New York City! Where the streets are paved with slanderously unfounded rumors. We open up this week inside of the Tit-For-Tat-otel, where Elyse lies on her bed among the debris of clothing, bedding, and...oh my god, what the hell is that? I don't want to get too close -- if we've learned one thing on this show it's that secular literature is The Devil's Eye Test -- but it appears to be some kind of a "book." Anytime there's a volume of bound pages in that apartment that doesn't feature page after page of automatically capitalized instances of the word "He," it's going to make you ask the important questions. Such as Adrianne's question, which she asks of Elyse when she enters the room: "Do you like it better with more chicks, or no?" Elyse, lying in just a sports bra, exposes a stomach so devoid of nourishment it actually achieves a trough in the middle, and local extreme sports enthusiasts entertain themselves by riding eensy skateboards up and down and drowning out Adrianne's expository dialogue with muffled cries of "Wheee!" It's convex. No, wait. It's concave. It's...crap. It's whichever one hangs down from the top of the cave. Elyse deduces through the magical power of math (The Devil's Sport, with its pagan symbols and its unofficial mascot of The Count, clearly a stand-in for Satan, because open your eyes, people) that it's better in the house with "fewer chicks," and Adrianne copies some answers off of Elyse's skill drill in figuring out, "The fewer chicks, the closer we are to winning." Also, money can be exchanged for goods and services. Thank you, math!
We swing over to Giselle now, who we discover lying on her bed. If you should note the production value of this show getting higher and higher as the season progresses, it's because of the money saved from letting go half of the camera crew and replacing them with a running video camera resting on a single tripod pointing at Giselle's bed. You're always sure to get something, such as this shot of Giselle wrapping her arms around her pillow and hoping that the list of her own personal shortcomings she put under it will lead to a visit from the Self-Deprecation Fairy, who will leave her one million dollars in the currency of pity. Because really, that's all she wants. In a confessional now -- which, frankly, is probably just Giselle in her bed but shot with the camera above her like Meryl Streep dangling from the side of a building in the opening scene of Postcards from the Edge -- Giselle tells us, "After the last elimination, I just feel so...I don't know." Ssssssh! Her vocabulary is sleeeeeeeping! We kick it to a quick shot of last week's elimination, and back in this week's confessional, Giselle wears a hat that puts in her in the final running for a slot on America's Professional Mayim Bialik Impersonator (and she didn't even apply!) when she sadly intones, "The judges kept saying that I totally need to build up more confidence. It's just gonna be my hardest task ever." Your hardest task ever? Because you know who lacks for confidence? People who would see that there's a show called America's Top Model, look in the mirror, and be all, "Yes. Yes, that sounds just like me." You want to try for lack of confidence, you wait until Giselle deems a show called America's Most "Eh" Humans (for which the promotional poster will just be me, cocking my head to one side and shrugging just the right shoulder while sneering just a bit with my left nostril, like I suddenly can't stop doing at my desk right now) or America's Fiftieth Percentile to be "a bit lofty," and then we'll talk about improvements to her confidence level. Until then, sister, raise your hand if you're sure, just as the deodorant of the '80s demanded. And while you're at it? Get a little closer. Don't be shy. Madge, I soaked in it! Sorry. We're done here.
South, Miss Tessmacher! South! The girls travel downtown in a car, and I just have to guess at the direction they're traveling because if that's not Chelsea at the other end of this journey then I don't know this town at all. Knock knock! Who's there? Hypocritical opportunism! Hypocritical opportunism who? Hypocritical opportunism named Robin and Shannon, who are bible-banging commandment-followers when it comes to the other girls in the competition, but free-wheeling, gay-times-loving fag hags when they're trying to advance themselves. Sorry. That "knock knock" joke kind of broke down in the middle. See, because I don't really write jokes, per se. more so, I coalesce the vapors of human existence into a viable and meaningful comprehension. Really, I'm more of a philosopher. And, sometimes, I might accidentally talk about the show I'm supposed to be recapping.
