Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 6

This week's episode was pretty mellow. Nothing exciting and no major twists - what happened? Maybe the writers were afraid that if there were too many surprises week after week, the contestants would get a heart attack. After all, they aren't in the best of shape. With the Olympics starting this week, it makes sense that the Biggest Loser would have an Olympic-themed week. The workouts, challenges and daily lessons all centered around the Olympics and the centered around a few of the athletes that will be competing.

Everyone was flown out to Colorado for a mini-vacation. They would be spending one week at the Olympic training center getting lessons on how the athletes train for the Olympics and what they ate. The contestants ate a special diet specially prepared for them (insert your own sarcastic remark here - I have none), and lived in luxury. How about I get fat so I can live in luxury as well?

This week's twist was that there would be a red line in addition to the dreaded yellow line. The yellow line doesn't look so terrible now, does it? Whoever falls below the red line automatically goes home and of course, the two that falls under the yellow line will be up for elimination.

After the contestants were introduced to their "haven" for the week, they met with a few athletes that would be competing in the Olympics and trained with them. The Olympian competitors went too easy on them, I think. Bob thought so too. Koli was obviously lacking determination throughout the workouts. It seems that he had a complex about John leaving and Koli deemed himself unworthy enough to continue on. If it were me, I'd be like "aw bummer, but at least I'm still here and my odds of winning went up."

The pop challenge was based on a sport from the Olympics (big shocker), an activity that stimulated speed skating. First three players to slide back and forth to 500 wins an advantage at the next challenge. Another big shocker - Grey and Red were up for 1st place. It was another close race. Melissa started off at the top and stayed at the top throughout the whole time. She made a blooper and tripped over herself, giving Koli the chance to jump ahead and win 1st place. Melissa won second and Sunshine (Yellow) won third. Sunshine sure started off with a bang after coming into the game pretty late. I'm hoping to see good things from her.

The advantage for the next challenge was this: 1st place would have a chance to give 3 shots; 2nd place would give 2 shots; and 3rd place would give 1 shot. This next challenge was based off another Olympic event. The players would run around a track and each time they completed the circle, they would pick up a rifle (armed with lasers, not real ammo) and shoot at a target. Their goal was to shoot at another player's 5 targets to get them out of the game. Of course, Melissa and Sunshine decided to gun (pun intended) for Koli because he was obviously the biggest threat. In return, Koli gave Melissa and Sunshine their shots back. Because Melissa had 2 opportunities, she used them both on Koli and Koli gave two back to Melissa. Sunshine gave one to Koli and he gave one back to her... with lots of love.

Going with the mellow theme they got going here, the prize for this challenge was immunity. Sure - Immunity is great but how about changing things up a little? Immunity has become a little bit boring. Right when the game started, everybody was aiming for Melissa. I guess with three shots out already, people didn't consider Koli a threat (yet). Melissa was the first one out and Koli was the second. Unlike most of the other challenges, this one didn't depend on your determination, strength and drive to win. This one was just whoever hated you the least.

After a short while, it was down to Yellow and Black - both of them dads. It was neck and neck. Both dads had four targets down; they were grunting and struggling to run that last lap. They both made it to their opponent's targets right about the same time, and Yellow took the first shot. Imagine the pressure to take a shot. One of them had to take a shot quicker than the other and there was the added pressure of actually making that shot. If one of them missed, it would have been over for them. Yellow aimed, fired and won. He received immunity and he was thrilled. But wait a second - weren't Yellow supposed to have immunity for two weeks in a row? Did I miss something here? Oh well.

After the challenge, the players went to do a last minute workout. Their workout was with a medalist figure skater and the workout was called "The Boot Camp Workout." I did one of those before - man, that was tough.

Did you hear something? I didn't. Wow - Jillian was quiet this week. No lecturing, no doctoring and definitely no counseling. Wow.

On to the weigh-in. Wouldn't it be funny if both members of a team fell below the red/yellow lines? Hmm, maybe it wouldn't be funny to them.

The numbers were much lower this week - most likely due to the mini-vacation they took. Miggy pulled a higher number than everybody else and this is two weeks after surgery. I'm thinking we'll see her pull out ahead of everybody else from now on. Maybe not.

It was down to Red again versus the others at the end. Melissa needed three to make it above the yellow line and she actually gained a pound. At this point, I wasn't surprised. This automatically forced her down below the red line - bye bye Melissa.

J said that it seemed pretty odd that she was prepped with a long-winded speech. Maybe she was just rambling on, saying whatever was on her mind at the moment, but it DID seem like a well-prepared going-away speech. Did she fall below on purpose? She spoke about missing her kids. For the on-camera interview she said that she knew she wasn't going to make it towards the end, and that she thought she'd at least make it a little bit longer. That would actually make sense - the biggest ones would stay the longest because they had more fat to lose. However, that isn't always true. Helen won the title and she wasn't even the top 4 biggest when her season started. John from this season was one of the biggest (tying with his twin brother for 2nd place) and he went home last week. Michael was the biggest person ever to step on campus and he was in extreme danger of going home (he fell below the yellow line). He would have left if it wasn't for his mother begging everybody to keep him there.

Anyways, after Melissa went home Ali announced that it was time for a twist. Orange (mom) and Black (dad) fell below and one of them has got to go. This time, there would not be an elimination but in staying with the Olympic spirit, there would be an elimination game. Whoever won the game would win the right to stay another week.

The game was that they had to balance a torch pole on their heads to "hold up" their torch. Whoever's torch pole fell first would be eliminated.

Who won? You'll just have to wait until next week to find out just like the rest of us....