another day dawns.  One of the Pescis tells us he’s up early, “on the treadmill,” when he’s clearly on the elliptical.  He’s pissy because Pesci2 is still sleeping.  So, he grouses about it to us for a while before finally giving into his annoyance and heading upstairs to yell.  Pesci2 tells him he’ll be down in 20 minutes.  An hour and twenty minutes later, Pesci2 finally shows up, and Pesci1 has a shit-fit. I’m mostly telling you about this because they looked ridiculous, two bald men from Brooklyn yelling on top of each other as they jam out on an elliptical machine.  I hear “jerkoff” more than any other insult.

Mother and Daughter are doing hill-repeat runs.  Daughter’s a whiny baby and goes back to bed.  Mom feels bad for her little precious and isn’t providing that motivation that Daughter was apparently looking for.  Mom heads out for more hill runs, and Daughter dreams of donuts.

BBGG realizes he better get his shit together for the weigh in, so he’s doing (clumsy) laps in the pool, pool pull-ups, and running on the treadmill (good for him!).  Sure, he only ran for 45 seconds, but you have to start somewhere. (I hope he was doing sprint intervals, because if he gave up after 45 seconds, total, that’s just sad.)

Oh, Team Fraud hasn’t gotten enough screen time, so they shave the short one’s head.  It’s not funny, and it’s not interesting.  Moving on.

Corky Thatcher is trying really hard to kill it for this workout.  Instead, he passes out while doing bleacher step-ups.  He falls over, bounces off of two stability balls next to him and lands face-down next to a third ball.  You have to admit, that was a pretty well-placed faint!  He’s not moving, so the medic (NOT Dr. Ichabod) heads over to check him out.  He ends up being fine, just overworked.   See also, crybaby. They put a cold washcloth on his neck and Corky’s gonna be fine.

Aaaaand he’s down.

Well, after all of this, it’s time for the weigh in.  What team lost $10,000 and is headin’ home in shame in the first week?

The weigh-ins are nothing special.  Basically, the team steps onto a giant scale together, and it calculates their total weight.  Then we learn what percentage of weight they lost, and that’s that.  The people with the smallest percentage lost go home.  And that scale seems pretty wobbly.

Team Bouncers, Serj and Poi, lost 34 pounds total, for 4% total loss.  They hang out next to the Cortayzee until someone does worse, and then that team will end up on the Cortayzee hot seat.

Team Fraud takes that role, losing only 15 pounds between ‘em.  They’re on the hot seat for elimination.  And so it goes for the next bunch of weigh-ins.  Everyone’s doing way better than that, and it looks like Team Fraud is going home. Yay!  (To be fair, they don’t seem to be that large to begin with, and you know that first week is a cakewalk for the heaviest contestants, weight-loss-wise.)

But wait!  The Snowman Teachers don’t do so hot, and they’re on the hot seat!  “Are you kidding me??,”  they ask.  They’re pissed–mostly because Team Fraud would get to stay and maybe they have to go home.  A few more weigh-ins come through, and then we get to Mother-Daughter.  Remember how Daughter was like, “Mom’s got the money, and she’ll keep me moving when my motivation fails”?  Yeah, not so much.  THEY are now in the hot-seat.

The last team to weigh in is BBGG, and he starts croaking, “I’m sick!  I’m sick!”  He’s sick if he goes home, and he’s sick if he stays and sends Mother-Daughter home.  Daughter is the second largest woman in the house and needs to be there!  Well, stop being sick and get on the scale, you Mad TV caricature.

BBGG and his partner lost enough to send Mother-Daughter home!  So, Daughter just had Mom pay $10,000 for one night on television and for all their friends to know how much they weigh.  Sounds like a pretty good deal, great job, ladies!

Also, VH1, thank you for blocking at least half the screen with that graphic for Scream Queens.  I wasn’t able to hold a butcher knife up to my TV on my own tonight, so you really helped me out, thanks!

It doesn’t seem like the team who loses the most gets anything for their trouble—they just get to hang on for one more week (and dream of keeping their ten grand!).  And I doubt there’s any kind of special follow-up with the teams who go home.  Like, Mother-Daughter are just gonna shrug, get on the plane, and head back to the boxed mac-and-cheese for snack like always.  (Man, I love boxed mac-and-cheese.  I have to stay far, far away from it.)

So that’s that!

I love the “This season on…!” previews!  Looks like your usual weight-loss show challenges, with cars being pushed around, tires being carried, big balls being pushed around, and bikes being crashed.  I think they start instituting a house vote system, too, which means that Team Fraud is likely to go home pretty soon.  Then there are the usual hot tempers, tears, and hugs when the weigh-in goes well.  Pretty standard weight-loss show fodder.  But

Well, did you watch?  I doubt you did.  But if you did, what’d you think of the show?