'The Biggest Loser' recap: One Step Closer

Image credit: Chris Haston/NBC

WRONG PLAY

Allen made the wrong appeal to Amanda and got himself sent home

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Last night on Product Placement, The Series: Multi-grain cheerios were affordable and accessible! Brita made the tap water healthy and tasty! TD Ameritrade sponsored one challenge (reward: A TD Ameritrade account!) and the NFL sponsored another (reward: a free ticket to the Pro Bowl, also known as Not The Super Bowl.) An uncannily lifelike wax statue of Suze Orman came to life and taught us all a very important lesson about obesity economics. You can see the Suze Orman wax statue every weekend on her CNBC variety show, The Suze Orman Wax Statue Show.

Let's get it straight: the product placement on last night's Biggest Loser was egregious. The episode should have felt climactic. Instead, it felt like filler. It felt padded out. It felt, and I apologize for saying this because it sounds like a bad pun, flabby.

And there was so much promise! At the beginning of the episode, The Final Five were sitting in the living room, having just come from last week's Rebecca vs. Rudy throwdown. Allen: ''That was… intense.'' Amanda was not happy. Her friends were gone. The remaining contestants were allied against her. ''If I fall below the yellow line, I'm going home.''

Interesting. Dramatic. Unfortunately, that's when Ali Sweeney stepped out from the shadows with a surprise guest: ''America's favorite financial expert, Suze Orman!''

Financial Advice: Fat Man, Thin Wallet
Orman had lots of interesting statistics to offer (America spends $57 billion more on obesity than cancer), but her whole portion of the episode felt like a loud, obnoxiously tanned PowerPoint presentation.

There was one interesting moment. Suze asked Liz, ''You happily married?'' Liz: ''We're working on it.'' ''Has money ever come between you?'' ''Yes, all the time.'' ''More than weight?'' ''Oh, definitely!'' We got a brief, tantalizing hint of Liz' home life. People don't just eat in a vacuum. (Right during this deeply personal moment, the bottom of the screen lit up: ''Watch the Suze Orman Show, Saturday at 9 PM!'')

Listen, I'm not asking that The Biggest Loser take us on a Dr. Drew-style journey through the contestants' dirty emotional laundry. I just want to know more about these people. All season long, all we've ever heard about Allen is that he's a firefighter. But on Leno, he explained that he had four jobs: County Coroner, Owner of a Catering Business, Firefighter, and some other mysterious occupation. How did we not hear this all season? This show is Two. Freaking. Hours. Per week.

NEXT: Are you ready for some football?