The Biggest Loser week 8: Tracey takes the long way home

by Alex Bentley

Contestants on The Biggest Loser, like a lot of people on reality shows, are given special treatment all the time in order to heighten the drama of the show. In the case of Loser, those special treats have included meeting celebrities, having lunch/dinner cooked for them by a famous chef, and getting to go home for a week.

This week's special treat was a trip to Washington, D.C. for the entire group, and the way that everybody fell over themselves praising the place, you would've thought they were going to Bora Bora or something. I mean, it's cool, but not that cool. The angle for going to D.C. was for the contestants to spread their knowledge with the U.S. populace at large.

The mission started with a "pop challenge" in which the contestants (now competing as individuals instead of teams) had to gather as many people off the streets as they could to come and work out in front of the Washington Monument. A few hours later, Liz was declared the winner, winning a to-be-determined advantage in the episode's main challenge.

After a mass workout in which Jillian delighted in harassing non-contestants and a meeting with a couple of senators, it was on to the main challenge, which consisted of four steps. Liz's advantage was the ability to skip any of the first three activities. The first challenge was a mile run around Constitution Gardens, which brought out the first of a plethora of flashbacks to Tracey's collapse during the mile run in the premiere episode. Despite some tears, Tracey persevered this time, although she didn't come close to qualifying for the second activity (only six did, with Rebecca, Daniel, Allen, Amanda, Rudy, and Liz moving on).

The second was a looong one in which everybody would run up and down a set of stairs, gather as many of 17,000+ pennies as they could at the bottom, and then dump them in marked cylinders at the top. Liz chose to sit that one out, which was a smart decision -- in addition to the strenuous exercise, that penny smell can be hard to shake. Rudy easily won, with Daniel and Rebecca winning the other two spots.

The third involved balancing on ledges that just happened to be in front of the U.S. Capitol while also holding Pilates balls above their head. Daniel dropped out relatively quickly and Liz soon followed, leaving Rudy and Rebecca to fight it out in the final step(s) -- the first to take 206 steps on a platform in front of the White House. Why 206? Because that is the exact number of contestants who have competed on the U.S. version of The Biggest Loser. It kind of seemed apropos of nothing, but Rebecca (being younger and much lighter) easily won the challenge and immunity at the weigh-in.

After a particularly egregious Extra gum ad (also shilled in this episode were Jet Blue and Subway), the group got to eat lunch at the White House. No, no Obama was in sight, but they did get to pick Michelle Obama's community garden clean of vegetables for a salad, which everybody oohed and ahhed over. The last chance workout stayed in D.C., with Tracey and Jillian facing off and finally coming to terms with each other. And it's a good thing they did...

The contestants weighed in at the Lincoln Memorial. All of the guys had no problem with the week away from the ranch, as Daniel (11), Allen (9), Danny (12), and Rudy (9) all put up big numbers. Shay finally got under 400 pounds, dropping 9 pounds to get to 393, while Amanda dropped a very respectable 7 pounds to get to 207. Since Rebecca (4) had immunity, that left Tracey (3) and Liz (3) under the yellow line. Despite a desperate plea to stay in the game, Tracey's earlier game-playing did her in, with everybody but Shay voting her out.

Tracey's whole run on The Biggest Loser was full of drama, and naturally her trip home was out of the ordinary. Instead of walking into her house like every other contestant, she flew in a helicopter and landed in the middle of an Allen city park. And then, instead of showing her living life at home, the producers brought her back to California to run the mile from the premiere episode again (cue the flashbacks!). Having lost 44 pounds on the show, she was shown to have dropped another 41 pounds at home.

So long, Tracey -- you may not have been the most liked contestant in the show's history, but you certainly were one of the most memorable ones.

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