The remaining contestants awaken to a “present” on the kitchen table that contains a DVD labeled simply “Play Me”.
It’s a video of 10 weeks ago when they entered the house… Well, when two of them arrived, since the other two weren’t there with the other 14, grrr!

If you’ve been reading the recaps you have some idea of what will happen tonight, but what about the details, hmmm? Read on!

“My angry face!” – Munnalita. Kimberlie says her face is so different.
Munnalita says looking at herself she doesn’t want to go back there ever again. She was sad and unhappy back then, but now she feels a lot different. Kim says she looks a lot different, and calmer!
Chris has an aside saying that she looks 20 years younger, it’s like she’s her younger sister. Now she’s a lot happier and “It was beautiful to watch.”

Pati is shocked at what she used to look like, but she’s happy she got this chance to do something about her life.

Chris says he’s beyond cringing watching it. He was looking at “some crazy fat guy with an afro!” He sat through it to use it as motivation for continuing to lose weight because he never wants to look like the good year blimp again!

Kim is visibly distraught at seeing her first day video. She feels like the hard work is paying off but she still feels overweight, she’s still the fat girl.

“Day one you walked, now you run.” So sayeth the end of the DVD. They head out to run up the hill to the house once more instead of walking up it.

Pati remembers that trying to run that before would’ve killed her, now she can do it. Kim says she can shuffle up the hills, she might be slower than everyone else but she will get there. She finds it a little frustrating because she’s been doing it for so long, and it feels like it’s never going to end.
Munnalita says it’s fantastic running it because she’s never been “able” to run before in her life. She remembers telling Sam on the first day that she can’t run, but now she knows she can!
Chris is remembering that 10 weeks ago he could barely walk that far without being drenched in sweat, whereas now he can run up and down hills and barely break a sweat, heart rate not going above 100. It’s great!

They finally get back to the gates, catching their breath walking up the driveway and they see Ajay standing around waiting for them.
Ajay talks to them about how they ran something they could never have done before, they’ve been through a lot, learnt a lot and lost a bunch of weight. Each one of them has proved they deserve to be there. They’ve all earnt the chance to still become the biggest loser. Congratulations!

But wait, today the game brings you the biggest surprise so far and it’s not one they’re going to want to face.
As they’re standing there wondering what’s going to happen, the front doors open and unleash an ad break!

The doors open and Courtney comes wandering out and Pati’s wondering what happening since they only just got rid of him… And then the door opens again and out comes Damien as well!
Then Marty comes out as well and Chris thinks it might be destiny. The rest keep filing out of the house, Mel. Greg they’re all surprised at how different he looks. Marty as well. They’re quite surprised at how good Michael looks.
Kelly doesn’t walk out, she struts!
Final person to come out is Alex, yay!

“I wanted answers, mannnn.” – Pati

Ajay says the eliminated contestants have been invited back for one last shot at the title. They’re going to have to compete against each other for a wildcard entry back into the game for the final week in the house.
In other words, they’re going to screw over one of the “proper” finalists again!

Everyone wants a chance at the wildcard, of course. Alex particularly, as he’s always been seen as the underdog. Marty wants to get back in to knock off Chris!
They all exchange kisses and hugs and so on. But now it’s time for the returnees to weigh-in again.

Marty’s confident he’ll’ve lost weight. Kelly’s not nervous because she knew she’d worked hard. Alex feels like it’s time to face the truth about whether he’s done enough on the outside.
Ajay reminds them all that it’s been months since some weighed in, for some only days. By the end of the week, one of the 10 will be returning to the game. (No Sam, Sarah, P’eta or Jules, unfortunately.)
They’ll be competing against Munnalita, Pati, Kim and Chris in some fashion yet to be revealed.
If any of them have gained weight since last weighing in, they will automatically be disqualified and be asked to leave the house immediately. Could be an issue for Courtney and Damien, the rest should be safe, surely?

Damien and Marty are both worried since they’ve both previously put on weight before, Damien especially recently.

