"America's Top Model is about dreams, plain and simple," the voice-over punditry of Tyra "Tyra, Pants On Fyra" Banks shares with us from its disembodied, godlike perch. "And it's about accomplishing these dreams through hard work, talent, and passion." And sheer, mind-blowing bitchcakes, flame-broiled on high and tossed back up in the restaurant's bathroom stall with a carefully placed finger at the back of the soft palate. A career retrospective's worth of Tyra headshots and b-roll fly before our eyes as she continues introducing herself through the fine art of hiring herself as her own publicist, informing us, "I worked my butt off to get to the top of the modeling industry." Oh, is that what informs the frequently-noted butt-free quality of the average model's body? See, because I thought it was a thirty million pack of Diet Coke and a big Hoover-looking thing that sucks the offending cellulite right outta said butt. But it's just the work. And now we know. And all my teachers said UPN wasn't educational television.
Now, let me preface by saying this: I didn't watch so much as one minute of last season. But let me also say that, having watched one episode of this season...well, I get it. Tyra agrees that past is past, regaling us with the one-sentence glory that was the fifteen minutes of first-season winner Adrienne's fame, adding, "But this business moves fast, and fashion waits for no one." After a "nationwide search" (and I'm just saying, but no one came to my door) that we see in a millisecond montage of skinny girls picking up telephones, Tyra discovered twelve fresh faces: from all "ethnicities" (shot of an African-American girl) "figures" (shot of a girl who owes her doctor a sizable chunk of change, not to mention Dupont's entire supply of saline products), including "edgy" (girl in a ripped shirt); "waif" (girl who got lost on her way to audition for American Juniors); "plus-size" (girl who's really skinny); and "petite" (girl who's really skinny). Tyra all but sneers that each of these girls believes that she has "it," which she signifies with giant hand-quotes, because everyone knows that the correct grammatical purpose of quotes is always to signal emphasis, such as in the sentiments "Please Do Not 'Smoke' Here or I Know Your Breasts Are 'Fake.'"
Opening credits. A "W" train chugs on an outdoor track. I can literally see my house from here. We meet twelve girls we're going to meet again a hundred more times. Theme songs are played. Phat beats not in short supply.
New York! Home of the bravest, finest, rudest, fastest, richest, me-ist, and top model-iest. The skyline looms as public transportation not one of these women would dare buy a designer Metrocard for zooms by. Meanwhile, twelve skinny girls wander the streets. The screen splits itself into four frames because these Mike Figgis-directed reality shows always have the auteur's personal stamp on them someplace, don't they? One of the women, possessing a southern accent and an "ask my about my children...SERIOUSLY, DO IT" t-shirt stashed away in her luggage asks a passerby where she might find Broad Street. Wherever you are, keep going south. Meanwhile, having already found Broad and Water (what is this, The Amazing Race: Manhattan Island? I'm sure half these bitches took taxis anyway, but even half of the taxicabs in New York would be like, "Broad and Water? Is that even in New York?" The correct answer is a tentative, "Sooooort of"), a blonde girl sits on her suitcase, embodying the young-girl- about-to-be- corrupted-by- the-devious-ways- of-the-old-and- infirm-and-in- their-mid-twenties reality-show archetype. She is soon to be joined by a very tall African-American girl wearing hoop earrings Siegfried and Roy's tigers used to jump through flaming versions of before that whole ouchy faster-pussycat-kill-kill thing we don't have time for here, and sporting her hair in a bandanna. She introduces herself as Xiomara, which has its phonetic origins less closely to a name and more closely to the sentiment "See you tomorrow." And I hate people whose names are whole sentences. Except you Native folks among us, who are named that way by tradition. Particularly "He Runs With Djb's Recaps." I love that guy. Thanks for reading, buddy.
