'The Biggest Loser': Meet the final four

It's almost over, folks. One last challenge, one last weigh-in, and one last chance for Neil and Jillian and the mopey, self-righteous Women in Black to annoy the crap out of me on the Biggest Loser.

Congratulations! You've lost 83 spoilers.

Hey, they cut the show down to an hour again, and they still found time for product placements and pointless filler! See, producers -- everybody wins!

The challenge
The competitors have to haul a huge scale, load it up with all the weight they've lost, return to the start, pitch that weight in a pit, and watch it be buried by a backhoe. I believe this is what they call symbolism.

Isabeau takes the challenge -- and wins $10,000. Not bad. Bill ends up literally eating her dust when the backhoe covers up her weight. Ouch.

The weigh-in
This is the one that determines who's going to be competing for the big prize. Neil, being the only member of the Blue Team left, pontificates that he's doing this for all the Blue Team people who went before him, including the ones he voted off. OK, he didn't say that last bit, but I felt I had to remind him.

The percentages are kind of amazing this week, making me wonder what the hell they did differently. A conspiracy theorist would be suspicious...

Julie: down 8 pounds, or 4.76% of her total weight. Wow.
Bill: down 9 pounds, or 4.23% of his total weight.
Isabeau: down 8 pounds, or 3.56% of her total weight.
Neil: down 10 pounds, or 3.47% of his total weight. He's had 11 double-digit weeks out of 14.
Hollie: down 5 pounds, or 2.55% of her total weight.

Neil lost 10 pounds, and still didn't stay above the yellow line. That's a bit nuts.

Note to Hollie: I know you're disappointed to be up for elimination, but it would help if you didn't look like a pouty child. Your friends and teammates are putting up great numbers. At least pretend to clap, ok?

The elimination
Oh, please: Neil is so much more of a threat than Hollie, he's not on the Black Team, he engineered a failed strategy to get the Black Team eliminated, and he's incredibly annoying. Neil is so gone.

Bill is honest about his reasons: Neil could beat me, so I have to vote him out. Makes sense to me. Isabeau takes the opportunity to be self-righteous: She makes a speech about forgiving but not forgetting, and how this vote isn't just for her, it's for Jez -- you know, the guy who ended up getting kicked off when you put on 17 pounds of water weight to game the system. That guy.

And you know what, I'm with her -- I think Neil is a bit of a schmuck, and he deserves to go. But I am getting tired of the victimization rag that the Women in Black tend to go off on. We get it. You felt hurt that first episode. Now let it go.

Bob talks about how unfair it is for Neil to get the boot -- he worked so hard! He's the last member of his team! He feels like he's letting all of his teammates down! I'd contend that he let them down when he tried to game the system, thus making all of his team members suspect, and thus fueling the Black Team's "Poor us against the world" kick, which they've ridden to victory. But that's just me.

(Yes, I realize that I'm telling the Black Team women to get over not being picked in the first episode at the same time I'm clinging to my Neil hatred with a viselike grip, but there's a difference. The Black Team members were "abandoned" due to no one's fault but the producers. Neil, on the other hand, consciously chose to get cute with the rules and play the game in such a way that someone would be kicked out despite hard work. Also, I'm a hypocrite, and I'm ok with that.)

The aftermath
I will give Neil this: He's relatively classy in his farewell speech (although I'm not entirely sure what the deal was giving Bill a hot-fudge sundae when he left), and he looks fantastic in his look-at-me-now interview. He's lost 165 pounds and looks great. Good job, Neil. I still think you're a schmuck.

But the episode isn't over yet -- no, we have a whole segment dedicated to the remaining Black Team members telling Jillian that she's awesome and amazing and she believed in them and she's their best friend and she walks on water and her tears would cure cancer if she ever cried. And I'd be sharing in the Jillian love if she didn't bring up, again, how her team was made up of "the outcasts, the unchosen." GAH! How can the Women in Black help but spout that line when Jillian is shoveling it down their throats every time she sees them? SHUT. UP.

Bottom line: Jillian had a job to do, and she did it -- really well. Part of that job was getting the folks working with her to trust her and follow her, and she did that extremely well. She'd make a decent cult leader in that respect. But I have no idea how genuine the connection was between Jillian and her charges. The competitors seemed to believe they were now bonded for life, but I don't know if Jillian would give them the time of day after the competition.

My prediction
I predict Bill will take it all. He's been strong and steady, and besides, he's my favorite remaining competitor. If a woman does win, I suspect it will be Julie -- she's the sort of dark horse who could take it all. She's got the determination and the guts, so it could happen. But who knows.

What's your prediction? Am I being overly harsh on Jillian? Who do you think lost the most weight after leaving campus? Who are you most looking forward to seeing again?

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