The angry grunge soundtrack on loan from the Smithsonian for America's Top Nirvana Bassist has been reallocated to fill some holes in the action, not to mention some holes in the hearts of the rest of the top model candidates, still in mourning over the heartbreaking loss of -- wait, what was that girl's name again? -- Sara. That's right. Sara. Such a sad passing is commemorated with the usual sepia-toned flashbacks of last week's Domo Arigato Mister Eliminato (still casting around for a good nickname for that right of passage), where -- wait, what was that girl's name again? Oh, yeah, Sara -- tearfully hugs the other girls while they wail and beat their chests like extras at a Khomeini funeral street scene.
Up in the ZoLoft, the girls continue their difficult slog through the post-death ritual, following the rigorous strategies and methodologies of other cultures that have experienced loss: Christians attend a wake and a funeral. Jews cover the mirrors and eat a brisket. Yoanna does leg lifts on a yoga mat. Well, I guess it looks like everyone is better. Hey, you guys? Let's never grieve again.
"I recently lost a lot of weight," Yoanna tells us in a voice-over after we're conned into thinking she's still crying about Sara in a confessional where she's clearly crying about being called a big fat hoss when she was twelve. "I might feel a little uncomfortable with my body, and I don't want that to be a reason that I would ever get eliminated." This admission is accompanied by a few snapshots of Yoanna, whose progression from a not-so-fatty (source: The World) to a not-so-skinny (source: Nigel Barker) also appears to have taken Yoanna on a journey through several other ethnicities, and at least one picture that indicates that she might, in fact, have spent some time as Janeane Garofalo.
Meanwhile, patching up old plot holes like old John's jalopy with a puncture in its tire, we revisit, like, a hundred weeks ago (oh, fine, three), when the girls were visited by a hippy-dippy psychic who, like, told them that they all liked being pretty. Oooooooh! If you were to ask my Ouija Board if I were totally amazed by her brilliance and acumen at accessing the ephemeral whims of the spirit dimension, I would not at all manipulate the direction of the pointer as it made its way over to "Yes." Camille remembers Dr. Fake Science and her Notes From The Otherworld, noting in a confessional, "The psychic who came to our house told us, 'Camille, you're not going to win this competition unless you open up and you become friends with people.'" To which, at least until this point, Camille had really stuck to her talking points of "Yeah, not so much going for the America's Top Buddy Wrangler thing, thanks." But I guess the oddly edited time elapse between the visit of the psychic and the revelations of right now really gave Camille some time to think. About herself. Ah. How she has grown: "I've never been a person to take up a friendship with anybody, but I'll do whatever it takes to win." At least, that's what I think she says. Other mumbled variants include, "I've never been a person to make up a friendship," "I've never been a person to take off my friendship," or "I've never been a person with an Easy-Bake Oven." If it's the last of those, my dear, I pity you. Because those cupcakes? Are ice cold. In a good way. Not in a cold way.
A montage of Yoanna and Camille having words in the past somehow shoehorns Mercedes into looking like she's been standing nearby a lot, so it makes perfect sense when suddenly she's the United Nations peacekeeping force in the constantly festering war between Yoanna (who for the logical completion of this metaphor we'll call "India") and Camille, who for the logical completion of this metaphor, we'll call "batshit crazy at every turn." Just kidding. We'll call her "Pakistan." And, oh my goodness! Just like those two warring nations, these girls are also often fighting about cashmere! ["Oh, Mullen. How did you get in here?" -- Wing Chun] Cough. Sorry. But Mercedes doesn't want to be in the middle, either (I'm confused about whether she's a diplomat, a multilateral army, or Hans Blix), telling us, "I'm not playing peacemaker, but I want all the arguing and bickering to stop." Well, dear, that's because you're on the show, and we're watching the show. We want petty bickering. And maybe a little casual hair-pulling. And a circular steel cage match in which two enter and Yoanna leaves. Sitting on a couch in the living room of the ZoLoft, Yoanna shares with Mercedes, "I pray for Camille at night." But then God is all, "Well, she looks good on the photo shoots, but she has really got to work on that attitude!" Because that's what everyone says. Mercedes responds (to Yoanna, not to Our Lord And Savior, as might be indicated by the above exchange), "She wants to talk to you. You know that, right? You never know, she could be a good person." Yoanna volleys that she never thought Camille was a bad person, because her recent gleeful iteration of "she's a witch" obviously means something different to Yoanna than it does to us in these more sensitive, post-Salem Trials time. Yoanna adds, "I don't think she's felt the love that she's needed," and Mercedes finishes the thought by Hallmark Network-ing the place up a bit, completing the thought, "Especially by you." Well-spoken but ultimately ineffective. I guess, in the end, deep down inside, we're all just a little Hans Blix, aren't we?
