Episode Report Card Jeff Long: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Fashionable Slide Down the Metaphorical Shower Wall
By Jeff Long | Season 8 | Episode 13 | Aired on 10.21.2010
Then, Michael says that on February 28, 2007, Richard outed him to his parents. On purpose? It wasn't like some jointly agreed upon outing? And, you're still together? I don't know. And, apparently, we're never going to know because he doesn't elaborate. So fine, I guess I'll have to judge and pick apart your situation with little evidence to back up my assumptions. FINE. Sounds like Other Michael is passive in the EXTREME and it actually makes a lot of thing clear about the way he has behaved on this show. Any way the wind blows and all that. He has succeeded mostly by being the least offensive at any moment. I'd say that's no way to live, but it actually seems to be working pretty damn well in this case. Perhaps I'll consider shutting my mouth more often. And, perhaps I'll grow a George Michael faux-stubble.
Other Michael says that his parents gave up on him for a while. Richard tells Tim that this is a big deal for Michael, which, seriously, I know we have to fill seven hours for this show now, but that's just something that everyone in that room and everyone watching so completely knows. Michael says that winning, and thus proving to his family that he can do it, would be great, but he's proud of how far he has come.
OK, here we are in Denver, where Mondo lives. There are ten days until Fashion Week. Tim knocks on his door, which has an amazingly colorful (did you think it would be anything else?) mailbox mounted beside it. Inside, there is color galore. The living room is the same room my kitchen was for four years. It's a supremely happy-making warm pink. Tim and Mondo hug. Mondo interviews something about how one day you're in and for the next couple of years you're probably out, so he doesn't want to mess this up. I'm seriously not entirely sure what he means. Is he talking about even if he wins?
OK, inspiration talk. He says that he wanted to stay true to his neighborhood, which is a predominately Mexican part of Denver. So, he started researching vintage circuses in Mexico City. He wanted something a little gritty. There's an amazing photo of a tall, exaggerated clown talking to two smiling (they must have had guns to their backs because the clown in question is terrifying) children. That led him to start looking at imagery from the Day of the Dead. Tim asks him it's one or the other and Mondo says that it is a marriage of the two ideas. Tim seems to like a lot of his collection, but sees one pink top that he finds jejune. Yes, childlike. He doesn't want Mondo to come off like he's trying too hard, but Mondo really doesn't feel like he's doing that.