Episode Report Card Potes: B | 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Another Brick In The Wall
By Potes | Season 9 | Episode 11 | Aired on 12.04.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's the penultimate episode of the season! Heather is gone, and the others don't miss her. Jenah is getting stressed, psyched out, and homesick, which doesn't bode well. The others maintain their focus, with Bianca ready to cut a bitch to get into the final three, Chantal still convinced that modeling is her density, and Saleisha roller skating right along. As promised, the girls head to Beijing, where they get a lesson in four great Chinese beauties from Twiggy and Miss J. They think it's another culturally irrelevant snoozefest, until they're given the beauties' outfits to modernize and catwalk-ize. They get $200 and a trip to the mall, and are instructed to stay true to the story of their beauty. Bianca exhibits her stankest move yet as she sends Jenah on a wild Peking duck chase across the street, whence she has just come and found absolutely zilch. Jenah is mad, but she still manages to win the challenge. Yay! I love when stank Bianca is foiled. Jenah and her chosen friend, Chantal, get Chinese couture dresses made just for them. Or, it appears, altered just for them. Jenah also gets a one-on-one runway lesson with Miss J., who actually seems to give her some good tips. The week's photo shoot takes place at the Great Wall, where the girls get to be the Mongols and Barbarians that they secretly are inside. Tyra is the photographer, which brings out some extra nerves in Jenah. Saleisha jumps in her shoot, and is treated like she's the second coming of Jesus. Or Tyra. The girls also do a photo together, and Bianca wants to kill Saleisha for getting her bun all up in Bianca's grille. At panel, Jenah breaks down a bit as she talks about being homesick and being a role model for her sisters. The judges wonder if she really wants to be there, and if she can hack it. Conversely, the judges are sure that Bianca wants to be there, but don't know if there's time for her to embark on the very extended learning curve that she needs. They land in the bottom two. In the end, the fact that Bianca is really fun to have around isn't enough to save her, and she's booted back to Queens. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on ANTM: Go-sees! Heather wandered the streets like a little lost lamb with a mild form of autism, while Bianca and her big smile performed best with the Shanghai designers. Bianca's momentum faded at the week's photo shoot, however, and Jenah's cocky attitude was on display, much to Nigel's displeasure. In the end, it was to be the week when Heather got the pity kill. Final four, bitches!
We begin with the girls returning home after elimination and finding Heather Mail. They seem quite jolly, but Jenah interviews that she's sad to see Heather go, and Heather's been kicking ass since they were all just a gleam in Tyra's glass eye. Yes, Tyra is the Sandy Duncan of supermodels, and the Sammy Davis Jr. of third-rate talk show hosts. Didn't know that, did you? Bianca begins reading the Heather Mail, which is actually for Jenah. Jenah interviews that Heather had a great look, but had a hard time communicating in general. Not, apparently, in her letter, which says that she came into the competition not even expecting to make friends or get far. She got far, the letter says, but she didn't make friends -- she made family. Awww. Bianca, never one to let a touching moment lie, exclaims that that doesn't sound like Heather, and interviews that Heather was zoned out in her own world and not even trying, so it doesn't make a difference when she's not there. Cold! Bianca is like family if your surname is Menendez.
The girls pack up for Beijing, and their little plane delivers them right in the middle of a shrine to Chairman Mao. If you buzzed him a little on the sides, he'd actually bear quite a striking resemblance to Bianca. Kevin the tour guide greets the girls, and shows them the sights. There is also a fair amount of prattling, as Jenah tells the other girls that she really couldn't see herself going home. She explains to us that she was in the bottom two, and also demonstrates that all the talk about her sarcastic attitude hasn't sunk in as she says that being in the bottom two is the best feeling in the world, and we should try it. She's overstressed, and says she can't let it affect her anymore, because it's a recipe for a breakdown. Throw in a little EVOO and Rachel Ray will 30-minute her into the nearest sanitarium. Chantal interviews that Jenah is falling apart, and can't pull it together. And speaking of Chantal, she tells the others again that modeling is her destiny. Bianca interviews that Chantal is perky all the time, and she just wants her to shut up. She actually raises a hand while she says this, which is actually a bit menacing.
The girls wind up at a beautiful garden, where they encounter a bunch of folks in traditional garb. Except for Miss J. and Twiggy, that is, who are being carried in like the empresses they are. As she and J. walk up on a stage, Twiggy says that they're going to take the girls back to celebrate a culture that has influenced fashion in so many ways. The girls started on a journey of thirteen girls and are now down to four and, coincidentally, there were four famous beauties in Chinese history. Just four? In all of China, throughout all of history? Very well, then. We see four women dressed in elaborate costumes, who act out each beauty as Twiggy and J. tell us about them. The first beauty was named Dioachan, from the third century Three Kingdoms period. She was said to have a face that would make the moon shy away behind the clouds in embarrassment. It's the same with Jenah, except the moon shies away behind the clouds in horror when it sees itself reflected in her incisors.