SeeYouTomorrow flexes her arm and shows off the best of her I-have-just- danced-out-of-the-video- for-Paula-Abdul's- Cold-Hearted-Snake ensemble, from her black tank top to her Bedazzled black belt. Oh, and army fatigues. Because she loves the troops, is why. She shakes Blondie's hand, the latter of whom introduces herself veeeeeeeeeery quietly as "Catie." A quick cut later, another girl approaches, and SeeYouTomorrow barely registers her, communicating that "I do not have any change, scrappy beggar" glance of horror I have a feeling we'll get to know in a big, big hurry. But, it turns out, that girl is Anna, the token "plus-size" model whose weight must top out...almost in the triple digits! She's fuller than the rest, of that there is no doubt. But in that relative way where people get the McNuggets because they're "less unhealthy" than anything else on the menu. Not any of these girls, mind you. Including Anna. Because of how not fat I mean to explain she is. Or is not. Oh, never mind.
A big, pimping coach bus pulls up to the corner. The interior looks like the limo I would take to a prom if I had been asked to go to said prom by Tenacious D. It's enormous and all leather, ridiculously ostentatious for any age group, tour group, or '80s hair-metal band. SeeYouTomorrow tells us in her very first confessional that they were picked up in a "rock-star bus." For the band Stryper, maybe. SeeYouTomorrow is twenty-five and from Morganville, NJ. And my thighs are sticking to those seats just looking at them.
Oh, look. They can talk. A lightning-quick cut later (because if that bus montages under 50 miles per hour, look out), we're in the getting-to-know-you chatty stage. Anna kicks things off by telling her two new best friends (and, I mean, considering the stakes and the reputation of this show and the cliché of girls spending long periods of time competing for something, why wouldn't they all be close as sisters?) about the husband and two-year-old son she left at home. And I guess "husband" must have been the Pee-wee's Playhouse Word Of The Day, because SeeYouTomorrow goes crazy when she hears it. Anna is twenty-four and from LaGrange, Georgia, and her life flashes before our eyes in the same film stock they used to film the videotape scenes in The Ring, as we montage through shots of Anna playing with her son and hugging her husband on September 5, 2003 at 7:15 PM, if that date stamp is to be believed. Back on the bus (seeeeeeeven daaaaaaaays), Catie pipes up, asking Anna what her husband thinks of her ditching the family to try for a job where the luckiest people don't have stretch marks and travel constantly and are never, ever, ever with their families. Anna says her husband thinks that's fine. Ring. Hello? Seven days! HELLO? Click.
Catie is eighteen (awwww!) and from Willmar, Minnesota (guuuuh?), and she confessionalizes that the bus "picks up more girls," apparently because she didn't say anything else compelling enough for the producers to use for her introductory shot. She's really, really blonde. Her nose seems to get smaller every time I look at it. Maybe it's still healing.
And yes, Catie. It's true. Other girls do start getting on the bus. One of them (who hasn't confessionalized yet, so she hasn't technically been introduced) confirms that Catie is eighteen, and we learn that she graduated early from high school to move out to L.A. to pursue modeling. Odd that my parents didn't go for that when I pitched it during my senior year of high school. Catie wants to be a model because she "likes to be the center of attention." That's the reason she wants to be a model? Well, Catie, there are plenty of other vocations where a creepy vibe of tabloid voyeurism is part of the job description as well. So if this doesn't work out, we'll definitely be seeing you again on or America's Top Ben Affleck's Girlfriend or America's Top Presidential Assassin. I would also suggest that "reality-show contestant" might be a better career for you than "model," but it seems you're a couple of steps ahead of me there.
April (twenty-three, Miami), on the other hand, tells the other girls, "This is such a derail for my life." We learn via RingCam that April used to work for "a Fortune 500 company" doing something with "business accounts," but that it "wasn't enough" for her. But applying for this gig, she says, she just did "for fun." I don't know what her job description was at the Fortune 500 company that left her so unfulfilled, but if I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with transparent passive-aggressiveness and opening a resort called Mount Face where ants and other tiny insects could race, slalom, and snowboard down her mangled ski-slope nose job. A procedure I'm sure she just needed for work managing business accounts at a Fortune 500 company.
