Previously: Chaos! Crazy photo shoots! Fourteen finalists have "weathered the toughest competition yet," which in layman's terms means "suffered with Tyra through her nervous breakdown." Three girls remain, and one of these will be named America's Top Model, and in a glorious three weeks will be crowned America's Top Has-Been. The lucky contenders are:
Kahlen, the "small-town girl from Oklahoma" who came to this competition with "absolutely no experience." Yeah, I don't know about that. But everyone thought Kahlen looked like Carmen Kass, and so lobbed the word "fierce" at her at every opportunity. However, Kahlen has some confidence issues and, quite frankly, often looks like crap in person. Also, she lacks experience with the man meat. Kahlen needs to prove to the judges that she believes in herself enough to take it to "the level."
Then we have Naima, a "reformed party girl" who came to L.A. embracing a "new, quiet, dignified self." We see her telling the judges in auditions that she carried around a lot of anger, but now her Mohawk is helping to center her thoughts. Well, that and the heavy doses of medication that result in her slow speech pattern. I must say that Naima's highlights served her well, because she looks kind of odd when I see her now with very dark hair. Naima's unique, multi-ethnic look and newfound focus and determination helped her to rock the challenges. She now needs to find out the difference between keeping it together and keeping it all inside. In other words, shed some tears and tell Tyra how grateful you are if you want to stand a chance, bitches.
And then there's Keenyah, who is a hog and in no way is going to win. I mean, clearly when they show all the bad stuff you did during the season in the highlight reel, you don't stand a chance. We see footage of her complaining about her haircut in the makeover episode, pushing Kahlen out of the way at a go-see, and flabbing around on the beach with her not so flat tummy. That last one made me do twenty push-ups on the spot. Janice yells at Keenyah to lose some weight. Tyra punnily asks us, "Will Keenyah's appetite for victory convince the judges that she can look the part of a top model?" Though I am shamed to admit it, I still think Keenyah is pretty.
And tonight we will find out who wins! And it will be glorious! Well, for me, anyway.
We are still in Cape Town, where there are lovely animals including fun and stocky little penguins (many of whom I hoped were able to be shipped to Massachusetts to finally make their domestic partnerships legal). Kahlen says to the penguins, "'ello li'il guys" in a Cockney accent, and one suddenly retorts, "If you wan' a go...go!" Keenyah asks if the penguins will attack her. No, but with a little salt and ketchup she would totally take a bite out of their deliciously porky frames. Waddle for your lives, my tuxedo-clad friends! She interviews that it's down to the last three, and that everyone has to work her hardest and prove how much she wants it. They bid adieu to the penguins.
“ Tyra says that she had friends who thought she was crazy trying to be a model, too. Wow, I didn't know that she actually considers me a friend! ”
As we return to the girls' hotel, Tyra voices over that since the competition was coming to a close, she wanted to have a one-on-one chat with each of the girls. Tyra appears to be wearing very little or no makeup in this sequence and it is kind of terrifying. She is in a room with dim red light, which also isn't doing her any favors. I'm sure you can guess how the chats go, but I'll share it with you anyway. Kahlen had many detractors who didn't think that she could be a top model, saying that she's not girly enough, not tall enough, and not unique. Tyra says that she had friends who thought she was crazy trying to be a model, too. Wow, I didn't know that she actually considers me a friend! Cool. Kahlen says that she's always wanted to model and that she's driven to do it, so she will continue on no matter what people tell her. Unless she's already too busy giving up when things don't come easily to her.
Naima enters with an exaggerated, "Hiiiii Tyyyyyyraaaaaa!" She seems extraordinarily happy, which is Clue #1. To what, I will not yet say. She says that she's learned so much about herself during the Top Model experience, and now feels comfort and acceptance for herself. She says that Tyra knows what Naima went through. And I still find it odd that we, the audience, do not. I love how Tiffany can tell us the specific brand of cat food that her grandmother eats ("'Po' Folks Vittles," naturally) but all we know about Naima's troubled past is that her parents divorced and she was angry. If those are the qualifications to be America's Top Model, I think that I personally know about 120 candidates for the position. Naima goes on to say that she hated her body, face, and self, but now she doesn't have the room to hate herself. At least not when Keenyah is standing nearby. Tyra says with a smile, "It's interesting that a competition that is so much about critique and insecurity is giving you self-esteem, because a lot of times the opposite happens in this competition." And I can vouch for that, because four seasons of watching and two seasons of recapping this show have totally made me feel fat. I may mock Tyra in jest, but lord knows I can't pass up a ten-piece bucket of the extra-crispy either.
