(S09E09) This was a very emotional week for the contestants. Remember when O'Neal thought Sunshine had been eliminated, and the producers made him wait until the last possible moment to see that she was still there? They were at it again this week with Daris, only the news wasn't so good. Why they can't just let the first person in say, "Sorry, bud," and put him out of his misery, I don't know.

Actually, I do. It's good for ratings. Also good for ratings is a sexy chef, which is why they brought Curtis Stone back for a food-themed week. Even the blatant product placement in-show commercials were food-based, covering avocados, milk and a silent shout-out to Subway.

There were two challenges this week, and I'm going to go ahead and spoil right here that the black team finally won a challenge, though I won't tell you which one -- or if it was both. It was a much needed boost of confidence for the team, coming off of that brutal weigh-in loss last week on top of all those challenge losses.

(S09E07) With Olympic fever finally over, we can get back to the real competition on NBC prime time: the one involving weight loss. 'The Biggest Loser' returned, dropping us right back to the last new episode, the competition between Darrell and Cheryl to stay on the Ranch.

From there, we get one of the nastier temptation challenges with the highest stakes yet. The winner of the challenge would get to divide the remaining contestants into the Blue and Black teams, as well as assigning Immunity to one player. They could even choose themselves for that latter position.

To say the winner's selections were interesting would be one of the bigger understatements of the year. Thankfully, this person was able at least to secure their own position on the Ranch into the next week, because there's no guarantee anyone else would have done so.

(S08E05) It's been a lot of fun seeing Bob and Jillian working together to help everyone on the Ranch lose weight and become better people. It was a good idea to pair up these total strangers as teams of two, so that they could develop a personal support structure. Everyone was in a good and happy place, and things were moving along.

Everyone except for Tracey. It is amazing how soundly she is despised in this game by nearly everyone there.

But still ... one big happy family, right? Wrong! This week everything we thought we knew about this season was thrown out the window, and once again a single contestant was given ultimate power in how the new face of The Biggest Loser would play out. At least until they change it again.

I was really enjoying this season of The Biggest Loser. The addition of the "Couples" formula created a built-in connection for the contestants and established a bigger one with me as well. There was something special about rooting for these friends and family members to go for it together. The show was inspirational and generally uplifting, unlike most reality competition shows. These guys knew they were there for a much bigger and more important reason than the money.

Then, a few weeks ago, all that got kind of tossed out the window when the pairs were thrown into two competing groups, even splitting up father and son duo Ron and Mike. Suddenly everybody got really intense and competitive and got their "game" on. Filipe summed it up pretty well this week saying that when he was training with Bob he was thinking about his family and his reasons for wanting to lose weight and be on the show. Now that he's on Jillian's team he thinks about the game. And this week it all went so wrong.

This week on The Biggest Loser, Alison switched things up turning this from a "couples" game into a "team" game. In an effort to balance the playing field again, the ten remaining contestants were being split into two teams, determined by the flip of a coin. What this meant was that the chance existed that one team may be split up. There were two contestants, Dane and Helen, who'd already lost their partners, so teams could have stayed intact but it was unlikely.

Ultimately, of all the teams there was one that absolutely needed to stay together. I've been a big fan of the Brown Team for a few weeks now. We've gotten to watch some pretty touching moments between Ron and son Mike, and Mike has proven himself to be a genuinely decent kid. However, Ron has really been struggling to hold his own. Their trainer Bob even told Mike point blank that he was going to need to carry his father through the weigh-ins. If ever there was a team that needed one another, it was the Brown Team.