Yoanna is twenty-three and from Jacksonville, Florida, the state where reality-show participants are grown and harvested (beating close second "Wisconsin" and third "the pharmaceutical industry, for some reason"). She looks like Lara Flynn Boyle playing a Star Trek villain from the lost planet of Beautania. She tells the other girls that she was once fifty pounds heavier than she is now (that is to say, she weighed fifty pounds), but that she wanted to get into high-fashion modeling, so there you go. The other girls actually clap for her, cooing for the achievement like she had just told them that she built a house for orphans out of gum and toothpicks, like some benevolent Saint Matlock character I've just decided I'd like to pitch a new show about.
More girls! More girls! More girls! Bethany is twenty-two and from Houston, Texas, and she's just walked away from Penn Station, because the Long Island Railroad apparently now has a stop in Houston. I totally didn't know that. She tells us, "I have a lot more talent than the boobs [sic]." Meaning you have a lot more talent than just the talents offered by your boobs, or more talent than the boobs have in some independent way? Like that they can cook really well, or retrieve a newspaper without your having to get off the couch? Bethany is the one from the opening with the titties. Y'know. That one.
"Boobs." What kind of a word is that?
Shandi, on the other hand, looks like the really pretty girl who doesn't know how pretty she is, but then when she takes off her glasses and pulls her down her hair, voilà! Except Shandi knows how pretty she is. Because she is on this show. She's twenty-one and from Kansas City, and she was a service clerk at Walgreeens. She typifies her past look as being "mousy" and "nerdy," adding "it would be nice to feel a little bit better about [herself]." And what better way than this, I ask you? What better way than this?
Propagating the image that a model is nothing more than a body for sale, Bethany and Shandi meet for the first time on a street corner. And on hand to help Shandi out with her long-term ego-restructuring project, Bethany bites her lip in horror while shaking her hand and pipes up in a confessional, "Her eyes are very close together, which kind of reminds me of a bird. I just don't see her making it." Feeling better yet, Shandi?
There's also a third girl out on that corner, but we don't find out until she's on the Pimp Daddy Express that this is Sara, twenty-two, from Seattle. Everyone thinks she's real, real purdy-like. Including Sara, who tells us that modeling is "her dream," even though her Iranian father considers modeling a form of prostitution. Blasphemy! Axis of Evil, indeed.
Camille is from Mamroneck. Wow.
Just kidding. Camille tells the other girls about herself, saying that her biggest accomplishment is that she was "Miss Jamaica USA," hilariously adding a few seconds later and a few decibels lower, "first runner-up." Yeah, I've gotten that Community Chest card also. It makes you feel really dumb. And you only get $10. And you do not win the game, which is what Camille will not do with this game. Enjoy your ten bucks, Camille. And the fact that you seem to possess not just one card from, but the entire community chest. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.
Bethany's horse face thinks Camille is fake. Sara doesn't know why Camille believes that she's "the stuff." She's "the stuff"? When did this become Police Academy edited for the SuperStation, suddenly? And why is Hightower threatening to "knock my gosh-darn knees off, egg roll," anyway?
Grand Central. Heather is eighteen, blonde, and from Moreno Vallry, California. This makes her Catie, except for all the pretty parts. Jenascia is twenty-one and from Burien, Washington. As the third person on that bus wearing them, she confirms visually that, yes, big hoop earrings are in. We get it. Now take them off, Angels. Charlie can't even see you through that phone anyway. Jenascia frets that she's the shortest girl there, but tells us that, in a competition, she can "usually assess" who she can beat. The camera bounces off shots of Bethany and Shandi, and I love that we're supposed to hate Jenascia already because if the camera shows it, it must be going on inside of her mind. She continues by fretting that she thought she was going to have to wear heels the whole time she was there, but she quickly decided, "[Bleep] it." That's right, Fackler. You tell that Commandant Lasard who's boss and you mean it.
