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We begin this week with the good news that America has had it up to here with Dominic, and he's going home. Thank goodness. Katy and Ben are saved, meaning that the Great And Epic Romance Of Ben And Ronnie can continue.
Unfortunately, the Great And Epic Romance Of Ben And Ronnie becomes slightly less fun to watch when Ronnie admits to us that he has begun to have real feelings about Ben. Who is straight. And married. And even if either of those things isn't as permanently true as Ben makes it out to be (as some of the "playful" "unserious" rolling around on the bed together, some of which includes Aryn also, begins to suggest), Ronnie still doesn't want any part of that drama. Run, Ronnie!
This week's photo shoot revolves around "chemistry," and the models are paired off to pose for erotic pictures. Like, they're not porn, because clothes are on, but they're not just cologne ads, either. There's a lot of biting and licking and leather and so forth. For my money, the most interesting pairing is Casey and Perry, who handle their ho-ho-ho make-boys-kiss situation with admirable aplomb, admitting that they're kind of freaked out (best line: "Sooooo...did you see the game last night?") but then totally committing and getting into it, with tongues and whips and not a trace of "yuck, I don't want to be here." It increases my affection for both of them. Ben and Katy both outperform their recent bad outings, so they're both in a better groove, it seems. Stephanie and Jacki also do well, with Stephanie identifying toplessness as her element of surprise. Jay and Aryn are a big flop, with Jay barely participating in the shoot, and with both of them acting like this is an incredibly dull assignment, weirdly. Ronnie and Shannon have a good week, and Ronnie totally admits that he was hot for Shannon a little bit while they were making out and rolling around and whatnot. Frankie and Holly are still fighting, and they're horrible, and it starts to make you realize what people are talking about when they say "chemistry."
The catwalk is based around equestrian and bondage themes, and once again, the photo partners appear together. It doesn't really change anything -- the ones who were awesome are still awesome, particularly Casey and Perry, and the ones who are were terrible are still terrible. The bottom three are Aryn, Jay, and Holly, all of whom got distracted and freaked in various ways about the assignment, and all of whom deserve to be there. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Last week, everybody hated Dominic. They also had diminished love for Katy and Ben, and the three of them went up for the vote to be eliminated from the running to be America's Most Dumbest Mid-Level Famous Person Who Is Frequently Photographed In Clothes While Walking Around In Front Of People. So, we start this week's episode off listening to Dominic whine about himself and everybody else. "Dom was pissed," says Katy, "and he took his bad mood out on everybody in the house." He's in such a bad mood, in fact, that he has to confront everyone in his bathrobe. This man's ankles are dainty enough for me to encircle with one hand, and he has the unmitigated gall to speak of himself now in the third person. "A lot of the models in this house," he says, with total sincerity, "they don't like Dominic, and they're entitled to their own opinion, or whatever." Katy, Casey, and Holly stare blandly at him, and he's doing plenty to dig his own grave of stupidity when FRANKIE decides to chime in. "What I feel," he says, laboring under the misconception that anyone cares about his feelings (or even believes he has them), "is that a lot of the girls in this house are backstabbers. Some of you guys talk shit about each other, and then you guys are friendly to each other." Fascinating! Finally, someone has cracked the CODE of feminine mystique! He is like an anthropologist uncovering inscrutable womanhood! What will FRANKIE reveal ? Finally, someone has discovered the key to unlock... oh, never mind, Dominic's interrupting. All he's saying, he said, is that when he got out of the shower, someone told him that someone else downstairs was talking trash about him. Katy doesn't even blink -- the whole house is open, she points out, and no one is trying to talk behind his back. "If someone is trying to question my integrity," Dom goes on, "please confront me." Katy attempts to argue that no one is questioning his integrity, but since none of them knows what integrity means, especially Dominic, the camera just cuts away, probably amid the sniggers of the crew. If anyone were ever going to make up a book of clichés on how even shows that are allegedly displaying raw, "real" footage become formulaic, at least one chapter could be dedicated to the moment in every show that someone starts going on about his integrity. Even the Rock Of Love "women" do it, and to them, Integrity is just the blonde in the two-girl act with Destiny on Tuesdays down at the Booby Trap.
