'The Biggest Loser: Couples' Season 11, Episode 17 Recap

['The Biggest Loser: Couples' - 'Week Seventeen']

"At this time I'm asking to leave 'The Biggest Loser' for personal reasons."

With the premiere of 'The Voice' truncating 'Loser' to a single hour this week and next, I was half-expecting to get a half-episode from the producers. After all, there were only seven contestants left in the game coming into this episode.

Instead, we packed "Favorites Week" into a single hour, which meant way less time with the trainers. But their absence was made up by the inclusion of past contestants Sam Poueu, Ali Vincent and Tara Costa. One of them even competed in this week's challenge against the contestants.

But the big shocker of the week came when the above quote was uttered at the Weigh-In. Who spoke it and whether or not they went through with it may change everything you thought about how the game would progress from here.

This week's emotional struggles came primarily with Austin and Irene. Austin is struggling with the thought of being alone after his dad's elimination last week, while Irene seems to just be psyching herself out with all this made-up pressure about her place in the game.

If the game were to end right now, Irene would be "The Biggest Loser." She's also poised to become the first woman on campus to cross the 100-pounds-lost threshold. All of these are wonderful accomplishments and things to be proud of, but Irene is still in that loser mentality that got her here in the first place.

Luckily, Jillian Michaels is on hand to yell at her a little bit and try to screw her head on right by reminding her what she's accomplished and how truly proud of herself she should be. Most importantly, she needs to believe that she's worth this physical transformation and gain some self-worth.

Who's going to pick up these contestants next season? Bob can't do it alone. If Cara sticks around, I'm not so sure she's going to do it either. She got indignant when Ken tried to call her out a couple weeks ago about a lack of effort on her part, and then she supported a contestant wanting to quit this week, but more on that later.

Sam and Ali were back to train the contestants and prove they were part of 'The Biggest Loser' family by shilling some Jennie-O turkey products at us. That left the official trainers only the Last Chance Workout to dig their hands into the contestants. Did anyone even see Brett this week?

The Challenge was a "Favorite" as well, bringing back the car-pulling competition from Season 7, as well as its winner: Tara. But she wasn't just there to cheer on the contestants and sit on the sidelines. She was competing fully in it for the prizes of $5,000, a VIP event with NASCAR driver Clint Boyer and your picture on a box of Wheaties.

Rulon wanted to win it for that last bit as he wasn't even offered that for his Olympic gold medal. And it was a gold medal finish as well, as the judges had to go to instant replay to determine the winner. Rulon had an early lead, but as she did four seasons ago, Tara pulled off a late surge and a victory.

As big a competitor as she is, it had to be so vindicating to take down an Olympic champion. From now on, they need to call this the Tara Costa Car Pull Challenge. Once again, she was impressive and powerful. Man, I almost miss her amazing competitive drive and spirit in this game.

While I won't say it's related, I had to wonder if the loss to Tara played into Rulon's suddenly deciding he was ready to go home. It was like right after that scene he was out there telling Cara he's basically reached his goal weight and he's done with his journey on the Ranch.

He was so done that he made the announcement at the Weigh-In and walked out of the gym before even finding out if he'd lost anything. I was surprised that such a hard competitor would take himself out of a competition so close to finishing it.



The contestants then proved they hadn't been listening a few weeks ago when Kaylee tried to have her team throw the Weigh-In so she could go home. Then, Alison said that even if someone leaves, there would still be a Weigh-In and an Elimination. So why the surprise when she announced that same thing again.

And just like that, we're at our Final Five. That means one less person for next week's "Makeover Week" with Tim Gunn, but that's good I guess because we only have an hour for it as well.

On the scale, Olivia and Hannah just killed it, coming in one-two. Austin proved he had nothing to worry about with seven pounds lost, matched by Jay. That left Irene and Kaylee below the yellow line, though Irene did get her 100-pounds lost. She almost had to share the moment with Olivia, sitting at 99 after an impressive 6-pound drop.

Strategy would say eliminate Irene. She's currently the "Biggest Loser" and thus a real threat. But despite gameplay being so dominant early in the season, it was all about friendships right now, and Kaylee just didn't have them.

After gaining two pounds this week, she went home and said she'd reached her goal weight. That's why she'd been up and down the past five weeks. Now she's focused on maintaining her weight and dating Vance, from that White Team that was on campus for a minute to try and earn their way in. They didn't, but he got something else out of it.

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

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