Mercedes is twenty-two and wears hoop earrings (natch) and a hat that cries, "It's Lisa! And she looks like Blossom!" I'll get it out now so there's no trouble going forward: I don't think she's pretty. She tells us that she was rude when she lived in Jersey, but now she lives in California and she's nice. Okaaaaaaay...? Well, I guess it's better than spending her entire confessional talking about her boobs. But at least that way I could draw some horrible pun out of it and call her travels west "manifest chestiny." Ech. Good thing I decided not to do that.
We're twelve strong (well, maybe they could life one small suitcase together, but only if they're all reeeeally trying) now, and Lara Klingon Boyle tells us in a confessional, "We were trying to guesstimate what was going to happen ?" Hee. "Guesstimate"? Pardon my vague grasp on the language, but am I guessing (or "guesstimating") that the word she's looking for is "guess"? I love that she felt the need to describe the actions on the bus in third-grade math terms. The desk was approximately four inches in width, so to figure out the height, Bobby was going to have to guesstimate. Wait until she tries to describe her first experience on the runway in terms of PEMDAS. Hmmm. Maybe "guesstimate" is Klingon for "guess."
Hey, what's this monkey wrench doing here? The girls, thinking they were on their way to their housing, were dead wrong. Instead, they pull up to a giant military-looking ship of some kind, replete with men in military-looking dress. This show. Something for everyone. Mercedes confessionalizes that two soldiers (actual, or guesstimate?) came off the ship, and there they are, welcoming the girls to New York "on behalf of the United States Marine Corps." Now, in the idealized, peacetime, awww-shucks, Clinton-esque past, this whole thing would have had a slightly surreal quality to it. But now? Aren't eligible military active men best served elsewhere than on America's Top Model? I mean, these men deserve some time off, too. But, I don't know. Vaguely creepy. Onto the deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid they go. It was a ship in World War II. I went on a school trip there in eighth grade. It was boring and gray then, and it's boring and gray now. And the view from the deck sucks a lot more now than it did in the early '90s. Jenascia confessionalizes that she doesn't know what they were doing there, but that she hoped "it had something to do with food." Really? Say, do you guys think that maybe Jenascia's mixed up the concepts of "fed" and "ephedra" again?
And there she is, folks. Supermodel Tyra Banks, standing on the top of the ship, striking a pose, and wearing an outfit with fifty-seven zippers. Whatever. I'm guesstimating. She congratulates the twelve contestants for getting this far, and she introduces her deaky sidekick, "J. Alexander," a "runway trainer." That such a job exists should be beyond the scope of human possibility, but then again, I recap reality television for a living, so who am I to throw stones at fake noses? We flash to a black-and-white-and- chick-a-wha-wha-all-over montage of J. in action, walking back and forth down a runway wearing high heels. I can't believe that this man was actually allowed on a military vessel, and I say this from the perspective of someone who's not exactly an ROTC candidate himself. But seriously you guys, in those heels, he both asks and tells. Still in montage, J. yells at an unknown presence, "My motto is: walk like it's for sale and the rent is due tonight." How could any educated, cosmopolitan Middle Easterner mistake this industry for prostitution?
Tyra's gonna surprise ya. "I'm not wasting any time. I'm throwing you straight on a runway. No training, no nothing." And there's a runway set up in front of thousands (I'm guesstim...oh, never mind) of uniformed men. "And I'm gonna be watching you," Tyra adds, pointing two fingers toward her eyes and then out toward the girls. It's a spell! She's evil Tyra! Surely only Lara Klingon Boyle knows how to thwart her.
