'The Biggest Loser' Season 11, Episode 14 Recap

['The Biggest Loser' - 'Week Fourteen']

"Final Four. It's everything to me." -- Eliminated contestant

Finally, nobody played it stupid. Nobody got distracted by gameplay or made bad decisions to sabotage themselves. As such, we may have gotten our first genuine Weigh-In for weeks and weeks.

Unfortunately, that does nothing to make the eliminations themselves any easier to bear. This week's was especially poignant as it's an absence that will be felt throughout the rest of the competition.

I was hugely disappointed by the week's challenge as it was neither strenuous, nor something they could make compelling on television. So basically, we got a veritable snoozefest through the bulk of the episode. It's a shame, considering how exciting and unpredictable the season has been thus far.

The challenge saw the four teams trying to mentally gauge one mile and plant a flag at the marker they thought was closest to it. To make it interesting, no two teams could be on the same marked square, and they only had fifteen minutes to figure it out.

There is no connection between this challenge and weight loss, or the journey these contestants are on. Usually the challenge is either a workout in itself, or a metaphor for their weight gain, loss or knowledge learned on the Ranch.

With that considered, I guess it's pretty appropriate that it was blind luck that decided the winning team. When time ran out, the Black Team simply ran to the nearest marker, and in doing so they snatched victory from the Blue Team. It wasn't even made clear if Moses's idea of where the mile was came closer; he ran out of time to redirect his team. It looks like it was, but why not just have him say something so we knew for sure?

Their prize was an unchaperoned night out on the town in Hollywood, while all the remaining contestants had to clean the entire campus. But while we heard a lot of whining about how Olivia was horrified about having to clean the gym, and how awful that undertaking was going to be, we saw none of it. Instead, we saw them begin the clean-up of the kitchen, and then we followed the winners to Hollywood.

Why not intersperse the imagery from the Black Team's magical night out on the town with the others toiling to clean up the sweaty and nasty mess? Maybe the kitchen was just a nastier undertaking. I do wonder, though, if it wasn't dirtied up a bit more for the cameras -- it's hard to imagine things being quite that gross on a regular basis.

Ted was certainly a lot of fun, flirting with Hannah on her night out with Rulon and Jay. I loved her panic when the guys left her alone to connect with him. The guy was sure asking a lot of questions and my wife was wondering if he was a plant by the show. I suspect he was genuine, but either way he proved to be a huge confidence booster for Hannah, who finally accepted and believed that she is pretty. Perhaps for the first time in her entire life -- certainly it's been a long time.

It's always fun to see the contestants react to food from their pasts, but I didn't like that it was only done with the Blue Team and that the whole thing was just a set-up for another of those classic 'Biggest Loser' blatant product placements. That moment of realization at what they'd been putting in their bodies has been a huge turning point for many of the contestants mentally, so to see it cheapened like that was just sad.

But the biggest story of the night was the Red Team. With only Courtney left, she was convinced that if she failed and got sent home that Brett would be let go, too. I thought this surely couldn't be the case. I was certainly naive.

Even though the Green Team's terrible performance on the scale made it so Courtney only had to lose more than two pounds, it seemed a daunting prospect. She only lost two last week, and that's a string of progressively worse weigh-ins. First, it was five pounds, then four, three and finally two.

Despite a week of one-on-one training with Brett and what she called a bunch of changes in her routine, she continued her streak and lost one pound. She is the Red Team. No reason to vote. The most optimistic person in the house, who's celebrated every pound as Alison indicated last week, was going without even the chance of a vote.



But she went out like she came in. Head held high and happy with everything she's accomplished. The shocker for everyone there was when Alison told Brett he was basically eliminated as well. Will this be the last we ever see of this new trainer? Did you think he was any good?

As for Courtney, as expected she picked up right where she left off once back at home and kept losing weight. If anyone was an ambassador for what you can accomplish at home, it's Courtney. Now down by 225 total pounds, she's lost more weight than she currently weighs: 210 pounds. I can't wait to see what she looks like at the finale, and I hope she takes her positive attitude and finds a way to help others as Justin has done in his community.

That spirit's just too bright to be contained, I think. Courtney has awakened something truly remarkable in herself, and we saw at the Ranch that it's infectious. That's an infection the whole nation could use.

The Biggest Loser' airs Tuesdays, 8PM ET on NBC.

[Follow Jason on Twitter.]

Watch the full episode here: