Night falls on Manhattan. The potholes smoke. The models...smoke. A title from the cinematic canon of Andy Garcia is mentioned in print for the first time in nearly a decade. Outside of the loft that houses Tyra's Tykes (it's kind of like a Ronald McDonald House thing, but at this one, their security and food are removed rather than supplied), Jenascia sits (or maybe she stands...people, she's short and she wants you to know that she knows) smoking. We kick to a confessional in which she tells us, "Last week I was almost cut." Hey, hey, hey. Do me a favor and keep it to the "previously"s that I refuse to recap, if you know what's good for you. "I don't want to do that again," Jenascia adds. "It wasn't fun." That scene was really short. What it needs to do is learn to walk like it's taller.
A car makes its way down Broadway, montaging between Times Square and Penn Station for maximum, Mapquesting confusion. I'm guessing it's on its way to carry the girls to a calorie-shedding, detoxifying steam in the giant Cup of Noodles cup in the middle of 42nd Street. Sitting to Breastany and Lara Klingon Boyle, Camille sounds like she's in the middle of a public reading of her Artist's Way morning pages, rambling on without the pesky deterrent of implied verbal punctuation, "The model industry it's not it's not it's not easy trust me you're getting there early in the morning you're waiting all day into night even at Howard University when we do a fashion show and you're confined in like y'know the auditorium...see that right there I worked on that ad campaign see that that is my campaign right there!" Whoa! Who had a second slice of Pop Rocks Pie with dinner back at the loft? That's right! Nobody! Because dessert is a disease, and you can't spell "disease" without "dessert." Or something. What I mean is that at least eight of those eleven girls probably aren't real adept at spelling either of those words.
Breastany groans in response to the morning pages ("Worst artist's date ever," her eyes seem to say), and we cut to her confessional, in which she cackles out of sheer fury, "Camille...where do you start with this one? She's very high-maintenance and she says that she's not, but she is." Cut back to Camille pointing and gesturing at the window, showing the girls the countless fruits of her solo efforts in the Howard University advertising department. And while we never learn exactly which accounts Camille has vaunted to their midtown glory, I have a feeling that if she had as much control over the content of the ads as she said she did, there would be countless life-size advertisements splashed all over Times Square heralding the brilliant craftsmanship, fine sculpting, and durable handling...of Camille. And you can't spell "Camille" without "m" and "e." That's a spelling lesson, girls. You actually can't.
Back in the car, Camille continues pointing out how not high-maintenance she is, indicating, "I could worry about me me me." They say that's the only way way way, but it doesn't mean she's selfish, according to...Camille: "I'm not a selfish person." And just by virtue of saying so, I guess that means it's automatically a reality. Do you believe her? How about I give one a try. Okay, here we go: you guys? I'm totally not typing right now.
Lara Klingon Boyle (her real name remains "Yoanna," for those of you playing in some Rotisserie Top Model League who need the facts as they come) kicks it to a confessional, where she tells us, "I don't know where Camille comes from, and I really don't like Camille." Back in the car, Yoanna twists a rosary around her fingers and lies, "I'm gonna be quiet now, 'cause I'm gonna meditate for the evening." When I run across someone conversationally savvy enough to use the dual scapegoats of god and yoga to get someone to shut up, I say more power to her any day. By the way, God and Yoga is totally going to be the name of my tell-all book about working for the Television Without Pity empire. It's just like Gods and Monsters, but with small scented pillows to put over your eyes instead of...well, monsters. Cam-me-me-mille -- not taking the hint of explicitly being told to cram it -- asks Yoanna if she can see her rosary. Shouldn't Yoanna be able to decline that incredibly personal request? In voice-over, Yoanna deems the experience of being with Cam-me-me-mille one of the most "exhausting" of her life, and adds a fantastic "uch," all of which is a pretty accurate depiction of any exchange which ends with someone overbearingly asking to borrow...y'know, the lord. Somewhere ethereal, meanwhile, a flowy-robed being with a long white beard throws Himself off His gilded throne and goes into a downward dog, repeating, "Breathe into the stretch. Don't let Camille get to you. Breathe into the stretch," over and over and over again.
