When the season started, ten players received a month of immunity and bonded very closely with each other as well as their trainers, Brett and Cara. Since then, there have been several instances where teams swapped players; however, last week, the former Pink Team’s Sarah became the latest team-switcher to be voted out. Now there are twelve players left, six on each side. Marci and her all-girl Black Team have continued to lose weight when they have considerably less to lose than the mostly-male Red Team. I think that if things stay the same, the ladies will be hard-pressed to win another one.
Of course, having already seen the previews for this episode going in, I know that things will NOT stay the same. As per usual, Sarah’s elimination was followed immediately by the Red Team being called into the Elimination Room, where Alison announces that the game will change once again. Gone will be Red vs. Black; this week, the remaining contestants will be wearing the same color: Blue. And then comes the ultimatum: as a group, the remaining twelve lost a combined total of 64 pounds. If they can best that total this week, everyone is safe. If not, the two with lowest percentage will fall below the dreaded Yellow Line, one of whom will be eliminated. Sixty-five pounds or more? That is going to be one taaaaaall order.
But before the two teams, who have been at loggerheads since Day One, can figure out just how they’re supposed to put ten weeks of fierce competition aside and work together, we take a side-trip into how several contestants are doing, health-wise, as the Ranch is visited by the resident physician, Dr. H. We are reminded, via flashback from Week One, that Courtney had over 200 pounds of hydrated fat in her body. Now, however, her fat percentage is down from over 50% to around 35%, which is the national average for women. Marci, meanwhile, is now down to 23%, and is ecstatic when she is told that she has officially reached her ideal weight. All of her risk factors are gone, and all she has to do is replace a small percentage of her remaining fat with muscle and she’ll be in as perfect health she can hope to achieve. That is just outstanding. I mean, wow, she did this in less than three months. Of course, this also means that she really has no more reason to stay in the game, and the others have no more reason to keep her around.
We are also reminded that nine weeks ago, Moses had a 49% risk factor stroke and approximately fourteen more years to live, tops. Of course, now that he’s 131 pounds lighter, his life expectancy has increased a further nineteen years. Not only that, his risk of stroke and diabetes have dwindled to almost nothing. He and Kaylee start to tear up, and I can feel myself doing it too. He really is a sweet guy. And Dr. H makes him promise to become a beacon to his Tongan brethren, to try to enlighten a culture that has a fierce penchant for gluttony. He agrees wholeheartedly. And finally, we learn that Rulon has lost fourteen inches of his waist, and the vaguest glimpse of his Olympic physique is starting to show.
Clad in their new Blue shirts, Alison informs the team that a pop challenge is first up. The group will be divided into six teams of two (with each team consisting of a former Red member and a former Black member), and tasked with cooking the healthiest meal they can in less than thirty minutes. World-class chefs Curtis Stone and Lorena Garcia, hot off the set of America’s Next Great Restaurant, will be the judges. If you remember, Hannah has a not-too-subtle crush on Curtis, and the look on her face tells me that she’d just love to take him “out back…”
Sadly, the prize for the winners is NOT a roll in the hay with Curtis Stone, but rather the Biggest Loser Meal Plan (hand-cooked healthy meals prepared by experienced chefs and delivered right to their homes), which they can use from the time they leave The Ranch until the date of the finale. It comes down to Jennifer/Kaylee’s turkey tostada on an organic blue-corn tortilla with homemade pico de gallo (350 calories) and Olivia/Moses’s baked cod with roasted asparagus and dill sauce (170 calories). And by a nose, Olivia and Moses win. Nicely done!
So, a half-hour into the episode, all four trainers finally find out what the deal is this week. Bob is relieved that everyone is competing together for a change, and he and Jillian agree to train the former Red Team this week while Brett and Cara tackle the ex-Black Team (probably literally). I like this idea, because now everyone gets a small taste of the styles of the trainers they haven’t been able to see before except from a distance.
Highlights of the workouts: Bob admits that he’s been salivating for the chance to work out Rulon, and after pushing him through a monstrous workout, sits down for a heart-to-heart with Rulon, who says that his biggest motivation is his wife, and his desire to start a family and grow old with her. Hannah bonds with Cara, expressing her desire to regain control of her life, after squandering most of her 20’s to food and self-pity.
