Previously on The Biggest Loser there was a Challenge and training and a weigh-in and really nobody is going to care about any of that. It’s all about THAT elimination.

Selena was sent home last night after the White and Blue Teams fell below the Yellow Line. The other contestants were given the option to send nobody home at all, or could have sent the much bigger threat from the Blue Team home.

Tonight the shit is going to hit the fan! The trainers and most of the contestants are going to question Margie’s decision to send Selena home – and Margie’s not going to take it lying down. This is not going to be pretty!

Later in the episode the first Contest for the year kicks off with an as yet unrevealed reward on the line.

But as the episode gets going the Black and Red Teams are filing into Loser Lounge and are shortly followed by… Hamish!

The look of horror on the faces of the White Team shows that even though there may not have been as much team spirit there as there could have been, the girls have still been hit hard.

Blue is quite happy to see Hamish back as they all, quite rightly, expected he’d be the one sent home.

Simon then explains how the Elimination went down while Margie obviously gets a big hit of dread.

They had the opportunity not to vote anyone out, James asks and Simon confirms. Replay clip from last night!

Margie’s turning as red as her shirt and throws her head back.
James continues to push the issue and Luke then asks the big question.

“Who was not going to vote originally?”

All the Black gents immediately raise their hands into the air then we get a shot of Red. And all but Margie raise their hands as one. Oh dear!

Alex is horrified again and asks Margie if she remembers when she was 20 and Margie says yes but she took responsibility for the things that she didn’t do right. Yeah, it took you 14 years but you’ve taken responsibility for being a fat ass now, I suppose. All credit to you.
Cough cough.
Margie goes on to say she’d expect herself to be voted out if she wasn’t doing the work too. Well, Red might just tank the next weigh-in to put you up on purpose. It’d certainly save their team a lot of grief in the weeks ahead!

Margie tells us she thinks the White Team is better off without Selena.

Tiff’s face when she comes in says it all though. She’s pretty stunned by a missing girl from her team when everything should have pointed to Blue losing a member.

Lydia then lays out the Elimination process for the trainers.
Shannan clarifies the situation, slowly, to make sure he’s really understood what happened. Shannan lets out an incredulous laugh and has to cover his mouth and ask why they voted out Selena. Even Shannan knew he was likely to be down a man and he probably would have accepted it with his usual grim determination.

Margie then reveals she voted for Selena and Tiff immediately says, “What?! Why?!”
Margie says she felt like Selena didn’t put in the effort. Steve’s face immediately goes into his hands. He can obviously tell this isn’t going to end well.
Tiff asks her how she knows what work Selena put in and where Selena was coming from and Margie said she’d spent her time, her “valuable time” trying to get Selena off her arse to train.
Shannan’s got his head resting on his fist and Tiffiny looks about ready to explode.

Shannan asks Margie if her family gives up on her and Margie says she didn’t give up on her so don’t start saying she did. “But you didn’t have to vote her out!”
This is Margie’s second chance as well, she came into the house a couple kilos lighter than Selena and she’s 34, not 20. Selena has her whole life ahead of her, Margie says. Not sure how she got that out between having a pole up her arse, two feet and two fists in her mouth!

Margie says Selena basically sat there and lied at elimination by saying she’d been working out and stuff and Shannan points out that lying about food and stuff is why they’re all there in the first place. Shannan knows his contestants and clients lie to him sometimes but he doesn’t give up on them. It does get frustrating, but he’d never cut them like that.

Mish is trying to see both sides of it. She knows it’s unfair to let someone go at such an early point. She understands Margie’s frustration. But Tiff rightly points out, first time in history nobody HAD to go home. And Shannan backs her up, saying nobody realistically saw Selena as any kind of threat.

And now Commando Steve asks Margie if she has a mother and father? Yeah, she does.
Did they bring her up justly, taught her things she needed to learn. They did.
Do you know her story, Steve asks? No, she doesn’t. “Well, there’s a job for you. Figure it out.” GO STEVE!

Margie’s sort of had enough at that point and she gets up and walks out. As she goes past Steve she throws the cushion she was holding into his chest which surprises Steve, but he carries on talking. Says it’s not a witch hunt, they’re not picking on Margie, the decision was made and now they’re trying to learn the right lessons from this.

Meanwhile Mish has gone off after Margie.