It's the morning now, as establishing shots from Central Park South to the city skyline to Soho tell us in rapid succession. I guess when God forsakes models, the world doesn't have to go in order anymore. Inside of and upstairs at Chez Freak C'est Chic, Shandi (you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be) sits on a bed with SeeYouTomorrow (or...WILL WE?), Shandi admitting, "I don't want to do another photo shoot." And I mean, I sympathize to a certain extent. After all, there are certainly mornings when I stare at a blank computer monitor wondering what the hell is going to happen . But then again, I don't have the hunger of the young whippersnappers appearing on America's Top Recapper, so sometimes I get maybe 1% jaded. All I'm saying is that Shandi probably shouldn't eschew the excitement of taking part in the photo shoot that will increase her life's grand total of photo shoots to...well, two.
SeeYouTomorrow, on the other hand, relishes the opportunity to "transform." Into one of the girls with a chance of winning, perhaps? Sorry. That was unnecessarily direct. It's just that SeeYouTomorrow gets barely any screen time in this episode, so I had to jam in the USDA recommended daily allowance of snarking on her while I had the chance. If there was that little less-than-2% asterisk to her name on the Nutrition Facts label, I'd be in big trouble. I'm just saying. Shandi tells us that she's forged quite a friendship with SeeYouTomorrow, adding that she's come up with a nickname for them: "The U.D." Meaning? "The underdogs." I'm sure they know "underdog" is one word and that just calling themselves "The U" would be very confusing, which is why they went for "U.D." I'm sure that's it. Either way, calling themselves underdogs is really quite self-explanatory, so I guess we won't need anyone to...oh. SeeYouTomorrow wants to tell us what it means anyway: "Shandi and I are hanging out on the cut, but when it comes to performing, we're gonna kick your behinds." Yeah. If you can find them. And I'm actually more confused after the explanation than I was before it. Shandi tries to win us back by reminding us that she worked in Missouri at a Walgreen's that was, like, franchised in a van down by the river or something equally mournful and human interest-y, and she walks her nubby legs across the room in an attempt to convince us that she's not one of the other contestants' little sisters. Or, brothers.
We're at The Waterfront Boxing Club at 44 New Street. You've gotta give this show credit with helping in the continuing effort to revitalize Lower Manhattan. These places are in Delaware! The girls enter a sparse-looking room containing a boxing ring as someone voices over, "We are finally hitting the gym," and April notes the location as "a place of physical worship." Pagans! Inside, they are greeted by one Martin Snow, a trainer (so, sort of a like a bishop of physical worship), who welcomes them, plugs the location (well done), asks them in a voice that sounds like he fell face-first out of the shooting script for Rocky IX: Balboa Vs. Self-Parody and landed face-first on his Brooklyn accent, "You ever hear of a hungry fighter?" Hmmm...let's see. Scanning through my idiom rolodex, I've got "fighting a losing battle" right to "Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter," but...ah! Here it is. Most of the girls still look perplexed, but they do understand the "hungry" part, to be sure, so that should keep them on enough common ground to continue.
Yoanna is going places, y'all. They wouldn't give her this much face time and not boot her today just so she can be tossed out in a week. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. But she gets the confessional where she updates us that you can compete "without doing it in a mean, aggressive way," which is interspersed with shots of the girls locked in strength-building exercises too numerous to mention. Cam-me-me-mille tears into a punching bag (get it! Harder! Punching bags are fuckers!) and voices over that "you can't let the weakness get to you." By the way? Camille invented boxing. She was just too modest to tell you.
Height and weight! Height and weight! Schlocky Bal-Snow-A stands at a scale with a clipboard, telling the ladies that he's going to weigh them, and that a nearby attending woman (who it sounds like he refers to as "Tiny," but that's clearly too good to be true, I think) will be taking their measurements. Now, as someone who has never signaled my desire for romantic companionship by making a curvy hourglass figure with my hands and making an "oooooh" sexy sexy sound -- and, similarly, as someone who's never purchased a bra -- I couldn't be less qualified to report on the size of a woman's waist or her rack. All I know is that I weighed in the double digits until I was in high school, and still the height/weight chart on the doctor's office wall told me I was overweight, so I know one thing that makes any viewer an expert on this show: it's all a bunch of bullshit.
Cam-me-me-mille goes first. She's thirty-six around the waist ["for real? Are they measuring in centimeters?" -- Wing Chun] and 124 pounds. She argues her weight with Schlocky Bal-Snow-A, who is not in a weighing mood. He's in a "sarcastic whistling" mood.