The Wednesday night crowd at Big Cup is all, "Like, we get it, Jay. You're having a party. Like, yeah. And whatever" as the six remaining bitches clomp up the stairs above their heads and show up at the finely-appointed apartment of Jay Man-"I Feel Like A Woman"-uel. He opens the door wearing a shirt that reads simply "Colombia," and it's England 2 and Colombia nil and I know just how those Colombians feel. Fashion-wise. Jay notes Shannon in her black miniskirt and Robin in her entire endangered Bengal tiger, chiding them, "You didn't have to get that dressed up. We're just hanging out." Translation: "This shirt cost me $400. Stop being prettier than I am." As the ladies file one-by-one into the apartment, Jay proudly announces, "I just figured out who got cut." Everyone's counting tonight! Out: reading. Five minutes ago: writing. In: 'rithmetic. Always, always out: the word "guesstimate."
Holy escrow, y'all look at this place! I guess being a makeup artist to the stars (and, also, to Alicia Silverstone!) really does have perks other than learning how to successfully rouge away the aftereffects of an all-night bender with Brian Bonsall. It also gives you parquet floors. IN SIX ROOMS. As the ladies file in, they're also greeted by Tyra "She" Banks "She" Banks "I'm Wasted By The Way She Moves," who is flanked by a very tall boy with troll-doll hair and an orange shirt that the subtitle identifies as Tyra's assistant, "Ty." And I'm not saying that Tyra has a history of attempting to make the world over in her own image, but what I am saying is that, upon meeting an assistant with the exact same name as his boss, it would be all I could do to stop myself from turning to the remaining six girls right now and being all, "Congratulations on becoming America's Top Model, Kesse."
"You guys are gonna cook for us, " Jay announces on behalf of the five-member entourage he's invited over. The girls look around perplexed, but Robin jumps in and saves the day. She now talks so much like a caricature of herself that her speaking voice should be rendered in colored pencil with an enormous head and roller skates as drawn by an artist at a small-town waterfront street fair. The girl sounds like she's doing a trash-talking, drunken impersonation of herself: "We nee summ CHEEK-in! An'sum FLAH-wuh! An'sum swee-buh-day-doze. An'GREENZ!" Ssssssh! Jay responds that they have everything but the greenz, and wacky montage-ing ensues as the girls slap the meal together. But, as we are quick to learn, even the nicest apartments in New York require some kind of space compromise, and even if a place is big enough to accommodate a grand piano, someone's still eating dinner on the piano bench. The group sits around a makeshift table as Tyra notes that the pasta looks "absolutely weird," but she still stands to unbutton her pants "to prepare for the feast." Because top models always eat perfectly balanced meals, and to imply otherwise would mean that sometimes people make it to the top of their industries using certain enhancements as an unfair advantage, like athletes with steroids or presidents with lying.
Strumity-strum-strum in the key of minor signals we're about to move into some Serious Issues, like if we suddenly found out that Ty had lupus or if someone had shown up wearing the same outfit as Jay, heaven forbid. But no! For it is even worse than that: a close-up on Elyse's plate signals that she has eaten her fair share of pasta, but Giselle fills in some treasonous inferences that she'd prefer not to put down in writing because then it would be libel and also because she can't really spell: "It's kind of an issue right now whether Elyse has an eating disorder or not." Kesse fills us in that, yes, Elyse did eat a full portion at dinner, "but she mentioned to somebody that it was because Tyra was there." But in her own confessional, Elyse is asking us to wait just one gosh-darned New York Minute, in an anxious denial that finds her telling us, "I eat when I'm hungry and I stop eating when I'm full." Don't know about you guys, but that sounds like an eating order. Besides, her twin sister just told me she's doing fine, so...I'm convinced.
Back at the Are-You-Sure- You're-Not-Going- To-Eat-That-otel, a piece of Tyra Mail! Tyra Mail! informs us that the girls have to meet in the London room (which, at first, I believed was going to be actual London, which is only significant because it would have provided me with my first legitimate "Pack your bags, y'all" reference in, like, ever) the following morning for "publicity training." Because if there's a shallower and more backbiting cobwebby corner of the entertainment industry than modeling, where the mutant mole people hold sway over public opinion and the time-tested concept known as "the truth" fears to dwell, it's PR. I'm sure getting your feet wet with a little media training is an important facet of the Cynicism Inoculation Program that is part and parcel of becoming a model in your mid-twenties, but it would be just as easy if they had substituted this entire week of training with a three-by-five index card Sharpied with the words, "Suffering from exhaustion and dehydration."
