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This week, the girls share their deepest fears-slash-sob-stories, and also face death by bees. First, we learn a little about the tragic pasts that we missed out on with the truncated casting week. Molly is adopted, loves her churchy-looking parents, and feels bad about being a terror in high school. Ondrei has two brothers who have died -- one in a car accident, and one who was murdered only months ago. The others initially see her as unemotional about it, but really it's all just waiting to come out at an inopportune time. Nicole's tragedy is that she looks old on film.
Tyra visits the house in a chef's hat, with nutritionist Heather Bauer in tow. Tyra speaks in a terrifying French accent while she and Heather talk about "cheaties" -- i.e. bad-for-you meals that you can eat once in a while. They blindfold the girls and make them taste two dishes and guess which is the healthiest. Basically they have to choose between two crap foods. The moral of the story is that it's totally okay to eat spaghetti and meatballs AFTER your photo shoot. Monique is grateful to Tyra for empowering women who love pasta.
The kitchen wars start early this season, and center around raw chicken in a cereal bowl. This is Aleandria's chicken, and it's apparently been in the fridge for days. Dalya gives her a talk about fridge versus freezer, to which Alexandria defensively yells, "I know about chicken!" A simmering rivalry ensues. Jaclyn, who is totally scared of Alexandria, keeps her opinions about chicken to herself.
The girls head to a theater for a performance challenge, where Nigel introduces them to Eugene Buica, director of The Acting Corps. And if you've ever wanted to be theatrically trained by a young David Gest, this is the guy for you. Eugene talks about the inner critic who can take even the greatest creative genius down, and then has the girls draw their critics on chart paper. One by one, the girls face off with Eugene, in the role of the inner critic, and try to convince him to go away. Holly's inner critic tells her that she was unwanted, while Nicole's inner critic has crazy eyebrows, just like her. Jaclyn takes on her inner critic's caustic remarks about her baby face and high voice, and Alexandria rightfully laughs from the audience. Ondrei's inner critic tells her that her brothers have died, which is of course actually true. She quite sadly breaks down, which puts all the other girls in a tearful state as well. To paraphrase Jaclyn, they went through heck. Once she's home, Ondrei starts to question whether she's emotionally ready to be in the competition.
For this week's photo shoot, the girls do a beauty shot with bees. Yes, bees. Smize, everybody! To make it worse, they wear jewelry covered in pheromones to attract the bees. Jaclyn is allergic, but doesn't seem all that concerned about it. Modeling is pain and near-death experience, people. Deal with it. Everyone gets bees all up in their grille, some with more success than others. Alek Wek is guest judge at panel, and she and the others love Hannah's teary photo, caused by a breakdown on set. Her ability to spin her inconvenient emotions into photographic gold gets her the best picture of the week. Ondrei tells Tyra and the judges that she's realized she wants to go home, and she's released without too much ado. Sadly for the others, Ondrei's picture wasn't the worst of the week and so someone else must be eliminated. Nicole and Dalya land in the bottom two, and it's Nicole's old-looking self that gets sent back to the nursing home.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on ANTM: Tyra and the Jays faked out the final fourteen contestants by telling them they were cut at semi-finals, when in fact they were actually standing in their new model apartment. What became of the poor losers who thought they made it to the round but were actually cut, we may never know. Perhaps one or two will show up as a Charlie Sheen goddess. And then, in a pinnacle of sorts for all televisual media, the girls walked on a 12-inch runway over a swimming pool while encased in a human-sized, glitter-filled hamster ball. No one ran out of oxygen, sadly, but a few girls fell off of the runway and into the water and had to spin around aimlessly as a live audience laughed at them. Angelia was unremarkable and thus was the first to be cut. Thirteen bitches remain!
It is night at the Top Model house, and the girls arrive home to find Molly's best-of-week photo displayed as digital art. I thought that her victory would go far toward reminding me that she exists, but I'm sad to say that wasn't the case. Molly tells us that she's adopted, and we see a photo of her with her very wholesome-looking parents. She owes her parents a lot, she says. Though frankly if she'd grown up totally in the foster system, or better yet as a motherless street urchin, she'd probably get more screen time. Meanwhile, Alexandria sees fit to give Nicole a talking to. She tells Nicole that she was standing up there like a dumpy dope expecting to get cut. time, she should display a level of obnoxious, false confidence. Nicole reminds us about how Tyra told her that she looked a good fifteen years older in her photos. Her priority for this week is to look more youthful. What do you do for that? Wear pigtails? Hold one of those giant lollipops? It's a conundrum.
Meanwhile, Ondrei and Dominique eat pizza and chat about tragic situations. Dominique asks if Ondrei has any siblings, and Ondrei says she had two brothers who died. One was in a car crash, and another was murdered. And not only was he murdered, but he was murdered the night before her prom. Ondrei interviews that no one could get over such a tragic event. At the same time, she says, it made her even more eager to be on the show and do something big with her life. Dominique and Dalya express their surprise that Ondrei is even there only a few months after the murder, which seems a bit callous of them. Dalya is frightened by Ondrei's composure in the face of tragedy. I am frightened by Dalya's jaw. Shut up, Dalya.
Nicole is up , facing off against her big-eyebrowed, red-eyed inner critic. She tearfully tells her inner critic that she is good enough to be a model, and doesn't give a damn what the inner critic thinks of her. The inner critic thinks she should invest in a pair of tweezers. Oh wait, that's the outer critic. And then we have the greatest moment of all time, which is Jaclyn facing off against her inner critic, who is also improbably adorable despite not actually having a fully-formed face. Through sobs she yells, "You think you can't model because you have a baby face! And because people tell you your voice is too high! But you can do anything you want to do!" She is literally shaking as she has this face-off. This baby-face off. Jaclyn has struggles, people. You try growing up with three extra fat cells in your cheeks. From the audience Alexandria laughs, which brings her up a notch or two in my estimation.
is Ondrei, whose inner critic looks like a devil with Nicole's eyebrows. She tells her inner critic that she's had to listen to him/her all her life. She's had to listen to voices in her head and suffer through nightmares since her brother died, she says, and it's all because of her inner critic. Ondrei's inner critic murdered her brother? That's some Inception shit right there. Ondrei cries for real as she yells out that the men in her life who were supposed to be here for this moment are dead. She asks what she's supposed to do. Most of the other girls are crying now, too. It's a very emotional moment, and I guess we should just be glad that Ondrei didn't have to have it in a giant hamster ball. Ondrei interviews that the challenge was uncomfortable for her, because she didn't expect to go that deep into her emotions.
Nigel gathers the girls together and says that though this was a painful routine, it exposes who they really are so the camera can capture their humanity. If they hide their humanity, he says, they'll be just another pretty face. It's their stories that make them special, and TV-worthy. Nicole tells us that the experience was cathartic, and she really did work through her problems. Why get a therapist when you could have an acting coach? Nigel says that since the girls all did such a good job, J. Estina jewelers is gifting each of them a beautiful pair of earrings. Jaclyn is very excited about the earrings, and thinks they all deserve it because they've been through heck. You want to talk about heck? I've been recapping this show for thirteen seasons. Where's my free jewelry?