Episode Report Card Potes: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT What Are You, an Immigrant?
By Potes | Season 12 | Episode 4 | Aired on 03.25.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The week starts off with a visit from former Top Model contestant Toccara, who comes bearing product-placed sleepwear and a lesson about having and using personality. She spends the night and assesses that this bunch of bitches needs to let go and get interesting. The girls then head off to a posing lesson with Benny Ninja and former model/current DJ Sky Nellor. They learn about the relationship between music and fashion and get critiqued as they use music to motivate their poses. Allison is nervous and shy, and Kortnie is generally kind of lame. The girls must take what they've learned to one of the most intimidating challenges yet -- a pose-off in front of an audience full of queens who have been encouraged to clap or boo as they see fit. The girls have sequined dresses and blonde wigs and two posing heats. Celia, a drag queen on the inside, wins the first heat easily and Natalie takes the second. The two go head to head in a final pose-off, and while Celia learns the benefits of working a garment, Natalie almost falls a whole bunch of times. Celia wins by a landslide and even earns the coveted gay finger wave. Fierce. Meanwhile, the queens break poor Tahlia, who says multiple times that she wants to go home because she thinks the competition is doing her more harm than good. The other girls pity her for a minute, but also feel that it's not fair for her to be there if she threatens to go home every time she does poorly. They prepare a revolt if she's not eliminated. The photo shoot for the week has the girls recreating immigrant photos of the past with the aid of an old fashioned 8 x 10 camera. They must stand very still so that the camera can capture the image, but also give a dynamic fashion pose with their husband, Benny Ninja, and gaggle of multi-ethnic kids standing by. Tahlia does surprisingly well, and her photo is deemed the best of the week. Sandra is disconnected and generally a pill, and Kortnie is sour and dead-eyed. They land in the bottom two, and it is Kortnie who is given the boot. Despite all common sense, Celia decides to pipe up about Tahlia's wish to go home. Tyra tells her in no uncertain terms to stifle, and Celia is screwed for eternity.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on America's Next Top Model: The bags walked down the runway with bags, all for the love of designer Jill Stuart. Then they posed in duos and trios all around New York, and in some cases on a bus. Nijah couldn't overcome her dead eyes and she was eliminated. Ten bitches remain!
It is night in the Top Model house, and the girls return home following elimination. Sandra sees her best-of-the-week photo displayed as digital art (minus Celia, who is unceremoniously cropped out in a bit of foreshadowing, indicating what Tyra is going to want to do to her actual self in T-56 minutes) and notes that she looks hot. She confessionalizes that she finally redeemed herself with that bomb-ass picture. And yet, the rest of the girls in the house still want to bomb her ass. It's faux-demption, really. Sandra adds that having the best picture shows that she's better than all the other girls. She's sure that they're feeling the same thing. Indeed, I have an inferiority complex just from hitting the pause on my DVR as Sandra is on screen. In actuality, of course, Aminat, Tahlia and Fo confirm with each other that 1) Sandra's photo wasn't even the best of the week; 2) it would be awesome if she went home. Speaking of Tahlia, the judges finally said some nice stuff to her at the last panel, and it's boosted her confidence. She's still homesick, she interviews, but she does want to be in the competition because she knows she can do this. This of course means that Tahlia has gone from no confidence to false confidence, because, as lovely a girl as she might be, she is for sure no kind of model.
The girls are hanging around the house aimlessly when, unexpectedly, the doorbell rings. It's a special guest! And how! It's Toccara from Cycle 3! We flash back to Toccara's interview before the panel at auditions, and she snaps and says she's big, black, beautiful, and lovin' it. Just like a double quarter-pounder! Do you remember how Toccara kept a rotisserie chicken by her bed, just in case she woke up and wanted a midnight snack? She is truly the best. Natalie interviews that Toccara really went far, and is every girl's inspiration. She's my inspiration for losing her shit all over those Celebrity Fit Club assholes, for sure.
Anyway, Toccara screams that she is fabulous, spelled F-A-B-O. ZOMG, she's illiterate like Fantasia! Someone call Lifetime! Anyway, Toccara has decided that she and the girls are going to have a slumber party, which is great cause for celebration. She has been kind enough to bring them PJs from her favorite designer, Mira Kelis. Celia tells us that this was a very sweet gesture, because she has never heard of product placement. Once everyone's in their PJs, Toccara tells the girls that Tyra sent her over to talk about personality, which she has in abundance. Toccara explains that, in the modeling/entertainment business, you must have both great personality and confidence. She then tells the girls to be themselves, which runs counter to the advice she just gave them about having personality. Sigh. Toccara adds that if you have something to say, you should speak up. Now she's getting into some dicey territory, and I wish that Top Model's legendary Foreshadowing of Doom could give us a thunderclap or something for emphasis.