Episode Report Card Potes: B+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Concrete and Barbed Wire
By Potes | Season 19 | Episode 8 | Aired on 10.19.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's go-see time! This season, things are a bit different as the girls head out in pairs to see five designers including Guess, Whitney Port, Charlotte Ronson, Lulu Guinness, and a 13-year-old named Cecilia Cassini who actually makes me feel kind of relieved to be an underachiever. Each of the designers score the models on their go-see performances, but can only choose to book one. The models can make multiple bookings, and whoever has the most at the end of five hours will win the challenge. There's the usual litany of comments from the designers about the models being either too small or too big for their clothes, and lots of walking and posing and trying to have a personality. While Kristin, Nastasia, and Kiara all do a decent job and get one booking a piece, it's perfect Laura who is back on top, booking two gigs, including Guess. She wins the challenge, and gets a whole bunch of clothes from the participating designers and evil glares from Kristin. Victoria, who laid it on a little thick at the go-sees and booked nothing, is quite despondent, as is Disney Brittany, whose wishing upon a star did not quite get the job done in this case.
The photo shoot for the episode takes place inside a prison, and features the models as '50s style bad girls posing for very stylish mug shots. Paris Hilton, eat your heart out! Kiara freaks out at the whole prison thing, because she had been arrested for shoplifting when she was 18 and forced to go through the actual mug shot and fingerprinting process. She appears to be quite traumatized by the experience, and also scared straight! Her emotions hold her back as her shoot starts, but eventually she's able to let out some of her anger and fear and get back on track. Victoria continues her trend of getting deeply into character for photo shoots, and this time is a tacky southern lady criminal. She actually spits on the floor, to the alarm of everybody. Upon Johnny's urging, she eventually reins it in a bit. Inside, though, she's still silently spitting and/or thinking about what her mom would say in this circumstance.
And speaking of Victoria, the others are still concerned that she's a basket case who's unable to handle the stress and pressure of the competition. Also, at least one of them thinks that she might have a contagious disease. She makes a bit of a stink about feeling bullied at panel, which rouses the ire of Kelly Cutrone, likely because she thinks "home schooled" is equivalent to "mentally challenged." Never has a bully been so offended by bullying! While perfect Laura gets best photo for being perfectly perfect as usual, Victoria lands in the bottom two along with Disney Brittany. But it's still not quite time to release Victoria back into the land of plentiful mental health care and country cooking, and so it's Brittany who is exiled. However! This happens to be the week that one of the eliminated girls gets to come back, based solely on social media scores, and Brittany is going to be one of the contenders. As Allyssa, Leila, Darian, Yvonne, Destiny, and Jessie all return to panel room we learn that… we will have to wait until next week to learn who gets to return to the competition.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Victoria proved that there is such a thing as being too skinny. And too crazy. And too loving toward your mom.
This week, we enter with Laura complaining about how terrible and unexpected it was for her to be in the bottom two. There's only so much a human can take before starting to break, she says, while doing nothing resembling breaking. Oooh, the struggle! Go sob on the phone to your mom about how much you miss her country cooking and then get back to us. Meanwhile, Brittany gets a letter from her sister, who seems as syrupy and Disneyfied as Brit herself. Little sister writes, "It is so true, no one can ever comprehend the feeling I have toward you." And then she rubbed a lamp or talked to a starfish or something as she prepared her cryogenic freezer for entry.
Brittany reminds us that she's had the second best photo three times. She wants to get best photo, so she can be someone that her little sister can look up to and be proud of. Instead, maybe she should look into transferring to a four-year university and getting a degree so she can be someone that her little sister can look up to and be proud of. Just a thought!
Meanwhile, the contestants sit around the kitchen table and speculate about which of the eliminated girls stands a chance of coming back. Nastasia thinks that it's between Allyssa and Leila, and we are reminded that Jessie, Darian, Destiny, and Yvonne also exist. Then it's time for a big family meal around the table. Everyone is there except for Victoria, and there are murmurs about her probably not coming. Because, you know, issues. But then she shows up, probably with one luxurious pea rolling around on her plate. So very filling! Will she be able to finish it all? Victoria reminds us that last week at panel, Tyra asked about her "situation" -- e.g., her ever-impending mental breakdown and/or potential eating disorder -- and some of the girls were making faces behind her and, upon prompting, expressed concerns about Victoria's health. She feels like daggers are being thrown at her behind. Spiky sharp pains in the back are probably a symptom of malnutrition and sobbing-related dehydration.
Things are very awkward at the dinner table, and Brittany expresses the common theme of concern that Victoria is not strong enough to deal with all the shit that being on the 19th season of Tyra Makes a Dollar can throw at you. Victoria tells her that worry, anxiety and stress about "other things" were getting to her, and Kristin interrupts to say that Victoria isn't stable enough to handle this competition. And, you know, we do have seven episodes worth of evidence to back up her claim. Kristin is also upset that Victoria tried to make the rest of them look bad in front of the judges, and Victoria gives a well-deserved WTF about who made whom look bad. As Brittany says that they were just concerned about her health, Victoria tries to end the conversation, saying that she can't take it right now. Kristin sees this as a checkmate, reiterating that Victoria can't handle the stress. Victoria responds that she might not think Kristin is mature enough for certain things -- "certain things" being "eschewing stankery" -- and Kristin says they're not talking about her. Victoria, who is clearly not used to verbal fisticuffs with mean girls, interviews that she's exhausted and despondent. I'm starting to feel that the home school language arts curriculum is just one big word-a-day calendar. In any case, Kristin tells Victoria not to start with her, and Victoria tells Kristin not to start with her, and I think underneath it all we all know who really shouldn't be starting something with whom. Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma ku sa, indeed.