In tonight’s episode we have the depleted Red team facing off for their first challenge without “their weakest link”, Alex. Have they chosen wisely?

Read on to find out!

Bob and Shannan turn up together, again, jogging in today.
They both figured their team was going to be hurting today after the full on rugby workout they had.

Kelly apparently suffered a “Grade 2” calf tear, so she’s taking it fairly easy this morning.
Bob tells her that even with her injury, she can still be working out, pointing to some of the various upper body machines.
He goes on in the side interview to say that if, god forbid, they lose the weigh-in this week, their weakest link at the moment is Kelly, because she’s always looking for the end of the workout.

Jillian and Michelle walk in together as well, they’ve decided to make it a slightly lighter start to the day as their team worked hard at the rugby challenge.
It doesn’t last long as Marty feels a tap on his shoulder – it’s Jillian, telling him to come with her.

Jillian’s idea is to have Marty holding a position on one of those rubber inflatable balls, like a pushup, only not going up and down. He has to hold it for a while, and Jillian occasionally kicks it to make it a harder workout on him. He falls down a couple of times, smacking his face into the ball, which was pretty funny!
She explains that it really doesn’t look like much, but after a short while Marty is grunting and groaning yet again and doing it pretty tough.
At the end of the work out she smooshes his cheeks and gives him a kiss, the lucky sod!

The mini challenge for tonight is… a game of beach volleyball! Awesome!
5v5, which means a Blue is going to have to sit out, presumably. Best of 3 sets, first to 21 points wins the set.
Spoils for victory: Sumptuous, calorie controlled, 3 course banquet!
Losing team will have to survive for 24 hours on a selection of frozen meals…

Somewhat unfairly, Red is allowed to choose which Blue will sit out of the match. Kelly should really have been chosen by default, as she’s carrying an injury.

And one final “twist”… the Aussie trainers will be joining their respective teams! Which has Michelle excited as she’s looking forward to going to head to head with Shannan.

Before the match starts, Shannan takes Kelly aside and explains how she’ll have to deal with her injury, telling her she’s not to be jumping around and so on, and she should be fine if she sticks to that.

First set starts out neck and neck. Damien’s doing it tough, trying to run around on the beach with that much weight can’t be easy.
Lots of trash talking going on, everyone getting very competitive.
Blue gets the first set point at 20-18, winning the first set… on a poor call by the ump! This draws the ire of the Red team, who feel they’re going to lose another challenge due to bad luck.

Second set starts out fairly level again, with Red gaining ground and overtaking Blue, gaining their first set point at 20-16.
Marty’s getting stuck into Shannan a lot, calling him Pretty Boy and asking where his dress and skirt are, etc. Funny stuff!
Eventually the Red team won the second set.

Third set rolls around and it will only go to 15 points, but they’ll need to win by two points.

Shannan’s trying to keep his team pumped up by telling them that he doesn’t want to be eating plastic for dinner!

Gerard’s the star for Blue, serving like a champ every time he steps up. Shannan is super impressed with his turnaround from earlier, when he’d give up any time it got too hard.

Match point to Blue, Gerard serving. Red returns serve, it would have gone out but Gerard foolishly hit it, sending it out.
Red wins the next point as well, giving them a Match point instead!
Michelle admits that she was exhausted by this point, from stress alone, and she had the serve.
After the ball bobbles around between the two teams a bit, Kelly stuffs up and hits it weakly, where it floats to the ground on their side of the net, giving the game to Red!

Marty starts up the “We are the red team! The mightymighty red team!” chant from the shallows of the ocean. They all went nuts after winning, just a teeny tiny bit!

“I think the Blue team was pretty upset that they lost because they expect to win everythink?” – ‘Show-me-the-money’-lita (Thanks, Ajay!)
I’m sure everyone sitting at home was thinking the Blues would be thrilled at losing a challenge, so thanks for that, Munnalita!
Also, “You’re terrible, Courtney! *hee hee hee*”

Meanwhile Blue are trying to work out what they’re going to have from the frozen meals selection, with Kelly getting frustrated at Gerard’s reluctance to pick a meal in a timely fashion. Surely they weren’t all as horribly unhealthy as they were making out?

Lots of big talk in the preview for tomorrow night’s episode about how Red is now on a high after winning one measly challenge. Also a lot of dramatic talk about the Temptation scheduled for tomorrow night, with the Red team apparently agreeing not to participate… until there’s another twist!
The Temptation thing looks to be an uncooked pizza, but that seems an odd temptation…