OK, I admit it, I watch the Biggest Loser. It’s appealing and earnest, and it has relatively little of the backbiting and gamesmanship of some of the other reality shows.
However, this season had one of the biggest games players ever on the show, Vicky, with her trusty sidekick, Heba, and Heba’s lapdog husband Ed. Also in the competition toward the end was Vicky’s husband Brady, who was even more under her thumb then Ed was under Heba’s. These, along with the Amy C., who had one intelligent and strategic moment, but failed utterly to follow it up when she could have, were the evil Blue team in the final rounds.
Against them, we had the Mother/Daughter team of Renee and Michelle, the outnumbered Black team. I though they were lovely and just nice women who wanted to do the whole weight loss thing without much of the dramatic bullshit.
Anyway, coming into the Finale episode were Michelle and the odious Vicky, who were guaranteed to be in the final three competing for the grand prize of $250,000. The fourth was to be chosen by the telephone voters of America between Ed and Heba, husband and wife, who were the lowest percentage weight losers in the last episode before the finale. The one not selected would be in the consolation pool of all of the other eliminated contestants competing for $100,000.
In the pre-Finale episode, Heba and Ed each got the chance to lobby for their being in the final three. Heba gave a fairly standard pitch on her reasons, and then Ed came on and explained that everyone should vote for Heba because she wanted and deserved it so much more. In addition to that, it looked like Ed had deliberately spiked his weigh-in that week to help Heba’s chance to get one of the top spots.
After that nauseating display, I called the number to vote for Ed, as a futile gesture to show my displeasure for the crap he was pulling, undoubtedly after being whipped into doing it by his wife. I had no doubt, however, that the rest of America would vote for Heba in support of this valiant and romantic gesture by a Husband supporting his wife.
Imagine my surprise, then, when 84% of the voters picked Ed over Heba, propelling him into the final three, and relegating Heba to the consolation pool. It really is a new day in America!
Now, Heba getting voted down isn’t the really good part. The consequence of it is.
In the consolation pool, Heba wins the $100,000 prize, with an impressive weight loss of 46.94% of her original body weight. In the main event, Ed weighed in first, with a weight loss of more than 41%. Then Vicky, who didn’t beat Ed. And finally Michelle came to the scale. She started at 242 pounds and ended at 132, losing 110 pounds, or 45.45% of her initial weight, winning the $250,000 grand prize. All was right in the world.
However, looking at the numbers once more, it comes out that if Heba were in the final three, she would have won the top prize, but because the great people of this nation knocked her down to the secondary pool, she and her puddle of a husband lost $150,000. I can just imagine the berating Ed got once Heba figured out that some her husband failed to implement her grand plan, and she lost out for it.