Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 3

Just when I thought The Biggest Loser was losing its touch, I was pleasantly proved wrong. Tuesday is the longest day of the week for me, but that's ok. It's actually one of my favorite days because I have something excellent to look forward to at the end of the day. I wake up at 5:45am (if I can) so I can get to work at 7am. I work until 5pm then I have an hour to drive over to LBDCC for my GED class. Most times I either forget my dinner or don't have time to eat. I teach English and Math until about 8pm then I rush home to catch The Biggest Loser on DVR. Last night was no different, except for one thing...

P kept texting me and telling me that the show was really interesting. The first time she texted me, I thought "ok, cool." Then when I was driving home, she texted me again and said that the show was really good! That's when I got excited. Earlier, I decided to stop at Panda Express because I haven't had any dinner, so it looked like I was going to have an excellent meal to accompany an excellent episode. Awesome!

The show opened typically to some people going about their usual routine. The first big thing they did was a temptation challenge. What's a Biggest Loser show without any temptations? I look forward to these challenges every season. It's hilarious watching everybody turn against the person who won (because whoever wins ALWAYS gets a really nice prize) and the trainers go nuts when they hear how much food everybody's eaten. So anyway, the temptation was to eat a piece of candy at 5 calories each during each round. The rounds would continue until one person was left standing. The prize was this: the power to choose the teacher/student roles for each team. Before the game, everybody was informed that for each team, one person would be the teacher and the other would be the student. The teachers would be working with the trainers, learning everything they need to teach their students. The students would not be allowed to talk to or see the trainers at all. They would receive all their training and education from their teachers. AND only the students would be weighing in this week. How cool is that? Very unique.

Immediately, almost everyone bowed out of the game. Everyone except Pink and White. I was disappointed because I wanted to see a good game. I was left with wondering how long Pink and White would last. Would one quit almost right away or would they go head to head forever? During commercial, I wondered who might be more fair with assigning roles. Would Michael be compassionate? I was thinking that Michael looked nicer than the Pink team - but I could be wrong.

The challenge was over in two rounds - probably the quickest challenge to date. Pink won the challenge with only 10 calories eaten. TEN! Michael gave up too easily in my opinion, but he had an extremely good point. He didn't want to be saddled with the responsibility of making everybody mad at him. Remember Tracey? I think Pink did well with the assigning of the roles. I didn't agree with some of their decisions (picking mostly men to weigh in), but I commend them on not making everybody too pissed off at them. It was especially fun to see Bob and Jillian miss out on an opportunity to yell at everybody for making dumb decisions during the temptation challenge. They actually laughed and said they can't get mad at 10 calories. 10 calories is nothing.

Speaking of being pissed off, Migdalia had a huge chip on her shoulder. She didn't agree with Pink's decision to put her mother on the scale. She was stomping around and pouting like a big baby. Jillian noticed this (like she misses anything) and decided to make it her personal goal to set Migdalia off. Jillian told Bob that she KNOWS that Migdalia would walk right out of the gym if she was pushed too far, but she decided to go on ahead and see if she could push Midgalia's buttons. Her goal was to make Migdalia show her emotions (in other words, cry like a baby) and she did it well.

The first thing she did was tell Migdalia that her daughter would be fat just like her. That was a low blow, even for Jillian. What a shame. It was apparent that Migdalia didn't want to talk about her personal issues on national television but Jillian was immune to that. She kept pushing and pushing until Migdalia finally cracked. Feel better, Jillian? Honestly, she needs to give up playing Dr. Jillian and stop assuming that everybody has a deep psychological reason for being fat. Maybe a lot of them do, but maybe not everybody. Maybe Migdalia just likes food.

When Migdalia finally cracked, she said she was quitting the game (big shocker). Jillian panicked and sent Bob in to "close the deal" - i.e. to fix Jillian's mistakes. Being the savvy, soft-spoken person he is, he convinced Migdalia to stay and to give the ranch another chance. No surprise there.