Mercedes has just about had it with all of the fun Yoanna has with phonics, deciding it's her turn to lunge for the Tyra Mail for a change. She reads it in an excitable vocal tone I would describe as "Lupusissimo," if, indeed, I knew what it all meant at this late date: "It's time to head to Heidi's, Gisele's, and my house." The rest of the girls run around screaming because, as Yoanna confessionalizes, "We're actually going to get to meet Gisele and Heidi Klum." First, for those of who didn't read up on the post-Titantic love life of Leo (and which also means that we have nothing in common), "Gisele" is the model-y fun times first name of supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Heidi Klum rhymes with "log flume." For those of you writing Supermodel! The Musical who needed help getting started. Second of all, let us now take the time to revisit Yoanna's thrilled confessional from moments back: "We're actually going to get to meet Gisele and Heidi Klum." Heh. Suckers.
Someone's connections dropped out between the writing of the Tyra Mail and the woefully anticlimactic payoff. Because instead of going to a "house" in which all three of those grown women live together in some sitcom-esque way where lots of catfights ensue and pillow fights are to follow (I thought it, too. No need to be ashamed), the girls enter IMG, which is where Tyra wants us all to know we'll be getting a contract when we become America's Top Model. They're just going to the office that houses these girls' managers. The contestants are not meeting anyone. Does that give me the license to refer to any future correspondence from the executive producer of this show as Lie-ra Mail? Yes. Yes, I think it does.
Kyle "Bit Part" Hagler, one of Tyra's managers, shows up again, always a fount of optimism and good news: "We see a hundred people on a daily basis. Of that hundred people, we only sign approximately two a year." That means that of the approximately 250 workdays a year (365 minus weekends and a combined average of holidays, sick days, parent-teacher conferences, and The Hajj), they offer modeling contracts to two out of every 250,000 people who walk through that door? And on this show, they choose one out of twelve, from an initial application pool of 6000? Who else is on Kyle's "to see" list around that office? The janitors? The Staples guy? Suddenly, I'm not that upset about these girls' odds anymore. So stop crying. Catie? Wherever you are? Whatever you're doing? Whether we're absolutely certain you're crying or not? You are. So stop crying.
We learn that the girls will be going on what is called a "go-see," which a Shandi confessional tells us is like "going on an interview for a job," and Kyle continues on, "Nobody cares who you are. And you've to make them care. You've got make them want you. In a minute." He fires a few rapid-fire questions at the girls. Yoanna has a favorite fashion photographer! I feel like I'd get all flustered in trying think of one and be like, "Um, Anne Geddes?" and then the photo shoot that week would be of me in a blue blankie poking out of a flower pot. I mean seriously, the other girls just need to remember their names and hometowns. And Camille has to remember to not be hateful. And I have to remember that my photo shoot might also take place in a tire.
