The Biggest Loser episode 3: Tracey’s “not the brightest bulb”

by Alex Bentley

After three weeks of season 8 of The Biggest Loser, one thing has become abundantly clear: Allen homemaker Tracey is a producer's dream. She has been front and center from the first episode, and week three was no exception.

Tracey put herself out there right away when host Allison Sweeney offered teams the opportunity to gain a two-pound advantage at the weigh-in if they simply stepped over a line. However, if they did, they would not be able to work out with the trainers that week. Much to the surprise of her teammate Mo, Tracey was the only person to choose to step across. That move, which she later attributed to panic, evoked the first of several strong anti-Tracey reactions, this one from Jillian, who said Tracey was "not the brightest bulb." Mention should also be made of Tracey's patented reaction shot of opening her eyes wide (or "crazy eyes"), which she broke out often in this episode

Next up was the season's first temptation, in which every player was presented with a plateful of cupcakes, with the person who ate the most getting to choose which person from each team whose weigh-in would count. Naturally, Tracey chose to eat, although she was joined by Antoine of the red team. However, Antoine only ate two cupcakes, while Tracey ate four. This caused Rebecca of the pink team to say, "Tracey's a little bit crazy." That feeling was echoed even more strongly by Jillian, who seemed to lose all respect for Tracey at that point, saying "That girl is crazy, bananas - b-a-n-a-n-a-s."

The challenge of the week involved carrying 500 pounds up a ramp in increments of 10 or 25 pounds. It was a relatively unexciting challenge, with half the teams choosing the 10 pound option and half choosing the 25 pound one. Both Tracey and Abby, who sustained a stress fracture in her leg, were hurt, so their partners had to do the challenge by themselves. This didn't slow down Allen, Abby's teammate, as he kept up a steady pace, winning the challenge and immunity for the green team.

At the weigh-in, Jillian went off again, ranting at Mo for not calling out Tracey for all of her crazy moves, even going so far as to say that Tracey was "full of sh**." Proving that she wasn't through with the nuttiness, Tracey then proceeded to earn the ire everyone in the room by picking the weaker players on the brown, pink, and orange teams to weigh in, even though both the pink and orange teams had asked her to choose the other teammate. When it finally came time for Tracey and Mo to weigh in, Tracey chose herself, which was somewhat of a surprise until we learned that she only had to lose three pounds, two of which she had already earned with her first decision in the episode. She actually lost a whopping 11 pounds, going from 228 to 217. A loss such as that is usually cause for much celebration, but since she had screwed over everybody else, the room was full of nothing but hate, including yet another expletive from Jillian.

The red team and the orange team ended up falling below the yellow line, with both members of each team at risk of going home. After an hour full of Tracey dishonor, the Red team finally brought some honor to the show by offering to sacrifice themselves so that Shay, the heaviest person on campus, could stay in the game. Tracey actually made the right choice this time around, casting the final vote to send Antoine and Sean home. When we next saw them, both men proved the choice correct, as they were shown to have lost 105 and 120 pounds, respectively.

Previews for next week show Tracey at the forefront yet again -- more fireworks are sure to happen.