Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 4

When someone's health (and game) is on the line, you would think that they'd do whatever they needed to, right? Last week we saw two teams playing a dangerous game of risk, a game that might have meant the end for them. It wasn't much of a surprise to see Red (namely Melissa) play the game and succeed. Michael took a shot at playing, but he didn't do so well. He assumed he was safe from being weighed in so he slacked off. As a result, he lost his mother. Not only he lost his mother, he probably hurt himself a little bit in the process. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't be playing games. Did he wake up? We'll find out soon enough.

There was a pop challenge right off the bat and again, immunity was at stake. Immunity is always a highly coveted prize but I think that especially after the last few weeks, the contestants would want to make sure that Melissa didn't get immunity again. The contestants walked around a one-mile loop and each time they went around, they collected a card. That card would be inserted into a machine at the end of every trip and the contestants would either get a green checkmark or a red X. The goal was to receive three checkmarks. They would each have to walk at least three miles before they could complete the challenge.

My early prediction was that Red would receive immunity. Who else? Red seems to be the "Tara" of this season, although their track record isn't as great as hers yet. Sure enough, Red won the challenge, and they were given an additional prize. This was probably the meanest prize that has existed on the show so far (or that I remember). Red had the power to give out three things: a 2 pound disadvantage, no access to the gym, and no voting power at the elimination. They could give one to three different teams or give two to one particular team or even give all three to one team. Wow. This would certainly make some enemies for Red team.

After the recent drama, Red was redeemed (in my opinion) by giving out the disadvantages as fairly as possible. The no gym access was given to John because the vast majority of his workouts are in the pool anyway. Due to his bad knees and poor health, he is not able to work out much on the heavy-duty equipment. Mike lost his voting power for the next elimination, which also made sense. Right after losing his mother, he received lectures from almost everybody else about how he shouldn't be playing games when his health is on the line. Red felt that Mike might be holding grudges over the next week and that would get in the way of him voting wisely at the next elimination. No surprise here – Red gave the 2 pound disadvantage to the Green team. Green was NOT happy about it, but really, who would be happy about getting that disadvantage? Red explained that since Green didn't do so hot the previous week, they had great potential to lose additional weight at the next weigh in. Red was confident that Green would do well enough to overcome the disadvantage. From their perspective, that was feasible and a pretty good excuse, but it had to be personal too. How could it not?

This episode has been nothing but drama! Jillian sure knows how to make enemies. It’s ok to have strong opinions about things and I certainly wouldn't want to be treated like I’m stupid but again, I believe Jillian came on too strong. Ever hear of just agreeing to disagree, Jillian? She was so adamant about getting Melissa to tell the truth. Actually, she wanted to Melissa admit to the truth that Jillian believed was the truth. Forget whether Melissa was lying or not, the point is that Jillian should have just let things be. It got to the point where Lance didn't want to work with her anymore. I probably would have felt the same way, but I think that Lance is hurting himself in the process. Jillian has a proven track record of getting these people to lose weight successfully. 7 out of 8 seasons so far, the contestants that won the title were trained by her. That has to count for something. This isn’t the first time a contestant walked away from her. Season 7’s Sione and Filipe walked away when they lost respect for her. She went after Filipe and she went after him hard. She probably means well but she should tone it down.

After the big confrontation between Melissa and Jillian, Melissa wanted to talk about it. She casually told Lance “put your book down, I want to talk about it” and like an obedient husband, he promptly put his book down and focused 100% of his attention on her. Wow. She trained him well.

