Episode Report Card Potes: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dive Bomb
By Potes | Season 13 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.04.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The girls are still in Hawaii, and it's Laura's birthday! She's served up an eggs n' Spam breakfast special for the occasion. Erin, on the other hand, gets served a hot plate of contempt from the other girls, who can't stand her. But more on that in a bit. Marisa Miller, 5'8" Victoria's Secret supermodel gives the girls a lesson in bikini posing. This includes the arts of the booty tooch and Barbie toes. Additionally, the girls have to get wet and roll in sand. To poor, sunburned Laura this feels like sandpaper on a wound. Happy birthday! Nicole is new to being sexy, but manages to make it work in a makeshift shower as the girls practice the art of getting clean on camera.
Marisa leads girls up to a cliff's edge, where they meet Nigel. It turns out the girls will have to pose as they jump off of said cliff for this week's photo shoot challenge. The girl who strikes the most sexy and graceful pose while jumping wins. Everyone gets just one shot. Laura gets points for being the first to volunteer for anything. Sundai is the only one who really has trouble, as she gets a wave right in the ear. The winner of the challenge will receive a pearl necklace worth $5,000 as well as extra frames in the week's photo shoot. She will then get to choose a friend who will get additional frames, and then that friend will choose a friend to get additional frames, and so on until one poor girl is left out with only the standard amount of frames at the photo shoot. Nicole, being perfect, wins. She picks Sundai for extra frames. Sundai in turn chooses Laura, who chooses Jennifer. Erin is out cold. Nicole explains that no one chose her because she is universally reviled. Erin is bratty and pissed about the whole thing.
The week's photo shoot is actually underwater, with bathing suits and colorful scarves. Laura has a serious fear of death by suffocation, and starts hyperventilating at the bottom of the ocean. However, she pulls it together and does a pretty good job overall. Nicole rocks it in the face, but her final photo has weird frog legs and flat feet. It just keeps her from being the best of the week. That distinction goes to Jennifer, who was kind of a surprise but benefited from her extra frames and the direction she got from Jay between her first and second rounds of shots. Sundai has asthma and an earache and generally makes a lot of excuses that no one buys. She ends up in the bottom two with Erin, who doesn't go deep enough and so loses her face. In the end, however, Erin gets yet another chance, and Sundai gets sent right back to the foster care system.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see why vloggers Val & Beth think that Tyra should start accepting older models, as well, in TV is the Answer.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: The top six were banned from the disgusting Top Model house and swept away to the inter national destination of Hawaii. But it was no vacation for five of the girls who still had to deal with Erin the whole time. And despite being pretty great all season, Brittany was sent home after, the show does not remind us, posing in effing blackface. In any case, five bitches remain!
It is night, and the girls are heading home after panel. Jennifer can't believe that she's part of the final five. Me either! She says it's unreal and scary. Meanwhile, this is the second week in a row that Erin felt certain she was going home. Me too! She says that panel wants her to succeed, and so she doesn't want to let them down. I don't know that they actually give a rat, but okay. Erin says that it's a lot of pressure. She's 18 and this is the biggest thing she's ever done with her life. Sundai tells us that she doesn't even know why Erin's still here. All of the others think that she's hanging by a thread, but manages to hang on every time. The others want to flick her out of the competition like a poodle-haired bug. It would be pretty great if annoying people could be flicked out of existence. Alas, that technology has not yet been invented.
Once the girls get back to their house, Nicole says that she can't even enjoy having the best photo of the week since Brittany went home. She notes that Brittany did really well throughout the competition and had several number one photos. I love that in season 13 these girls are still trying to find the logic in the decisions of the panel. Save the brainpower, sweeties -- there is none. Jennifer takes Brittany's ouster as a reminder that any one picture can make or break you. Unless you're Erin, in which your elf troll powers hypnotize Tyra into handing you a photo. Jennifer interviews that Nicole is a huge competitor and has yet to fall below the halfway line, then animatedly stabs her own hand and yells that she hates the bitch. I love how Jennifer's awesome personality has made me forget about her lazy eye.
Tyra Mail! "You never know what can come to shore. I hope you look appropriate. Love, Tyra." Someone screams that they're going to be sea turtles. Jennifer seconds the animal idea, then cracks up like a maniac. Nicole, true to form, thinks that they might be corpses washed up on the shore. Actually, that sounds totally plausible. The girls hang out in their bedroom, and Nicole tells Sundai that she likes her because she's been through a lot, and yet it hasn't hardened her. Sundai notes that the others don't actually even know her story. Laura remembers that Sundai was adopted, and Sundai quietly says that that was part of it. In an interview, Sundai says that she had a rough childhood and ended up in a foster home. And then, unfortunately, she says, "It actually made me a better person than I am today." And I know what she means, but still. She says that it's better coming from a rough background, because you appreciate things more. Take that, bratface Erin. Sundai says that if she makes it to the final four the others will get the full story. Thank goodness Sundai spilled her background to Tyra and the Jays in the premiere episode, otherwise the other models might never have known. Sundai tells us that if this were to end tomorrow, she'd feel like her life has ended. She says that modeling is her only hope to be successful, and there's nothing else for her. Well, that's pretty devastating. And untrue! I'm sure there's a community theater production of Annie out there that has just been waiting for an 18 year old who looks 12! The Sundai will come out tomorrow!