The New York City in which the George Washington Bridge acts as the gateway to Soho owes me fifty trillion dollars in back pay from cab fares incurred anywhere between the two. We montage from that bridge -- named as such because of its powdery wig and inability to tell lies -- to the faade of the ZoLoft, which is probably, in fact, on an L.A. soundstage somewhere because the exteriors in this city we'll call "Newer York" aren't up to snuff with the actual city they're trying to portray. Actually, on second glance, that shot may well have been of the Williamsburg Bridge. Which is really quite close to Soho. Is that the Manhattan Bridge?
Up inside the ZoLoft, we join Xiomara in progress as she walks around the apartment in shorty shorty short shorts (or, as this garment would be known if worn by anyone else on Earth: pants), telling us, "We're so tired because we only had two hours of sleep from the night before." I don't have any idea why they've only gotten two hours of sleep and no explanation is immediately offered up, so I'll just guess it has something to do with "the volume and duration of Catie's continuing racking sobs," and we'll try for once to stick to the linear recapping thread. Xiomara tells us that she feels she has to "one-up everyone else with what [she's] doing because the last judging they told [her] that was [her] weakest week ever, and [she] will never allow that to happen again. Ever." Bugging her eyes out in the traditional fashion and shaking her head slowly, Xiomara is but a mere swinging stopwatch away from hypnotizing the entirety of the viewing audience into repeating "never. Ever. Ever" over and over and over again until we are entranced into believing her, while the confessional booth camera operator wakes up the morning and doesn't know why he can't stop clucking like a chicken.
Adorable mop-top superstar Catie Culkin, meanwhile, lies in bed too exhausted to cry or speak, her inner monologue instead left up to the wiles of that old reality-show staple, "sulky voice-over confessional." She tells us from the comfort of her angsty teen years, "I've never been under this much pressure. And I actually think I'm handling it very well." By lying in bed and crying weakly like she's afflicted with a disease so rare it exists entirely in the nineteenth century, like consumption or black bile. A quick edit shows Catie emerging from her room and consuming some cereal. I guess besides the backtalk, narcissism, and overall histrionics, she really is handling it pretty well. After all those weeks sequestered in her bed chambers, The Lady Catie finally feels strong enough to venture into the sitting room! Is it St. Swithin's Day already?
"I'm short and I don't care!" a voice from the very living floor of the Gelfling forest calls out. "Look how short I am!" Jenascia struts down the ZoLoft's runway, sashaying down its entirety in the amount of time it takes one of the other, human-legged girls to not eat. Jenascia is decked out in a white shirt with the numbers "206" splashed across the front, which is one mere digit away from another reality television icon filled with hometown pride, whereas Jenascia had better start thinking about walking straight off that runway and continuing on until she reaches her residence of Elimination-On-Avon, population: her.
“ Camille sneers, 'Y'know, I've always, like, held the elevator for everyone.' Not even in a world where she can fly into the past and stop lupus can Camille Butterfly Effect her way into pretending she's ever done anything nice for anyone who isn't Camille. ”
If you're getting distracted from reading around right now, it's entirely possible that it's due to the distracting sounds of this show suddenly deciding to play "Flight of the Bumblebee" on that most personal instrument known as...the heartstrings. Mercedes -- who up until now had achieved her zenith of character recognition in that niche face time genre known as "Girl Whose Name Might Be Sara Or April" -- kicks in with a confessional designed to make you think, make you worry, make you reconsider your own petty squabbles and vices, makes you question your life to the darkest core of musing on your own tenuous mortality, make you furrow your brow and wonder aloud, "Lupus? Really? They're hitting us with lupus? Huh."
"My hair has been falling out because of the high medication I take every day," Mercedes tells us. "I was diagnosed with lupus." Didn't see the lupus coming, I have to admit, but, y'know, play the card that's in your hand, as I always say when I'm pretending I'm a lost verse in "The Gambler." So, we've discovered the symptoms and are told its treatment. But for those fans of illness portrayed in the interest of a humanizing angle who don't watch this show with the latest edition of The Merck Manual sitting open on their laps...well, Mercedes, just what is lupus? "A chronic illness where it attacks your immune system about a year ago." It attacks your immune system a year ago? From her description, it sounds like lupus is most dangerous when it hits you in the place you're clearly least expecting: in the past. But Mercedes, what about the coping strategies you've designed for yourself in the face of this difficult if time-traveling disease? "It's best to keep it a secret, because I don't want to talk about, 'oh, how you feeling,' 'oh, this must be hard,' y'know, don't give me that, I don't need it." And remember, kids: it's not your fault you have lupus, and it doesn't mean god hates you for making fun of other kids who were sick when you were little. Just take your medication, keep a good attitude about it all, and together we'll beat this disease together with knowledge and power as we link hands and bask in the warm glow of the "The More You Know" star fall.
But first, we learn, we're on our way to work out with Martin, the gym guy. Xiomara does an impression of him that goes "yo yo, y'know, what's up, come to my gym" that makes me turn to the person to me and ask "What is that, a Grace Jones impersonation? Because they could just about pass as twins! Anyone who doesn't think so is crazy! Or her!" Sadly, I discovered only at that moment that I was, in fact, alone in my living room. Someone please come over. The girls crowd into the elevator, calling out that it's 8:30. Someone yells, "Camille, let's go!" But Camille is still inside the loft, elaborately braiding her hair and singing to herself that she should "see that pretty girl in the mirror, there," getting cut off by those bitches before the "response" part of her brain had time to check in with "What mirror, where?" She walks to the elevator, but alas the doors have already closed. In a confessional, she sneers, "Y'know, I've always, like, held the elevator for everyone." Not even in a world where she can fly into the past and stop lupus can Camille Butterfly Effect her way into pretending she's ever done anything nice for anyone who isn't Camille. Luckily, world-weary Camille is coming of age in the big, bad, vertically-built city, and she's come to realize, "If they want to cuddle up and be friends and get in the elevator, go ahead and do that." Which they certainly did. She concludes: "This is a competition. This is not a sorority. You're not here to be friends with anyone. The point is: win." That's always what the girl who everyone hates says until she's booted in a bloodless coup three weeks from the end. And I love the Fellini-esque dream logic that it was her decision to let them make her miss the elevator.
“ The boxing match is quickly down to Camille and April, with the rest of the girls standing on the sidelines screaming variants of 'Go, April!' and 'April, woo!' and 'I swear by the divine words of Eliot that I do not believe you are the cruelest month!' ”
Martin "Welcome...To The Rocky" Snow welcomes the girls back into the gym, diving right in and gesturing madly with his leather-gloved hands in such a stereotypically Italian way that the only thing that may divert his attention is if he jumps high enough to catch a magic mushroom and suddenly finds himself running really fast underwater.
We learn that today there will be a competition that, according to Martin, "is not the Waitress Of The Year competition! It's the top model competition!" And I know I'll probably get the culottes sued off me for failing to capitalize the words "top" and "model," which are now fully owned and operated entities of TyraCo LLC, but to structure the language Schlocky Balboa is uttering would imply that it made so much as one lick of sense in this world or any other. A Waitress Of The Year competition? Do they have those? Do they require aptitude at boxing? Can we skip dessert and just take a check, please? Thanks.
But yes, this top model competition requires physical stamina, and so we undertake a big boxing match in which the girl who stops hitting a big-ass bag last is the winner. I think Catie falls first, but the traffic was so noisy that you could not hear me cry, I gave you my love in vain my body never knew such pleasure, my heart never knew such pai-yee-ai-yee-ain, you leave me so confused, now I'm all cried out, over you. I'm just saying that Catie cries a lot is all, and sometimes you need to let the poetry of Allure say it better than you ever could. The boxing match is quickly (well, in montage time) down to Camille and April, with the rest of the girls standing on the sidelines screaming variants of "Go, April!" and "April, woo!" and "I swear by the divine words of Eliot that I do not believe you are the cruelest month!" Schlocky Balboa counts down to zero, indicating that they are of equal boxing acumen, and a push-ups competition in the middle of the ring leaves April the winner. A round of applause ensues and no award is given out in this challenge except an honorary gold medal in the sporting art of "Not Being Camille."
Oh, yes! Wait a minute, Mr. Postman! Mr. Postman, look and see, is there a letter from Tyra Banks for me? There is? Wow. Wasn't expecting that. This week's first piece of Tyra Mail reads, "Your clothes tell the world who you truly are. You are what you wear." Oh, man. I've currently got on an outfit of jeans from the "Gap '92" denim collection and a Phish t-shirt WITH THE BAND'S NAME WRITTEN IN HEBREW that begs for that sentiment not to be true. Catie then mumbles the rest of the note, because she always cries at wedding and at Tyra Mail and at sunflower seeds and at computer paper and at tea bags and at tote bags and at bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. ["And when she does long division and has a remainder." -- Wing Chun] The end of the note demands, "Come ready at 2:00 PM. Wear what expresses you." Just hands off my Hebrew Phish. Borrowing it without asking simply would not be pareve.
