(S08E03) Perhaps as a response to no one going home last week, or maybe it was always in the cards, but tonight saw the elimination of entire teams as opposed to the individual elimination of week one that sent Alexandra home. This meant that the stakes couldn't be higher as everyone was going to have to pull their weight to shed those pounds and keep their team safe, right?You'd think so.
In a very interesting and revealing twist, Alison announced that this week on The Biggest Loser Ranch, it was all about choices. As such, she set up several scenarios, challenges and temptations whereby people could make choices that could not only affect their fate in the game, but everyone else's, as well. Let me tell you, choices were made and all hell broke loose!
The purple team is made up of Coach Mo and Tracey. At the time teams were selected, both of them were still in the hospital from the first challenge, so they became teammates by default, and I've never felt sorrier for anyone than I did Coach Mo tonight. Tracey may just be balls to the wall insane. She even has crazy eyes to seal the deal.
Apparently she has little voices that get into her head and make her do stupid things, or make rash decisions without any thought to the consequences. Kind of like the problems that lead to her needing a show like The Biggest Loser to lose weight.
So at the first opportunity she dumped a week of training with Bob and Jillian for a two pound advantage for the purple team, without consulting Coach Mo. I understand the strategy of her not wanting anyone else to get a bigger advantage, but it was still impulsive. She then followed that up by scarfing down cupcakes to gain even more control; this time she could select one person from each team to represent their color in the weigh-in. This is a huge power. And she hasn't even been here a week.
Now I understand that this is a game, and clearly Tracey is "playing the game," but isn't it a bit early to be quite so openly ruthless and cut-throat? She has weeks to go yet with these people.
Regardless of the consequences (sense a pattern), Tracey intentionally tried to choose who she thought would have the worst chance of losing weight, so as to preserve her team above the yellow line. Again, I can understand it, but she also lied directly to people's faces. She clearly has no concept of the social aspect of the game. Ron was diabolical last season, but he was lovable, too. Tracey's just coming across as a two-faced, desperate lunatic.
So she chose Shay's percentage of weight loss to represent Orange team, and Sean for red. Both are the larger members of their team, so the strategy worked. The problem is that somehow Tracey managed to lose eleven pounds, blowing away every other team. So she didn't need to manipulate results to save her own ass. She was safe, though she couldn't have known that for sure.
It was frustrating for me because I love Sean, Antoine has a good heart, and Shay is the person most in need of The Biggest Loser. She's got the perfect partner in Daniel, who's been where she's at, and he himself deserves a good run on the ranch. But, because of Tracey, one would have to go.
As much as I disliked everything Tracey did throughout the night, the sacrifice of Sean and Antoine pending the elimination was just pure magic. What a beautiful and heartfelt gesture by the red team. Not only are they giving up their spot in the ranch, but they're throwing away their chance at the title so that Shay can have an opportunity at a better life.
Based on the belief that they had a strong support structure at home, both men went home and at the time of last taping had dropped over 100 pounds. Oh, it was a beautiful ending to an otherwise uncomfortable show. They showed Tracey, and they showed us that they'd made the right choice. They changed their lives for the better, and in doing something so wonderful for someone else, they perhaps got the best reward of all.
Oh, and Antoine totally got the girl ... the girl being Alexandra, eliminated week one. Who knew?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-30-2009 @ 2:59AM
Joe said...
After Tracey blew away the entire campus by losing the most weight this week I LOL'd at Jillian's "F&$K" - she just got done telling Tracey her decision were all wrong, but in the end looks like she made a good gamble.
The previews paint a different story next week!
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9-30-2009 @ 5:48AM
marali said...
This show cracks me up with their attempts at dramatic editing. Last season, one team won a 'treat' and went away to a resort where they ate and drank and ate and drank a gajillion calories while the other team worked out like dogs every day. The eating, smoking, drinking team still won the weigh in!