Meanwhile, let the spin begin! Back in Adrianne, Elyse, and Giselle's room -- I have no idea which city their room is supposed to be, since every room Adrianne enters automatically becomes "The Detroit Room" -- Giselle tells us, "Adrienne and Elyse. I have bonded with these girls." But footage of Giselle showing Adrianne and Elyse her pimples shoots to Adrianne in The Detroit Confessional Room (see what I did there, because every room she goes in is...whatever) for a confessional, where she tells us that Giselle telling people how much Giselle hates herself "is a great way to fish for compliments." And, sure as shootin', Giselle complains in rapid montage to Nicole (stay dead, Nicole) that her pictures were bad, to a random photographer that she has "a third eyeball," and to an unseen group of eye-rolling responders, "What the hell am I doing here?" We'll make sure you won't be asking that question for that much longer. Back in the bedroom, Adrianne tells Giselle, "I'm gonna think about various ways I can kill you tonight while you're asleep." What? "Should I put cyanide in your food?" For all of that sleep-eating she's been doing? And if indeed Adrianne really is a serial killer (though if you're offing Giselle through her limited diet, that really would make you more of a "cereal killer" har har har), she'd have to change her approach when she got to Elyse unless she could find a way to make her sleep-eat- in-front-of- Tyra-Banks. Giselle reacts with panic at the notion that Adrianne might be crazy and will kill her in her sleep -- but sleep is where she's a pirate! -- but Adrianne is quick to allay her fears, laughing, "You're really slow if you take me seriously any time in your life." Adrianne considers the size of word "if" that just came floating out of her mouth as she moves on to coat the pages of Deuteronomy in rat poison in hopes that Robin will set about some sleep-praying after lights out. And I'd give the odds-on bet that Robin does pray in her sleep, but I can't because gambling is also for sinners and single mothers.
London Room by day. Tyra enters to find the girls sitting expectantly, and she intends to school them well, because she thinks it is of paramount importance for models to have media training so that they know how to conduct an interview...when standing frozen in a two-dimensional magazine. Honestly. When Muggles develop that photography that moves and photo subjects can laugh and talk and run from picture to picture, then let's talk about getting models their own publicists. But it's too late, as Tyra's already got one. And so she introduces the infamous Cindi Berger, who is with PMK/HBH, the agency founded by Pat Kingsley, whose own clients' and former clients' maybe-gayness must not be called into question unless that gaiety is a direct result of Scientology's healing and strengthening power. Cindi is a major player at PMK, and if you think you've seen her name in the papers after the words "her rep" or "her flack" or "dehydration and exhaustion," you have. And why? Because Cindi's karmic cycle is making her fix a lot of mistakes from her last past lives, and fate has dealt her a client list including, in part: Rosie O'Donnell. Mariah Carey. And Sharon Stone. All I'm saying is that your karmic cycle is one big-ass loping spiral into Hell when one of the world's top three supermodels is your least diva-ish client. And I guess Cindi has done a good job with them or she wouldn't still have such a high-paying job at PMK, but part of a publicist's responsibility is to protect her clients' public images and make sure said public doesn't utter a reflexively disgusted "ech" when they hear said clients' names. But when your specialties include bankrupt magazines and the lesbian entrepreneurs that love them, acute exhaustion and dehydration, and getting bitten by Komodo dragons, it might be a little harder to influence positive public opinion than if you represent, for example, someone really pretty.
Cindi sits and gets right to her lesson: "That journalist is there for a story...if you mess up, fess up." She cautions them that lying will only make it worse when the truth of the story comes out. She cautions them to trust the publicist. She cautions them "that the public is very forgiving." She cautions them that Hollywood is made of pink sugar and unicorns, and that all you need to make it there is a great idea and some heart and, by gum, the gates of the city will open wide and embrace you with a sun-dappled hug. Honestly, Cindi, don't lie. If a journalist comes in with an agenda and wants to get a certain story, they'll take anything you say and do a write-around until your words don't sound like they're coming from you. They'll fact-check selectively and verify unnamed unreliable sources by confirming the information with other unnamed unreliable sources. They will selectively edit reality, which is something all of us here already know a little bit about from, well, watching this show. And after the press turns on you, good luck banking on the "forgiveness" of a cynical and savvier-than-the-publicist-thinks American public, who is gorged on a twenty-four hour news cycle and really not that interested in hearing carefully worded apologies from coddled millionaires who blew it. Cindi should tell them just to go on doing what they do, and we as a public will elevate them to a place we feel is appropriate for their skill set, until we've had enough and decide it's time to bring them down. Don't worry. We'll let you know when that is. You hear us knockin', Rosie O'Donnell, Mariah Carey, and Sharon Stone?