Ha! Courtney doesn’t have to step on the scales since he left so recently, so he’s automatically through.
Initial Weight: 139.2kg
Loss so far: 31.3kg
Percentage: 22.49%

Damien’s up for the first weigh-in. Good luck Damo!
Current weight: 167kg
Loss outside: 6kg!
Initial Weight: 216.3kg
Loss so far: 49.3kg
Percentage: 22.79%

“Well done Damo!” floats out from both sides of the room, eliminees and current contestants alike.

Marty’s up next.
Current weight: 117.5kg
Loss outside: 3.5kg
Initial Weight: 160.6kg
Loss so far: 43.1kg
Percentage: 26.84%

Marty’s hoping for third time extremely lucky.
He says that people used to look at photos of him and say they couldn’t really see the weight on him, but he was carrying it and he’s still got a fair bit to go.

Laura’s up next. Guess what some of the first words out of her mouth are? That’s right, stuff about her Dad!
Current weight: 88.9kg
Loss outside: 4.2kg
Initial Weight: 109.2kg
Loss so far: 20.3
Percentage: 18.59%

Mel next. Her heel is healing, hooray!
Current weight: 85kg
Loss outside: 3kg
Initial weight: 108.4kg
Loss so far: 23.4kg
Percentage: 21.59%

Yay Mel! Munnalita says that 3kg doesn’t sound much but Mel’s whole body shape has changed and she looked amazing.

Greg was Mel’s duo partner so he’s up next.
Current weight: 110.6kg
Loss outside: 4.1kg
Initial weight: 148.8kg
Loss so far: 38.2kg
Percentage: 25.67%

“I feel like Superman!” – Greg
Munnalita says she expected nothing less from Greg. She thinks if he gets back into the game he’ll definitely be above the yellow line and into the final four.

Gerard’s up next. Sounds a lot less whiny now!
Current weight: 104kg
Loss outside: 12.4kg
Initial weight: 133.5kg
Loss so far: 29.5kg
Percentage: 22.1%

He’s happy looking in the mirror because the keg is disappearing and soon it’ll be a sixpack!

Michael’s up next. He says to come back would be “the icing on the cake.” Uhhh…
Current weight: 120.9kg
Loss outside: 24.8kg
Initial weight: 165.2kg
Loss so far: 44.3kg
Percentage: 26.82%

Kelly says Michael looks great. *snerk*

Kelly is up next. She says it was hard to lose weight in the outside world compared to being in the house.
Current weight: 94.4kg
Loss outside: 14.3kg
Initial weight: 117.1kg
Loss so far: 22.7kg
Percentage: 19.39%

She says losing weight has made her a happier person, she’s a lot more positive.

Alex is last of all. He says he’s blown his diet a couple of times since leaving but every time he does, he jumps back on the bandwagon.
Current weight: 121.3kg
Loss outside: 23.3kg
Initial weight: 155.2kg
Loss so far: 33.9kg
Percentage: 21.84%

Alex said he learnt that it doesn’t matter how good the food looks or tastes the amount of effort to burn it back off far outweighs it.
Damien is really happy to see how much weight Alex had lost because he’d only had the one week in the house.

Ajay says that some of the eliminated contestants have lost almost as much as the current contestants… And some have lost more!
Chris remains the biggest loser so far, however. Munnalita is still second as well. But Marty is just 100 grams behind!
Courtney says he’s still pissed about Chris being in first place because he doesn’t deserve to be in the game at all.
Marty says Chris is probably the biggest threat because he’s in black but Marty is sure he can catch up and beat him.

Ajay says that over the next week they’ll all be fiercely competing to gain a position at the final weigh-in. Five places are up for grabs but only one returning contestant can win the qualifying weigh-in… And whoever wins the weigh-in is back in with a chance at the final four. Highest percentage wins!
At last, they’ve done something right and made it just about the weightloss!
But then Ajay muddies the water again and says that the whiteshirts will be changing into other coloured shirts once leaving the weigh-in room and only those who win the right to have a place in the qualifying weigh-in will be allowed to put the white shirt back on again. So there’s going to be 5 places up for grabs amongst the 10 whiteshirts for a weigh-in? And only those 5 will be counted for who has the highest percentage? And there’s going to be challenges involved in deciding who gets a white shirt or not? Or something?