April pops in for second to waaaaay too technically (I'm just kidding...I still have no idea what that means) report: "Honestly, I, like, don't know when it happened, but all of the [sic] sudden, Yoanna and Camille are, like, friends." And, as sure as a witch will eat your young, we plop down in a confessional, where Yoanna and Camille are, as previously reported, just exactly like friends. Showing off her crack impersonation skills once more, Yoanna sports sunglasses and plays the role of, I guess, a reporter or a publicist or a fan or someone in the personal entourage of Diana Ross, who will be played by Camille. And they say there are no good roles for African-American women! Camille -- whose acting ability we've also seen as top-notch -- supplants the need for confessional character analysis by also wearing sunglasses (all of the greats did the same. Surely you remember the early-era Orson Welles and his much-heralded "Blind Hamlet" on the West End) and pretending to be Diana Ross. Camille stares directly into the camera and yells, "Yoanna, I love you!" She throws a big hug right onto Yoanna, and Yoanna pats her noncommittally on the forearm and hesitates, "Some days I love you too." Such a lack of tenderness for someone who spent so much time "praying" for Camille at night. I guess Yoanna is just trying to stick to her good, Christian dictum of "love the hugger, hate the hug." Yoanna recaps (which is always best to leave to the professionals), "Ebony and Ivory's first confessional together!" Yeah. That's not forced.
The girls seems to be eating lunch at a completely empty eatery in Little Italy when Tyra comes prancing in, screaming like a jackal in a way that would make the girls respond to anyone else doing it with a "that freak, like, totally needs to not freak out all the time" sneer. Tyra tells Camille that she's wearing too much makeup for some reason, but leaves out the offense of her strapless blue gown that you're only supposed to wear if the bride is seriously going out of her way to make the wedding party look as shitty as possible. And then -- because now she's a musician, I guess -- Tyra just launches into a rap, one which she told them she wrote in ninth grade. Anyway, here it is now:
I'm thirty-four C with no celluli [I'm guessing at that one ["I thought it was 'sili-c,' as in silicone, as in what breast implants are filled with" -- Wing Chun], but it rhymes with...]
Come take a feel and you will see
I'm five-foot nine, I look so fine
Yes, all my fellas are so divine
Yoanna still ain't got no rhythm, but at least someone stepped in to keep anyone from clapping on the 1 and the 3. Oh, wait! There's more!
When I'm finished with this
You might as well just dismiss
All the other female rappers
'Cause y'all [and this is a real guess, too, which has to be wrong] just pigs
This is all excellent confirmation of Tyra's oft-discussed youthful feelings of insecurity, right here. But just to show that I can kick it with y'all, I will share with you a rap that my friend Becca wrote when she was in fifth grade, which we still sing to this day. Amazingly, I didn't write any raps growing up (y'all check out Massapequa some time, and you will soon understand why "Parents Just Don't Understand" was pretty much the only rap song I was allowed to listen to until I was in high school), opting instead for tuneful melodies with titles like "How Many People?" and "Cutting Cantaloupe Is My Life (And I Will Cut It With A Knife)." But those songs are for another day. For now, here's "Chocolate," by my friend Becca. Tell me that the musical ability of someone I know doesn't way outclass the musical ability of one Tyra Banks. AGAIN.
What's your favorite kind of chocolate?
White, dark, or light?
Milk or hot, or what?
Comes in a nugget, a bar, or a chip
If you don't like chocolate, you're a dip
If I'm ever silent, it's because I'm thinking about the brilliance of that song.
Anyway, Tyra's rap takes a turn here, and the last couplet is, truth be told, pretty prescient for a ninth grader:
Top models pack with on the road always gone [WHAT?]
Pack your bags, y'all, you're goin' to Milan!
And she wants to know your zodiac. Z-z-z-zodiac sign.
As the girls dance and squeeeeeee, Mercedes immediately drags us to uno confessionalitza, where she tells us, "For a model, getting this type of information, it's better than sex." She then Izzards her way through the rest of the sentence, going "Yeah. No. Well, yes. No, no. Yes. No." Choose "cake." Except Yoanna. I've heard her body needs work.