Tonight Tracey was edited as crazy, impulsive and an evil game-player but she kicked everyone's a@@. I hated her tonight just as much as I will miss the eliminated team but without a method to her madness she won tonight.
Tracey's HUGE mistake was pissing off every other competitor so early in this game. If I were Coach Mo I'd be sweating bullets. I like him a lot but he's been inadvertantly hitched to a lunatic.
I didn't crunch the numbers but I, personally, don't think that Tracy's picks turned things as upside down as they led us to believe.
She was right. Two teams were falling below the yellow line. She did great but Mo did not. 12 pounds between them might not have saved them without the choices she made. We'll never know because Mo was minus the trainers due to Tracy.
In my heart of hearts I want to see Tracy falter but I have to give her props for surviving this week.
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9-30-2009 @ 9:12AM
Pingles said...
I just don't see Tracy as "winning" anything.
The ONLY thing she did was ensure that if she ever falls below the yellow line she WILL be going home.
Every other member of the show is pulling for each other. She's the only one who revealed any kind of game-playing and I think she's doomed herself for doing it.
9-30-2009 @ 4:47PM
grumpiestoldman said...
I'm very ashamed of Jillian for her behavior towards Tracey this week. Someone was going to win those challenges and get that power....Someone was going to fall below the line and go home.
If Shay wants to stay...LOSE MORE WEIGHT!!
Sorry J., you looked like a lunatic last night.
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9-30-2009 @ 9:48AM
Sarah said...
wow, what a hayride that episode was. and my two fav teams were pitted against one another :(
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9-30-2009 @ 10:08AM
Lisa said...
I so hope Tracey goes home and coach Mo gets to stay. I think Jillian was right that he should have stood up and called her out for deciding to take the the 2 pounds without even consulting him. That is just plain disrespectful. After the way he fought the first week just for her to have a chance to be on campus, she goes and does that? I think she's not thinking at all about the long term and just acting on impulse, and it's gonna come back to bite her. I only hope she doesn't take coach Mo with her cause he deserves better.
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9-30-2009 @ 11:12AM
Lisa DeAngelo said...
I think that Tracy is completely misguided and what's worse doesn't seem to "get it"!!! I don't think she understands how she completely alientated herself from the entire group including Bob and Jillian! Can't wait to see how this plays out...
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9-30-2009 @ 1:08PM
Deb said...
I think Tracey has a need to be in control. She doesn't like that others might be determining her fate - and she doesn't want to trust that Bob and Jillian know best, so she went at it on her own. She may think she didn't lie because of how she "phrased" things, but that's not gonna fly.
I wish Coach Mo could defect to the black team.
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9-30-2009 @ 5:08PM
Angelo said...
The problem is that The Biggest Loser is also a game for $250,000. I would have done exactly what Tracy had done in that episode, except I would have voted for the Orange team (Dan and Shay) because they pose a bigger threat in the long run.
Also, I did crunch the numbers, cuz I'm a nerd. If the teams had weighed in as a pair and the lowest two percents were below the yellow line, the Orange team still would be below because Shay isn't losing enough weight compared to her starting weight. The team joing them is the Brown (The older couple).
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9-30-2009 @ 8:19PM
Raquel said...
I am not really sure about Tracey... She does act in strange ways, not sure she will stay in the show for too long. Anyways, I heard that Ali Vincent (of The Biggest Loser 3 winner) will do a chat with her fans on Oct. 6. I think the site is livecloud.com or liveclouding or something like that. Hope you guys can join!
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9-30-2009 @ 8:20PM
Raquel said...
No, actually is the biggest loser 5.
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10-07-2009 @ 12:29PM
Gar said...
Am I the only one that thinks Tracey might be an actor that the producers put on the show to cause all this drama. How can it be possible to have all these things happen to one person as far as the injuries and winning the opportunity to pick who's weigh in counts.All I'm saying is this person that doesn't workout has to much air time. Something is fishy!!!
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