The morning (I guess), Ronnie sweetly wakes Ben up to send him off to Judgment Day. Y'all. Ronnie loves Ben. It's going to be a problem. For his part, Ben doesn't want to go home. He's learned so much in the last two weeks, he says, and he's not ready for it to be over. Yeah, neither is Ronnie. "I wanna hug you," he says, barely half-joking, and adds that he'll be sitting by the door waiting on Ben to come back. They share a quick, manly embrace, and Ben heads out. Katy, meanwhile, is determined that, after today, she won't be in the bottom three again for a while. "The whole point of this competition is to make me a supermodel," she says, "not pick a supermodel off the street, ready to go." Well said. I wish that was the point, rather than what it looks to be turning into, which is the same old tired fake drama and exploitation of desperate, fame-hungry youth. Dominic is spending his last moments convincing himself that everything happens for a reason...which he reads off his baseball cap, source of all deep certainties, and is neither true, nor comforting. The only people who believe that everything happens for a reason are people to whom nothing has ever happened.
The vote candidates get packed and ready to go and say their goodbyes. "I'm sick of all these people," FRANKIE tells the camera as they leave. "We need to have two eliminations at a time. Screw this crap." Oh, FRANKIE. You are getting uglier by the week. Don't make me lower-case you.
On the catwalk for elimination, the panel once again goes through the faults of the bottom three. Last week, Niki reminds them, they all got new looks in the hopes that they would grow in confidence and attitude. "But the three of you," she says, "disappointed us." Harsh, Niki. Tyson starts with Dom: he's back in the bottom three because of his walk and his lack of variety. Jennifer says that Ben really needs to come out of his shell. Cory closes by saying that Katy, unlike all the other models, is not evolving.
The music builds in intensity as we wait to see who America has struck from the rolls. Again, they drag it to try to make us panic that anyone other than Dominic is going home, but finally, Tyson makes the big reveal: "Dominic, America has voted. I'm sorry, we can't make you a supermodel." And, y'all...Dominic is ready for this news -- so ready, he has prepared a line. "I'll have to make myself one," he says, and turns on his heel to exit the runway. I sit for a moment and silently contemplate the utter audacity and self-absorption it must take to say something like that on national television. Backstage, Dominic says he feels cheated because he got some faulty coaching from Debbie on how to walk, and that it didn't go well with the panel, and that's what screwed him in the end. Haaaa! First of all, blame your mom if you don't know how to walk. Secondly, you are forgetting that what really hasn't gone over well with the panel is that you whine more than a second-grader who just dropped his popsicle. Dominic says, "That'd be the biggest bummer if I came out of this, and people were like, 'Oh, you're the guy that can't walk! You're the guy that's stiff,' because, I can walk. It's not a problem. You know, just give me some shoes maybe that fit?" Seriously, I can't listen to him without snorting.
Back at the house, the remaining models laugh about Dom's tendencies to say he's not going to complain, and then...complain. "If Katy and Dom come back," FRANKIE says, "I'm gonna walk out of the room." He says it's not about who they want out of the house, but about who deserves to be out of the house. I don't even think he understands the words coming out of his own mouth, really. They cut it like he's been talking smack about Dominic, but I am sure it's Katy he really wants gone. It seems universally agreed that Ben should get to stay, and that if he continues to improve as a model, he'll become very good.
Katy and Ben arrive home, to the wild cheers of everyone. Ronnie, especially, seems thrilled to see Ben and nervously awaits his turn to hug his returning roommate. Or at least that's the way it's edited to look. In an interview, Ronnie says the fact that Ben is his biggest competition and the fact that Ronnie wants Ben to stay in the house as long as possible don't have to be mutually exclusive. However, the truth is, he says, "I'd roll Ben over in a heartbeat to win this competition at the end." Yeah, it's no secret how fast you'd roll him over, sweetie -- that's the problem.