Milan is all about high fashion, we learn. Shandi reports that she's "in shock," and is made even more so by Tyra's news that they have to be ready to go "in one hour." Shandi calls her boyfriend to tell him that she's leaving him behind forever (or something like that), and he mopily says just, "Okay, bye." Yoanna, meanwhile, walks quickly around the loft, spritzing something on the luggage and quietly saying things about how God should bless their luggage, in the most subtle Jesus-freak plot line reality television has ever seen.
Italiano music plays as a cartoon drawing (like, in a cardboard cutout, South Park way) of five girls with their actual heads inserted on top, bobbling back and forth. Ew. I hate this. A fake, animated plane takes them from New York on Mercury Was In Retrograde And All Of Our Cameras Broke Airlines via a red arrow that lands them in Milan, in front of a drawing of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Which is in Pisa. The real girls -- rather than their theme-day giveaway, bobble-headed replacements -- drag their bags through an airport terminal and are immediately met with a piece of Tyra Mail at what the bottom of the screen tells us is 2:30 AM in New York and 8:30 AM in Milan. They set off for D'Management Group during a montage of the city, and they walk in to meet a David Brown, who runs D'Management. He tells them that D'Management represents "exclusively top models." Wow. There must be a lot of pressure for those two girls to keep working, what with such a low regularity of taking on anyone new. He adds on that Milan is the most important training ground for new models, and he intends to start breaking them in immediately by sending them on five "go-sees," which, according to this management luminary, are "going and seeing." So at least they don't mean anything different in Milan than they do in New York. Except there they're referred to as "vada vedona" or "andate vedete," depending on who is doing the going and who is doing the seeing. Shandi tells us how tired she is, but notes that they're going right into this. He hands them each their developing portfolios, featuring pictures of themselves from the show so far, and takes them outside to show them how they'll be getting around Milan. On Vespas. Driven by comely Italian men. The men say "ciao." The women respond in unison. It is staged. ["And yet, my sister -- who spent six weeks in Italy last summer -- melted into a little puddle on the couch at the sight of the Vespas, and the Italy, and the men. Apparently, aaaaaall she did in Italy was ride around on the back of strange dudes' scooters." -- Wing Chun]
Mercedes tells us of what they'll be judged on in the go-sees (a hyphen? In quotes? Wearing a bonnet and posing for pictures? There's no right way): "Appearance, confidence, personality, and professionalism." Meanwhile, the ladies split up to choose their drivers, and we're off. Camille tells her driver a story about how her mother met a guy when she came to visit Italy, and the fact that her driver seems to speak absolutely no English speaks highly for the future development of their relationship.
Yoanna is first up. The woman at D'Management asks her how long she's been modeling, takes a photo of her, and tells us that she's very "elegant" but that she is "too square." Shandi walks sexily for someone and gets a mondo blasé "yeeeeah" when she asks the woman if it went okay. Camille fixes her hair and tells us she put on her personality, and some guy notes her "strong attitude" in what I think was a good way. Mercedes tells her driver that she feels like she's in "an action movie," when in fact she's in Roman Holiday, which she should see because it's very cute and because it stars the adorable pixie-ish Hepburn and not the mean, crusty, more recently deceased one. Mercedes doesn't score big on the "classic elegance" of Milan. April looks like she let the international travel get the better of her bangs. Mercedes teaches a guy how to belly-dance.
And, this. Camille is first to enter a studio of a company named "Miroglio," where she discovers a woman named Liliana, who we're told is the casting director of a company called "Caractere." Sitting at a table near her is a man who is Italian. In Italy. Sounds crazy, you say? Just go with me. As soon as Camille enters, the two take issue with her. Sounds crazy, you say? Just go with me. Camille has to try something on, and they keep yelling at her to go more quickly. Liliana speaks only in Italian, and the other guy translates it. She asks Mercedes, "Why do you walk like that?" Shandi is going too slowly. She wants to know why Camille walks like that as well, and Camille shoots back, "This is my signature walk, and this is what's going to make me famous." They bark at Shandi for having no experience. They ask what April brings to the table through her pictures, and she's right on the case, opening her portfolio and offering words like "tranquility" and "sex appeal." Yoanna tells us, "The lady was tough, but I'm not gonna go cry in a corner or anything." That's right. You're going to cry right in the middle of the town square, in front of the pigeons, under the Duomo where the sound is best amplified to a nation that needs to understand your pain. But, later.
