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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Biggest Loser in the nation's capital

Biggest Loser logo

(I'm so refraining from the obvious joke...)

In the opening scene, Allison Sweeny made reference to Thomas Jefferson as one of this country's greatest patriots.

My Charlie was watching and said: He's a Patriots fan? He should be a Colts fan! LOL! The kid makes me laugh.

Starting tonight, no more teams - everyone is now competing as individuals.

They move directly into the Pop Challenge - Each contestant has to talk people into joining Bob & Jillian's public workout at the Washington Monument. The winner gets an advantage at the main challenge and the winning team goes to Subway for dinner.

They hit the streets and quickly, there is a Rudy fan club and an Amanda fan club. Allen heads to the closest fire department to drum up support. At the Washington Monument public workout, it came down to one vote between Liz and Allen and Liz won.

I would TOTALLY love to do a Bob and Jillian public workout...except that I didn't notice any oxygen tanks around. Of course all of Allen's firefighter buddies would probably be able to deliver a little CPR if necessary.

After the workout, the contestants, with Bob and Jillian, have a meeting with two senators to discuss addressing the issue of obesity. I was worried that this was going to veer off into a national healthcare debate, but it didn't. I was glad for that.

On to the night's main challenge. It had 4 stages and a contestant must survive all 4 to win. Winner gets immunity. Liz, because she won the pop challenge, gets to choose to skip one of the 1st three stages of the challenge.

1st stage - 1 mile run. The top 6 move on to challenge 2. My Annie was laughing at the Miley Cyrus song "The Climb" that played during the mile run. Rebecca, Daniel, Allen, Amanda, Rudy and Liz finish in the top 6 and move on to the second phase.

2nd stage - 17,954 pennies (The exact number of pounds lost on the Biggest Loser. ) for each player are on the steps of the Watergate Hotel. Contestants each have to run down the stairs, grab some pennies, run up the stairs and fill up a column bank with the pennies. Liz opts to use her skip option, automatically qualifying her for the next round. The top three finishers plus Liz gets to move on to the 3rd phase. Rudy with his big hands was at a distinct advantage and takes one spot in the next stage. Daniel takes the third. It's down to Rebecca and Allen, who will get it? Rebecca won by about 50 cents!

3rd stage - It's Liz, Daniel, Rebecca and Rudy still in the challenge. This is a balance challenge. They must stand on a platform, on a narrow ledge, holding a Pilates ball over their heads. The two who balance longest move on to the final stage of the challenge. The girls seem to be having the easiest time of it. Daniel is the first out. Rebecca looks like the Atlas man statue. Liz steps off her ledge, leaving Rudy and Rebecca to duke it out in the 4th stage.

4th stage - 206 (the total # of BL contestants) steps on the step bench. First to reach 206 wins immunity. Rebecca's lead grows, she doesn't look like she's having fun, but she's doing it. And she won.

Cut to Bob and Amanda taking a walk, talking about getting her head in the game this week. How do they do these product placements with a straight face? This time it was Bob pitching the Extra Berry Smoothie Sugar Free Gum.

Then the contestants get to tour the White House. No sign of the President or first lady, but they did go to Michele Obama's vegetable garden and picked veggies to take inside and cook. But those bowls were REALLY full. Does anyone think that they actually picked all that from the White House garden? (Side note: I really want to plant a big garden next summer. Do any of you grow your own veggies?)

Time for the last chance workout. Jillian had Rudy carrying her up the stairs. Too funny!

Do you think there is some creepy vibe between Bob and Amanda? That "We're back...you and me..." that Bob said. That was a little creepy.

The Washington D.C. weigh in took place at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Rebecca (immunity) -4
Shay -9 -- broke through the 400s and now weighs 393
Tracey -3
Daniel -11, after struggling with a gain and a 0 pound loss in the past two weeks
Allen -9 LOVE him! He's a firefighter, he's from Indiana. What's not to love?
Danny -12 Wow! They might just move the show to D.C. permanently!
Rudy -9 In 8 weeks, he's lost 110 pounds!
Liz -3 That should keep Shay safe. And definitely puts Liz below the yellow line.

It's either Amanda or Tracey who will also be below. And there Amanda goes with "America chose me" again...Blech! Enough already! I can't decide who I'd rather see go. I don't have to make that choice, though. Because the scale made it for me. Amanda lost 7 pounds, which means it's Tracey vs. Liz in the elimination.

Now is where some gameplay might come in. Who do you send home? Tracey is who crazy and who has alienated lots of people by her actions in previous weeks? Or Liz who is the bigger threat from the competition standpoint?

One more vote and Tracey is gone. Rebecca and Allen are left to vote. Ding dang commercial break! Who did Rebecca vote for?!

Tracey! She's goin' home. Can't wait to see her transformation.

