‘The Biggest Loser:’ What goes around comes around

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This week’s two-part installment of ‘The Biggest Loser’ might as well have been subtitled Jillian vs. Shellay.

Guess who won?

Jillian took Shellay to the woodshed repeatedly for not working out hard enough, and committing that cardinal cardio sin -- hanging on the machine for some relief. Jillian screamed. She flared her nostrils. She nagged. She cursed. And she threatened in the way that only Jillian can: If you don’t let go of the handles ‘I’ll break all your fingers.’ ‘I don’t care if your neck breaks in half.’ And ‘Let go of the treadmill or I’m going to knock you out.’ To which Shellay responded: ‘I’d feel a lot better if you did.’

It was a nice try, but it still didn’t get Shellay out of her workout.

There was wrath enough to go around for the entire team, which inexplicably blew off Jillian’s ‘homework’ instructions to do extra cardio. Jillian lost it -- apparently, she hasn’t been tough enough -- and more melodrama and hollering followed: ‘I’ve been nice -- so nice I want to puke on myself I’m so nice....I’m sick of it!’

The berating led Shellay’s daughter, Amy, to storm out of the gym after blowing Jillian a kiss that said ‘kiss off!’ To her credit, Amy came back to make nice with Jillian. ‘Good choice,’ Jillian responded. (Jillian would later turn to Bob for some support as she unloaded about her lazy, good-for-nothing team. Bob, meanwhile, was beating his own team into the ground: ‘This last-chance workout was kinda relentless,’ he chuckled. ‘I had fun with it. I like relentless.’)

Ultimately, though, Jillian broke Shellay down during a one-on-one training session that the purple team won earlier in the game. (‘Won’ might be the wrong word -- there were definitely points where they looked like they were regretting the ‘prize.’) ‘Nothing gets through to you . . . [through] this facade of oblivion,’ Jillian told Shellay. Of course, Shellay cried. Who wouldn’t? Like the Army, Jillian then started building Shellay back up: ‘Make a different choice. Tell a different story. . . . You are one breath away from being anything you want to be . . . choose it.’ Again, Shellay cried. But really, who wouldn’t?

The challenge this week seemed straight out of ‘Saw.’ Balance yourself in a tank of water while standing on a swing-type contraption and holding yourself upright by handles suspended overhead. Hard enough when the tank was full of water. Bordering on the impossible while the water drained from the tank. The winner? Vicky. She was absolutely steel-willed.

Amy and her husband, Phil, cashed in a prize they won earlier, too: A trip home. The couple, who once believed that their obesity kept them from being full-fledged parents, spent part of the day hiking in the woods with their three young boys. ‘We did get a taste of what life is going to be like when we get back. No more sitting in a chair, watching life. We’re going to experience it,’ Phil said.

With all the buildup and slacking off, Jillian’s team looked like underdogs heading into the weigh-in. Especially Coleen. She was competing all by herself yet still had to lose enough weight to keep pace with the duos to keep from falling below the dreaded yellow line. She weighed in -- and only lost 3 pounds. It was all but certain that she was heading home.

Luckily for Coleen, the brown team offered up their own shocking results: Heba lost 8 pounds while her husband, Ed, lost zero. That put the brown team on the chopping block, and the pair chose -- wisely -- to send Ed home. (While I am no fan of Heba’s game-playing, she has the grit and determination to go the distance, and obviously has the ability to focus and drop weight like the boys.)

I’ll bet L.T. enjoyed this elimination as much as one those super-sized subs he used to power down.

Allow me to close with a random thought: Perhaps I’m seeing things, but I am 99% sure that Bob was not wearing a seatbelt when he loaded up the kids -- er, I mean contestants -- for the trip to Subway. Bad Bob! (Although maybe he wasn’t really driving and it was all Hollywood camerawork?)

-- Rene Lynch