Next, there was another challenge and the prize this time was phone calls home. Not only that, the winning team would have the power to give out phone calls to three teams. When that was announced, everybody assumed that if another team won, they wouldn’t be one of the three to get the prize. I’m guessing that none of them have any real allies. I haven’t seen any real bonding between any of the contestants. They’ve all just mainly stuck with their own partner and ignored everybody else. Needless to say, when the challenge started, everybody started off with a bang, giving their all so that they could win that phone call home. The challenge was that they had to use their strength to pull themselves up to the top of a big pulley. At this point, I didn’t have any predictions on who was going to win. This was all brute strength and the will to win. I believed that everybody had the will to win. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

Sam & Koli ended up winning the challenge (and it was such a close race!), so they were given the opportunity to make some allies. If they chose wisely, they’d be setting themselves up to become friends with people that would help them later on in the game. So far, this is the fairest group of contestants that I’ve seen. Sam & Koli handed out the prizes according to whom they felt needed it the most. I have to say that I agree with their choices (for the most part). The three prizes went to Red, Green and John. Red because they have 2 kids at home, Green because Migdalia has kids at home and a husband that was leaving for Afghanistan and John because he lost his brother the first week.

Bob came in and announced that everybody should fill up their water bottles because they were going on a trip. Immediately, I knew that he would be taking everybody to Subway. Bob has become predicable in many ways, one of which he’d take everybody to Subway and give them tips on how to eat healthy when they’re out of the house. After a nice meal, Bob announced that they would be doing their last minute workout on a huge hill. I wonder if Bob had John in mind since John didn’t have access to the gym that week. It was nice to see John be able to participate in that workout. After they were done, Jillian found them and announced that she had a workout of her own. Yikes. TWO last chance workouts. Not fun.

Finally, it was time for the weigh in. At this point, it just wouldn’t make sense to NOT keep track of Melissa’s weight loss. This time around she lost 11 and Lance lost 6. That would have been impressive, but we have to remember that over the last two weeks, Melissa has lost zero. She was due for some weight loss. Melissa HAD to lose some weight because if she didn’t, no doubt everybody would know 100% for sure that she was up to something. After all, she had immunity again. Why bother losing weight if it didn’t count, right? What everybody probably didn’t notice was that Lance only lost 6. He has done exceptionally well so far. Of course, weight loss can be unpredictable. We’ve seen people lose weight in the double digits for several weeks in a row only to be slapped in the face with just a weight loss of 2 pounds. It’s my thinking that since everybody’s attention is on Melissa and her weight loss pattern, people probably wouldn’t give much thought to Lance. What if Melissa set it up to where she’d lose enough weight to throw attention off of herself and have Lance “save” some of his weight loss for next week? It would be his weight loss next that that would save them. Could it be?

I want to see Daris make it to makeover week. I want to see him get rid of that mess on his head that’s called hair.

We haven’t seen much of Black, Orange and Purple this week. It isn’t really all that surprising because the camera goes where the drama is, but I’m wondering just when they’ll get their 15 minutes of fame. The quiet ones deserve some attention too.

The weigh in all came down to Pink and Green battling it out for that last slot right above the yellow line. Honestly, at this point, I didn’t care who went below because I wouldn’t miss either one of these 4 contestants. I certainly wouldn’t miss Green’s attitudes.

Green ended up being down below the yellow line with 4 pounds under what was needed. Green gave Red a pretty hard time about the 2 pound disadvantage and at the end, that 2 pound didn’t matter. Even without the 2 pounds, they would have still been under the yellow line. That didn’t stop them from cussing Red out and exhibiting some pretty nasty attitudes. Man, I thought Tracey was bad.

I actually wonder what Ali thinks about all this. She works on a soap opera, which is pretty hilarious to me.

I was hoping that Miggy would be the one to go home. Everybody could do without her attitude and without her prodding her daughter to “stay strong.” During the weigh in, Migdalia became emotional because she knew that either she or her mom would be going home. Miggy kept telling her “don’t cry.” Why!? What’s wrong with showing sadness? I guess it's a part of their culture. A culture where women are one of the "boys" or where women are expected to be strong. Strong women are admirable but come on! Or maybe women are so oppressed in their culture that they feel that they have to be overly strong to...whatever. At this point - I don't care. They've got to go.

I truly believe that Migdalia would do well on the ranch with her mother gone. Maybe not at first – she would (for sure) exhibit bitterness and give everybody a hard time – but eventually, she would soften up (I hope) and improve while on the ranch.

She ended up telling everybody that she wanted to go home and that they please vote her off. Like the obedient robots they are, everybody listened. When will they actually think for themselves for once?

Stay tuned!