Yoanna's up . How endlessly brilliant -- and yes, I do mean brilliant -- that EVERY TIME one of those girls does something, the other goes to highlight the building drama. It's so effortless yet effective. We're reminded that Yoanna has lost some forty-five pounds in advance of the competition, and she cops to being "nervous" weighing in. But if we really want to get inside the mind of how Yoanna's feeling, it's best to throw the confessional to...Camille. Cam-me-me-mille tells us that Yoanna was making a big deal about her weight loss, and that she seemed very "conscious of her image" and "not secure within her own skin" getting on the scale. Thirty-five and a half for the waist, and 138 on the scale, to which Schlocky Bal-Snow-A tells us he's added a pound because Yoanna jokingly messed with the scale. He chides her, "An extra pound for cheatin'!" I didn't know it worked like that. Will good deeds make me taller?
Oh, hello, Shandi. Whatever her measurements across the top, mine are approximately the same in a lot of ways. Catie somewhat ungraciously offers, "I thought I was incredibly thin until I saw Shandi." To which I say two things: (1) the world can have more than one thin person in it, and (2) well then, maybe you're not that thin after all so nah nah pee poo.
Schlocky Bal-Snow-A has apparently spontaneously decided to open up a "Guess Your Height And Tit Size" booth at the St. Rose Bazaar in Massapequa, because rather than employ Tiny's crackerjack measuring skills, he takes one gander at Breastany's rack and predicts, "You gotta be thirty-six." Well give that girl a plush Snork doll for fooling the master, for she's only a thirty-three and a half. And there's another word besides "magic" for what he just tried to do, particularly when it's coming from a male who, I'm conjecturing, is a straight male. And it's called "sexual harassment." Other acceptable answers for what it was include a "guesstimate."
April is the first on the, um, boob train, and it's a bumpy ride through those mountains, y'all. From the back of the room, she screams that she's a thirty-three and a half, so there's no way Breastany is the same size. From the passive-aggressive safety of a confessional, Breastany snarks that other people just couldn't leave talk of her breasts alone, continuing that her desired response, if she could have said anything, would have been, "Shut the hell up!" Good one. Maybe from now on she should just let the tits do the talking.
We're up by Grand Central now, the ladies entering an industrial steel door to a place called The Show. It's a weird living-room space with a lot of orange. Mercedes (definitely growing on me) tells us that they're going to meet J. Alexander to learn "how to walk." The phat beats kick up, and through a curtain, J. strides out wearing nothing but a t-shirt emblazoned with a woman's body in a bikini on the front and the back! Oh, and high heels. Oh. And nothing else. His parents? Just flipped to Fox.
"Surprise surprise surprise," J. says by way of introduction, though no one seems that surprised. "Welcome welcome welcome welcome welcome. Gather round gather round gather round." Is he okay? Why is he repeating everything? He seems to be...skipping. Ladies and gentlemen...a man gay enough to master the dual arts of catwalking and skipping simultaneously. Yoanna reminds us from the comfort of what must have been The Longest Confessional Ever (unless she wore that same pink scarf and sat in front of that "Madison Ave." background décor every time she engaged in direct address) that J. trained all of the best models blah blah blar blah sashay chantey. Give us a twirl, J!
We're here, we learn, to see how a real supermodel walks. To that end, J. welcomes "Maggie Rizer," whose title identifies her as a "top model." The girls coo and clap appreciatively, and then she disappears. Huh. Not that I was hoping for her thoughts on Proust or anything, but, like, where'd she go?
The girls don wildly unflattering bodysuits and high heels and have to do a runway walk. Shandi is first. And if the first rule of a catwalk is, as we've learned, "walk like it's for sale and the rent is due tonight," Shandi better get J. one of those big, fake handlebar moustaches and tie herself like a damsel in distress to some nearby train tracks because, well, she must pay the rent but she can NOT pay the rent. Her walk. So clompy and halting and less "look at the simple elegance of those shoes/ that dress/ that suit" and more, like, "Aaaaaaah. Monsters. They're coming. Monsters." In a confessional, Shandi reminds us, "I'm completely different from everyone else." Oh, that's not true. There are plenty of other girls who can't hack it, either. Why aren't they clearing the decks, y'all? Monsters. Are coming. And they're collecting the rent.
