Biggest Loser, Season 9 - Episode 14

If I had to choose one episode of the Biggest Loser to be crowned the most comedic, I would choose this one.  The first half of this week's episode focused on a food temptation challenge that lasted a whole day.  The kitchen closed down for the day.  Everyone has to get meals in a different room, a room that is filled with all kinds of food, both good and bad.  Everyone was given the opportunity to eat whatever they wish... they would have to make a choice between healthy food or junk food.  Whoever decides to eat the most calories over the course of the day would be awarded with the prize of having the sole vote in the elimination.

Now here's the fun part - watching everybody make their choices.  For Koli, the decision was a no-brainer.  Sam has been struggling with his weight loss on campus so Koli decides to do a free-for-all on the food and eats everything.  By eating the most calories, Koli would win the sole vote and he would use that to keep Sam from being eliminated.  Ahem, how is that not game play?  Just a few weeks ago, he scolded several people for "playing the game" (especially Stephanie and Melissa), and now he's doing the same.

Immediately upon finding out the rules for the temptation, Mike decided that he would not participate in this challenge.  He wasn't going to be responsible for a single vote.  Yep - that would be the fastest way to make lots of enemies on campus.  With the number of contestants getting lower each week, you would want to try to stay friends with as many of them as possible.  While Mike didn't play into the temptation, he definitely played with the contestants' minds.  When he comes out of the temptation room he sighs, rubs his belly and provides small hints that he partook in a devious scheme to win the challenge.

If there was ever a time for anyone to fall victim to a giggling fit, this episode was it.  Ashley experienced several bouts of giggling fits each time she walked into the room.  You would have thought she was a 5 year old on Christmas morning.  O'Neal was almost the same.  While he didn't succumb to giggles, he grinned from ear to ear and seriously debated whether he would take a bite or two of a cookie.  Everyone has their weak spots.  If I were there, it would cake, chewy chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies and brownies!

Because Koli proclaimed that he would be eating as much as he could to help protect Sam, it wasn't a secret that he ate.  The question here was how much did he eat?  We see him go into the room during each meal and we see him rack up extremely high numbers in calories.  I was genuinely surprised he didn't experience a setback to his health - other than feeling very sick after each meal.  When Ali announced that Koli won the game, I wasn't surprised.  When she announced the total that Koli ate, I was taken aback.  He ended up eating 1,545 calories for breakfast, 2,000 calories for lunch and 599 for dinner - which brought his total calories for the day to 4,164!  I wouldn't want to be him when the trainers finds out!

Sure enough, the trainers were furious with Koli.  They kept saying that this whole thing wasn't just a game and it isn't a joke either.  Eating excessively to keep Sam in the game (a person who has fallen below the yellow line several times in the recent weeks and is basically at his goal weight) was a very stupid move.  Koli is protecting someone who doesn't need to be there anymore.  It's very apparent that it's all about winning the game, and not about the health.  O'Neal might have done the same if he knew he had a fighting chance.  He would have done it to protect Sunshine.  The difference is that Sunshine still needs to be there and the second thing is that O'Neal was big enough to overcome the decision to play games and let things fall where they may.

Speaking of O'Neal, he impressed everyone during a workout by doing push ups on stools like the younger guys do.  Everyone was in such awe that they all stopped what they were doing to watch him.  I haven't personally tried doing it.... it doesn't look that tough but I know better than that.  It must have been extremely difficult and I applaud O'Neal for breaking through his obstacles and for pushing himself as far as possible.

The challenge this week was to build blocks that will take you up to a ladder that is dangling a few feet off the ground.  The contestants needed to build stairs out of these blocks, get on the ladder and climb to the top.  The first person to make it to the top will receive a one pound advantage.  The last person to complete the challenge gets a one pound disadvantage.

Mike was nice enough to help Ashley out by giving her a layout that she could work with.  However, his design was worthless.  By helping her, he actually set Ashley back.  She might have progressed faster if she came up with her own design.  Daris wins with Sam very close behind.  After 14 long weeks, Daris has finally won a challenge either as a pair (with his mom) or alone.  Way to go!

With every up, there must be a down... somewhere.  Daris' first win was clouded by O'Neal's injury during the challenge.  He fell off his building blocks and smacked his knee against the concrete.    Because he didn't finish the game and was taken away in an ambulance, he was given the one pound disadvantage by default.  How sad is that?  What bothered me was that a few others didn't finish the competition (Ashley and Mike, for example) either.  Why was O'Neal given the disadvantage and not Mike/Ashley?

To add insult to injury, O'Neal finds out that his brother has passed away.  Time to break out the tissues.  It was heartbreaking to see O'Neal go through this; he didn't have a chance to say good-bye and it was tearing him up.

Weigh-in results:

*Koli lost 10 pounds even after he ate 4,000 calories during the food temptation.
*Sam lost 6 pounds.  At first, Sam was slacking off because he knew that Koli's vote would save him from being eliminated if he fell below the yellow line.  However, with the troubles that O'Neal was going through, it seemed as though Sam might fall below with O'Neal.  That wouldn't have changed Koli's vote but it would have definitely made it difficult.  Sam decided to work out harder towards the end of the week to save himself so that if O'Neal fell below, he'd fall below with someone that Koli could easily eliminate.
*Victoria lost 1 pound.  Not a big surprise there.  All we've seen all week is Victoria slacking off.  Gee, I wonder why she only got 1 pound.
*O'Neal lost 8 pounds!  Even with his bandages and brace (did the producers find out the weight of that and subtracted that from his weight?), O'Neal still did well enough to stay above the yellow line.  Finally, some good news for him.
*Sunshine needed 2 pounds to be save and only lost 1.  This probably would make sense due to the stress of losing her uncle and having her dad in the hospital.

Koli's decision was a no-brainer.  He kept Sunshine out of respect for O'Neal and booted Victoria.  Koli wasn't shy about complaining about how Victoria slacked off and that she deserved to be booted out.

Each week we see Koli transforming more and more into a different person.  I'm not liking what I'm seeing.