A new year brings us a new season of TV, at least for The Biggest Loser. Bob and Dolvett return to train pairs of family members who will be split up into opposite teams.
The pink team of Emily and Kim are the lone pair of strangers. One thing they have in common is that they are both former athletes.
One of the guys says he has 9 children. He is promptly topped by someone with 13 children. They say they don’t have time to lose weight. Uh huh.
Alison greets them with a challenge. The team that comes in last won’t make it through those gates. One member from each team will run a 40 yard dash, in which the first four teams will automatically advance into the ranch. Blue (brothers Mike Messina & Joe Messina), orange (grandmother and granddaughter Cassandra Sturos & Nancy Rajala), yellow (mother and daughter Gail Lee & Lauren Lee), and brown (brothers Ben Shuh & Allen “Buddy” Shuh) teams place in the top spots. The six people who did not participate in the first round will also compete in a 40 yard dash, complete with a puzzle in the center of the course, which will even up the odds and make it not completely physical. The first four teams will again advance. Grey (Issac “Chism” Cornelison & Mark Cornelison), red (husband and wife Roy Pickler & Christine Pickler), purple (Kim Stone & Megan Stone), and green (brother and sister Conda Britt & Jeremy Britt) are safe.
That brings us to a sudden death battle between pink team (strangers Emily Joy & Kim Neilson) and aqua team (brother and sister Adrian Dortch & Daphne Dortch). Each team has a platform. The last team standing wins. No more of those few seconds or few minutes battles. This is a test of wills that could go on for some time, or so you would think. As soon as they step up, their legs are all shaking. In the end, Daphne steps forward, eliminating the aqua team from the competition, and the pink team, which lost the last round in footrace, continues.
In one month, the aqua team will be allowed to come back into the game if they are able to lose 50 pounds as a team.
They are given two hours to work with both trainers, and after that they can pick who they want.
Bob makes an interesting observation. This season, relative to what we have seen lately, features perhaps the lightest cast. The only person over 400 pounds is Buddy at 403. Still, everybody is morbidly obese.
He gets his first crack at Roy, who looks like Santa, and collapses but recovers to let Bob know he’s on the nice list. Ben has a more serious problem, however, believing he is in Michigan training with somebody he doesn’t know.
Emily used to be an Olympic weightlifter. I’m not sure she’ll ever be thin, but that certainly shows she can be fit and dedicated. Her partner, Kim, was briefly a pro wrestler. During her wrestling days, she weighed 120 pounds and had 10% body fat.
Once they’re done training, the no partner twist is revealed. They can now choose which member of their team will train with Bob and which will train with Dolvett. Some of the teams have very clear opinions of who they want to train with, while some end up playing rock, paper, scissors.
Bob (black team): Jeremy, Emily, Joe, Chris, Cassandra, Buddy, Megan, Chism, Lauren
Dolvett (red team): Conda, Kim S, Mike, Roy, Nancy, Ben, Kim N, Mark, Gail
During last chance training, Dolvett says Bob’s team is over there killing it, while his team is the Bad News Bears.
Gail: 313 pounds (-9, 2.80%)
Chism: 349 pounds (-12, 3.32%)
Megan: 252 pounds (-7, 2.70%)
Chris: 232 pounds (-8, 3.33%)
Jeremy: 376 pounds (-13, 3.34%)
Joe: 342 pounds (-15, 4.20%)
Ben: 381 pounds (-15, 3.79%)
Emily: 254 pounds (-10, 3.79%)
Cassandra: 225 pounds (-14, 5.86%)
Black Total: 2724 pounds (-103, 3.64%)
During this weigh in, Conda reveals she can’t stand Mike because he’s cheering for Jeremy and apparently offends her by calling him Tank. She’s going to be a handful.
Roy: 292 pounds (-14, 4.58%)
Conda: 285 pounds (-9, 3.06%)
Mike: 345 pounds (-13, 3.63%)
Kimmy: 210 pounds (-9, 4.11%)
Lauren: 237 pounds (-9, 3.66%)
Mark: 282 pounds (-9, 3.09%)
Nancy: 212 pounds (-5, 2.30%)
Kim: 239 pounds (-13, 5.16%)
Buddy: 381 pounds (-22, 5.46%)
Red Total: 2483 pounds (-3.98%)
Bob’s team got off to a rough start, and they end up losing the weigh in after Dolvett’s last two team members put up big numbers. Megan says that, in all fairness, the person with the lowest weight loss should go home. That would be her, but she’s not ready. Ben offers to fall on the sword. After just one week, he’s missing his family too much and claims he has learned everything he needs to learn. He’s still the heaviest person on campus with probably the most health problems.
Everybody agrees to honor Ben’s wishes. With 5 votes, he is not The Biggest Loser. From his starting weight of 396 pounds, he is down 50 pounds to 346 pounds.
Stay tuned to dinguRUE for another live recap of The Biggest Loser Season 13 Episode 2, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.