Fucked if I know. This could not be more confusing if they tried.
(And Marty says something a bit further down that muddies the water some more!)

They get out to the lounge room and have a bit of a chat about what everyone’s been doing and then Kelly asks Chris and Kim how they came to be in the game. Most of the whiteshirts left before the Outsiders entered. Kelly asks if it’s been better inside or out and Kim says definitely inside because you don’t have all the distractions.

Marty, Alex and Greg head outside for a chat because they were all really great mates while they were in the house. Even though Marty and Greg voted against him he didn’t hold a grudge against them.
Every time Alex felt like giving up on the outside he thought of Marty and Greg and how hard they’d be doing it as well and he refused to give up.
Marty says it would be great if the three of them could get through to the weigh-in thing but that also Chris not make it through, lose the weigh-in and leave the game. This week? Or next? What? Not a clue!

The four blackshirts head outside to have a chat about the situation. Munnalita thinks Greg, Michael and Marty are the ones to watch out for. Pati adds Courtney to the list.
Chris has a feeling that Marty might be back in again. Kim speaks glowingly of the “other chances to get in”, Munnalita looks less impressed by that but oh well.

Michelle and Shannan arrive and have no idea what to expect. Big shock today!
Mel’s been dying to see Shannan again. WE KNOW WHY!
Both trainers are all really happy to see them all. Michelle is particularly stoked to see Alex. She says they all looked happy for the first time in a long time.

Shannan steps up and gets an explanation for what’s going to happen:
There will be a series of challenges, they don’t know what they are, but at the end there’ll be five people and only one of those 5 will be chosen to return to the house.

Shannan and Michelle find out there was a weigh-in so they want to hear everyone’s numbers and Greg says they were both really happy.
Jules is down to 99.6kg! She’s safe and happy and healthy. Shannan lets everyone know that.

And now it’s time to start training for a reminder of how they work out in the house!
Shannan gets the pastels (ex-whiteshirts) and Michelle takes the blackshirts.

Michelle tells them they’re the final four, nothing has changed, more people in the house, doesn’t matter!
Michelle tells Pati that she’s looked around at the other girls in the house and she’s the fittest girl in the house. Pati’s determined to win still. She used to think she was happy not to be voted out in the first week but now she’s thinking more of why couldn’t she win this?
Kim’s biggest frustration is that all the girls weigh less than her, but Michelle says that it suits her, what doesn’t kill her “makes her stronger!” – both in unison.
Michelle tells Munnalita to “get the mongrel out”, which gets her working harder till she falls down. I’m not going to make any comments about how she’s all mongrel because I have more class than that.

Michelle asks Chris how he feels about the other guys in the house and Chris thinks it’ll be Marty returning to the game due to his extreme determination.
Chris says he’s a very competitive guy, he doesn’t know where it comes from.

Michelle thinks it’s great that everyone has returned to the house, she thinks it’ll stir the pot and get everyone on their toes again.

The pastels get training with Shannan. Shannan says the change in the ex-contestants is incredible, there’s no fear in their eyes anymore, they’re not trying to get out of there, they wanted to get in there and get training.
Kelly says it’s great to be back in the game and she’s going to be a real contender this time.
Gerard says it’s great as well, if he gets in, great. Shannan is really impressed at how far Gerard has come. He used to have to watch Gerard like a hawk while doing pushups or Gerard would give up but the steely gaze he saw in Gerard today was better than any he’d ever seen.

First challenge with everyone, pastels and blackshirts.
Pillars with two medicine balls, three pieces of wood in front of each. They’re all expecting something really difficult and physically gruelling.

Alex is nervous because he doesn’t want to crash and burn like he did in the first week.
Prize for winning? $5,000 for the winner, plus $5,000 for a charity of their choice.

The challenge? Pick up two medicine balls then step onto the biggest of the three logs. The idea is to stay on the log longer than anyone else. After half an hour anyone still in the game has to step forward onto the smaller log in front of them. They have to keep holding the medicine ball during this time.
If they touch the ground or drop a ball, they’re out!
Laura’s expecting not to last more than 10 minutes, Pati says out in the sun you get sweaty and the medicine balls get slippery.

