TBL 5×05: Commando Steve is back!

Previously on The Biggest Loser… oh, we’re still harping on about Temptation? Okay, good.
Michelle gave Daina and Caitlin a flogging in training.
Rick and his girlfriend are having a baby and went to have lunch together.

Tonight… COMMANDO STEVE.
And he’s going to set them some mammoth challenge or something. Who cares, it’s Commando Steve and he’s BACK!


In the dead of night, Commando Steve arrives at Camp Biggest Loser.
“My philosophy: There are no excuses.” Steve says the contestants are in for a surprise if they think they’ve had it hard so far!
The Commando starts busting into rooms, shining flashlight in people’s eyes, turning the lights on, etc.

Lots of yelling, lots of get out of bed’ing and so on. Get dressed and out the front in ten minutes!

But wait, maybe it’s not The Commando… Where’s his sunglasses?!

Steve goes up and down the line staring at people and asking questions. He gets to Caitlin and asks why she’s there. Caitlin responds, “Because I’m overweight… and I want to save my life.”
Everyone is terrified!

It’s midnight, apparently. And Steve wants to see who’s still standing at “Zero Six Hundred in the morning.” As opposed to zero six hundred in the evening, Steve? You twit!

He’s got them doing a “quick march” out the gates. They’re not doing so well on the whole “left right left right” thing. Some of them have to jog to catch up occasionally to those in front as they make their way to whatever hell hole the Commando has set up for the new batch of Losers!

It’s cold and raining outside as they finally arrive at… A dirty great big hole in the ground? Looks like some kind of mining operation, digging up dirt, perhaps?

Steve says to them that he’s heard some of them have been getting a bit lazy. So tonight, their shirts don’t mean a thing, they’re all one team tonight. He tells us he has a few tasks up his sleeve to test that teamwork.

Steve points at a bulldozer and says the first task is to pull it down the other end of the pit.
They’ve got the girls up the front of the ropes with the blokes up the back, which is apparently the tug-of-war strategy?
Steve says that some of them aren’t really pulling they’re just hanging on. Tsk tsk!

They’re getting into a rhythm of digging in and then driving with their legs and the bulldozer is starting to roll along nicely.
And then they hit a tiny bump and the bulldozer gets stuck, they struggle to pull it up the “small incline”.
After trying a bunch of different strategies they finally manage to pull all together and get it moving up the hill again.
Once they start building some momentum it gets a little easier and they get more confident so it gets even easier to keep it moving.

But they’re not done with their training!

Thirty five tonnes of crushed rock. In a gigantic pile. But Steve dislikes its current location. It really needs to be 15 metres towards the rear of the mine.

Oh, but he’s not done. He calls up a bulldozer to dump another 5 tonne of dirt on top of it. Nasty man!

One of the twin girls says they had a strategy of having the girls run the buckets while the men dug up the rocks. Yet the footage shows nothing of the sort. Everyone’s digging and bucketing and carrying and dumping!
But they’re all digging and digging and digging. They all keep looking at the pile and thinking it’s not really diminishing at all, but the new pile is slowly growing.

Phoebe feels like the regular training sessions have an underlying theme or something you learn about yourself but this is just, “What is this pain for?!”

Steve gives them a break and tells them they might think they’re out here for no reason tonight but at the bottom of the pile is something that each and every one of them wants…
They’d been digging for 2 hours by this point. And Steve says to them that if it’s not done by six o’clock, they don’t get their reward!

After that everyone digs with renewed vigour! They’re all trying to dig up the center to get to the prize in the middle. Though there’s quite a few of them standing around with their arms on their shovels.
Then they finally hit something buried underneath it all!

What’s inside the ammo box they dug up?

A key. A Lockwood key, which means it’s a padlock key, says Phil.
‘Kay.

The key is to something that’s back at Camp Biggest Loser. So Commando Steve sends them on their way.
But he says they’ve learned not to be complacent because they never know when he’ll be back!

The contestants make it back to Camp and it’s all foggy and spooky!

There’s a box in the middle of the parade ground, chained and locked up. Why they couldn’t bury the chest under the rock pile is a mystery to me!

And, of course, inside the box is a bunch of envelopes addressed to everyone. Letters from home, of course, why didn’t I already guess this?
Oh, that’s right, I did!

Cue lots of tears and sobbing while reading out letters. Lisa’s husband calls her his “big girl”? Lovely!
Wayne’s woman loves and misses him. Aww! His sons and his daughter miss him, but they understand why he’s there.

Caitlin’s letter is from her Dad. One of the pictures included is of her Mum. Her Dad sent the picture to hopefully motivate her and keep her going. Aww!

Shannon’s fiancee wrote him a letter. She loves him so much, etc etc. Standard fare.

Joe’s letter is from his girlfriend, Lucy. She’s proud of him and misses him and loves him. Believe in yourself and each other. Yawn.

David’s got a “painting” from his son. His son is about 3. So it’s pretty much just splotches on the paper. I guess parents find such things adorable?

Tomorrow night in a special 90 minute long episode, Shannan and Michelle are going to teach the Losers (and by proxy, us) their three best stretch techniques.
They’re also going to learn how to eat healthily and how to get the most out of a 10 minute workout.
Last but not least, Sharif will be returning as part of the Masterclass. So I guess he’s not stacked it back on too much!