Tyra piles on to the discussion, telling the girls to impassioned nods and actual scratches of pen on paper: "Celebrity, to me, is like being the popular kids in school. Everybody wants to know them and be like them and touch them, but at the same time you want to talk about them to break them down." When did she get indoctrinated into The Plastics? Each of the girls is then sent to conduct an individual interview with Cindi, Elyse telling us, "The premise is that you're supposed to tell the publicist everything." Such as about Elyse's eating disorder, which is sneakily touched on again right here, when Robin tells us that she takes "little bites" of people's food. Elyse tells the group that she wants to order a pizza, and Robin deadpans, "Why? You [sic] not [sic] gonna [sic] eat [sic] none [sic]." Augh! Someone change the name of the book to Eats, Shoots & Prays. Anything to get her to learn how to speak this lovely language of ours even slightly.
Meanwhile, Giselle is making the first cardinal error of public relations: thou shalt not ever align yourself with Michael Jackson. Ever. Giselle tells Cindi, "One day I'll be able to meet Michael Jackson...I am just infatuated with the guy's talent, and honestly, if I met him face to face, I probably wouldn't be able to look at him." You and me both, Count Chocula. Kesse takes a more typical reality-show route, telling Cindi that she is pushing herself because she never done got no love from her mama. Shannon reminds us that she has never known the touch of a man. Adrianne experimented with drugs when she was thirteen. Robin thanks the lord that she's lived her life the way she has. Elyse admits that she thinks there is a "subplot" that she has an eating disorder, misquoting Robin horribly by employing the scourge of correct grammar, saying that she wanted to get pizza but that Robin said, "You wouldn't eat any of it." Close. But we'll need about fourteen more negatives before you've got the cadence down. When in doubt, mangle.
Back in the living room, the remaining girls agree that dinner at Jay's house was the first time they'd ever seen Elyse eat, and even Adrianne jumps in to say she's convinced that she heard Elyse hit the bathroom the second she got home, where Adrianne heard vomit-y sounds. "She's killing herself," Adrianne tells us in a confessional. Elyse calls her mother and immediately starts crying, and her mother asks, "Having a bad day? Instead of a good day?" People say the weirdest things when they know they're on the phone on television. Elyse tells them that she's having so many problems with the other girls, adding for good measure, "Everyone's so stupid, too." She doesn't even care about winning the competition anymore and wants to leave. Because you know where no one ever pays attention to the comparative physical health of those they spend all of their time around? Medical school.
"Giselle annoys me the most out of everyone in the house," Elyse tells us in a confessional, adding with a perfectly straight face, "But I'm not willing to alienate Giselle because she's the only one in Tokyo with a straightening iron." And with that, her indoctrination is complete. Elyse tells Giselle that she really doesn't think she is fat, and that she would never make herself throw up because she knows it's bad for her. In a confessional, she tells us that, despite her attempts to "suppress [her] intellectual superiority," she knows more about eating disorders "than all of the rest of the girls combined." From having one? No! No, seriously. From having one?
Tyra Mail! Tyra Mail! Adrianne's going to try it: "It's soul to soul time with some soulful grinds." I don't know what that means, or if there's a return address on the Isaac Hayes Mail they've clearly received in error. "Be ready to chat with Tyra, 8:30. Dress comfortably for a night at home" Elyse mutters a satisfied "All right!" because it burned almost a full calorie and now she can have an "all right!"-sized carrot for dinner, as long as she promises to tell her publicist all about it.
Elyse and Adrianne pad Elyse's bra hilariously and wear identical black jumpsuits, and when Tyra comes in she notes that everyone else is wearing the same outfit. She jumps up excitedly, asking, "Are we matching?" Well, everyone but you, I'm afraid. She takes them all into the Tokyo room, which is festooned with glowing candles and otherwise under the cover of exotic, Far East darkness. Once they're settled, Tyra jumps into her stump speech, warning them that, regardless of how secure each of the girls is, "When you enter the modeling industry, it creates all of these insecurities you never had." She asks each of the girls if there is anyone in each of their lives who doesn't believe in them. "My family," Giselle answers, noting that they think she's always just lying around in bed eating cereal. Yeah, people learn a lot of what they think from watching TV. But seriously, Giselle wants us to know that her family lacks confidence in her, "in unison." As in, they all sing it in one note of a chord. That must be a blow, to come downstairs one morning and have your dad be all, "We think you're kind of a tard, and this is what we have to say about it" before blowing into a pitch pipe and conducting your whole family in a song that's like, "You won't be a model/ You have kind of fat thighs/ We're so distracted by your all-around badness/ It's rendered us unable to harmonize." Man. It sucks to be hated in unison.