Keenyah -- who is a jerk and fat and we GET IT -- tells Tyra that they are in a competition and that she doesn't want to do anything to put one of the other girls ahead of her. Tyra asks Keenyah about the competition in terms of body image, food, and pressure, and wonders if she eats from stress. Keenyah answers that she thinks she has an oral fixation, which I guess is why she sucks so much. She says that she engages in a lot of comfort eating. Tyra says that, for herself, she realized that she couldn't follow the starvation rules of the modeling industry and had to re-route her career from high-fashion to more mainstream modeling la Victoria's Secret. Well, that plus the fact that Naomi Campbell kept threatening to cut her. And again, I know I joke a lot about Tyra's weight, but I think that she's kind of a genius in terms of molding her career so that she is a hundred times more famous than the anorexic fourteen-year-olds and aging supermodel has-beens that she no longer has to compete with while at the same time enjoying some delicious fried foods every now and then. She says that she could do this because she was already a high-fashion supermodel, but that Keenyah doesn't have that luxury and needs to eat healthy, which is important whether you're a model or not. Tyra tells Keenyah to focus on being healthy, and gives her a big hug.
Night falls. Tyra Mail! "Tomorrow it's double jeopardy. You'll need to draw on everything you've learned to get through the day. It's going to be difficult, so duck for cover. At 6:45 AM." Kahlen tells the others that they're going to have to draw ducks.
We arrive the day at a set with a zebra-striped background and runway. We see Jay Manuel, who asks the girls if they're ready for a runway show. Jay is oranged to a crisp. Kahlen interviews that she's psyched because she feels confident about her walk. Jay tells them that they're actually not going to do a runway show, but rather a commercial. At this, Kahlen is not so excited, because acting isn't her thing. The commercial will be for Cover Girl's Outlast makeup. We then get a Jay-led almost commercial about how this makeup is the first of its kind and how Cover Girl has made it so easy with their two-step formula that makes your skin look beautiful all day long no matter the conditions. And I have actually tried makeup that's sort of similar in its claims to last all day, and it makes you feel like you have a film of motor oil on your face and gives you more zits than Britney. But maybe the revolutionary two-step formula corrects all of this in ways unknown. The commercial's premise is that we see a runway show and then cut to the backstage chaos. The girls will be doing a full thirty-second commercial as well as a print campaign. They meet director Russel Underhill and photographer Helmut Rautenbach, whom one might hope is as scarily German as his name indicates.
Backstage, the girls have fine Cover Girl makeup applied to them by a team of professionals as they try to memorize their lines. Kahlen interviews that she's normally very nervous going into shoots, and doesn't want to be sent home because of her confidence. And I'm pretty sure that this exact interview bit was used in another episode. Cut to Keenyah backstage, saying that if a model has a lot of confidence and stands up for herself, it doesn't matter how people treat her. Oh, so then I guess it's okay if I continue to call her fat. Keenyah interviews that what gives her the edge over Kahlen and Keenyah is that, personality-wise, she'd be a great representative for "anything that's out in the modeling industry." Well, she would if she hadn't been edited to be such a jerk. Mathu tells Naima that she always looks very serious, and is quiet. Naima says that she's mysterious, and tells us that the panel thinks that her weakness is not being able to open up completely to them. She says that if she hadn't been on the chopping block at the last panel, then she wouldn't have been able to pinpoint what makes her hold herself back. Huh? She charmingly asks Mathu who is going home, to show us that she has charm. He says that he doesn't know, which I think is lies.