Back where people love America, J. takes the ladies into a makeshift back room with what look like many expensive pieces of clothing. He adds that they all have to do their own hair and makeup in thirty minutes, and that they have three different outfits that they have to wear in the right order. They primp and change and change and primp, a countdown clock ticking down in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, like zero will be the New Year, and The Year Of The Shallow Drama Queen will commence. And one person who won't be dressed to enjoy the celebration is poor, befuddled April, who has one boot and one silver high-heeled shoe on with a minute and twenty-eight seconds to go. Jenascia tells us that she's got everything in the wrong order, and leaps in to help her new, er, "friend." April expresses gratitude among the panic, voicing over for future irony, "Every inch of me emotionally is leaning up against this little 5'6" girl." Way to thank her AND point out her flaws simultaneously. Well done, and a happy new year to you! Meanwhile, Jenascia confessionalizes some time later, "I'm not really that nice of [sic] a person. I don't know what's come over me." Don't worry, Jenascia. I can't imagine it will take long for yourself to shine through. Here in this Year Of The Shallow Drama Queen, you'll be apt to forget auld acquaintances in no time, I'm sure.
And...go! Military-themed phat beats play on in the background, and the girls cluelessly vamp out. Oh, how I wish it were slightly more humiliating. Tyra tells us that she sees "a lot of mistakes." Don't you love how everyone thinks his or her job is really hard? Tyra curls a lip. The men clap. J. tells the girls, "Personally, I think you all sucked. I just see things that need to be redone." Seriously, this is the most contrived "tough guy" act I've ever seen. You can all but hear the producers whispering, "You need to come down on them real hard, um, J. And, dude. What are you doing? Get a name, for Chrissakes."
Oooh, nice house. The PimpMobile pulls up in front of something called "The Red Tulip Building." Inside is a generally fabulous reality-television loft, where Tyra has sent the girls a note telling them that their pad (er, sorry..."crib") is a "bling bling, punk-funk, mod kind of world up in here." Jenascia's reading of those words is endearingly deadpan, I have to say. And I had a little side bet going with...well, myself, to see how many times the word "bling" was said on this show. And look at that. Already up to two.
Wow! What a punk-funk, mod kind of world it is up in here! Hardwood floors, decorative throw pillows, "punk funk" spraypainted on the walls for some reason. There's also a mod room and a bling bling room. And a runway in the middle of the place. And food. Which we'll be seeing in its exact form today, and also one episode from the end. That's right. Models-with-eating-disorders jokes. We're on the cutting edge now, people.
Sitting around the table now, the girls work out their housing plans. Someone doesn't want to sleep on a pullout bed. week on...The Real World: 1-800-MATTRES! Man, I hate the choosing-the-beds arc. Anna is already seen doing dishes. Because she's the mom. And moms do dishes. Got it? Fantastico. Catie tells us that she thinks it's "inspiring" that women "don't have to put their dreams on hold" just because they have a family, clearly wearing some obscuring garment over her own "Ask me about my Eisenhower-era approach to feminism" t-shirt that answers Anna's aforementioned duds. And Catie? Before you know it? Suffrage. To further this plot thread, a shot later, we find Anna on the phone with a bellowing child, and she calms him down with a "Hi, Mecarius!" "Mecarius"? Who is her son, the Greek god of absent motherhood?
Sleep comes to the Red Tulip, and the sun rises on the George Washington Bridge, a mere two hundred or so blocks from where the loft appears to be. That Manhattan! It's the longest runway I know! Aaaaaanyway, we location-scout back down to the loft, where Tyra comes in to wake the girls. She reminds the girls again that she hand-selected all of them, and I guess she's just there for a little rap session with the ladies. Anna kicks things off by asking for "words of wisdom" about the industry. I guess her standard prefix "Well, as a wife and mother..." was edited for length. Just this once. Tyra responds, "You need to live, breathe, and eat this." An audible gasp ripples through the crowd when someone says "eat," and quickly subsides for the vigorous course of nodding in agreement to anything Tyra says, even if what she says is, "Every week one of you guys is gonna go home." Oh, no! The rules! Of reality television! Someone does something challenging. Someone screws up that challenge in some way. Someone is handed something in the end, and the person who is handed nothing walks away. It's what my brother refers to as "Reality Show Mad Libs." It's what Tyra would refer to as "the rules...all up in here." Nevertheless, the girls look appropriately sad for the situation. "But I have love for every single one of you," Tyra says, and hands out necklaces that she designed herself. They're of a pattern which, at first, I thought were her initials. Which would be awesome. Not only because it would be the single most narcissistic design in the history of fashion, but also because it would mean all of the girls were walking around wearing necklaces with the name of a highly infectious disease on it. Stylin'! A revitalizing group hug, and off to dinner we go.
