Episode Report Card Al Lowe: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Models Do Some Charity Work
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 03.12.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Listen, America. What really IS wrong with you? Because you've voted, and Casey has been sent home. All right, so he walks a little funny and has about as much emotional strength as a pre-teen girl at a Jonas Brothers concert, but...did you get a good look at his face? The young man is stunning! Already reeling from having lost his only remaining dude in the house, Perry is further devastated to finally learn the details of his girlfriend's fifteen nanoseconds of fame in the tabloids. He is devastated, but determined to use this tragedy to become a stronger contender in the contest. Everybody is getting testy now, as they near the end. Ronnie, once so beloved by all, is putting himself on the bitch seat, even. When they are all flown off to New Orleans for a gothic photo shoot in a cemetery with a raven named Dennis (really), he and Shannon don't work very well together, and when she goes to do some shots without him, he bitches about her behind her back with Ben. Everyone goes out for a night on the town where they all get drunk and have fun together before going the next day to help work on a Katrina rehab site. It might have been cheesy, but it's endearing, really. Back in New York, Perry's lonely without a roommate, and Ronnie and Ben connive against the girls. The catwalk assignment this week is that each of them should choreograph their own gothic fashion show. Shannon immediately takes control, and can't really collaborate well with anyone. They end putting something together that turns out pretty well, and everyone looks great in the clothes. During the Q&A, Ronnie throws Shannon under the bus, and she gets pissed. They have a little verbal sparring match, and it doesn't make either of them look good. The judges, to my great delight, are very rational in their critiques in this episode, and point out some of the models' real, but fixable, flaws. For this week only, they'll put two models up for the vote instead of three. Holly is again named the winner of the week, making her safe, and into the pit go Shannon (for the first time, ever) and Ronnie. Catfight! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Casey wakes up on the morning of his potential elimination and throws stuff at Perry until he, too, becomes conscious so that they can have a conversation not about how Casey is nervous that he might go home, but all about Perry. I must pause here to say how absolutely, unbelievably gorgeous Casey is. Even first thing in the morning? He's lying there looking totally studly in a T-shirt reading "I was hired for my looks." If only someone would make him a supermodel... Perry laments Casey's possible booting, going on and on about how if Casey goes, he'll be left all alone with no one with whom to make up skits or make jokes. Aw. I suppose this is how narcissists say "I love you (but not as much as I love myself)."Meanwhile, in the next room, Ben desperately tries to hang on to Ronnie's love, moaning about how it's possible that one of them will go home. Ronnie responds with some canned stuff, and Ben scrambles for the camera, saying that the Bloomingdale's fiasco of last week taught him a lot. "I don't know what got into my head," he says, "but I just had a bad day." Ronnie waxes philosophical: "We're our own worst obstacles," he says, flubbing it from the start. "Whether it be confidence, not thinking we're sexy enough, not thinking we've got it..." Ben throws his smarts in the ring: "... thinking too much." Hell, maybe these geniuses deserve each other.
Shannon teases Holly that she wants her "secret lover," Ben to come back, but really, Holly says, she only wants him to stay because Casey and Ronnie get on her nerves. See? She used to love Ronnie, too, but clearly since he's gotten really competitive about things, he's changed.
At the catwalk, Tyson is looking fly in his peach v-neck, even when he does the unthinkable and sends Casey home. Oh, yeah. No sense in dragging it out, people. I've run out of ways to describe the pausing, drumming, cutting, sweating, faux-intensity of the elimination. It's illegal that Casey is gone and Ben is still there. Even in his dumb organ-grinder's coat, Casey looks fantastic. He receives the news with a pained look, and thanks the panel for the amazing adventure. You know, I love Casey's pigeon-toed walk. He's sexy, and cute, and probably a very nice person when he's not being controlled by someone like Perry. He's just really young and kind of dumb, but surely someone will give him a contract. Backstage, he talks about how much he's learned about himself and how he's going to take that and run with it. Back on the panel, Cory tells Ben to his face that America voted wrong this week. Right on, Cory. Dismissed, Ronnie and Ben walk off stage with their arms around each other. At the house, Holly, Shannon and Perry have the dumbest debate of the series. Holly says she wants Casey to go, because he's just been mediocre so far. Perry, instead of defending his beloved dude, wonders why she wouldn't want the weakest links to stay. Holly and Shannon both say they want to have competition -- that out-performing people who are also good makes them look even better. Of course, I could go either way on this. I hate to side with Perry, but he's both trying to be a model and win this game, and the ladies may have forgotten about that second part. "I just want to win," Perry says. Shannon further slams Casey, saying he's just scrounged by somehow throughout the competition. Um, possibly he's scrounged by because he's more beautiful than any man or woman on the show? Shannon's getting the shaft edit this week, after so many weeks of positive spin, and it's jarring. Remember that.