Major Challenge night once again and this time it’s possibly one of the more insidiously cruel ones they’ve come up with.

But before they can get to the challenge there’s a visit from Commando Steve, amongst other pre-challenge bits.

Who wins the challenge? Who pikes out of the Commando training? Will someone finally take a swing at him? Read on to find out!

Mel’s in for a chat with the medic today. It’s about her ankle again, she’s been to have an MRI on it. Not great news, but not game ending news either. She has a stress fracture in the heel of her foot. Will take around 6 weeks to fully heal. There’ll still be some things she can do in terms of exercise, but some things she can’t.
She heads off to tell her new partner Greg about her injury because she felt it was right to let him know first.
Greg feels sorry for her because he knows she’s not a lazy person, she trains hard.
Mel says Greg was fantastic, as Greg said not to worry about it, they’d get through it.

And now the Commando has turned up, “to sort out the weak from the strong.”
Marty and Greg were getting ready to train and see the Commando out the window. They head off to tell everyone else the bad news and the bad news.
Courtney’s not impressed, he doesn’t want to do it. He wonders if they’ll have a choice and Munnalita tells him he’s got to see what it is first.
Commando, interestingly, says it is indeed an optional excursion this time. But if they don’t go to train with him, they won’t get a trainer at all that day.
Greg steps forward first, followed shortly after by Mel, then the rest follow… except Courtney who hangs back for a while then finally caves in and joins the rest of them.

Everyone heads off together down the “Death Hill” outside the white house.
They all have camo shirts on, cool!
“Who loves running up a steep hill? I know I do!” – courtney
Commando says that anyone can run on a flat, running up a hill gets the heart rate going.
Meanwhile poor Mel is off doing “weights” with a log because of her ankle. Then some situps. Then bouncing a medicine ball? She’s actually kind of disappointed because she knows how good a workout going up that hill is so she feels like she’s missing out.
Everyone else is carrying a big thick bit of rope up the hill in a line. Then pushups on the rope. Then some more running up the hill!

Courtney’s having a bit of a bitch, saying it’s really hard, but Commando Steve says his strength and fitness have improved a lot since last time he trained him.
But mostly he’s impressed with Greg, he’s the Commando’s pick for the likely winner.
He thinks some of them are really burning it hard, others are going through the motions but still don’t really understand and don’t really want to be there.

They’re all off for the major challenge now. Upon seeing the gigantic metal contraption, Pati thinks they’re going to have to climb it and then jump off?
Ajay tells them the idea is to fill a container at the top of the 7m rig. One harnessed member of each pair needs to move 15 litres of water from a 40 gallon drum to the container at the top… And they get to use a small scoop! Probably 1 measuring cup size.
Winning duo will win a 1kg weight advantage at the weigh-in because the losing duo will have a 1kg penalty added to their weight figure.
Courtney’s being phenomenally pessimistic, saying they’re going to lose, may as well go home now, etc.
Greg just doesn’t want to lose, doesn’t want the 1kg penalty.
Marty’s pretty sure Courtney’s going to come last and he thinks it’s actually going to be rather sweet revenge in that sense!

The first time Marty moves Pati up to the top, it was really hard.
After the first time Munnalita gets lifted up, she’s actually quite confident they might win, nevermind not lose!
Greg’s trying to get Mel up and down as quick as possible, though he could feel blisters forming, he figured the damage was already done, can’t get any worse.
Munnalita is meanwhile calling down “Faster Courtneyyyy!” all the time, which doesn’t seem to be going down well. Marty thinks she was trying to motivate Courtney, but her voice was actually very negative for motivation.
Courtney’s getting pretty pissed off, his hands are shredded as well and meanwhile Munnalita is whining about how much it hurts to be sitting up in the air. Courtney’s obviously doing it really hard and then Munnalita starts screaming at him. Quick, get her down and bitchslap her!

Courtney calls up that she has no idea how hard it is, though Munnalita says she could tell, she could see it on her face.
Greg actually feels sorry for poor Courtney, getting screamed at by Munnalita. Marty is actually feeling really good because it started to look like they might not even finish!
Courtney’s not wanting to quit, but he couldn’t continue either. So they both decide to quit and go for a run instead to burn off the 1kg penalty ahead of time. At last, some smarts!

So now it’s down to Greg, Damien and Marty pulling their respective partners up the ropes.
Damien says his arms, back and legs were all hurting.
Laura says the challenge wasn’t too hard for her because she didn’t really have to do a whole lot. But she was really impressed with Damien, saying that he’s a real inspiration.
Greg pulled the mongrel out and just kept going. Marty’s trying to block out the pain because he felt like he was grabbing a handful of razorblades every time.
Damien and Laura’s seems to have more than Marty and Pati’s at the moment. Mel and Greg are gaining ground on Damien and Laura, so they’re all pulling hard, but Greg and Damien in particular are really pulling for it.

But at last, Damien and Laura win with their flag unfurling in victory. Hooray!

Sunday night is weigh-in night and, as usual, lots of fat people will be stepping up on the scales and some of them are going to be happy and some of them aren’t. Munnalita and Courtney will be carrying a 1kg penalty, which will hopefully be enough to ensure they’re under the yellow line but we’ll see!