In what I'll guess was an attempt at a fake highbrow accent, SeeYouTomorrow tells us that they'll be having dinner at "Tavern on the Green." Camille adds that it's a "fabulous" restaurant, and that it takes "a very long time to get a reservation there." Yeah. It takes as long as it takes for a phone to ring twice. Okay. Note to the producers of America's Top Model. It's not hip and trendy if everyone's heard of it. In my life, I've been to a Bar Mitzvah, a prom, and a very-easy-to-get-invited-to party at SeeYouTomorrow's "Tah-vern ahn the Greeeeen," and I've got to say...meh. It's like the Planet Hollywood of high-end eating. All glitz, all name, shitty food, Bon Jovi's guitar. Just kidding about that last one. But seriously, listen to me if you're coming to New York: short of eating at Le Cirque, the hippest eatery in New York is the one none of us has ever heard of and which can't be seen from the street. You find out about it from a starfucking publicist or a rich friend from work. You don't flip through the Manhattan yellow pages and then get on the horn with Tavern on the Green and be all, "Zagat says you're okay and I think your eating establishment might have been in Big Business at some point, so...table for twelve?"
Lara Klingon Boyle steals toilet paper, Shandi puts her elbows on the table, and Camille judges silently, telling us that "it's embarrassing!" to do that at so "classy" a place. But, as someone pointed out to me once, the word "classy" usually connotes the opposite of whatever the speaker is trying to say is "classy," and that is definitely true in the case of Tavern on the Green.
During dinner, a piece of TyraMail conjures itself from seeming nowhere, April reading aloud, "Ladies, it's your birthday. You're gonna work the lens like it's your first day." Who is she, the new millennium's answer to Nipsey Russell? Why does this all rhyme? Anyway, there's a photo shoot at 6 AM the day, and April promises to wake up the other girls and make sure they're all up, inspiring Jenascia to muse, "She's that sweet of [sic] a person." And off they go from the Tavern, a final button on the scene finding one of the girls (see, now I don't remember who they are) asking, "Can I have my Coke, please?" How campy. Maybe it's just one more light moment before...
...DOOM! An alarm clock buzzes (and freaks me out anew every time I rewind back into it) at 5:10 AM. Everyone piles into the elevator, and it's not until they're in a slightly more downmarket mini-van that someone asks, "Where's Jenascia?" She's inside, still sleeping. April stands outside, asking if she can go wake her up, but all the girls say they'll just leave if she walks away. Wow. April hops in, feels slightly bad, and that's that. Double-stuffed wow. But seriously, how does anyone sleep through eleven girls getting ready to leave the house? April, dude. Hit the buzzer. Sucks that they take away everyone's cell phones, eh? HIT THE BU...well, very little we can do from here in the future, I guess.
Lara Klingon Boyle is getting a lot of mutant-alien-face-time. Final four, you think? She's the one who fills in the backstory that Jenascia slept the sleep of angels while the others proxied the earthbound role of Satan. Eleven strong, they show up at Industria Studios (775 Washington Street) and meet Nigel Barker, a British photographer who, with every word he speaks, thinks, "I am a British photographer." He loves being a British photographer, people. We learn that the shoot they'll be doing is for color contact lenses, the theme of which is "The Garden of Eden." The girls' bodies will be covered in jewels and paint, and other than that, they're calendar girls all the way. Looks are exchanged among the girls, and Nigels tells them, "You are going to be nude." Anna stares at her sketch drawing, a tousled set of vines entitled "Eve of the Sea." Are they stealing her outfit from the dance theme in Back to the Future? She tells us that she feels like she "represents the moms and the wives of the U.S.," and you can see how she'd make a decision to climb to the high moral ground. She thinks she will be rewarded. And she will. In the afterlife.