The day, Katy narrates, they all go to a clothing company called Reiss for "kind of a casting call." They are put into pairs and groups to see who had chemistry in front of the camera and who did not. To my extreme disappointment, we are only shown the quickest snippets of this exercise, and it really is a crying shame because, first, they look like they're wearing some great clothes; and secondly, some of the photos look really interesting and great. Ronnie and Ben, in particular, appear to have had a very steamy shot, and I would have just liked to see the different pairs and groups and how they looked together in photos. Back at the house, Katy, Stephanie, Jacki and Shannon talk about how fun the day was and laugh about what a huge Fabio FRANKIE is. Each of them does his or her impression of how he swoops his hair around and gives the camera his snarly-sex face every time, and it slays me. "It's like he's trying to think too hard," Stephanie says, "and it hurts his face." Side note: You know, the more I see Katy, the more I buy her in this contest. Her face reminds me of Gia Carangi a little. The red hair reminds me particularly of this famous picture. Is it just me? Probably.
Over in the boys' room, in what is possibly the most bizarre moment of product placement I have encountered on TV, Ronnie and Ben are adjusting the settings on their Sleep Number beds. Yes. "How hard do you want it?" Ben asks Ronnie, in a voice so straight-outta-porn it seems to almost surprise Ronnie. "Mm, I want it really hard," Ronnie giggles and the two of them push the control buttons on their bed remotes (not a euphemism, but actually it kind of is), while Aryn and Jay look on. In an interview, Ronnie says that, huh, Ben sometimes gives him mixed signals. REALLY? Yeah. "I know he's married," says Ronnie, "but at the same time, like, he's kind of alluded to the fact that maybe if he's, you know, had a couple of cocktails, or whatever, that he would be open to the idea of being intimate with a guy." I...don't know what to say. I want to fly to New York immediately and rescue them both from themselves and each other. Ben, you don't want to be with Ronnie, you just like him a lot and he's hot and you really appreciate the sexual attention. Ronnie, you don't want Ben... Well, maybe you do, but there are so many other gorgeous gay fish in the sea who will not flip on you after six painful months of tearful confusion. Don't ask me how I know that will happen. Let's just say I went to college and leave it at that, all right? Killing me, Ronnie goes on to say that it's difficult sometimes, because he doesn't think Ben realizes that it's not just playing on Ronnie's part. "I do have some genuine feelings for him," Ronnie says, and my heart breaks a little before I remember that they've only been there for two weeks. What's worse, he adds, laughing, is that Ben's getting close to Aryn. "I think there's certainly some chemistry between all three of us, actually," Ronnie says. "I think Aryn, Ben, and I have become very close friends." Yeah, so close that he and Aryn decide to both LIE ON TOP OF BEN on his single bed, and begin talking about his nipples, which I am too embarrassed for humanity to even get into. "Sharing our man, right?" Aryn says to Ronnie as they start kissing Ben. "Uh oh!" Ronnie jokes. "Who's gonna get his attention?!" Ben says he's got to look at the camera, and as it zooms in, he grins like he's the happiest slightly bisexual prison guard in the world. Katy and I share in our disappointment. "Ben and Aryn are very steamy," Katy says. "I feel like, you know, a lot's about to come out. Apparently, Ben's not the genuine Southern boy I thought he was." In the girls' room, they all giggle that Ben and Aryn are going to end up together, and that their chemistry pictures are pretty convincing. We see about .005 seconds of Ben and Aryn being photographed together earlier that day, so we'll just have to take their word for it. "Wait 'tiiiillll the wife finds out," Katy says, and it's indicative of how dumb twenty-year-olds are about marriage and commitment and, you know, TELEVISION and things that get recorded for posterity on CAMERA forEVER, that they all just keep on laughing.
