Episode Report Card Jeff Long: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT What's The Skinny?
By Jeff Long | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 12.11.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The challenge this week is presented by Heidi on the runway. She brings out a group of everyday women. They have all recently lost a significant amount of weight, and are wearing their favorite outfit pre-weight loss. So, the designers' challenge is to create an everyday look for the ladies, using the materials from before they lost weight.
Meanwhile, Jack begins to suffer from a staph infection in his face that made his lip swell like crazy. He calls his doctor, who recommends aggressive treatment, so Jack tearfully leaves the show. Before his dress form has even cooled, though, Tim brings back Chris March!
Some of the designers have a pretty easy time, while others are stumped from the get-go. Steven works with a lady's white polyester wedding dress. Hideous. Chris is behind everyone else in terms of progress on his design, so he is allowed to work overnight in the workroom.
Ricky's model tells him that she feels pretty in his design and he starts crying. AND he cries about it again in an interview. Don't anybody loan Ricky your Terms of Endearment DVD. There could be problems.
On the runway, the highlights are Christian, Kevin, and Jillian. Jillian doesn't even use the original garment, but the judges don't seem to care since the dress she made is so good. Kevin turns a blazer into a really sexy top that the model really seems to love. Christian updates his client's jeans and black shirt look without offending her rather staid preferences. He wows the judges and is chosen as the winner of this challenge. He gets immunity for the next challenge!
The bottom three are Chris, Steven, and Elisa. Chris is once again told that his work is too costume-y. Elisa's design looks like her, but it doesn't look like the client. Patrick Robinson, the head designer for Gap and the guest judge, thinks that perhaps Elisa was pushing her own ideas onto her client. Steven's outfit is a mess. It looks like a French maid outfit, or so say all of the judges. Michael Kors is practically speechless. Heidi still has her voice, though, and she informs Steven that he is out. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously: The designers created modern collections from outdated trends. Chris missed the memo about the "modern" part and got booted for his irrelevant, costume-y outfit, while Jillian won the challenge.
Here we are, and it's morning at the New Gotham apartments. Jillian is eating some tasty-looking pastry, which surprises me. I mean, she's thinner than the models. How do pastries fit into that lifestyle?
Sweet P laments, via interview and in the apartment, the elimination of Chris. She loved him, and feels that there will be a void in the workroom now that he's gone. His energy was joyous and delightful and she thinks it really sucks that he won't continue in the competition. Hear, hear.
In the boys' apartment, Jack is holding a cold compress to his mouth. Uh-oh. Is it just me, or has news of this moment been impossible to avoid? I tried my best to avoid it, but the scene with him crying was shown during the previews for the season, and it was talked about virtually everywhere. Anyway, I already knew something weird was going to happen with Jack, and a cold compress is never a good sign. Jack wonders aloud to Kevin if he can sew with one hand for a day, while covering his apparently deformed face. Jack then interviews (looking totally normal) that for a few days, he has had what he thought was a pimple in his nose. It's interesting that Jack looks to be preparing to tell us about a grave health matter, yet still seems embarrassed to admit that he may have had a pimple. Then, back in the apartment, we see a glimpse of his face without the hand. He looks bad. It's like The Joker; his upper lip is swollen to the point of immobility. I'm also reminded of Meg Ryan circa 2002. I'm just being descriptive here; I don't find his situation funny at all. He continues his interview, explaining that he has had several staph infections before. He hopes that this flare-up isn't a staph infection, but he's concerned. With good reason -- from what I've heard, the recovery from a staph infection is pretty arduous. (I can't stop writing "staph infection.")
Jack makes a joke to Kevin about having collagen injected. Then we see Ricky and Rami sitting around, and offscreen, Christian (I think) mumbles, "I'm tired." Ricky says, "Get over it. Let's go." If you weren't listening closely, it really looked like Ricky told Jack to "Get over it." I'm no Ricky fan -- for real, the crying is killing me -- but let the record show that he didn't tell Jack to "get over" his staph infection.