Camille straps herself onto the back of the Vespa, and she and her driver vroooom off into the Milan evening. He points out a castle and a fountain, and she tries to speak his international language (of Italian) by telling him she thinks it's "bella." Then she falls sound asleep on his shoulder, and when he wakes her up to drop her off, she says, "I'll miss you!" He walks her to the door of what I guess is where she's staying, and she gives him a big hug and he picks her up. He tells her, "I want everything good for you" and kisses her on both cheeks. She tells us in a confessional that "a very nice man" wanted to "win [her] heart." Oh, dear. Does the "humanizing Camille" aspect mean that they're trying to set us up for when she wins so we have to think it's okay? No, actually. Because she gets booted this week. I've already watched it. Do you think I do this in real time?
Tyra's own bobble-headed self has headed off to Milan, and the girls check back in at D'Management, where they discover Tyra and David. Tyra asks them what the hardest part was for them, and Shandi volunteers some ambiguous thing about feeling like she's learning while she's going. The easiest part is, according to April, is "the Vespa." Tyra gets right to it, delivering the results of the Go/Sees (is a slash okay? Did it work for Face/Off? I don't know anymore). First up is Shandi, who is appropriately high-fashion for Milan, but is "way too shy and not self-confident." April is "very strong in appearance," but very weak in all of the other areas. Like what? Being friends with Camille? Isn't that what we learned is going to win this competition? Because it surely isn't about being pretty, according to the feedback we've been getting so far. Same goes for Yoanna, whose jet lag is so bad she must feel like the time difference is "between whenever she became skinny and the first day of ninth grade." Because, you talk about not wasting words, Tyra: "They said that you had a really gorgeous face but that you had to work on your body." Dear Fatty: enjoy your telemarketing career. Love, Italy. I mean, Jesus. With whom Yoanna ought go and have herself a bit of a quick chat, actually. ["See, I wasn't sure that meant she was too fat so much as too knobby, like she needed to put on a little more weight and distribute it evenly all over her body. Like, whenever Nigel said, weeks ago, that he'd hate to see her in a bathing suit, I interpreted that to mean he thought she was too weird and bony. But maybe I'm just fanwanking that statement because I am not a size 2." -- Wing Chun] Mercedes was "weak in [her] appearance," but strong in other areas. Like what? Novelty belly-dancing acumen? Vespa exterior color? A kick-ass collection of Pokemon cards? Camille's look might be "too classic and standard," but she was very confident in a way that will get her booted later. Rating all five girls overall, the person voted as having the best scores overall is Camille. She actually has to pat herself on the back as the other girls clap quietly and politely like it's fifteen-love. Except nobody does. They clap like it's fifteen-like.