Suddenly decked out in the most ostentatious clothing this side of every other outfit showcased on this program, Heather (who? Exactly) wipes the hell out like the fashion roadkill she is. Jenascia frets about being short. SeeYouTomorrow isn't strutting enough. Merecedes is too "modeling school." Breastany, back in a body suit, is back in her tits. April has a "funny slide." Catie is really good. Sara makes a fish mouth. Camille needs "just a few adjustments" and then she'll be great. She's wearing a yellow leather jacket, and when she hits the end of the runway, she unzips it. J. gets all incredulous and cries out, "Black girls always have to give that extra." Says the black girl in the lingerie t-shirt and heels. Reaction shot of Yoanna. Big turn by Camille. Eye-roll, all parties. Camille tells the confessional that Yoanna "maybe wished that she could be more comfortable in her skin as I am in mine." Oh, just cut the shit and say, "She wants to be me. All these bitches want to be me." Stop thinking you're an orator of such high order that your ego trips are shrouded in subtext.
"We are gonna have fun," J. announces eleven times as Yoanna strides down the catwalk. He calls her walk "as useless as a flashlight with no batteries in the dark," and then likens her body language to that of a horse. Camille laughs the loudest, because she does not get the joke.
Back at the house, Camille talks to Sara in front of a camera that was, apparently, broken. So we're treated to subtitles and garbled sound of Camille snarking on Yoanna's walk and her attitude, asking, "How does she ever expect to be America's Top Model?" Hee. I love that those words are capitalized for branding whether they're referring to the title of the show or not. They should have a little "tm" to them.
And then, fight. Yoanna finds Camille in the loft and tells her to stop talking about her behind her back. Yoanna says that Camille is "negative," and Camille thinks Yoanna wants to be her. "I'm just a grown-ass woman that wants to be America's Top Model [capitalization theirs, I'm sure]," Camille tells Catie while they're lying in their beds, adding, "Don't play me. You have a better chance of playing lotto. And that's, like, one in a billion." With a supplementary number of: bitch.
Tyra mail! "You've learned runway from the best, now it's time to put it to the test," reads Catie without the necessary Seussical inflection it so richly deserves. "You're meeting a top New York designer. Be ready by 10 AM." Jenascia sets her alarm for 2 PM and does some free writing about how short she is.
"Today, I know we're gonna be meeting a fashion designer, but I don't know who it's going to be or what they're looking for." Thus spake Yoanna in The NeverEnding Confessional. We travel down a brick hallway and into the showroom of one Carmen Marc Valvo, who Yoanna (same confessional) couldn't be more excited about meeting. He's so wee! A very short, bald man in a black v-neck welcomes the girls to his showroom and tells them that they'll be putting their skills to the test today, and that the best walker wins the reward of attending a cocktail party at Carmen Marc Valvo's house. Carmen Marc Valvo Carmen Marc Valvo Carmen Marc Valvo Carmen Marc Valvo! If this dude doesn't step up and assassinate a sitting President by the end of this sentence, he's losing his tri-named privileges and will be referred to as CMV, or perhaps, should I feel inclined, "Lulu The Fashion Elf."
Oh, hello, Patriot Act! Yes? Yes! Just kidding about the whole presidential-assassination thing. So touchy! Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Say, how'd you get in here, anyway?
CMV starfucks the names of his celebrity clients (and if you think I'm giving Kim Cattrall the satisfaction just by telling you her name was mentioned, you're totally...dammit!) before handing out evening gowns to the girls and warning them, "Some of them may be too long for you, and some of them may be too short. That happens." That happens? Models bring stylists, makeup artists, and hairdressers with them to a shoot, but the tailor Motel Kamzoil with his tape measure and his safety pins -- what, isn't unionized? That doesn't just happen, and I feel like being a supermodel comes with the diva ability to snap back in CMV's face, "Well, until you stop these things from happening, this thing does not happen!" Oops. Sorry, Camille. Didn't mean for you to take that advice so seriously.
"Usually, ugly women put on a lot of makeup," CMV says, passing by the painted Yoanna. Where are they going with all this Yoanna stuff? It's thrilling. That's right. I called it "thrilling."