Things cooled down and another challenge made its way onto campus. This one was a fun one! The objective was to wind 1,000 feet worth of ribbon all around a children's playground. The teacher on each team would be doing the winding and each had to make it as complicated as possible. Michael was crafty - he wound his white ribbon all around the other color ribbons, causing them to make complicated knots. When it came to complicated - he was the man! The prize for this fun game was immunity (Really? Again? You'd think that after 2 immunities in a row, there would be a different prize this time). Here's the clincher... the team that won immunity would also win the power to flip the teacher/student role for one team. This is great - more twists and turns. If it was me playing, I would have swapped out the Pink team just for fun - because they're the ones who intially decided who would be the teacher and the student for their team.

Think that the twists and turns were over now? Not yet! After all the teams aggressively wound up all their ribbons, Ali announced (ha ha - I LOVE this!) that each team would be unwinding their own ribbon! The students would have to unwind what their teacher did. Maria looked at her son and goes "backfire, boom!" That was hilarious!

Right before the game was coming to an end, the show cut to commercial and previews showed Bob yelling at a hidden contestant and saying "This is NOT a joke!" Immediately, my roommate and I guessed that the Red team won the challenge and got immunity again. As a result, Melissa would throw the weigh-in again to save her weight loss for when it really mattered. So - after commercials, the game continued and the Gray team (Sam and Koli) ended up winning. They remind me SO much of Sione and Filipe. I immediately guessed that Sam & Koli would choose to switch the white team. Earlier in the episode - Sam and Koli was disgusted that Michael seemed to be floating around the gym, not working his butt off because he wasn't going to be weighed in this week. Sure enough, at the weigh-in, Sam & Koli chose the White team to switch roles. Michael - one word for you: Backfire!

The weigh-in was a very interesting end to a very interesting episode. P - you weren't wrong! :) The weigh-in itself for each team wasn't so surprising. Everybody lost considerably less weight than the first two weeks, but that was expected. There wasn't much excitement until Red stepped on the scale. Remember how I said I liked the Red team? There's just something about them - they are strong competitors and probably well-liked by people they've come across. However, now I think I may like them less. Sure enough, Melissa didn't lose weight. Actually - she lost one pound but that is to make up for the 1 pound she GAINED last week. Why did she only lose one pound? Because her weight didn't count this week. It was her husband, Lance, would be weighing in for their team. Lance did well - way to go - but Melissa was just pathetic.

Melissa stood there and expressed disappointment in the inability to lose weight. The first week was awesome but the second and third week were mundane. Gee - I wonder why!? Ali started to speak but Jillian was pretty pissed off. She interrupted and said that Melissa is just shitting everybody. I definitely agree with Jillian on this one. I personally think that Melissa was insane. With the knowledge that Sam & Koli could choose ANY team to switch roles - she still slacked off. She was extremely lucky. If Sam & Koli had chosen the Red team to switch roles, they would have been below the yellow line - no question. Jillian and Bob were yelling at Melissa but decided to stop - what was the point? Melissa does what Melissa wants to do. After all this, Red still got the top spot on the weigh-in board. Wow.

Michael was last to weigh in. He needed 13 to win but only got 10. That'll teach everybody not to float around when you think you're safe from being weighed in. Treat each week as if your life depended on it. Actually, Michael's life does depend on it. Guess he doesn't really realize that.

So - the Pink team chose everybody's roles as well as roles for themselves. Did they choose right? Will they prevail? They only needed to lose 8 and lost 12. That put them at the top of the list - they did good.

This means that White lost the weigh-in and that one of them would go home. The obvious choice was Michael because over the past few weeks, he has failed to prove that he wanted to be on campus and that he even cared about losing weight. It made sense to keep Maria - but as a typical mother, she begged everybody to keep Michael and to let her go. Eventually, everybody respected Maria's wishes and kept Michael....

Did Sam and Koli's tactic work? Did they scare Michael enough into becoming serious about losing weight and staying above the yellow line? We'll see...

Stay tuned!