Tyra outlines that the prize for winning this competition is getting her portrait done "by an Italian artist." Well, all the good ones are dead, and the real estate on the chapel ceilings is kind of at a premium, so this versus jewelry shopping spree might be a little gimpy. I'm sure it will be fine, though. Camille is allowed to bring one friend with her, and she reaches across most of the other girls and asks an unthrilled Yoanna if she might want to join her. Yoanna smiles like her body needs some work and is all, "Okay, cool. Thanks." But before we're off to a tear-stained confessional, Yoanna just wants to return to one leeeeetle point someone might have brought up during the Go*See evaluation, asking, "In regard to when they said work on the body, did they mean, like, toning? Because I'm already a size 2." She sits looking stunned, and then bursts into tears as soon as she gets to the elevator, realizing, "I probably won't be able to be a top model" in that Madison Avenue confessional booth I simply cannot believe she got through Customs. ["Maybe they were lenient with her -- you know, if she had a passport." -- Wing Chun]
Yoanna. Car. Still sad. Sniffles. Tears. Cry all you want, babe. It ain't just water retention. And tears don't have calories. Maybe you should try crying Rollitos. Yoanna tells Mercedes that she wants to go home real, real bad, and Mercedes responds, "If you leave, I'll leave," and hugs her in a tell-me-lies- tell-me-sweet-little-lies- tell-me-lies- (tell-me-tell-me-lies) kind of way, following up, "Are you hurt because you're confused?" Yoanna responds, correctly, that she's exhausted from not sleeping and not eating. ["As soon as she started to cry, my sister and I were like, 'Aw, sweetie, go have a nap and some Nutella and you'll feel better!' We love Yoanna." -- Wing Chun] Mercedes tells us in a confessional that Yoanna's feelings of self-consciousness "will hurt her in the long run in the modeling industry," while Shandi notes that the competition is "taking its toll on her." Yoanna is now sitting in a different part of the van, her hand over her high-fashion face, the one reliable part of her she has left, causing the remainder of the fashion-conscious portion of Italy to gaze upon her and ask, "Chi è la ragazza grumosa?" which, according to at least one internet translator program, means "Who is the lumpy girl?" in someone's version of Italian.
In Italian, "Ikea" is apparently the feminine singular of the word "tchotchke," because into their apartment (flat? Apartmenti?) the girls walk to find a small, somewhat lower-market locale, at least from a decorating from perspective. Right off, they zero in on the Tyra Mail, which reads, "Many, many years ago, Verona was the home of Romeo and Juliet." Ah. A long time ago. In a land called "fiction." Anyway. "Tomorrow, it will be the home of your first photo shoot in Italy. Be ready at 7:30." April -- whose reading of the Tyra Mail was just so technical -- editorializes, "Verona's beautiful, you guys." Okay, April. Okay. I'll give you the key to the country and sovereign rulership over the city-state of all Florence -- the Medici family be damned -- if you stop finding subtle ways to remind us you've been to Italy. You've been to Italy. You're well-read. You're well-traveled. You're an every-culture-bean. Your mother was a clown and your father was a bagel, and they fell very much in love and married. You've been to Italy. We get it.
"Don't put your scary boyfriend here!" Mercedes tells Shandi as they settle into their rooms. And, it's true that the photo of him really does make it look like the future top model fell in love with the present top mime, in a heartwarming tale about the mismatched love a model and a mime feel for each other entitled -- oh, I don't know -- Silent Beauty? Anyone got a check for me yet? I'm pitching the hell out of this stuff, here.
Meanwhile, a this-time energized Yoanna and a this-time completely blasé Camille enjoy some more Kirk Cameron/Dudley Moore body-switcheroo highjinks, which this time finds Yoanna excitedly exclaiming, "Who ever thought Ebony and Ivory would be sharing a room together!" Sorry, but your sitcom pitch is too contrived, even if you have a built-in number of possibilities for the show's top contender for theme song. In which we all know. That people are the same wherever you go. There is good. And bad. In everyone. ["Except Camille." -- Wing Chun]
Please know that on any other day that self-inflicted cue would be followed by a full-throated rendition of the nine verses and every refrain. Y'all better just be relieved the karaoke machine in my apartment isn't loud enough for you to hear. And that the Stevie Wonder impersonator hasn't shown up. Because I always get to be Paul, because he gets to go, "Eh-eh-boh-NEE! I-i-voh-reeee" on the fadeout. Anyway, Yoanna shares that she and Camille are getting along much better now, noting, "I want to keep peace," and Camille, from the safety of a confessional that looks like a confessional booth woke Camille up at 4 AM, all, "I can't sleep...are you asleep? Hey, Camille? Pssssst? You asleep? Sigh," Camille, decked out in pajamas and her diva eye mask, slurs, "The best way to seek revenge on someone is kill them with kindness. So that's what I'm doing. I'm killing Yoanna with kindness." Camille. Still deadlier than lupus.