"I see we only have eleven," Nigel Barker is coached to say, and April tells us that Jenascia's costume is the most beautiful and elaborate. And, sure enough, we kick it to Jenascia's costume, a red floral nightmare called "Enchanted Archer Eve," designed to humiliate the wearer. Except there's nothing to wear, what with the nakedness. April adds, "That really hits me hard, because it makes it even more apparent that she's not there." As if "her absence" weren't enough of an indicator.
Ring, ring, ring. No wakey-wakey for Jenascia. Sara tells us, "She needs to take accountability." Man. These girls are dumb. At 7:49, Jenascia rouses from her slumber, stumbles toward a ringing phone in the loft, applies aftershave, slaps her hands on the sides of her face, makes nine sequels, marries and divorces Rachel Miner, tries to get stage work, and tanks in Party Monster. Actually, what happens is this: she bawls. Some guy on the other end of the phone (a producer? A shoot coordinator? Jesus? Who is this guy?) tells her to get there "ASAP," but he pronounces it "AY-sap" in that way that makes me want to kill.
"Every Eve must have an Adam," Nigel tells them, and in walk three bohunks in black bikini briefs. Until moments later, when they're wearing nothing at all. Yes, for those of you wondering. This has a lot to do with contact lenses.
By amazing coincidence, Nigel shoots April just as Jenascia enters the studio. She's holding a fan and has a serpent painted all up and down her body. Meanwhile, Nigel consoles the freaking Jenascia with a hug and then she loses it in a confessional. "Bitches!" Heh.
Catie is the "Heavenly Eve," and I think she makes a reference to something called "The Fifteenth Chapel." Is she just guesstimating? Man, these girls are dumb.
"Their coochie [sic] was showing," Anna reports. "Plus, the male models down there. Where your private party is." Um, "private party"? Is she kidding? Have you guys ever heard it? I don't know if I love it or wish I were dead. ["Plus, this does not bode well for her ability to educate her child properly about...you know, his peanut and its eventual relation to ladies' hoo-has." -- Wing Chun] Anna starts to cry and decides she's not going to do it. She tells Nigel, who tells her they'll "do whatever we need to do" including shrouding her in a robe and making sure she's not showing any naughty bits. Anna holds her ground, and Nigel asks her to leave. A giant neon sign goes on above my TV reading: "Jenascia vs. Anna: two enter, one leaves" and they could just stop the episode right now and skip to the end, for my money.
Back in her earlier, wail-ier confessional, Jenascia tells us, "If this doesn't get me eliminated, it's on. It's so [bleep]ing on." Nevertheless, I hope it's Jenascia who gets booted. Her name is much, much harder to type.
Back at the loft, Anna tells us that she feels like her decision not to pose nude "didn't jeopardize [her] chances at all." And I think wearing socks means you're not wearing socks at all. See, saying that is dumb and false. Do you see the comparison, dear? But never mind, because she's reading. So...ssssh. Because there are a lot of words to sound out on the TyraMail! To wit: "Tomorrow is your first meeting with the judges. Only eleven of you will continue on." Word on the importance of the TyraMail.
One by one they walk into what Tyra calls "the infamous judging room." First of all, saying that something is infamous does not automatically deem it so. Second of all, the first truism is made all the truer if you don't really know what the word "infamous" means. Tyra introduces her (everything is "hers") panel of judges: Janice Dickinson, back in the day "one of the first supermodels." Now, Courteney Cox trapped in the chamber of The Fly with The Joker. is Eric Nicholson, the senior fashion editor at Jane. He's supermodel, thanks for asking. Lastly is -- dun-dun-DUN -- Nigel Barker, porn-y photographer of the naked contact-lens shoot. What a twist! Tyra reminds us that the winner of the competition gets a contract with IMG Models, a cosmetics campaign with Sephora, and a spread in Jane, which she calls "the hippest, trendiest magazine out there right now." Hee! Good one, Tyra! See? She's just like folks. Oh, wait. She wasn't kidding. Even Nicholson gives a look that's all, "Oh, man. I can't believe she just said that." Eric! I live in New York! Call me!
