"I launched a nationwide search," Tyra continues. And, y'know, I thought that was her with the flyers and the scotch tape affixing a flyer to the bulletin board at my local coffee shop, but I was walking really quickly because people with flyers in my neighborhood are to be stringently avoided as a general rule because no, I'm sorry, but I still do not have a moment to spare for you, Greenpeace, so stop asking me that every day before I divest you of one of your twee Earth-circle button and use the pointy end of it to poke a baby dolphin. But it's not Tyra's fault, when she's the one out there day in and day out, campaigning for the prettification of upper thighs and skin complexions, rather than some dumb forest I'll only get eaten by a bear if I bother to go to, anyway. So let's allow her to continue, please? "People sent tapes from all over the country." In a white, plain-text font I'll just politely refer to as "Default" (and impolitely refer to as "High School Video Yearbook"), city names come Star Wars-ing at me, accompanied by shots of one girl in each of the highlighted cities: a low-slung-jeans-wearing skank (is that Nicole?) struts out in LA, which isn't surprising, what with the fact that "City Of Low-Slung-Jeans-Wearing Skanks" is etched onto the Los Angeles crest in Latin. And you thought it was a dead language. Somnium, balatro! A girl who won't win gets smiley in Compton; a belly-shirted spitfire gives us her signature walk in Dallas; a Yale student failing all of her classes shoots for something other than ending up on the pole in New Haven, a girl walks toward the camera in Chicago. And Hartford. And Los Angeles. Ah, yes. From L.A. to L.A., unbridled talent abounds. Two shots (Hi, Margie!) turn into four (Hi, Alice!) turn into sixteen (tell me quick about Hugo and Kim!) turn into thirty-six, as a "with additional directing by" credit appears somewhere far down on Mike Figgis's IMDb entry. The action tops out at eight rows across and eight rows down of audition footage, and if I've ever been glad for math, it was for teaching me the short cuts to know how many The Top Model Bunch squares there were on my television without my having to count each of them individually. And you always say the math you learned in school has no bearing on your actual life. Well, you do. Dear multiplication tables in my Trapper Keeper folder: let's never fight again. Over the whole of this geometric melee appear the words "Thousands of Tapes were Submitted," because, when in doubt on a title, capitalize every other word. Look at how well it worked for The bible. Or America's Top model.
The montage continues as Tyra tells us that her criteria for individually selecting each of the girls were "originality, creativity, I'm looking for humor. All colors, all shapes, all sizes." Except, of course, for the fatties. We cut to Tyra sitting in a white bathrobe telling someone, "[Pack your bags, y'all] You're comin' to L.A.!" as if she sat down with her coffee and scone after a long soak and was all, "Now, to call each of the girls individually" before engaging someone else from the production team's help and admitting, "I've never actually seen one of these things used when it wasn't being picked up by one of my esteemed colleagues and thrown at her assistant's head, so...little help?" But nothing to fret, as whoever is the one giving the good news elicits a series of shrieks and screams from the girls who are headed westward. Fonty The Intro Font shares the uncontextualized information of "20 Semi-finalists," which must be the number of girls going to Los Angeles. "What I'm looking for is a star," Tyra finishes up. "That's all." Totally. With you all the way. No fatties.
“ Shannon loves Brad Pinkert because he's just like the Lord but with washboard abs. ”
Shannon introduces her Sisters Christian to a magazine cutout of one Brad Pinkert, a model she looooooooves. She announces that his favorite book is The Bible, but when I Googled him, I discovered that, besides about a million drooly girl blogs where his name often appears on Top Ten Cutest Boy lists surrounded by every imaginable spelling of "Andy Roddick," one of the only other links (which I did not click on, because my computer is Christian) on which his name is featured is entitled, "Hot Young Stars in the Nude." So unless that's a scandalous fake that besmirches his good Christian name, my contention is that the only book other than the Good Book Mr. Pinkert enjoys might just be the checkbook. But I've been wrong before. Anyway, Shannon loves him because he's just like the Lord but with washboard abs.