Challenge time. This one takes place in a sand quarry. Once again split into teams of two, the group has to pull a buried rope out of the ground and follow it to a marked box with a multiple-choice trivia question in it. Answer correctly, and more people can join the fun; incorrectly, and they have to go back one leg. If the entire group can finish in less than ninety minutes, a full five pounds will be shaved off of their 65-pounds quota. Failure to complete the course has the consequence of ADDING five pounds to their quota. Damn, that’s harsh.
Things don’t get off to a promising start when Marci/Rulon answer the first question wrong, costing them valuable time. Then Hannah goes down with an injury and has to be removed from the challenge. And trust me, some of the boxes are buried DEEP and take monumental brute strength to unearth. And then, with only a few scant minutes to go, the Blue Team throws all past rivalries out the window, crossing the finish line as one unit with only six seconds to spare. Jeez, that was close! They hug it out as a team, and I can’t help but get a little misty-eyed. Way to build rapport, show.
So with the five-pound advantage in their pocket, the Blue Team gets their last-chance workouts. Now that the magic number has been reduced to 60 pounds (which averages out to exactly five pounds per person), everyone feels like the goal may just be attainable after all. So let’s see how it went:
Austin - lost 8 pounds, -2.83%, now stands at 275 (-121 overall).
Jennifer - lost 5 pounds, -2.55%, now stands at 191 (-87 overall).
Ken - lost 7 pounds, -2.53%, now stands at 270 (-107 overall).
Hannah - lost 4 pounds, -2.22%, now stands at 176 (-72 overall).
Rulon - lost 7 pounds, -2.05%, now stands at 335 (-139 overall).
Moses - lost 6 pounds, -1.94%, now stands at 303 (-137 overall).
Justin - lost 5 pounds, -1.97%, now stands at 249 (-116 overall).
Courtney lost 4 pounds, -1.66%, now stands at 237 (-86 overall).
Olivia - lost 3 pounds, -1.60%, now stands at 185 (-76 overall).
Irene - lost 2 pounds, -1.11%, now stands at 178 (-77 overall).
Below the Yellow Line:
Marci - lost 0 pounds, -0.00%, still stands at 167 (-76 overall).
Kaylee - gained 2 pounds, +1.15%, now stands at 176 (-57 overall).
Team Total: 49 pounds lost
Well, I know I would have love to seen them achieve their goal, but part of me is glad they didn’t. They’ve already had an episode this season where no one went home, and if they had done it again, that would have drawn out the season yet one more week, because, like it or not, eight more people HAVE to be eliminated. And it’s probably not surprising that the two lightest people still in the game are the ones with the smallest numbers. I still feel bad for Kaylee, though… nobody wants to GAIN weight on this show.
Kudos. No one hit any milestones as far as total weight lost or plateaus broken, but it’s worth noting that Courtney is but two pounds away from being 200 pounds under her weight from only just over a year ago. Moses needs only four more pounds to be under 300 for the first time in nearly two decades. Hopefully both will happen next week.
Elimination. I almost expected all of Marci’s group to vote for Kaylee and vice versa, which would have resulted in Kaylee going home because she had the worse percentage, but that’s not what happened. Marci’s ever-present maternal instincts kick in, and she agrees to go home in order to keep Kaylee there, which seems the sensible thing to do given that Marci really has very little left to give to this game, and Kaylee still has to find a way to stabilize herself between her terrific weeks and her bad weeks. So, by a 5-2 margin (Courtney and Jennifer voted for Kaylee anyway), Marci is sent on her way. I’ll miss her, though, she’s as selfless a person as this show has ever seen.
Standings. Marci was #1 in the standings before this, so first place now belongs to Justin, who has dropped 31.8% of his starting weight. Right behind are Jennifer (31.3%), Moses (31.1%), Austin (30.6.) and Irene (30.2%).
Update. Obviously, Marci’s weight hasn’t changed much since returning home, but she is ecstatic about being able to represent herself as a member of the fitness profession without feeling like a hypocrite. She’s can now whip her husband’s butt in that respect too.
Next week: just when everyone has become a big happy family, more drama ensues. One of the eliminated players comes back, which apparently ruffles some feathers.
