Pop Culture Kitty

Biggest Loser: Couples – Week Three

Aired 1-20-09

The show opened with the contestants still reeling from their first elimination vote.  Brown Team Ron revealed that Jerry had asked them all to vote for him instead of Orange Team Daniel.  He agreed that Dan needed to be there more.  Dan expressed very heartfelt appreciation to everyone for letting him stay.  In an interview, Yellow Team Mandi said what a lot of the contestants were thinking – they had to choose between two people who wanted to be there when they all would have preferred to send home the one who didn’t.  Silver Team Joelle had upset Mandi with her wishy-washy attitude and Black Team Blaine added that she had ostracized herself from the group.  Joelle said that she felt out of control and acknowledged in an interview that she seems to have an issue with that.

We visited with our (now) 8 at-home contestants.  There was a montage of them discussing the foods they miss eating that left me desperately craving a snack - especially after the way Orange Team David described fried chicken.  Unfortunately, it looked like David wasn’t just talking about fried chicken.  We watched as he ate some of it too.  We’re definitely being set up to see David as the one falling the hardest off the wagon.

Temptation

The group at the ranch met up with host Alison Sweeney in the kitchen for this week’s temptation and it was a tricky one!  Ali showed them a table full of treats with the calorie counts listed on cards next to them.  Each contestant was left alone with the food and they could eat as much or as little as they wanted.  The twist was that their at-home teammate got the same offer.  Whichever team ate the most calories would get to train – at home – with their trainer for 24 hours.  This idea was very appealing to Joelle.  Ali didn’t tell them up front what their partners chose to do but, she did tell them that there would definitely be a winner because some people at home gave into the temptation. 

Yellow Team Mandi, who desperately missed her little boys, ate a slice of pizza for the chance to see them.  It wasn’t an enjoyable snack, though, because she cried the whole time.  On a video done at home, Mandi found out that her sister Aubrey didn’t eat anything which just upset her even more.  Blue Team Filipe ate nothing.  His cousin Sione surprised him by eating two pieces of pizza and a taco.  He did it because he felt he needed the chance to workout with Filipe and their trainer Bob Harper.  Blue went into the lead with the 960 calories Sione ate.  The Purple Team (Kristin & Cathy) didn’t eat anything.  Neither did the Red Team, Damien & Nicole.  I have to go off on a bit of a tangent here and talk about how adorable these two are.  From Damien’s big WooHoo at seeing Nicole on screen to the huge smile and kiss on the camera lens from Nicole, you can tell that these two people are crazy about each other.  You just want to hug them both.  Anyway, back to the temptation – Pink Team Helen also chose to eat nothing as did her daughter Shanon who started bawling as she showed the empty plate to the camera.  Green Team Tara was another who ate nothing and she said that she’d kick her friend Laura’s ass if she did.  Laura must have known that because she proudly held up an empty plate.  Black (Blaine & Dane) and Brown (Ron & Mike), the two teams with both members still at the ranch, didn’t eat. 

This left the Silver Team.  Despite a clip that showed Joelle loading up a plate with food and putting a doughnut to her lips, we learned that she didn’t end up eating any of it.  In what was a stunning moment for me, we watched as her best friend, Carla, ate a TON of food saying that she really wanted to see Joelle.  Joelle was thrilled and was jumping up and down with glee.  Damien commented that, while Joelle may really be 41, emotionally she’s like a 12 or 13 year old.  The group felt bad that she was celebrating right in front of Mandi who was still crying about not getting to see her kids.  Filipe flat out said, in front of everyone, that Mandi should have been the one to visit home because of her kids.   Joelle gave a total BS justification that Carla was the type of person who could eat like that and then get right back on track.  Sure she is.  That’s why Carla is the heaviest woman ever on the show.  Up to this point, Carla had seemed to be the more committed one but she ate 2710 calories!  Bob is now headed to Detroit for 24 hours with these ladies and, hopefully, he can straighten them out.  As the group left the kitchen I realized that the Orange Team didn’t take part in the challenge.  I kept waiting for the show to give us an explanation but they never did.

Bob’s first course of action in Detroit was to have a sit-down with both ladies.  He told Carla that Joelle was pushing his buttons like no other contestant had AND she’s been at the bottom of the weigh ins.  Luckily, he was also able to treat the ladies to:

Product Placement Alert One:  Yoplait Light yogurt in the strawberry shortcake flavor. 

As the show headed back to the ranch we got:
Product Placement Alert Two:  Tara enjoying some lovely Brita filtered water.

Mandi had a bit of a physical crash brought on by all the emotional upheaval she’s been going through at the ranch.  It gave her trainer, Jillian Michaels, a chance to explain that this was a good thing because it was showing her that she does have the strength to handle the difficult situations that come her way.

Back in Detroit, Carla and Joelle had a major meltdown.  Actually, it was Carla who melted down over Joelle and, in the midst of the yelling, we learned that Carla has lost 18 pounds since she’s been home.  As they worked out with Bob, Carla got more and more frustrated by what she perceived as Joelle’s lack of effort.  It was the same frustration we saw from Bob and from the other contestants at the ranch.  When Bob tried to calm Carla down by looking her straight in the eye and saying, “I get it”, we knew he was telling the truth.  For a mild mannered woman, Joelle sure can bring out the fire in others.  After things settled down we got to really see the fear Carla had that their plan to lose weight wasn’t going to work.  She tearfully said that she should have been the one who stayed.  As Carla spoke, you could actually see Joelle’s walls go up.  She disengaged completely from the emotions that the conversation was creating.  Joelle has some major issues when it comes to handling difficult emotions and, while I wish I could say I saw some progress here, I didn’t.

