‘Biggest Loser’: Who’s the mastermind now?

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There’s a new game player at ‘The Biggest Loser’ ranch. Her name is Vicky.

Bob got to the bottom of last week’s shenanigans when he called Brady and Vicky on the carpet about Brady’s unbelievably low weight loss: ‘I need to make sense of what went on [during the weigh-in]. I just don’t believe this 3-pound weight loss. . . I don’t believe it for a second,’ Bob said.

Brady and Vicky stiffly denied there was any game playing going on. Then Vicky then threw Brady under the bus, saying that the lack of weight loss must have been caused by Brady’s refusal to follow Bob’s diet plan. (Bob has ordered his blue team to eat every four hours to keep up their metabolism and energy for the strenuous workouts.) But Brady’s lack of response to being called out by his wife seemed . . . suspicious. And then came Vicky’s later interview. She kept her poker face on at first: ‘We really wanted to win this one. We have no idea what happened.’

And then she smirked.

Vicky also admitted that she’d struck a deal with Heba that either she or Brady would volunteer to go home if the blue team fell below the yellow line this week. Hmmmm. Could that be true? Or could it be that Vicky and Brady are playing Heba, in part by letting Heba think she’s in charge?

Bob summed it all up this way: ‘Vicky is the mastermind. . . . Vicky is the biggest game player that ever walked into this house,’ he said, later adding: ‘That wife, that wife. She’s Shakespearean.’

In other developments:

--Heba confronted Phil over his trash talking and game playing. Hellooooo. Why doesn’t someone put Heba in her place? Does all that working out cause amnesia?

--We learned that you can drink 17 light beers or eat a grilled chicken burrito. Roughly the same number of calories. This was a great challenge -- and it will surely change the way people feel about meals that comes with ‘the works.’ Let’s see more of these!

--Another week, another unbelievably diabolical challenge. The teams had to hold onto ropes to suspend their collective weight in midair. The team that held on the longest won. Their prize? They got to sideline one of the losing team members during the weigh-in -- meaning their weight loss wouldn’t count. Brutal!

Turns out that prize was unnecessary. The black team delivered abysmal numbers. In all, they lost a total of 10 pounds. (Only 8 pounds counted, since the blue team cashed in their prize by deciding to sideline Michelle’s weight loss.)

With such low numbers, the blue team only needed to lose a total of 11 pounds to win. But then Brady stepped up and lost a whopping 13 pounds. He made ‘Biggest Loser’ history by becoming the first person to singlehandedly beat an entire team at a weigh-in. (Was anyone else surprised that Amy C. is the Biggest Loser currently on campus, having lost 52 pounds? Could she be a dark horse to win this thing?)

The blue team’s weight loss -- in total, they lost 27 pounds -- sent the black team to elimination. With mother-and-daughter Michelle and Renee voting together, it was either Phil or Colleen going home. Conventional wisdom would have the team keeping Phil -- under the theory that a man would help them win challenges. Well, this team did not stick with conventional wisdom. They voted Phil off, in part because his head didn’t seem to be in the game since the blue team succeeded in sending his wife, Amy P., home in an effort to rattle him. Well, it worked. And Phil conceded as much, saying that the battle with Heba and his feeling of isolation were taking their toll, and resulted in him losing only 3 pounds this week: ‘Maybe I played into their hands,’ he said. ‘I regret that I got too personally involved in the drama.’

One of the best parts of the show is always the weight-loss reveal, where we see how the person has been faring since being eliminated from the show. This week, viewers got an added bonus. Phil returned home by surprising Amy in a public with flowers and a new ring to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Then he asked her to marry him all over again. When she readily agreed, he took her upstairs to a makeshift wedding chapel, where friends and family were already waiting. Awwwwww.

-- Rene Lynch