“ Tyra introduces her small friend Simon Doonon, who is the creative director of Barney's, the guy who invented windows ('But you must be mad! Glass is but a liquid,' they all said before Simon). ”
Tyra "That's Really Super, Supergirl" Banks enters the ZoLoft with a man I'll guesstimate is, well, Jenascia's dad? Why? Because he's so wee! Tyra's own personal style seems to be typified by an adherence to her own favorite clothing designer, '80s luminary Z. Cavaricci, since she is decked out in a one-piece denim pantsuit that looks in fabric and waistline a leeetle too similar to the eponymous fashion classic and makes me have to plug up my TV speakers to stop the reckless smell of Drakkar Noir suddenly pouring out from them. Tyra tells the assembled girls, "Today you guys are going to be learning about personal style." She introduces her small friend Simon Doonon, who is the creative director of Barney's, the guy who invented windows ("But you must be mad! Glass is but a liquid," they all said before Simon), and the man that launched a thousand annoying and identically-sounding Randy Newman songs by having "no reason to live." Even at 4'6", though, like, eleven Jenascia's could fit inside one Simon Doonan. And why? Because conventional wisdom tells us that she is short.
Awwww! Even Simon's voice is widdle! No wonder he likes to spend so much time around the optical illusions windows so often provide. I guess "Funhouse Designer" wasn't a respectable enough career field for him to get into, even if he secretly thinks it was his calling. Simon introduces himself by saying, "In New York, you never know who [sic] you're going to run into. So you have to think about how you dress every single day." That may be the single most depressing sentiment I've ever heard expressed, actually, but Tyra echoes it and tells the girls they always need to be ready to be photographed. To that end, Tyra decides to show off some of photographs of her own "personal style gone wrong," when she's ended up on Worst Dressed lists. One is of her in a black dress and a bikini top. One was when she hosted the Oscar pre-show in 2000 in a purple wedding dress. One, if historical accuracy is a prized asset on this show, will be when she unsheathes a Polaroid camera and takes a photo of herself right now.
Tyra instructs each girl to stand up and tell the story about how her current outfit explains her personal style. April is first. She is wearing a shoulder-less white dress with a light-blue waist and a giant slit down the entire front of it. She explains that she likes to "show a lot of skin," and Simon warns her that she needs to find a balance between "groovy and hip" and "provocative." He'd call her a whore, but he's saving that ace for when it's his only card left. Mercedes wears fresh flowers in her hair, which Simon likes. Sara is a little too "street style." Shandi -- who I guess left her stylistically-appropriate "black sheep" costume to the Red Vines aisle at her former employer -- instead wears a red, off-the-shoulder shirt and a blue skirt. Simon praises her for having her "own thing going on," even though the uniquely personal style of her hair, her eyes and her makeup are all exactly fourteen seconds old and completely fashioned by someone else. Xiomara is wearing hoop earrings and a sports bra, which means she wouldn't even have to change her name before modeling the great fashions in an upcoming revival season of American Gladiators. Camille tells us that her family is from "Jamaica, West Indies," so she likes to wear the colors represented by their red, yellow, and green flag, explaining, "Red is for the blood that was shed, yellow is for the sunshine, and green is for the land." A quick, intercut confessional here finds Xiomara just going, "Camille: blah blah blah blah" in a way that needs no further explaining, and we hop back to Simon, who warns, "This might be a little too theoretical." Doesn't he mean that it is exactly the most literal thing we've ever seen? It would be like if said, "My personal style is represented in the fact that my name is Dan, so I'm wearing these giant felt letters with my head sticking through the 'A' and I've tethered a 'D' to my left arm and an 'N' to my right, and I will walk the streets singing a jaunty ditty entitled, 'Personally, My Style Is Dan" over and over again. In a bracing win for subtle stylistic decisions, however, I've gone with the far more expressionist Hebrew Phish t-shirt instead, which is just the thinking man's version of those letters. Jenascia wears something that she admits fits into her personal style of wanting to be taller, at which point she slips into a kind of paragraph-ending self-parody that exists on such a base, molecular level that it actually affects grammar. Amazing.