'Biggest Loser' recap: Coaches put kids first

On Monday's episode of "The Biggest Loser," contestants at the ranch got thrown a big curve when their trainers announced they would be spending the week with the three kids working out at home, leaving the adults on their own for the week.

After fighting to train themselves and find their own discipline, the adults found themselves at a much more somber weigh in than last week, and suffice it to say there were no happy dances at the end of it.

Coaches Bob Harper, Dolvett Quince and Jillian Michaels spent the week visiting the three kids on the show: Lindsay, Sunny and Biingo (yes, with two i's.) Harper heard how Biingo's family had been forced to sell their home and move into the basement of another family member's home, uprooting him from all his friends as they struggled to get back on their feet.

And more importantly, how Biingo's mom has now lost 27 pounds herself.

Michaels also explored some issues behind Sunny's weight, namely the pressure of feeling her family has predetermined her life and career path to be a doctor, and the pressure of the classwork to try to meet that expectation. Michaels helped Sunny talk to her mother about opening up to other possibilities, as well.

Bear crawls vs. bear clawsBear crawls vs. bear claws

It was nice to see the coaches outside the context of screaming and slave-driving the adults for a bit. And to see that Michaels isn't quite so perfect when she decided to try to learn rowing along with Sunny.

She is human after all, and not a cyborg that could scare a Terminator into working out. Well, every now and then she's human, anyway.

But then, of course, the coaches came back to the ranch, and any niceties were done for the week. With only two members of her team left, Michaels had plenty of time to get into other contestants' faces, and obviously Jeff has not seen the show before, or he'd have known better than to talk back to Michaels.

Could you just see the collective look of fear on viewers' faces at that moment? The moment when everyone thought, "Dude... are you seriously doing that? Really?"

Yes, he did.

Michaels banished him back to the blue team, while Harper helplessly watched the fiasco. Michaels started insisting she didn't care, and Harper kept saying "Don't say that, that's not true." It was like watching an old married couple.

But as a wise person once asked to me when I was angry and insisting I didn't care about something, "If you don't care, why are you so pissed off?"

Touche.

Anyway, the contestants marched on to the next weigh-in, with the white team holding at only two members, meaning if they lost the weigh-in, the one with the lowest weight loss for the week would be automatically eliminated.

Danni and Pam survived last week as Pam lost nine pounds, making her the biggest loser of the week out of everyone. But as anyone who has watched the show knows, a big number one week usually means a crummy number the next.

Danni got on the scale and the white team had to lose a total of more than 12 pounds to avoid elimination after the other two teams weighed in. Danni lost six pounds this week, meaning Pam had to lose seven or more. It was clear the two, who have become very close in the last few weeks, knew the odds were against them, and that one of them was about to lose their rock of suppport at the ranch.

Pam, who danced with joy after the last weigh-in, wasn't surprised when the scale showed a loss of only three pounds, automatically eliminating her. But she went out with class, knowing she had done her best and assuring Danni she would do well.

She did, however, do some dancing for us in her post-show update on her progress and she's still going strong. And of all the things she took home with her, perhaps the most important thing Pam learned on the ranch was the difference between a bear crawl and a bear claw (see the hilarious video.)

Tune in to "The Biggest Loser" Monday nights on NBC at 8 p.m. ET. Subscribe for updates and recaps of all the episodes.