Kesse says that she wants to be in this industry, but that no one in her family knows she's here. Her home life wasn't so fab, and she wants to stay here "forever." Robin is afraid that she won't "fit into a typical model mode, or whatever." She takes this opportunity to grandstand (I know!) about her wonderfully curvy body, and says she thinks that if more women embraced their body types, "we wouldn't have these problems like bulimia and anorexia." The camera swings around at its most hairpin 180 degree angle looking for Elyse. There she is. Hiding behind that spoon. The one with no food on it. Elyse, on the other hand, tells Tyra that she has a lot of insecurities about how her eating order is being treated by the rest of the girls. Tyra asks her if it makes her feel "angry or sad," and Elyse responds that it makes her feel "a little bit angry...but I feel really confused." Oh, the calamity of emotions she must be feeling when the answer does not lie in books. It is said Elyse's heart grew three sizes that day. And then she carved some it right out of her chest, because it made her look hippy.
Caw! Caw! It's still the middle of winter -- as you might have noticed -- and we're outside in Central Park where we find a hansom cab and Steve Santagati. Also coincidentally the top two answers in a recent Village Voice survey that asked, "What about living in New York City makes you stop periodically and ask, 'What's that smell?'" And they casually tacked the word "journalist" below Steve Santagati's name, and he slams this point home by telling the ladies, "I am a working member of the press," which would be as true as Jordan Knight suddenly appearing behind him and announcing, "I am a working member of the music industry" before we discovered that, during the rest of his time, he drives this here horse-drawn carriage for money. We learn that today's challenge will take the form of "a television interview," even though it will take place on a horse. Each of them is given a fifteen-minute interview, and the winners of the challenge get to have "one of their loved ones flown in." Steve Santagati seems to think he's going to be the one chosen. I just hope it's not on a day when he's hosting Weekend Extra. Because try and get a sub for THAT gig.
Adrianne is up first. Steve Santagati asks the probing question, wondering why Adrianne wants to be a model. She trots out the "tomboy" talking point, saying that she likes it when she's transformed "into a woman." Robin says that she always likes to be "morally correct," Kesse disappears in my estimation just a little bit more every time I look at her, and Shannon wants us to know that she don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Adrianne lost her virginity when she was sixteen, whereas Robin does not kiss and tell. Giselle says that she won't model in the nude, Adrianne says that the most important thing in her life is her mom, and Elyse shares her feelings that "Giselle is very immature, Adrianne is the worst listener I've ever encountered, and I think Robin and Shannon are a little proselytizing." Speaking of which, Steve Santagati ends things by telling Robin, "No one is that together," to which she responds, "Well, you met Robin today." At the end of the interviews, Steve Santagati tells them all that they did a good job, sharing his industry expertise with the inadvertently brilliant "My decision is based on my experience from interviewing everybody from firemen to Jennifer Lopez." Ah, how he has dined with kings. He tells Adrianne that she was very "real," but complains to Robin that she wears her religion "on her sleeve." He thought Shannon was "bubbly and fun," that Giselle didn't let him get away with anything, and he didn't remember who Kesse was, either. But his winner is Elyse because she did everything that was a "textbook wrong" in an interview. This dude has never seen anything in a textbook. He thought Elyse was personable, outspoken, and fun. He crowns her the winner, and Elyse picks Adrianne as her co-winner, which makes Adrianne sob because it means that her mother is coming to New York. Adrianne weepily tells us in a confessional, "I'm just so happy that I had this opportunity to have her come out here, 'cause she ain't never seen Times Square or nothing." I see she's so thankful she's fallen into Robin's lordly grammar.
Tyra Mail! Tyra Mail! "Tomorrow, you will have your fifth photo shoot. Please be ready by 8:15 AM." Elyse expresses excitement that her boyfriend is coming, but adds in a confessional that this experience has brought out the worst in her personality. In their bedroom, Giselle asks Elyse how she can "build some frickin'" confidence, asking Elyse how she can do that. To wit, she replies, "You get out of puberty." Oh, Elyse. If that's your worst, you should see me at my best. We're like Siamese twins connected by the idiocy of others.