Buona Mattina! For those of you not in the know of the complexities of the Italian language, that totally means "fish are pretty." We're on our way to April's most saw-it-on-her-teen-tour city yet, Verona. The girls arrive in an enormous, empty amphitheater, where they are soon to be met by Jay "Manuel Del Jay" Manuel, who chirpily cries, "You didn't think I was gonna abandon you in Italy, did you?" I didn't realize he'd become a Customs official. He tells them that today is a high-fashion shoot for sunglasses, and throws off several label-y names like Gucci, Dior, and Max Mara. The one they won't be doing, I guess, is Jay's high-fashion label of Enormously Hilarious Bar Mitzvah Novelty Glasses, which he is sporting at this very moment. He introduces the photographer and repeats that today's shoot is going to be high-fashion. Yoanna is up first, and she's decked out real pretty-like in Dior glasses. Jay tells her to stand in a way he described to us as "deconstructed poses," which is totally just shorthand fashion for "early man." It's so hunchy! Yoanna rocks the pose. Camille tells us how "privileged" she feels to still be doing this, adding, "even...quite royal?" She looks shitty. Shandi is wearing a crazy blonde wig and looks crazy. Jay tells an attending guy named Nole, who I know we've seen before, that Shandi looks like she could be in Italian Vogue, musing that he can't believe she came out of a Walgreen's. Nole, taking this cue, responds, "That's where they all come from. Walgreen's and Dairy Queen." All of them? Well then, cancel my 20,000 go_sees, and get me the hell to a Blizzard with some delicious Reese's Pieces. April is, according to Jay, "very consistent," but he seems like he thinks she's -- what? -- too technical. Mercedes worries that her look is "too commercial," worrying that she isn't high-fashion enough. I still don't really know what that means. I liked the world better when people sucked because they were short or looked like little boys.
Camille and Yoanna traipse the streets of Milan on their way to collect the boobiest of all booby prizes in the whole of BoobTown, USA: a street-side artist's rendering of them. Oooooh! A caricature artist! Well, at least he won't have to over-accentuate the immense and cartoonish size of Camille's head, in both a literal and metaphoric fashion. From here, they'll get a two-lire, two-minute shoulder massage and pick up some foam fingers of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Because these are all things that cheesy German tourists and visiting top models seem to think is the latest in tourist chic.
Take down the hair anytime, Shandi. We're at a fancy Italian bistro (I know this because of the Italiano music playing in the background) called "Bottega Vini," which means in English -- no, wait for it -- "Bottega Wines." What "Bottega" means died with Mussolini. (I have no idea what that means.) Inside the restaurant, Camille lifts a glass and toasts "to good health, happiness, friendship, love, and success." The rest of the girls nod as if the speaker is somehow immune from having her own words affect her, and the toast is montage-errupted by the entrance of Tyra and Jay. They banter about the trip and the apartment and how old ladies in Italy mature like cheese, instead of how old ladies are in this country, where they smell like cheese. Yoanna is soon to depart for the restroom, and Jay asks in her absence, "She always disappears to the bathroom at dinner?" Tyra gets her concerned, like, "I run Camp Tyra" look, and says that eating disorders are, well, disorderly and something to be taken seriously. Even if they're completely fabricated by a former nemesis and unconvincing friend whose personal credo seems to have just morphed into "and if you can't kill them with kindness, kill them with bulimia." Far more effective. Yoanna comes back with a book of matches, so I guess she doesn't have bulimia so much as she, like, plays pick-up-sticks with Our Gang? She wasn't smoking. Tyra is soon to be off, and suddenly Mercedes is telling Yoanna what Camille had said. Yoanna pointedly asks, "And you said this in front of Tyra Banks?" And watch out, y'all. She's unzipping her hoodie. She means it, big-time. Mercedes and Camille have words about this, and Camille defends herself by saying, "The question was if she disappears a lot. And, yes, she doesn't disappear a lot." Kreskin? You're still in the running toward becoming America's Top Model.