Luke points out to Steve that Margie was second in line and it could easily have been someone else who caused the ruckus.
Yeahhhh, not sure any of the others would have voted if she hadn’t. Maybe Lydia, since she was right at the end.

Margie’s off in her room when Mish finds her and Margie’s saying she doesn’t have time to try and help Selena learn to eat and exercise.
So don’t. Seriously, that’s the shittiest excuse ever. Nobody’s telling you to help the others, not even your own team. They’re just saying you’re a cunt for voting someone out in the first week when you didn’t have to!

Mish says she’s not going to judge Margie on it. She knows Margie is a kind, caring woman. Margie feels bad that Selena’s gone. Maybe she made the wrong choice. In hindsight she thinks maybe she shouldn’t’ve cast the vote.
Yeah, only because everyone in the house thinks you’re a terrible person and will vote you out now!

After the ad break we’re back out of Loser Lounge and the White Team’s training session is based on getting their team strong and on track to stay above the Yellow Line and not lose even more members too early. Poor Tiff’s been down that road before.

The girls are all working hard in training today, no whinging at all. Bek previously told Tiff she doesn’t run but today she’s jogging along at a decent pace. Kasey and Michelle are both going hard on the rowing cross trainer machine thingies. Sorry, I don’t know what they’re called. It all looks like hard work to me!

Black Team’s training session is a grim affair. Shane’s still pretty bummed about his vote being the ultimate deciding vote to send Selena home. He didn’t want to do it.
He lost his sister a few years ago. She had a heart attack at 32 due to being morbidly obese. So he’s very worried for Selena’s future.
Steve tells them what’s happened has happened. Sometimes you’ve just got to grit your teeeth and get on with it.

And today getting on with it is dragging a huge tractor tire across the parade ground with a big rope. Alex is crawling through the mud and is eventually joined by Simon and Graham while Shane moves the tire by himself for the last bit. Steve’s working him hard to get his head back into the game and it seems to be working.

Meanwhile Alex’s boot that is holding his lower leg stable is absolutely caked with mud!

For the last bit of training Steve hops on top of the tire and gets the team to drag him another 10 metres or so. Then they huddle around the tire and put their fists in the centre and say “BLACK!” while pumping their fists up. Yeah, Black Power!

What? Ohhh…

Now it’s time for everyone to be called to The Arena! Which looks suspiciously like a large shed.
But it’s all prettied up inside with some lovely recessed lights around the room and a (probably fake) marble decoration in the centre.

Hayley lets the contestants know that it’s time for The Contest. Who’s going to be Lord of the Manor? Master of their domain? Queen of their castle?

The goal is to be the last contestant standing and you’ll want to be the winner. Because the winner gets…

… TO GO ON THE WALK!

Yes, that’s right, it’s back. How excited are you? Moderately? Slightly? A lukewarm level of anticipation?
At least we’ll probably get to see the mud crabs again.

The result of The Walk will impact all the teams in some way. Dun dun dun!

Luke will be Blue’s champion, Lydia Red’s, Michelle for White and Shane for Black.

Today’s contest is about strength and stamina. In round 1 the champions must hold a 3KG medicine ball above their heads. First to let it drop below their head is out.

Michelle’s a little nervous because she’s the smallest one. Lydia shakes her head and looks a bit disgusted at that. But nobody cares because she started the Selena hate parade last night.
Lydia, Shane and Luke are all in the zone and ready to go.

Bek’s got confidence in Michelle but the perception is the White Team is the weakest so she’s not holding out too much hope.

Lydia’s talking about how they’re all there for the weightloss and changing their lives and so on. All said over footage of her already struggling to hold up her medicine ball.
Lydia says she’s going to need a knee replacement if she carries on like this and maybe hips and how long can her back hold out?

Shane’s looking to be there for his mildly autistic son in the future.

Interestingly the calmest, most focused looking one is Michelle. The other three all have the trembles from early on but Michelle’s just standing there calmly, eyes closed, holding it still. We could be in for an upset!
Michelle wants to gain confidence and happiness. She wants to meet that special guy, share special moments with him, because that would be SPECIAL, I assume.

Shane’s ball is not much above his head, Luke’s is still well above his head. Luke’s thinking of a beach, a “special friend” gave him a big picture of a beach for him to picture any time things are getting too hard.

4 minutes!

Shane’s wobbling badly and obviously hoping one of the girls will cave first but only Lydia looks likely to stumble. Margie’s hollering encouragement from behind her which is actually having the opposite effect, it’s making Lydia crankier and crankier!

