Biggest Loser 5: Couples, Episode 10 – Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!

Last time: The Blue Team went to Las Vegas, but behaved themselves a lot better than their negative-Nelly trainer Bob expected. On their return, they handily won a physical challenge for Puerto Rican vacations. However, when it came to the weigh-in, they were no match for Jillian’s upstart Black Team.

In a seemingly endless sequence of teary moments for the big boys, injured Mark reluctantly stepped into his sword and was voted out. I will admit that Mark worked as hard as anyone, and I also admire that he ran the game for quite a while, but we passed a point where I found it all vaguely reminiscent of first graders with splinters. He knew he was done, and the others knew it too.

But the “Mark Era” is over, so let’s move on. Following is a list of the players still remaining. I note that the only original partnership still active in the game is the weakest one of all the original pairs, strangers Bernie and Brittany.

This is trainer Bob’s Blue Team:

• Dan, the youngest male and now motherless (in the house)
• Roger, former footballer who is the tallest and oldest one left
• Jay, a younger brother now functioning on his own

This is trainer Jillian’s Black Team:

• Maggie, the fat-camp counselor who is the shortest player still here
• Brittany, tallest on her team but with the lowest weight-loss percentage
• Bernie, the shortest and lightest man in the game
• Kelly, the “town crier,” originally the biggest woman

Action begins shortly after the last vote, with Jay still feeling low that his brother Mark went home. When Bob comes to see them the next day, he says it seems like a funeral in the room. To us, Bob admits he fully expected Roger to be gone. When Bob asks Jay how he’s doing, Jay suddenly breaks down completely. Dude… your brother’s not dead, he’s safely back home with his loving family in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Man up! Wow, that is one bizarre umbilical cord!

Jillian comes to see her group. They are rather subdued. However, Jillian enters the room giddy to the point of giggling, which doesn’t seem to make sense unless she is already aware of the results somehow. It seems that no longer seeing Mark as a threat, they would rather have seen big Roger go home.

Brittany says, “Roger drives me insane. He’s so cocky. He knows that he is potentially going to be the winner of the show.” Maggie tells us that the Blue Team just handed Roger $250,000.

My estimation of Brittany just tumbled, significantly. Identifying Roger as cockier than the dominatingly aggressive and controlling Mark is just nonsense. It’s funny how Maggie and Brittany are doing the most altruistic moaning when they are already four/six percent out of fourth place and have little chance of making the finals anyway.

I also argue that anyone has handed the game to Roger. I agree he’s the one to beat, but I also think Dan still has a say in that. After all, Dan is ahead of Roger right now in loss percentage. Both ought to keep Kelly in their sights, too, because IF she believes, numerically it’s not impossible that she could be the winner.

Back in reality, series host Alison Sweeney is on hand to greet the players in the area next to the kitchen. Based on a vague theme of snack time, it’s a temptation challenge! Bernie says, “She says it so swee-eet! The truth is, it’s not… there’s nothing sweet about these temptations!” He also notes that playing could send you home, and not playing could also send you home.

Here’s how it will work: contestants enter a room to confront a special vending machine. They do so one at a time and unobserved by the others. The vending machine contains a lot of bad snacks, but there are also prizes, indicated by slots with sugar-free gum.

Attached to each gum pack is a monetary value, ranging from $500 to $5,000. Further, if you get gum, and you take another turn and get something bad, you can chew the gum instead.

There is also one slot containing the ultimate prize, an enticing one-pound “Pass,” which for the uninitiated is a one-pound deduction at the next weigh-in.

The machine is cross-wired so the usual method of determining row and column doesn’t deliver a predictable result. Players enter the room one at a time to play, unobserved by the others. It looks like there’s about fifty possible choice combinations.

The only other rule is that your turn ends either when you say it does, or if you get the special “Pass” card.

Roger volunteers to go first. Gum! $1,000! He takes a second pull and gets a bag of chips, so he has gum. His third pull is the one-pound pass. Excellent.

Dan goes next, and in four unfortunate pulls, gets junk foods worth 1,100 calories. He admits to feeling poorly from eating them, but tries once more. Finally, he gets gum. He decides to push on and gets on a roll. I suspect he partially cracked their scramble code. Over several pulls, he hits jackpots for a total of $9,500! He wishes he had won the pass, but he quits, satisfied.

Jay gets the pass on his first pull. Yahtzee!

Kelly is next. She gets a Twinkie worth 150 calories, and follows it up with more bad things. After her fourth failure, she’s burping and almost ready to hurl. Kelly quits after absorbing 870 calories in four cash- and pass-exclusive rounds, because she doesn’t think she can keep any more junk food down. Poor dear!

It’s Bernie’s turn. Round one delivers and unwanted 250 calories, but he follows that up with a gum pack worth $2,500… and follows it with a coveted free pass. Bernie celebrates heartily and says he loves the machine and wants one in his house!

Brittany follows, with a nasty 440 calories on her first pull… but then she gets yet another one-pound pass! Are these guys passing signals?!

Finally, it’s Maggie’s turn. One pull, one pass! Yahtzee again, and Maggie dances a dance previously seen only in secluded, bear-infested sections of upstate Jersey. Holy factorial 49, what are the odds? By the way, “factorial 49” is mathie talk, except I don’t really remember that stuff properly these days!

To summarize, Kelly and Dan racked up the calories, and everyone else got a one-pound pass. I’d say that puts them about two pounds in the hole, but at least Dan scored some cash along the way. My math skills might be a tad rusty, but I guarantee you that these lucky guys beat the odds by a hundred miles today!

There’s no sharing of results among the contestants, much to Kelly’s chagrin. Well hey, Kelly’s got precious little she ought to be sharing!

Later that night, we see Kelly alone in the workout room, feeling miserable over taking on about half a day’s calories in junk food and being the outsider on her team. But she’s working that treadmill hard, determined to atone!