Walking, walking, walking. Bethany's dress is "two feet too long," according to her own guesstimate. CMV tells us that she pulls it off majestically. Will someone explain what went wrong, here? Meanwhile, Catie wows the crowd and gets top marks from CMV. Yoanna, he says, isn't having "fun on the runway," but thankfully stops short of suggesting that she turn the walking path into a "funway." Thank god for small edits. Moving on to Camille, he tells her that she was "milking" it at the end of the runway, and she answers back (!) by telling him that, at her last runway show, she was told she should take more time there. Blatant contradictions ought to help her case some. CMV also tells Camille to slow down, and she says that someone else told her to "walk fast." CMV opines in a confessional that Camille was "aggressive," and Yoanna deems the whole exchange "tacky." CMV then tells the girls that it "wasn't an easy decision" as to whom to invite to the party, except that it totally was. He chooses Catie, and then tells her to invite two friends. To the dismay of all and to the continuance of forward plot momentum, Catie chooses Mercedes and (Mercedes, get out of the way so we can up the dramatic ante of a real contestant named) Camille.
"She's sucking all of our energy out, so we can be weak and confused and not know what's going on," Yoanna screams in the van to her attending audience of Catie and, I don't know, some other people. Has Yoanna confused the words "Camille" and "tapeworm"? She's prescribing much more sinister motives here than the simple "I hate her and her bitchy, bitchy hate-liness." Catie, because she's eighteen and blonde, expresses total shock that people don't like her friend. And, to boot, she's suggestible enough to turn on Camille just by hearing someone say they don't like her! It's glee-inducing. Yoanna tells her not to let "Cruella DeVil" take advantage of Catie's kind gesture of inviting her to the party, and Catie says that if she could change her plus-two, she would. "She's pretty, but her attitude makes her ugly," Bethany observes of Camille, from the back. "Hideous!" Yoanna agrees, screaming like a Dean rally to indicate the level of hideousness she finds Camille to evince.
Three silver boxes wrapped in red bows appear on the kitchen table. Three black cocktail dresses emerge from said boxes and a note telling them to enjoy their CMV dresses this evening. Catie tries to remove the note from Camille's hands, but Camille won't let go. "So now, when Camille does little things, I'm more aware of it," Catie explains. She asks Mercedes if she can call to Camille's attention some of the very ambiguous things she's heard about Camille (that obviously have nothing to do with Catie, seeing as she didn't have a complaint about Camille's behavior without significant prodding), and Camille busts in and asks if they can have a "house meeting." House meeting! House meeting! Ruzzah ruzzah! Peas and carrots! House meeting! How spontaneous! Except for the confessionals that magically appear before it. "I have nothing to hide," Camille attests. The best thing is that it didn't need to make any sense.
That right there appears to be some kind of a yellow ceramic hand. We're in the house meeting, Catie standing up and holding a yellow ceramic hand on her head and reminding the assemblage that they're not allowed to speak unless they're holding the hand. Yay! They love Lord of the Flies also, and probably even understand the correct pronunciation of "conch." If not of other English words too numerous to mention. But that's not important right now.
Catie (I guess she'd be Ralph) cedes the floor to Camille (we'll call her "Jack"), who, conch in hand, argues, "Whoever wants to start talking about Camille, go ahead." So Bethany (sing it with me if you know the cast list, America: Piggy) takes the stand and tells Camille, "It just seems like you have an excuse for everything. It seems like you can't take the blame for something." Camille jumps in, not holding the conch, until Yoanna experiences a small psychotic break and screams, "I'm not finished!" Camille wants to know where that anger comes from. Catie stands again and admits that she's worried Camille will try to co-opt her night with CMV, and she spends just a leeeetle of the good will that her freshly-scrubbed blonde looks inherently bestow on her when she says, "This sounds selfish, but, hello America. This is all about me." Deep in the mix, Camille asks what they think she's likely to do to Catie at the party, like "push her into some caviar." Brilliant. Brilliant! Jenascia finally ends up with the hand, which she uses to express her insecurity about being short. Not really. But, this: "I am surfing the crimson waves right now, and I just don't need that [expletive deleted, whereas "crimson waves" gets to stand proudly, for some reason] because I have my own problems, y'know?" ["A house full of women who are probably all on the rag together by now, and haven't eaten since the Clinton administration? Yikes." -- Wing Chun]
Delightful strings accompany the girls' primping for the paaaaah-ty. And Catie really does like fine, her CMV gown very lovely and her hair curled.
At the party, CMV gives the girls a nice introduction, and we see Camille taking advantage of the situation as expected, flitting from person to person. Catie gets to wear a pretty ring. Fun party.