In happier news, Blaine and Ron met with Dr. H and were told that they could either eliminate or dramatically cut back on the medications that they have been taking for weight related illnesses.

Challenge

For the challenge the show brought back an old standby – the beam jump.  It’s like jump rope on a gigantic scale and is pictured above.  The winner would be whoever jumped the longest without breaking the styrofoam beam.  Ali reminded us that the record for this challenge was held by Matt Hoover who lasted more than 40 minutes and went on to win his season.  The winner this time around would get immunity at the weigh in. 

Commercial Break:  Hey, there’s our girl, Ali Vincent, doing the promo for the show’s Pound for Pound Challenge to benefit Feeding America.  You can get info on the challenge here:  http://pfpchallenge.com/

Back at the challenge, Joelle caught her foot on the beam on the very first jump and was eliminated.  She said, “Oh, this is bad.  This is bad.  This is bad.  This is bad.  I hear Carla all in my ear.”  Ron was the next one out followed immediately by Daniel and Helen.  At just past the 10 minute mark, Damien was knocked out.  Filipe was next, hitting the beam on the 105th jump.  On the 141st jump, Mandi was eliminated.  At the 30 minute mark the speed of the beam was increased.  Three contestants remained in the challenge and they jumped for what must have seemed like forever.  After 1 hour and 45 minutes (and 701 jumps), Dane broke his beam leaving it to be a battle between Tara and Kristin.  After an amazing 2 hours and 19 minutes, Kristin started to get wobbly and broke her beam.  Tara has won two challenges in a row and continues to be the show’s rock star.  She said that this victory wasn’t as sweet as the last one (when she beat Blaine) because she really loves Kristin.

During the Last Chance Workout, Joelle continued to struggle and all her teammates took notice.  Meanwhile, Jillian was having a great time with her team.  Blaine said, “Jillian, you know, she enjoys inflicting pain and, so, she needs to get her fix of inflicting pain in, so, she spent it all on me.”  We’ll go ahead and blame his syntax problems on exhaustion.  Jill agreed with Blaine’s assessment, though, saying that she did enjoy watching other people suffer because it’s very cathartic.

Weigh In

The weigh in began with Bob seriously worried.  Since he was gone for part of the time, he wasn’t sure how his team did for the week.  Ali reminded the group that they just needed to survive two more weigh ins for their teammates to return to the ranch.  The two with the lowest percentage of weight lost for the week would fall below the yellow line and be up for elimination.  Tara, with immunity for the second week in a row, weighed in first.  She lost 8 pounds which was an improvement over the 1 pound she lost last week.

Pink: Helen lost 6 pounds for a total of 2.53%.
Yellow: Mandi lost 8 pounds for a total of 3.27%.
Silver: Joelle lost 6 pounds for a total of 2.04%.
Blue: Filipe lost 14 pounds for a total of 4.14%. He was so happy he was beside himself over it.
Brown: Mike lost 11 pounds and Ron lost 9 for a total of 2.68%. For the first time, Mike beat his dad. Together they’ve lost 93 pounds in 3 weeks. As Bob said, “That 93 pounds is Nicole Richie.”
Black: Blaine lost 12 pounds and Dane lost 18 for a total of 4.21%.
Red: Damien lost 4 pounds for a total of 1.13%.
Orange: Daniel lost 15 pounds for a total of 3.56%.
Purple: Kristin lost 7 pounds for a total of 2.11%.

That put Joelle and Damien below the yellow line.  Filipe said in an interview that his choice was clear and Joelle was going home.  Bob left assuming that Silver would be eliminated and said, “Carla is gonna kill somebody.”  Back at the house, Tara asked Joelle if she wanted to stay and she stammered over the answer.  Last week the choice was between two members of Jillian’s team and this week it was between two of Bob’s.  Since Bob’s team went along with the desire of Jillian’s team last week, Blaine asked Bob’s team what vote they wanted.  They said they were going to vote off Joelle. 

In the elimination room, Blue (Filipe) voted to send home Joelle.  Brown (Ron & Mike) also voted for Joelle as did Purple (Kristin) who added that she was voting that way because Joelle had expressed a desire to go home.  Pink (Helen) voted for Joelle because she believed that Damien wanted to be at the ranch more.  The Black Team (Blaine & Dane) revealed that their vote was for Damien.  Oh, oh!  So much for Jillian’s team respecting the will of Bob’s team. 

Commercial Break – There’s Ali Vincent again!  This time doing a commercial for the new “Biggest Loser Family Cookbook”.

As we returned, Green (Tara) and Yellow (Mandi) voted for Damien.  This left it up to Orange (Dan).  If he voted for Joelle, she would be eliminated.  If he voted for Damien it would be a tie and, since Damien had the lowest percentage of weight loss for the week, he would be sent home.  Dan’s vote was for Damien.  Bob’s team had to be furious and we did get a brief shot of Filipe looking that way.  Any anger would be justified in my opinion.  Why bother asking what Bob’s team wanted if Jillian’s team was just going to ignore it?  It was gameplay, pure and simple.  Jill’s team voted to help their own chances of success by leaving Bob’s team with the weaker player.  Joelle burst into tears at the result which prompted Damien to say that he was the one who should be crying.

Damien left with his confidence improved and said, “America, the next time you see Nicole and me, we’re going to be so sexy it hurts.”  In the Where They Are Now segment we saw that Nicole looks amazing.  She has lost 76 pounds so far.  She was going to have to get married in a size 26 dress but now she’s shooting for an 8.  Damien has lost 74 pounds and has a big goal of losing 126 more by the finale.

Next Week:  The preview is leading us to believe that the elimination vote will be between Brown and Orange.  I’m guessing that’s somewhat deceptive.

Bonus clips and full episodes are available at NBC’s website here:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser/video/