The more the weeks go by, the more sure I am that NBC must have gotten slammed with law suits or at least problems regarding the challenges on previous seasons.  Once again, I ask, “is there no happy medium?”  Last night’s challenges boiled down to dropping balls into a pail and digging eggs out of the ground…such a far cry from rowing through unknown waters, treading backwards suspended above water, or many of the extreme challenges (and I did think they were overly extreme) contestants were faced with in previous years.

Alison shows the contestants a video from the time she first told them they “made the cut,” and we this season’s contestants.  Wow!  How far they have all come in just 3 months!!!  Next, we meet the 12th couple, which honestly I never noticed were missing.  Enter and weigh in, Vance and Leann, the White team from Utah.  They must be Kalyee’s percentage of body fat lost so far.  Kaylee has the lowest at 25.32%.  Last week, Kaylee would have hoped to lose this weigh in, but of course, this week, she realizes she really does need to stay on the ranch.  Lucky for her, white team did just OK at home.  Vance lost 30 pounds and admits that it was really hard to focus at home, but 30 pounds is 30 pounds.  Leann lost 45, a great number, but not enough to send Kaylee home.  We say goodbye to white team (that was quick) and it’s time for a pop challenge.

2 members from each team must balance balls on a board and bring them to a basket across the field to drop them in, through a little hole in the board.  This was like the little tiny handheld games I remember as a kid.  The ones where you had to get the little silver balls into the holes in the picture.  If you don’t remember them, you are too young   This challenge, which honestly requires no athletic skill whatsoever, finds green team winning with a one minute advantage at the non-pop challenge.  The Red team, which is just Jen and Courtney, loses and they have to leave the ranch for a week.

Alison gives them 1000 dollars and a menu and tells them she will be back in 15 minutes.  If they want to have their trainers, its 200 bucks a day, but they opt for a week’s gym membership, which is cheaper.  They have to make choices about food and decide they are OK to shop for it and prepare their own meals.  These choices leave them some money for luxuries like massages, a night out at a restaurant and phone time and they opt for all of those.  I can’t say I blame them for their choices, but they turned out to be poor ones, in the end.  As they pack to leave, Brett tells them exactly that.  He does give them a lot of direction and instruction and though Courtney is not so confident, she follows Jen’s lead.

The 2 girls arrive at a drop dead gorgeous house that they will stay in for the week.  This is quite a treat for the team that LOST the challenge.  They seem to stick to their diet really well, walk to the gym, take 2 spin classes a day, walk home and take some time for the luxuries they purchased.  Meanwhile, back at The Ranch, everyone is making great strides.  I loved seeing Rulon get up into his handstand, though it wouldn’t have killed anything if Bob helped him get his legs up there.   Just saying…

Then the big (not so) challenge, an Easter egg hunt.  The teams will have to find their team colored eggs (600 for the 3 people teams, 400 for Jen and Courtney).  Each team that completes the challenge will go to a special screening of the movie Hop.  The team that comes in first will get 2 tickets to the world premiere of the movie and the person who finds the one and only golden egg will get get something very special.  Green team manages to make their one-minute advantage work, and they come in first, red second, black third and blue, last.  Olivia find the golden egg and learns that she has won the ONLY vote at elimination, assuming her Blue team does NOT come in last at the weigh in. Olivia, by the way, does NOT consider this a gift, but instead a burden.  She does realize that she may be able to keep her sister there another week though and that seems to instantly help!

They all see the movie and get to meet James Marsden.  I have no clue who he is, but they all seemed to.  After the movie, its the last chance workout.   Each team’s biggest loser gets immunity.  Since Jen and Courtney are a team of only 2, one of them will get immunity and should their team lose the weigh in, the other will automatically be eliminated, but they remain confident.

Their confidence was ill-founded.  Courtney lost only 2 pounds, and worse, Jen lost none.  This makes them the losing team and we quickly say goodbye to Jen.  She started her journey at 278 and today she weighs 173.  Down 105 pounds, working out at home with her brother, she hopes to lose another 30.  She looks beautiful!

Next week, its the final 10.  Its just a few more weeks till the makeover episode and already I am soooo excited!  Though the show has lost some excitement, in my opinon, it still remains a great inspiration to me.  I finally broke down and started recorded Heavy, (on A&E) too…

I apologize for typos and and inconsistencies.  I have overspent my morning computer time!!!!  Let me know what you thought of last night’s episode…and make it a wonderful Wednesday.