Jon Silverman bursts into the house and tells the girl it's time for a time-filling swim. They're very reticent to get their hair wet. Jon liked Elyse with swimming. Yeah. I don't know what just happened there.
Reebok ad! So the focus is on "athleticism and motion," and Tyra puts on music to see how well the girls can "model dance." And they'll be working with a male model partner for the day, who we are soon to learn is "the running back for the Denver Broncos and the rookie of the year," Clinton Portis. He stands looking, as Tyra tells us, "sexified," as the girls are made up in ripped clothes and some confusing facial makeup. Tyra deems Giselle's performance "beautiful," and worries that Shannon's dance moves are stiff. Kesse -- still on this show! -- is, according to the photographer, "a great-looking girl." Robin blames the football player for her shoddy performance, clearly not having heard that he was the rookie of the year, people. But lo! The shoot is interrupted by the arrival of Adrianne's mother and Elyse's boyfriend, and grand hugging ensues. Awwww, Elyse's boyfriend has such a nice personality! And he even looks a bit like Shandi's cuckholded man. Even better, the photographer tells us that if he had a big job tomorrow, he would book Elyse for it. Awwww. He doesn't have a big job tomorrow. ["You don't get a big job tomorrow if you have a big mullet today." -- Wing Chun] Adrianne is "overall a great model," and her mother tells us that she can't believe she gave birth to such a beautiful human being. Awwwwww! I'm all alone in my apartment doing some serious model dancing to the melody playing on my heartstrings.
Back at the combat-otel, Adrianne takes her mother into a confessional and tells us, "It kicks ass to have her here. Like, a lot of ass." The words every mother longs to hear. Out in the living room, Adrianne tells her mother that she wants to become America's Top Model, and that it would be "the biggest break we've ever had." Adrianne's mother corrects, "Don't say 'we,'" but Adrianne keeps on that she wants to pay her mother's bills and build her a house in the country and wouldn't it be loverly. They all enjoy a dinner together, except for Robin, who stays in her room, reading the Bible. Elyse's boyfriend further debunks the eating disorder rumors, telling us in confessional that Elyse doesn't even finish eating dinner before she already wants to go out for ice cream. Yes, yes. A huge dollop of We Get It Brand ice cream, which makes her favorite flavor, "The Lady Doth Protest Too Much Mint." ["Just as an aside, I am thoroughly enjoying Marty's band's album as I edit this. Way to keyboard, Mr. Elyse!" -- Wing Chun]
Tyra Mail! Tyra Mail! "Tomorrow, five of you will go on to become America's Top Model. One of you will be eliminated." Giselle shares with the table that she is going to be eliminated the following day, which she is. And why? Because she does not have any love. This is made clear by Elyse's long, multi-shot goodbye with Marty (that's his name. Who knew?) and Adrianne's tearful hugs with her mom and proclamations of, "I'm gonna win." She bids her mother farewell, telling her, "I'll call you after I'm not eliminated." After she swipes Robin's calling card.
Welcome, ladies! Into the elimination room the remaining six walk. The prizes are restated and the judges introduced, Steve Santagati somehow making it out of his roundtable press at the, like, Rules of Attraction junket in time to act as this week's guest judge.
The first girl up for this week's individual evaluation is Robin. Steve Santagati asks her "two tough questions." The first is, "Why do you think you should win this competition?" She thinks she's got it nailed, answering, "Not for the obvious reasons, which is [sic, and none too surprising!] fame and fortune," but instead to use it as "a platform to be an influence on someone's life." She doesn't need money to judge for a pedestal! Just like Jesus! Elyse feels that she "sort of breaks stereotypes" as both a nerdy girl who is pretty and a pretty girl who is smart. Adrianne thinks she would put "a little spice in the industry," Shannon feels that she wouldn't be "easily persuaded," and Giselle is "building confidence. Yes, I am." But the best response is saved for last, when Kesse goes with the pity vote, telling them she should win because, and I quote, "I deserve to be happy at least once in my life." Oy. Her elimination ought to be a real hoot.