Everyone but Michelle is now struggling a lot. Michelle still looks like a bloody statue just standing there with a look of serenity on her face as the six minute mark approaches. She might not end up winning this Contest but she’s showing some serious mental strength here that will stand her in good stead as the competition grinds on.

As we come back from the break sweat is pouring off Shane and Lydia and it looks to be a race between those two for first out.
And as the six minute mark hits Lydia finally gives up and falls to the ground bawling. Good lord, you’d think she just lost a family member or something.
She freaks out and rolls on the floor for a bit and then gets up and tries to get out of the shed and they have to get the producers to open it back up to let her out for a bit.
Lisa follows her out and talks her back down and brings her back inside. Lydia’s realised she’s not quite where she needs to be, mentally.

Round two! Two plates. One on each hand. Held out to your sides at shoulder height. With an uncooked egg on each.
After holding up that ball for so long this is going to be murder!

The first person to drop an egg or let their arms break the tape underneath will be out and the two remaining champions will move to the final round.

Luke then tells the other two that this is pretty much his job, balancing plates on his hands. 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Michelle pipes up and says she does 7! Then immediately giggles and realises that was sort of trash talk-y.
But they’re all having a bit of fun and laughing about it.

All three start out well. With Michelle’s strong showing in the first round the two guys are probably feeling a little bit of pressure by this stage.

Two minutes!

One of Shane’s arms starts edging downwards as does Michelle’s. Luke’s still standing strong.
As they get to the three minute mark Michelle finally calls it quits and carefully brings her arms and plates in to avoid breaking the eggs or the plates.

So it’s down to Shane and Luke for the final round.

Last round they’ll be holding up two telephone books. They’ll be holding them pressed together between their palms in front of their chests and there’ll be a piece of tape under their arms that they can’t break.

After two stamina burning rounds can either of them hope to hold the books up for long?

Well, they’re both still going at the four minute mark though Luke is having a heap of trouble.
Shane’s gone deep into the zone and is standing stoically while sweat pours off him and forms a puddle on the floor.

12 minutes!

“I’m not giving up!” Shane has taken to talking and throwing looks over at Luke. Luke’s finding it tough but he tries to stare Shane in the eye to judge how much he’s got left.

Twenty minutes. That’s a long time to be holding up two telephone books.

Shane starts whistling a jaunty tune. And that seems to be the end of Luke’s determination. The books slip lower and lower and lower while more and more sweat pours off him. Hayley has to keep warning him not to let the books touch his body, can’t take his hands off the books, etc.

But finally it’s all over as Luke drops the books onto the floor. Shane walks over and gives him a big manly hug afterwards and they’re both boggling at the puddle of sweat on the ground, obviously they’ve worked real hard!

So Shane’s the first winner of The Contest. And will get to take the first Walk.

Luke says again that someone special gave him the picture of the beach and he hopes they’re proud of him but they’re not saying who it is. So I’m kind of suspecting it’s a lady friend, even though they’re meant to all be singles?
Not that you can blame the guy for finding love and still wanting to be on the show.

I’m sure someone will absolutely put the boot into him for it, but that won’t be me.

Time for… THE WALK!

Which isn’t the old walk, it’s a new walk. Or rather an old walk repurposed. They’re using the tunnel that was last used on the show as the route to Emazon’s secret underground lair. In the shittiest secret-trainer segments ever.

There’s three cases for Shane to choose from. Each contains a power (what power) that can affect the game. Power over Food, Power over Training or a Mystery Power presumably related to voodoo.

The area where he chooses looks like an old gun emplacement or bunker with the roof removed or something. Very grungey.

Shane chooses the Mystery Power and opens up the case. Inside is an envelope with words on it that are not yet revealed.

Because TOMORROW NIGHT… Etc.
Margie thinks the power is “pathetic” and having experience in the field, she’d know?

Ahem.

And a day at the beach for the contestants turns out to be no picnic. GET IT?
Looks to be a pretty miserable day for going to the beach so I guess there won’t be too many longing glances at the water.

Also, Temptation! Lots of burgers and donuts and Freddo Frogs and Ferrero Rochers and cheeeeeeeese and all those things the fatties shouldn’t be eating anymore.
Ahh, but the lure of a golden prize might just tempt them back into sugar’s embrace.