By Rachel Stein
Tyra and her terrible roots tell the Top 13 there are some changes this season: Everything will be graded, and that scores will be quantitative rather than qualitative, which is kind of like college, I guess. There's a product-placement closet winners can raid, and every week there will be a chance to win a $10,000 scholarship money deposit, but only the winner will get to cash their check. That just seems cruel.
Just when all of the ladies are hanging and Victoria is freaking everyone out, a loud thud is heard... and after a brand new theme song, the girls run downstairs only to find the Iota Phi Theta Step Team, comprised of "fine chocolate men" dancing with great power. Then dreamy Rob Evans comes out to melt our hearts and tell the ladies that they're going to Hollywood.
They party-bus off to a club where we meet a Miss Jay rip-off, who tells the crew how important it is to connect with the public, considering they'll be voting this time around and everything. Whoever brings it the most, Rob tells us, gets a fancy-looking key and wins the mini-challenge... which involves walking a runway in a club, not unlike a stripper. This whole thing is painfully low budget.
All of the walks are pretty much the same, except mean girl Kristin's butt hangs out, Harvard Maria is totally boring and trips a little bit, Yvonne does impressive kicks and then Victoria brining the sexxx like the weird relative at the bar mitzvah she is. Fake Miss Jay crowns Yvonne, who is this year's most voluptuous contestant.
Then out comes fake Zach Galifiankis from last week's premiere, whose names turns out to be P'Trique. He gives the first Tyra Mail of the season, saying tomorrow's challenge will "leave you hanging" so "be sure to kill the shot."
When the ladies get home, the challenge scoreboard is up, and Kiara and Destiny get into the first fight of the season. Fortunately, both tell us they are strong competitors who are here to win. Phew!
The day, the girls head over to the shoot, and enter what turns out to be a room filled with taxidermy. Creative director Johnny Wujek welcomes them and introduces 's Shenae Grimes as today's photographer(!). The challenge is that the girls will be posing as... dead animals. As in, their heads will look like they are mounted onto plaques, and their bodies won't be shot. Just like in college!
Again, there are no obvious standouts here, but Victoria is once again weird (which is a plus in this show, as we've learned), Jesse clearly blows it by not posing strong enough, Harvard Maria is super boring and too good for the challenge, Destiny looks like she's about to fall asleep, Leila is freaking fierce and Kiara is full of herself.
When they get back, Victoria gets on the phone with her mom and loses her shit in like, the best way imaginable.
Time for the first judging. We say hello to Kelly Cutrone, Rob Evans and Bryanboy, our "social media correspondent," here to read us mean comments and introduce poor-quality videos from fans. Leila, who got a perfect score from the judges, wins the challenges and gets the key to the Tyra suite for the week. Runner-up is Natasia, who made a weird face that Tyra mostly-arbitrarily liked. Former (or current?) angry girl Destiny and mousey hipster Jesse are the bottom two, and ultimately Jesse gets sent home. She barely even got to booty tooch this season!
Oh, fuck, there's an opportunity of Jesse coming back in a Top Chef Last Chance Kitchen-type challenge that all of the rejected models will face. You can watch that online, or, you know, not at all. Either way.