Episode Report Card Potes: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Kim Gets A Toaster
By Potes | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.20.2005
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Top Model is back, Beverly Hills-style! Tyra and co. make thirty-six hopefuls spill their sob stories before either cutting them or subjecting them to further humiliation in a final group of twenty. After a mock runway show and a one-on-one session with Tyra (surprise!), the group is cut to thirteen finalists, including a lesbian, a strayed Jehovah's witness, a Texas beauty queen, and a broad-shouldered klutz with duck lips. The final thirteen then go on a tour of stars' homes with Robin Leach (no, I am not kidding), settle in their pimped-out Beverly Hills pad, walk in another mock runway show, experiment with same-sex smooching, and attend their first photo-shoot in which they are dressed as superheroes and fly Peter Pan-style on a harness before one of the blonde-ish girls gets kicked off. It all sounds kind of exciting but, well...I'm not saying that this season is going to be boring, but where once there were bitches pouring beer on weaves, there is now shopping for Chapstick and arguing over Ramen Noodles. Step it up, bitches. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on ANTM: Thirty-six bitches, twenty bitches, thirteen bitches. And, after a brief commercial break, we are thrust directly into the second episode of the two-part premiere. We are at the Beverly Hills city hall, where the finalists are met by the two Jays. Jay Manuel is tastefully dressed in all black, which makes him look like the jack-o-lantern version of Johnny Cash. Ashley interviews that she was expecting a challenge, but the Jays have other things in store. Jay tells the girls that Beverly Hills is where stars are made, and that, to be a top model you need to look and be like a star. J. Alexander adds that they'll try to make the girls look like stars, but that only one can be the real star of America's Next Top Model. They're like a modern-day Hepburn and Tracy, these two, with their clever patter.
Jay adds that the girls will be going on a tour of stars' homes and says that only one person could give such a tour. He instructs everyone to give it up for...Robin Leach. Yes, that's right. The powers that be at UPN decided to go au courant and high-fashion and get Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach to show the girls around Beverly Hills. It is rumored that, in an upcoming episode, Uncle Milty will be escorting them on their go-sees. The girls whoop it up like they have any idea who Robin Leach is. Robin tells the girls to "come on down" and get on a double-decker bus, and for a second I think Bob Barker will be the driver. This show has become an AARP convention. Ashley says that all she could think of was champagne wishes and caviar dreams, while Lisa marvels that Robin Leach is still alive.
Robin says that he wanted to start the tour with a bit of champagne, but given all the under agedness going on, apple cider will have to do. He hands the bottle to Lisa, who takes a big swig sans glass. Some of the girls laugh, but Cassandra interviews that Lisa is a classless whore: "Even though I may have been raised more privileged than some people, there's no reason to rub that in people's faces." Cassandra also looks vaguely like a warthog, but doesn't want to rub that in people's faces either. The girls toast to America's Next Top Model.
The tour first rolls down Rodeo Drive. Sarah says that she's from Boonville, Missouri, and that Los Angeles is like a movie to her. Bound, perhaps. Robin tells the girls that Beverly Hills has the most expensive real estate in the world and is home to "all the top fashion people," such as Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Elle MacPherson, and Methuselah. He says, "When you're a top model, this is where you'll live!" If you don't want to work, that is, or have designs on becoming the next Oprah, but tackier.