Tyra continues adds that the girls will be judged on four umbrella categories: natural talent, potential, personality (and the winner becomes president of her seventh-grade class), and their photo-shoot performances. Each of the girls gets a private spin in The Infamous Judging Room. Why not do it all together? Meh. I don't make the rules. Here's what happened:
SeeYouTomorrow wasn't connecting with her eyes during the fashion show, though her walk was good. She sees a photo of herself during the fashion shoot, and proclaims herself "so hot!" JokerCox tells SeeYouTomorrow that her right arm got lost. Maybe it was looking for a lost contact lens.
April doesn't know what to do when she gets to the runway. JokerCox says something about the placement of a fan in her photo shoot that doesn't make any sense. It is utter nonsense.
Catie's walk was "a little stiff," which she blames on the boots. Eric (hi, Eric!) pipes up that her leg looked like it was "wobbling" in her photo shoot. So, Eric, do you live in Brooklyn, or...?
Sara was a little "bouncy" on the runway, but she gets props for putting her finger in her Adam's mouth. Because of how it makes you want to wear contact lenses.
Wait! Too fast! Lara Klingon Boyle has a "classic face." Camille looked too "somber." Tyra thinks that she should "stick [her] booty out and go, 'pow!'" Tyra? Totally.
Anna looked too much "like a beauty queen" during her runway walk, and Tyra is surprised to find that there's no picture of her at the shoot, even though Tyra's name is in the opening credits and she's, like, a producer, I'm sure. I'm just saying: strip down one artifice, because we already know. Anna explains that it wasn't "ladylike" to do a nude shoot, and JokerCox is all, "I get it. It's your religion," to which Anna responds, "It's not so much religion. I'm just trying to be Christlike." But, as a friend said so aptly, "Yeah, but Christ wasn't no supermodel." And I think we can leave it at that.
Everyone loves Mercedes. Heather, less so. Tyra calls her "borderline plus-size," explaining that she might want to "gain a little weight or lose a little weight." Depending on the calorie-burning potential of bawling uncontrollably due to being humiliated on national television (well, UPN), she's likely to show up week with her size registered in negative integers.
Shandi won't look up during her runway, but she looks up to see her butt in the photo shoot. They tell her to start dressing better. But then Shandi and I won't be able to share clothes anymore. Eh, that's okay. I've started wearing the same grey hoodie every day anyway.
Bethany's walk needs some work. Eric is afraid of her boobs. Tyra worries that her poses take her away from modeling and "more of that girlie mag type of thing." Ha! They called her a porn star. Oh, okay. That's not fair. Not a "star," per se.
Jenascia. Those who are tardy do not get recapped.
The four judges burn through all of the candidates again, narrowing it down to who sucks because she was late and who sucks because she didn't do a photo shoot. No one likes Anna's attitude, and Eric doesn't think Anna has a real idea of why she even refused to do it. The final work is from Nigel, who says that it's much more damaging to be late than to be prudish.
Nigel has no freakin' say at all. Tyra gives a headshot to each of the girls who are to continue, and the final battle comes down to between Jenascia and Anna. Tyra berates Jenascia again and tells Anna she supports her decision. Then she chooses Jenascia. Bitches! Bitches all! Tyra tells Jenascia that she has to be "America's On Time Model." Ha! Who's writing her copy? Alphabet soup? Perhaps.
Back at the loft, Anna packs her bags and celebrates the fact that she stood her ground, promising in a confessional that she doesn't regret anything. She pulls her luggage into the elevator, and tells us how excited she is to see her son. A final shot of all the girls flashes on the screen, and I wish this show were meta enough for each of the booted girls to fade out of the photo, Back to the Future-style.