Man, Tyra walks slowly. Yoanna does what I guess is running out of the restaurant after her. She explains in a word that she has never had an eating disorder, and Tyra responds, "It's what my mom calls the ugly side of the beautiful." Wow. Mother, poet, and professional ironic syntax spinning, ladies and gentlemen. Give it up for Mama Banks. Tyra admits that she did find some "sabotage" in it, which she could have tried with someone who has the body for bulimia, at least.
Tyra Mail! Tyra Mail! Blah blah blah one of you will be eliminated blee. Into la stanza di eliminazione the five remaining girls want. Judges. IMG. Fashion spread. Sephora. They're sitting in the opposite order that they sit in in New York, because water spirals the wrong way down the bidet. The last judge, though, is named Michael Giannini, who works for D'Management and was the guy at the last go^see who was Italian and mean. Here he's American, living in Italy, and mean. Tyra explains that he was a plant at the gosee, and now we get to see them!
Shandi is up first. In her go?see, she graciously tells her Italian tormentors that she feels what she's capable of comes across best in her photos, and Janice applauds this. Giannini says that her shyness is going to be trouble, but Nigel jumps in, saying, "Yoanna's got a big can!" Oh, sorry. He actually says something else, for once. And it is to highlight Shadi's realitybabble "journey" that's brought her to this place. Awww! She's most improved. Her photo shoot is, according to Janice, "perfection personified." Look, miss, I'm just looking for the way to the liquid soaps aisle, please.
Janice expresses a desire to "slap that woman's face" when watching the rude lady at Mercedes's go5see, and Tyra tosses of a quick "and you'd be homeless and jobless" before returning to the matter at hand. They like Mercedes's pose at the photo shoot, but Eric objects to her "normal" face. Tyra is concerned that she's too "commercial." Giannini notes that she's "commercial." Commercials are all, "Mother!"
Camille's clip is...well, not flattering. They ask Camille why she walks like MC Skat Cat is about to appear right behind her and start singing of all things of who makes the money and who likes to smoke, and she tells them assuredly, "This is my signature walk and this is what's going to make me famous." She continues, arguing, "Actually, I got chosen out of 6,000 girls." Tyra throws her head down on the table and there is a general "oooooooh" around the room reminiscent of the one time in junior high someone told a teacher to shut up. Camille argues even then that she was chosen as best in show attitude-wise after the go()sees, but Tyra defends her upcoming decisions by telling her that this one was "separate." And her photos are shite, Tyra telling us that the photographer said she wasn't "in touch with her heart and soul." You know who else hates Camille? Psychics and America.
Yoanna aces the go@#$&&%sees. Her photo is perfect, her body looks great, and Nigel says that it's a side he hasn't seen of her. Wow. She should try "collecting" "some" "more" "matches" from now on.
April is too technical! I can't believe they're trotting this out again. Eric complains that she looks like "a corpse," but Janice has slightly more florid death imagery on hand, noting, "This photograph looks like the batteries died in her vibrator." Can we leave that? Let's leave that.
They all love Shandi. This time, the body works for Nigel. Tyra loves April, but Eric notes that "she's thinking, instead of feeling it." Camille is so done. Mercedes is "too commercial." Gettin' late in the season, people.
Congratulations, Shandi. You're still in the running toward become America's Top Model. As is Yoanna. As is April. Mercedes and Camille will please to step forward. Tyra tells Camille that she is "undeniably beautiful," but that her aggression is becoming a bit of a problem. Mercedes, on the other hand, is there just for her personality. But she's too commercial, in a way that makes Tyra muse, "Will the fashion industry believe it?" Mercedes bursts into tears, so Tyra doesn't prolong it anymore, finishing the sentence only a few tears later, "Maybe the world will believe it." Camille stands stock still for a moment, and then slo-mo hugs a tearless room because nobody cares.
"This is something that I wanted," Camille tells us in crazy close-up. She tells us that she's going to use this experience "to make Camille a better Camille," and as she fades from the Back to the Future photo screen, you can't help feeling that we're already seeing a far better Camille in the absence of any kind of Camille at all.