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‘The Biggest Loser’: Payback for Melissa, not playing the game and Sunshine shines

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You have to give Melissa this much: Girl did not back down.

This season’s villainess clawed her way back into the house and got to work, not caring a bit that her fellow competitors didn’t want her there because of her brazen efforts from Day 1 to control and win the game. That was particularly clear during the underwater challenge, when none of her teammates bothered to help her, delegating her to a last-place finish and a one-pound penalty at the weigh in. Bob summed the karmic bite-in-the-butt thusly: ‘You’re the one who loves the game. Listen, THIS is what happens when you play the game.’ Melissa, though, had her own interpretation. She took it as proof that these players are all gutless for their refusal to play the game, even though the finale is right around the corner. To Melissa’s way of thinking -- and, lets face it, she has a point -- the players should bolster their own positions by leaving her alone and teaming up against the strongest competitors such as O’Neal, Daris, Koli and Sam in a bid to send them below the dreaded yellow line and then kick them off the ranch.

When Andrea and Melissa ended up below the yellow line, she even brazenly brought this argument into the deliberations, challenging the players to wake up to the opportunity at hand and start playing the game in back-stabbing style. Her argument was a stunner, delivered in a courtroom-like manner befitting the lawyer: ‘I’m basically your fairy godmother. I can’t beat you,’ she told the players as she asked them to keep her around and boot Andrea instead. She told them that since she posed no threat to actually making it into the final four, she was helpful to keep around, as cover as the other players picked off their fiercest competitors.

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Has there ever been such a coldhearted, cutthroat plea in ‘Biggest Loser’ history?

Clearly, this crowd ain’t playing. ‘We haven’t really been about that,’ one of the players said as, one by one, they voted to eliminate Melissa. ‘I don’t like doing things the easy way,’ added Daris, who said keeping the fiercest competitors until the end will make him work that much harder.

What did you think? Eventually, we will have to get down to game-play. But for now, the remaining Season 9 players are trying to do it with style and class. Does this make the show more interesting? Or boring? (I think this season has had the perfect balance: just enough Melissa to make things interesting, while keeping the overall the focus is on the life-changing task at hand.)

Other highlights:

-- Quote of the week, courtesy of a joking Michael, who has manged to lose 154 pounds so far and was showing off his biceps to host Alison Sweeney: ‘Didn’t your mom tell you not to play with guns?’

-- So great to see Sunshine and O’Neal take their precious relationship to the next level with a frank discussion. And: Can Sunshine really take this thing?

-- Maybe I was wrong about my earlier prediction that Melissa and Lance might not be long for this world, after Lance wakes up and realizes how craven she is. They both seemed to be pretty much into each other at the end.

-- Go Vicky, go!

OK, so next week is gonna be makeover week, right?

-- Rene Lynch
On Twitter @renelynch

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