All the pastels have additional motivation: If you win, you get a guaranteed spot at the “qualifying weigh-in”.
If one of the blackshirts win, they’ll be able to block the pastels from getting a qualifying weigh-in spot at all!

Oh but there’s also yet another twist!
If a returned contestant is the first to fall they lose their chance at becoming the biggest loser and will be sent home immediately. Ouch!

Mel looks pretty wobbly as soon as she steps up. Some of them take their sweet time getting up there too, pretty lame. But the clock has started!
Kelly says her strategy was to think of the medicine balls as her kids and she just wouldn’t drop them.
Chris tries keeping the balls up on his shoulders at first but that makes him top heavy and he realises it’s a bad idea early on.
Gerard tries moving around a little so his body doesn’t get stiff.

But then before very much time had passed, Mel is getting a lot of pain in her foot due to lots of little movements and all the added weight, so she immediately steps down once it starts hurting. She’s sort of glad because she’d rather go home now than go home tomorrow anyway because of medical problems. She decided it was probably the fairest thing to step down.

Alex and Laura are both determined not to give up.
Munnalita is looking away from everyone to keep from being put off.
Courtney decides he wasn’t going to stand around for ages doing nothing so he decides to start annoying everyone because “That’s what I do!”
Kelly thinks much the same thing and tries to get everyone back to the Red-Blue rivalry to sort of pass the time.

Courtney falls down shortly afterwards, “because I’m dribbling crap and and not concentrating.”

Kim falls down next, the first of the blackshirts.
Munnalita tries not to think about the strength of the blackshirts position, she wants to win to prove she can win something.
Michael drops his balls next.
Pati comes down next. Alex is trying not to get too cocky, thinking he’s his biggest competition. He falls down next, sadly.
Marty starts feeling a bit lightheaded and loses his balance and falls off.

Chris drops next, he tries to cover it by saying he could have recovered his balance but he thought why not give one of the pastels a chance to come back because he feels like he can lose enough weight anyway.
Munnalita is “almost zen-like”, Chris says. She’s in her own little world.

30 minutes are up! 30 seconds to move to the second log in front of them.
Laura is surprisingly still in it… But then she falls back and off her log. Then Damo falls as well. :-(
Gerard is thinking he’s still in with a chance now, but Greg is still there and Greg is really tough.
Munnalita’s still zenning out… As Greg falls off as well!

Munnalita, Kelly and Gerard are left now.

Never thought I’d be cheering for Munnalita!

Damien calls out to Munnalita that she already has a spot in the final four so why not give one of the others a chance and Munnalita thinks to herself that she has as much right to be there as them and while I disagree with the way she’s played the game, at least she’s not relying on producer’s breaking the damn rules!
But then she finally topples, leaving it between Gerard and Kelly to get a guaranteed shot at the qualifying weigh-in.
Gerard says the only time he thought about the money was thinking that Kelly could really use the money. He starts to wobble a bit, “No! No, no, no, no!” And he regains his balance. Crikey! “I am not a quitter!”

An hour has passed now so they have to step onto the third log, which is tiny.
They’re both doing it pretty hard now. But Kelly finally falls off sideways, granting Gerard a guaranteed spot in the qualifying weigh-in!
Munnalita is surprised at how Gerard has changed into such a determined man.

Gerard gets his white shirt back. He chooses Diabetes Australia for his charity because both his Father and Sister have diabetes.
Gerard no longer has to compete in any of the challenges, he can concentrate solely on his weightloss to try and get back into the game.
Mel was first off the logs so she has to immediately return home. Everyone is sad to see her go home yet again, but Damien says he knows she’ll rock up at the finale looking fantastic.

13 remain!

Temptation involves a chance at getting a whiteshirt, or immediately leaving the game. Bit light on details beyond there being a whiteshirt under one platter and a “Game Over” card under another. All the pastels seem to be sprinting to grab one though. Should be fun!

Note: Due to the way they’re deciding who returns to the game I’m going to go ahead and put the “Who do you want?” poll in the sidebar, since we won’t know who returns for quite a few days yet.