Noting that godliness is to boringliness, the cameras whisk us back into the room of heathens, where Elyse finds a pullout bed underneath her bed, which she hopes can be used "for boyfriends." But as we've quickly learned from two seasons of this show, (a) clucking hens in testosterone-deprived isolation makes for the best television ever, and (b) if your boyfriend can't be blue-tacked to the wall above your bed, you're not going to see him again until the clip show. Instead, the girls are shepherded into the living room, where Tyra shows up to congratulate them once more and explain, "You guys are the eight finalists. But I like very round numbers." Eight is round. "So what I did was, I did a nationwide search for two more." Eight is just two big circles. It's the roundest number there is. Nobody skates a Figure Ten. Nuh-uh. No point. Not round enough. Elyse confessionalizes, "What?" And, indeed...what? If there were twenty girls to choose from and the producers needed to boot twelve, where did these two other girls come from? It stirs the gumbo in strange, sinful ways. Tyra tries to stir up some excitement as she introduces "Giselle" who, Tyra tells us, is Latina, and Tessa who, Tyra thinks, represents "an exotic variation on a classic blonde look," up to and including the exoticism that comes from being a blonde who has, according to my television's interpretation of it, red hair. ["And a face like a frying pan. A real ugly frying pan." -- Wing Chun] Tyra gives a quickie speech welcoming them again, telling them that they'll be evaluated every week and that one of them will be eliminated. But, to the winner goes the slightly-variant-from-last-season spoils: a modeling contract with Revlon, a fashion spread in Marie Claire, and a contract with "major modeling agency Wilhemina." Everyone claps because noise is pretty.
"You are like an angel," Adrianne tells Tessa as they sit in a corner of the house and do some serious smoking. "As soon as I heard, 'Does anyone else smoke,' I was like, 'Aaaaaah!'" It looks in print like she's yelling, but the actual stage direction is "as if the heavens were opening up to bring them closer to their god after they died from smoking-related illnesses." And, I mean, I love smokers. And though I haven't actually inhaled from the end of a (lit, and long story) cigarette in over two years, I still walk outside after dinner with the smokers because, well, smokers are cooler. Oh, come on! You were thinking it! But as Adrianne and Tessa enjoy some friendly conversation, Robin walks to the smoking corner and is like, "Y'all, you know, I don't mind y'all killin' y'all selves, but mama wanna live!" Shannon stands by her den mother with a goofy grin on her face, knowing that she can just fan the smoke away with her latest copy of Non-Threatening Boys magazine and think about her wonderfully intact hymen.
“ Elyse fears that she might be alienating herself from a lot of the other girls, but promises, 'I'm not going to pretend I don't believe in evolution just so I can be friends with Robin.' This is deeply theological chatter for twelve girls in lobster bibs. ”
Up on a rooftop, the girls stand wrapped in towels on what looks like a bitter winter day in New York. Tyra emerges in a white coat and hat, lording her Stay Puft Marshmallow Model style over the chilled and un-Gortexed. Without wasting time, she calls forward Robin, Kesse, Ebony, and Shannon, chastising them for their lateness and telling them how "upset" that makes her. As punishment, they will be forced to look at Douglas Bizarro, their photographer for the day, who 100% of elementary school children would be able to identify in a photograph, according to a recent screening of Super-Size Me I attended. Bizarro, whose name needs no further explanation, tells the women that "swimwear is shot the season before" and that they'll be doing the rooftop shot on a cold day in New York because challenging challenges are very, very amusing to watch. Tyra cautions them with a little pre-shoot wisdom: "The one most common mistake that new models make is 'the sexier I move, the sexier the picture is going to be.'" She tells them that, instead, it's "all about the face," which is probably why Yoanna was sentenced to six months' worth of rigorous face-training when she won her crown. Tyra continues, "You have to always be thinking about something." She shows the difference between a dead eye, staring off into space, and "an eye that just has some fire," which she demonstrates by...staring off into space. She notes that they must create a character, "kind of like silent movies." She wishes them luck on their first shoot, but the overall sentiment is drowned out by the screeching of New York sirens and the crashing din of Mary Pickford doing ab crunches in her grave until she's strong enough to bust the hell out of there and school Tyra on "kind of like silent movies."
"This happens to be the coldest day in New York City," Bizarro tells us. Adrianne goes first and rocks a yellow bikini. Nicole listens to Bizarro, which is not too hard because she's had speakers installed on the front. Tessa does everything wrong. Robin keeps herself covered until the last possible moment, while Giselle stands off-camera and says that twenty-six is too old. So, basically, fuck you, Giselle. Wait, who the hell is Giselle? Elyse has the depth of a Wheat Thin, so her body heat plummets and she cries. Giselle rips off her blanket and thinks she's all kinds of kick-ass. Katie "couldn't seem to get everything right," according to Team Bizarro, and Shannon believes the Christ ordained her to be a model. Kesse found the whole thing "a learning experience," and Bizarro finds her one of the only ones able to "work the face."
Post-hypothermia dinner at "The Palm," where Elyse tells us she was "dragged from the atheism closet." We find her admitting her lack in a belief of a Higher Power, and Robin tells us in a confessional that this gives her "extreme reservations about [Elyse]," because religion always, always, always brings people together. Elyse fears that she might be alienating herself from a lot of the other girls, but promises, "I'm not going to pretend I don't believe in evolution just so I can be friends with Robin." This is deeply theological chatter for twelve girls in lobster bibs.