And now, a visit from Tyra "She's Super, Thanks For Asking" Banks, who arrives at the house to have some one-on-one rap time with each of the girls. Shandi sticks to business: she's concerned about her walk. Tyra spins tales of her own formative days in the industry, reminding Shandi that she was "confident" but "looked like a damn fool" in her early goings. And now things have changed because she's...somewhat less confident, I guess? I'm kidding! I kid! Tyra knows. We talk. We're fine.
Bethany wants "something to work on," explaining, "I can't do anything about my chest." Tyra contradicts with a quickie "Yes, you can," and I half-expect a plastic surgeon and an anesthesiologist to leap out from behind what we had thought was a brick wall and immediately start prepping her for some Moon-Frye Magic. But alas, no. The advice is based emotionally, not invasively, as Tyra counsels, "You can pose differently...Every model whose chest is like yours does not look like your picture the other day." Breastany again reissues her press release about people needing to look past the tits to the talent, and Tyra reminds her, "You want to be a fashion model" in a way that means, "You've got the hair for Supercuts and the tits for porn. Go make your millions elsewhere."
Camille bitches about Yoanna. Yoanna bitches about Camille.
We're back on the road to this week's photo shoot, and we learn that, for this one, they'll all have to do their own hair and makeup, even though Tyra's own makeup artist is in attendance. This doesn't seem necessarily fair. The shoot is for Steve Madden, and the shoes are supplied in the totally fair way where whoever can rush over to them the fastest gets their top pair. The girls are in "complete control" of their own images. Shandi smiles in a confessional that this is her "chance to shine" which, after seeing her makeup job, might have actually been "my chance to be overly shiny." Must be that broken-ass camera again.
Mercedes kicks it with an orange scarf and orange shoes, looking like she's playing "Rico" in an all-female version of West Side Story. She also chooses her favorite photograph. Camille, meanwhile, is trying "movement" shots, which you just have to see to believe. Yoanna gets a lot of blithe compliments from the photographer. Sara needs a haircut. Shandi will be having the Fiona Apple, thanks.
"I hope you get eliminated so you can come home," says Shandi's boyfriend over the phone. I mean, I like Shandi and all, but it was hard for me, watching this for the first time, to imagine someone else besides the girl shaped like me in 1989 awkwardly walking in heels right out that door. Then again, after the week of recapping I'm having, I'm not sure I possess the emotional fortitude to watch her get eliminated right now. It's going to be like that scene in Waiting for Guffman where Parker Posey goes back to working at the DQ.
Tyra welcomes the ladies back to the elimination room and reintroduces our panel: Janice Dickinson, who is wearing a necklace that makes her look like she went swimming under the Titanic and is still plucking the barnacles and sea bits out from her weighted chest. If she has any trouble getting up later, it's because one of the beads of that necklace may well still be attached to a hull. But, as we are soon to learn, Janice has absolutely no problem standing up or doing any other calisthenic exercise expected of her. More on that later. Also present is that guy from Jane, but I'm cooling on him because I gave him a week and even The Rules or his magazine's own damn advice columns say he's waited long enough to call me by now. Hi, Nigel Barker. You're last week's news. And then there's J. Alexander, special guest panelist. Wow. Way to think outside the box there, ANTM. Maybe the secret special guest week will be...America's Top Model host and executive producer, Tyra Banks! Anyway, J. is wearing a newsboy hat and generally looks exactly like Britney in the "Drive Me Crazy" days, except that J. is, in fact, much, much girlier. The man literally never stops preening.
But first, the girls are going to be given a slip dress and a pair of high heels for one final walk down the runway. Breastany takes the first stroll down, and Janice notes that it looks like she "hasn't practiced at all," even though Janice has never seen Breastany walk before. We then see the results of what Tyra calls their "self-made photo shoot," explaining further that the photo producers of the shoot took the best shots and made ads from them. Oh, that oughta be interesting. In Bethany's case, we find out, she chose her best picture, which is a tits-free version of Bethany, leaning over with her arms on a block and her right foot up. "She's doing a Janice Dickinson, circa 1978," Janice reports. Oh, is that what she's doing? Isn't that just a classic narcissist's response, where you can see yourself in everything? Not to mention that any supermodel's typical "circa 1978" pose should have been less "leaning on a cube" and more "doing crank off of Mike Jagger's privates at Studio 54." C'mon, Janice. We're trying to like you, here. Janice helps us like her now. Nigel notes that Breastany is doing a classic pose, but that she's just not doing it quite enough. Tyra notes that she needs to "push the booty out," at which both J. and Janice leap onto the table and lunge into the most contorted freak-show poses their bodies were not supposed to have achieved. I have some difficulty hearing the rest of this evaluation on the basis that Janice's aged bones at this point begin creaking so arthritically that she's trapped on the table until The Jaws Of Life comes to pry her back off and she's offered exclusive modeling rights to the "Centrum Silver account" for as long as she shall live. Well, at least her phone's ringing again, right?