And, the second question: "Who should we eliminate today?" Robin responds, "Whatever person god puts on your heart to eliminate," and I'm actually just exercising my own anti-Robin disobedience at this point by intentionally not capitalizing the name of her deity, so that when it's typed out, it could be referring to the martyr who died for her sins or it could be referring to Jeff, the god of biscuits. Robin? You'll never know. Elyse goes with her Constanza-esque training of saying exactly the opposite of what you're told to say, responding that Robin should get the boot because her religion is inhibiting her. "Her," I think, meaning Elyse. Adrianne agrees that Shannon and Robin are going to come up against some problems in this industry because of their faith. And Shannon beats the skinny dead horse that is Elyse's "unhealthy eating habits." Kesse concurs with Shannon, and Giselle doesn't want to give an answer. Because you know what word five bitchy judges will immediately equate with the concept of confidence? "Pass."
Robin takes a look at her movement shoot shot, worrying about one Clinton Portis, "He was lustin'!" Elyse really likes her picture, and Janice says that she "loves" it. The guy who isn't Eric Nicholson tells Elyse she looks like a pro, and Janice tells her, "She is a pro!" Adrianne gets props all around, and Tyra thinks it was great that she was able to work with her mom in the room. Janice thinks that Shannon's picture is perfect, adding, "There is nothing wrong with this." Tyra wants to see more of her "hotness," and Shannon promises, "I'll work on that" as the crystallized ice that has formed around any attempts at sexuality clinks to the ground at the most inopportune of times. Giselle is up . Her picture is of her flouncing across the frame as Clinton Portis just sort of lingers behind, looking confused. Janice calls it "surreal," and adds, "It is so good." Man, the IV needle was pushed in a little deeper for Janice this week. She digs it the most. But Tyra still worries about Giselle's confidence, and says that she heard Giselle walk off the shoot and immediately start fishing for compliments. Janice shouts, "All women fish for compliments!" She remembers that from when she used to be alive. Kesse, in her photo, looks like she got trapped behind glass and shot into space by Superman the day after she finished her role as "Extra" in Toni Basil's video for "Mickey." Janice comes down from her high just at this moment and really sneers hardcore, giving her best lip of the season: "This looks like she escaped from a mental institution. This is the worst photograph I've ever seen." There is no end to the amount of time I can watch that. Or this: "It looks like you have a penis. I'm sorry." Baby Phat says she looks like Tyra. Baby Phat thinks Tyra is chicks with dicks. Why on earth wouldn't they have her back this season?
"Who are we gonna cut this week?" Tyra asks, and the bloodletting begins. Steve Santagati says he thinks Robin is just too old to be getting into the business, and Janice screams from her side, "And fat! She's huge. She's not going to be a top model." Tyra does not like this line of discussion, losing her temper: "You are the problem with America. I think you are the problem of why women are leaning over their toilets at this very moment and vomiting after they've eaten...the full-figure market is changing." As an example, she names three fatty models you've never heard of. ["I, uh...have heard of all of them. Look, I subscribe to InStyle to stay informed about world events, and maybe you should, too, Djb." -- Wing Chun] Shannon impressed them all. Adrianne "keeps getting better and better," and Kesse has "grown." Janice thinks Giselle is the best "mover," but Steve Santagati thinks her confidence issue is a problem. Baby Phat says that she doesn't like Elyse because of her possible eating disorder, and Janice tells her to "drop the eating disorder issue," because that body type is "what a haute couture model needs." Tyra just shakes her head in horror as Steve Santagati says that there are superstars who are that skinny, and opens up an unholy alliance with Janice, who applauds girls who aren't afraid to not eat for their art.
And, back in they come. Six girls, five photos. And you know who gets one? Adrianne. And also Kesse. And Shannon. And Robin, the fat old one. Would Giselle and Elyse please step forward? Elyse tells us in a quick confessional that she doesn't want to be eliminated because it would be "embarrassing." But Tyra doesn't want her to be all superior. Giselle, meanwhile, tells us in a confessional how "nervous" she is, and Tyra tells her that she thought Giselle had the best movement, but that she walked off the set and announced, "I think I look more like a dancer than a model," which made Tyra's mind change and made it Giselle's fault. Congratulations, Elyse. You didn't have any damning confessionals this week, so you're still in the running toward becoming America's Top Model. Hugs are exchanged and tears shed in slo-mo, but a pepped-up Giselle tells us in a confessional, "Britney Spears did Star Search and she lost, and look at where she is now." Yeah, um...look at that.