She looks great! Crazy as she was (or was portrayed), good for her! She's lost 85 pounds and looks amazing and she went back and ran that 1 mile that nearly killed her on the first episode.

Were you happy with tonight's outcome? How about next week? Who would you vote off next?

10 comments:

Michelle said...

Seeing this episode, and seeing Tracy on Jay Leno's show afterwards, I really feel like the game made her crazy. The power, the competition, all that was just bad for her personality-wise. She seemed fun and much closer to normal after the elimination. And really, I think it'll help out those still on the ranch, because she was stressing them out too!

Joanne said...

Amy I could hardly wait to see your review and you were (as always) bang on. Especially the Extra Gum Product Placement - I.did.not.see.that.coming --NOT!!! I wonder how many takes they needed.

As someone that is struggling to lose a lot of weight too I swear the next time anyone tells me to just chew sugarless gum I will take said gum and........ ok calming down now.

Glad Tracey did well and hopefully it was just the show that made her crazy - but still glad to be rid of her although I understand (through deleted scenes) Liz is quite the whacko too.

Go Rebecca!!!

Momza said...

LOL my favorite part was Charlie's comment! "A patriot's fan?" LOL Love it!
Go Charlie!

Vicki said...

I was glad to see Tracy go,hope Amanda goes next. I would like them to find something different for poor Shay to wear at weigh in.
Continue to enjoy your posts.

Sharon said...

I was anxious for your review, too!

I think this was one of my favorite episodes, and not just because Tracy went home. ;)

First-I was shocked Liz gathered the most people for round 1. Seriously?! The more I see of her, the more I dislike her. I was hoping Allen would have won that one.

I'm glad Tracy went home, but I admit to tearing up w/ her follow up. I didn't realize she had 4 kids, and when they reunited her w/ her family, that was just too sweet. Good for her. I don't know that I could be that strong on my own.

Rudy is awesome. I love him.

Yes to the weirdness between Bob and Amanda. And I think Amanda is too whiny and weak. She seems immature. Eh! but Bob is so damn hot. Gay, I'm sure. :(

I was THRILLED to see Daniel finally have a loss. About time! I want to see him stay around longer.

Joanie said...

Great recap, as always, Amy!

I am so so so happy that Tracey has been sent home. I was thrilled that Liz was the other one below the yellow line. I'm with Sharon. Every week, I like Liz less and less.

The chemistry between Amanda and Bob is... um... interesting! If Bob is NOT gay, I wonder if we're going to see something happening between these two. hmmm.... stay tuned!

My favorites are narrowing down... Allen, Danny, Rudy and Daniel (but I don't think Daniel is going to win). I'm just not liking the girls this season. I do like Shay though. She's going to be like Daniel, doing well, but not anywhere near where she needs to be to be healthy. I wonder if Shay will be back next season??

Anonymous said...

cheered when tracy fell in the bottom. knew she would go home, got scared everyone would make the wrong choice if they followed shay's rational. but then when she went home, i kinda felt sorry for her and actually understood the position she was in when she made her game play decisions. bottom line, she was injured and couldn't do what everyone else could do all those weeks when she made those back stabbing choices. however, she still managed to pull out good numbers and her bad choices aren't what kept her around; she didn't need to jepordize her integrity.

Jenny McB said...

I still think that Daniel was water loading the last two shows. I thought for sure Amanda was going home since they focused so much on her last night. Was glad to see Tracy go, knew that would happen as soon as they had a chance, she couldn't be trusted.
I loved the physical challenge last night and thought that Liz played it smart. It's going to get interesting and the lovefest is over, who's going to be the next one for the gang to mistrust?

Annie said...

I had to come here tonight to read what happened, dang DVR somehow missed it last night! Glad Tracy is gone, wish I would have seen her afterward!

Beth Zimmerman said...

Enjoyed the episode. Loved your recap (as usual).

I was pretty amazed during the picking up pennies challenge that no one used their shirts to gather pennies. Either take it off and tie it into a bag or just pull it out in front and gather them there. Would have held a lot more than even Rudy's big hands!

I despise the product placement shots and told my husband as we were watching that if I ever wanted ice cream and he offered me a piece of gum as an alternative ... he would die!

Loved Liz a few weeks ago. Not so much anymore. I did note that she didn't enjoy "revenge" nearly as much as she thought she would. Life lesson in there somewhere.

Bob and Amanda .... definitely creepy! But I've felt that way about his relationship with a contestant a couple of times. I still prefer his training style to Jillian's though. And the new "Dr. Phillian" drives me nuts! Though I do wonder what issues (besides a love of food and a couple of metabolic disorders) may be lurking that made me who I am today.

I was glad to see Tracy go though I suspected even before seeing her with her family that the show was edited to make her seem worse than she is. Everyone on the show seemed to like her pretty well. They just thought she was unpredictable. Crazy isn't always such a bad thing. Especially for ratings!