Meanwhile, nice job, aforementioned "photo producers of the shoot," whose big job in "creating ads" meant "adding numerous background shadows of each of the girls' limbs in a mock-up for the third sequel of Charlie's Angels we all hope they never quiiiiiite get around to making."
Shandon't is down the walk, and J. correctly categorizes the experience as akin to My Left Foot. Except if that were true, then at least she'd be talented enough to paint! "I like everything other than the face," Nigel tells Shandi about the photo she was so excited to design for herself. And she does look really bad. They choose another photo for her in profile that really works for her. It certainly doesn't bode well with the "it's all about the face" problem she's going to be battling.
April. Who? Exactly. "The posey-wosey at the end of the runway really repulsed me," Janice snarks. Her photo works really well, but she's not showing her face at all, which Tyra thinks is a problem. See all lines from last week about how it’s going to help sell contact lenses.
Heather leads with her chin, and her picture is still too Catie 2.0 for her really to set herself apart.
Sara is such a throwback to the Pzaz-ish, Bedazzled '80s it's not even funny. Which is why it's awesome that she ended up in tacky white Steve Madden boots and tight-as-hell jeans that make you want to scream, "Ah, Antonovich!" It looks awesome.
Merecedes gets an "absolutely fabulous" for her walk, but her photo is really bad. She has a tiny, tiny head.
Jenascia is reminded that she's short. "Are you kidding me with that walk?" Janice asks. "If you think tall, you will be tall." She also picked the wrong photo.
Whoa, Xiomara. Whoa! "You walk like you on crack," J. offers. Nigel calls her "possessed." And the eyes really were bugging. There's simply no question about it. ["Quoth Glark: 'Who let Grace Jones in here?'" -- Wing Chun] But her photo shoot, in which my fear of her morphed into a certain kind of "nice shoes" freakitude, had to be good for something. And she is eleven feet tall. Which is a full nine feet taller than Jenascia. And a full ten feet and ten inches taller than the delightful sylph Lulu The Fashion Elf. Long may his lavish affairs fail to take up any significant screen time.
Catie's walk is nice, but her photo shoot, as Tyra helpfully points out, is mall trash.
The judges love Camille. "You're a showgirl," Tyra says. "I'm a drag queen in a woman's body, and I feel like you have a little drag queen, too." Her picture kicks ass, too. Bitch.
Wow. They love Yoanna's walk. Tyra gives it an "A+." As is Camille's reaction shot. Her photo is really weird, though. It looks like she could climb inside her own enormous shoe and bake chocolate cookies for the rest of the forest dwellers.
And that's all we get. In the judges' private talk, Janice loves Mercedes and is on the fence with Yoanna. They worry about Shandi, talk about Jenascia's shortness again, love Camille, wonder who the hell Heather is, and so on. Bethany is up for consideration, J. thinking yes, Janice thinking she needs to cut the hair and the pound count, and Tyra point-blanking, "I'm just not sure that fashion girl is inside of her." And...well, she's the executive producer.
Ten headshots left, Tyra tells them, each one representing each of the women who will continue on the journey to being America's Top Model. Catie. Yoanna. Who could possible be ? Camille. Hee! April. Mercedes. Sara. Xiomara. Heather. This leaves Shandon't, Breastany, and Jenascia. Jenascia gets in under the wire (and barely even has to lean down!), so Shandi and Bethany are called forward. Reeeeeeally? This is a surprise. Even more of a surprise is when Tyra calls out the last name and Bethany gets the boot. She weeps in slo-mo and leaves without a goodbye, telling us in her final confessional that she has a lot more talent than a lot of the other girls here. And, luckily, millions of men will continue to enjoy her work, hidden behind brown paper wrappings and stuffed surreptitiously into suburban mailboxes, until she retires from the life at thirty, a certified billionaire, and decides instead to go into modeling.