Episode Report Card Potes: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Just Shoot Me
By Potes | Season 10 | Episode 12 | Aired on 05.07.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's the final four! The girls are still in Rome, and while Whitney is glad she's survived another week and Anya and Fatima are feeling confident, Dominique is annoying all the other girls by eating all the time and being generally kind of tiresome. Whitney, Anya and Fatima speak for us all when they express their surprise that she's still in the competition. The girls head to a park, where they meet Paulina and a photographer who gives them some tips about the perspective from behind the lens. They have to take their new learning and shoot a real, live model -- Paulina herself! The girls each get five minutes to photograph her, and are judged both on how well they work with their model and how their photos turn out. Fatima and Whitney are both decent photographers and manage to direct Paulina in a pleasant and professional way, while Dominique lacks vision and Anya, like, makes Paulina throw a bunch of leaves in the air and generally needs to narrow her focus and stop being such a bubblehead. Fatima is the winner, and she gets an additional 50 frames for the week's photo shoot.
And speaking of the photo shoot, this week the girls are being photographed at night while dressed as sexy 50's movie stars, photographed with their hunky male companion by the paparazzo. And Nigel is the photographer! It's a tough shoot for everybody. Anya struggles until Jay distracts her and she slips. She lucks into a good shot, which is better than any of the other girls do. Whitney struggles with her usual problem of being too posey. Fatima stinks it up even with her extra fifty poses. She seems lost, and also isn't responsive to Nigel's on-set critique or what the judges say at panel. She begins to talk about how weird it was to pose with a guy since she's never had a boyfriend, which leads to the greatest Tyra quote of the episode, and perhaps the season: "I've never been an aborigine, or a circus ringmaster, or even a geisha -- and it never stopped me." She's a true heroine for the ages, with all that she's overcome. Dominique gets an extra large side of tranny in her photo, and still has no idea how to dress. She lands in the bottom two with Fatima. In the end, Dominique goes home and is actually a really good sport about the whole thing.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on ANTM: The top six made their way to Rome, where Fatima caught the plague. This didn't stop her from walking for large and in-charge designer Gai Mattiolo. However, it was Anya who won the challenge by looking the most generally jailbait-ish. Fatima rallied for the Cover Girl commercial, which was in Italian, but Lauren couldn't break out of her punk-rock style and so got sent back to the cave that she came from. And I say that with love. The girls next had to display their posing prowess as old-school gladiators, and pose for world-renowned photographer (within her own mind) Tyra Banks. Katarzyna somehow got the idea that they were in Egypt, and so got booted back to whatever boring office job she came from. This, too, I say that with love. Four bitches remain!
Rome! The girls return to their hotel, and Whitney discusses her perilous plight of being in the bottom two for the second time in two weeks. It's really bad, she says, and so far every girl who has been in the same situation has gone home the second time. But not Whitney! The judges have faith in her. Whitney was shocked, and admits that it was nerve-wracking to almost have been cut. She doesn't want to be in that situation again, and has to prove to the judges that she does want to be there. Whitney has been nervous for the past several weeks, and now really has to make an effort to be natural and not pose-y. Still, she is the embodiment of a long and arduous struggle: That of the plus-sized girl on a reality show about modeling. America and America's Next Top Model are ready for a plus-sized model to win the competition, she says. I just busted out into a full-figured version of "We Shall Overcome." This is the first great movement of the 2000's.
The girls are feeling kind of crazy about the fact that there are only four of them left. You really have to be the best at everything -- photo shoots, challenges, dumb sound bytes -- to avoid being in the bottom two. Anya says she isn't worried about the other girls -- she just has to focus on herself and do the best job that she can do and bring it on set. What she really needs to do is apply some hot wax to her upper lip, because all that she's bringing right now is five o'clock shadow.
The girls return home, where they see lots and lots of posters of Saleisha in their apartment. Dominique tells us that she knew Saleisha would win from the moment she saw her. She then says, "I guess I'm the Saleisha of this competition." Relentlessly annoying, borderline plus-sized, horrible haircut. Yep, I think that's an accurate assessment. Dominique says that she has a headache and heads to her bedroom for a nap. As soon as she's out of earshot, the shit-talking starts. Something tells me this is a bit of a pattern in Dominique's life. Fatima says to Whitney that she is surprised that Dominique made it this far, mostly because she doesn't look like a model. Whitney agrees entirely, and notes that Dominique's most obvious flaw is her face. Even Anya gets in the action, saying that Dominique is overboard. Fatima doesn't know if she can handle Dominique anymore.