“She came away with a heavy load.” – Mr Voiceover Man about Pati’s rock… Or her butt, it’s hard to say for sure. He’s a nasty man!

What is this week’s challenge and why do I have sand in my rolls? Read on to find out!

(Update: There’s now a picture of something that happens in the episode. Enjoy!)

Mel lets us know that it’s weird to be part of the red team, after Courtney brags about how well the Red team has done this week.
“Courtney really is a scene kid trapped in a fat man’s body!” – My friend Renne on seeing Courtney’s appearance at the start of this episode! (Courtney the scene kiddy! (screengrab – please don’t hurt me Channel 10))

“I will work my ass off… it will literally come off!” – Mel, on how much effort she intends on putting in for the Red team now she’s a member.

Blue’s missing Mel, even though they’ll make Laura welcome, it’s tough.

Everyone’s nervous about the major challenge for tonight, especially P’eta, who hasn’t done a major challenge as yet, as her and Laura had their first training session during the previous one. After the horror stories she was probably told about the plane challenge, is it any wonder she’s worried?

Both teams get to the beach where an obstacle course has been set up.
They have 12 sand bags behind a line and they can only fill those bags with sand behind that line.
There is then a series of obstacles. Four in total.
The first they need to dig and crawl under, taking their sandbags with them. The second they have to go over, with their sandbags, then under the third again.
The fourth is a flare, fourteen foot above the sand. They must stack up their sandbags underneath, then use them to climb upwards and grab the flare, set it off and they win the challenge.

The reward? Messages from home. Again. Red is going to be crushed if they lose this opportunity again!
Ajay asks how important this reward is to Munnalita-no-children-for-you, and she breaks down in tears saying how much she misses everyone at home, etc. Great start to the challenge there! But it’s her husband’s birthday today so I suppose she ought to be cut some slack.
Gerard of course misses his kids too, and it’s one of his sons’ birthdays in a couple of days, and you don’t miss your kids’ birthday, he says, to which Ajay (a mother herself!) agrees. Ordinarily I would say it’s not okay to miss a child’s birthday, but I think Gerard would end up missing a lot more of them if he doesn’t lose some weight as he was heading for an early grave!

Penalty for losing? No trainer available during “Last Chance Training”! At least it’s not another one of those damn weight penalties, though as Jules points out, it could still make all the difference at the weigh-in…

“I want to flog their arse and kick the shit out of them today.” I can think of people on that show I’d rather get a flogging from?

Damien is worried about the challenge and gets his team together for a pow-wow. He knows that because of the Blue team’s size – mostly his enormous girth – they’re going to have to dig some mighty big holes for the “under” obstacles.
Blue has decided that the way to go is to keep the team together at all times to help each other through each obstacle, and to have plenty of hands to share the load when it comes to the sandbags.
Red has instead opted for a “production line” approach, to get the line established and then just pass the bags along from member to member.

Red and Blue both send two up to the first obstacle to start digging a hole underneath, as soon as Ajay gets them started.
Once they felt they had a big enough hole under it, Red called forth Mel to wriggle under, who foolishly tries to go underneath the log that was previously buried in the sand, face first, thus copping a face full of sand on the way through and eventually getting her bum stuck underneath.
Damien doesn’t think he’ll make it through underneath the first post after Michael manages to squeeze through but after some grunting and pushing he manages to wiggle through.

Red thinks they’re ahead and Blue also thinks Red is ahead. Red has many more sandbags underneath the flare… But Blue has more bags filled, it seems. But the bags are heavy, everyone on Blue tells us every 10 seconds!
Courtney tells us he’d totally underestimated how heavy the sandbags would be. Eventually him and Munnalita try to call for Greg’s help with the sandbags, Courtney complains that Greg wouldn’t come back and help them. To be fair, Greg did seem to do a lot of standing around waiting for bags to come to him…

Blue, meanwhile, has all of their sandbags about halfway through the obstacle course, whereas Red are still trying to get some of their bags ready to go past the first obstacle!
Blue has Damien sit down and brace their mountain of sandbags while the rest of them pile them up and help the bracing effort.
Michael bravely clambers up the stack and reaches for the handle that will set off the flare, before losing his balance and falling backwards from a not insignificant height, landing awkwardly on the sand.
Meanwhile Red has caught back up and built their own sandbag castle, bracing it up in much the same fashion as Blue.
Michael bravely steps up to the plate again to try and reach for the handle just as Mel also starts to climb the Red teams stack. Mel has a grab at the handle but only her fingertips brush it, just before Michael reaches again, grabs the handle and sets off the Blue team’s flare!
Blue team wins!
Mel dejectedly pulls the Red team’s handle to set off their flare, but Blue is already hooting and hollering.

Laura in particular is happy, as are her team with her. Seems she’s made a good effort in the challenge and her new team appreciates it. Group hug!
Damien could see that Red was devastated, again. Have to feel particularly sorry for Mel who, but for the producer-enforced teamswap, would probably now be getting contact with loved ones and not losing her trainer for Last Chance Workout.

Courtney – “We’ve lost again! What’s going on, for Christ’s sake? You get sick of losing at some point!” I’ll tell you what’s going on, you keep destabilising your team, stabbing strong and devoted members in the back and not working out hard enough in the gym. That is why you keep losing! Were it not for the strength of Greg and Mel you would’ve lost by a lot more!

“Would you like to see what’s in the boxes?” Gerard grins and nods like an idiot.
Their prize is an LG mobile phone that will allow them to contact loved ones.

Ahhh, but there’s a “catch”… of sorts. They have also won the right to choose whether or not the Red team can also contact their loved ones!
They all pretty much looked at each other and didn’t really discuss it as a team, Damien summed it up in one word – “Definitely!”
“AWWW THANKS!!!” – Greg. You could tell he was really genuinely touched by the Blue team’s gesture. Mel rushes over to hug Michael (hmmmm) as soon as Blue has said they can have contact with loved ones.

Hopefully Red will remember this generosity next time they’re considering being mean to Blue.
Now we get lots of snippets of the various people calling loved ones.
Damien calls his girlfriend, P’eta calls hers, Jules talks to her kids, Gerard talks to his (and tells him there’s a present there for the one who has a birthday coming up), Laura calls her Mum and almost immediately bursts into tears! Hooray, her record is intact!
Munnalita calls her husband and wishes him a happy birthday. Munnalita cries, again.
Pati calls her sister, Marty calls his Mum and wishes her a happy birthday for yesterday.
Mel calls her Mum and is perhaps the only girl not to cry!
Greg calls his wife and talks to his daughter as well… And cries. Manly-tears, but tears nonetheless! He says that contact with his family has recharged his batteries and is ready for whatever else the show can throw at him now.

Sunday on The Biggest Loser, a lot of people are going to lose a lot of very blurred out kilos! They seem to have finally realised they have to be careful with what they show in those clips!
Damien looks really stoked, Gerard says he feels he’s been ripped off and a lot of other people look nervous.

But then right after the show my recording cuts out just in time for an ad for TBL on Live TV… In which Damien’s weightloss is revealed. D’oh!
How much did he lose? Tune in Sunday or stay tuned for the ads!