So, it's time for the weekly photoshoot. The models are taken to the studio of Diana Scheunemann, who has shot a lot of hot stuff for Vogue and Elle and the like, and who will be shooting the models wearing lingerie today as they writhe around in pairs on a rumpled bed. The quilt on the bed is identical to the one on my own bed, by the way, and I shoot it a sideways look during this scene as if it's stepped out on me. Diana explains that what she's looking for is really more acting than it is modeling and that they really need to connect with their eyes during the shoot. "Forget about your girlfriends or your boyfriends," Tyson says, "and if some of you get a little...excited...that's okay." Hee. I mean, it's hilarious, and they all laugh, but that is a good point -- it would be interesting to know how models deal with that, for real.
Diana has looked through some Polaroids before they arrived and has matched the models into pairs. Ronnie and Shannon. Aryn and Jay. Holly and FRANKIE. Ben and Katy. Stephanie and Jacki! And Perry and Casey! Awesome. Most of them appear to have great attitudes about it, especially the same-sex pairs, and seem game to give it their all.
Ben and Katy, up first, decide that they're just going to go for it, and they sincerely do, making out to beat the band. Katy is wearing a beautiful bra and panties set, and there is a lot of kissing, biting, and butt-grabbing. "Everybody at home probably thinks, you know, 'oh, they're so into it,'" Katy says, but it's really not like that, considering all the camera and lighting people in the room. "Ben's doing great," she says, before quickly adding that she hopes his wife doesn't take offense to that. For his part, Ben says that his wife knows this is all part of the job, though he doubts that will make it easy on her watching it at home. Ben: I'll wager that this part is easier for her to watch than Aryn and Ronnie smooching on you in your off hours, son.
Behind the scenes, Stephanie jokes that she ordered the champagne that's back there for Jacki, so that she could loosen up enough to be licked from her head to her toe. Hee.
Meanwhile, Jay and Aryn need a lot more than champagne to get themselves into this assignment. Aryn looks gorgeous in her underwear and wild hair, but the two of them together have got zero chemistry. Even the photographer points out that Jay is too passive, and seems like he just wants to lie there. Aryn was hoping that he'd take a little more control and sling her around, but he doesn't, and it's horribly uncomfortable. What's weird is, Aryn seems to take beautiful photographs -- I mean, from what we can see in the nanosecond they show the pictures. Jay says, cutely, in an interview, that he told Aryn that, once she went black, she could never go back, but I have to be honest: I don't think he convinced her. I have to say again that I think Aryn has got the goods for this profession, although sometimes she has a bit of the bug eyes.
Ah, Stephanie and Jacki. They start out on the floor on the shag carpet, looking all emaciated and pseudo-lesbian, giving off a distinct American Apparel catalogue vibe...but they eventually get into it. The best moment is the photographer saying, in her sweet German accent, that she wanted them to have, "not like friends, but more...sexual chemistry." Eventually, Stephanie mans up and takes off her bra, ramping up the hotness. I'm ready to applaud the artistic nature of it all until Diana hands them a banana and tells them to "do something with this." Stephanie's face is pure disdain. Both girls say that although they've never been intimate with another girl, they're comfortable with the photography and just want good pictures. Now, Jacki wouldn't wear a thong, but she'll make out with a topless chick? Please explain. Backstage (for lack of a better word), Stephanie congratulates her partner. "I'm really proud of Jacki," Stephanie says. "She really surprised me. With her tongue."
up are Holly and FRANKIE. Casey says backstage that this is where teamwork really comes into play -- two people having to work together who really don't like each other. "Frankie and Holly," Perry agrees. "There's just no chemistry at all." He is quite right. Out on the bed, disaster is striking. Please understand that I don't mean to slight her at all by saying this, but I don't think Holly has been to bed with many young men. Or even sat on a bed with one. Ever. She says in an interview that it was particularly difficult for her to be intimate with someone because she and her fiancé are waiting until they get married to have sex, but...girl, that's fine, but you might try faking it 'til you make it. I have seen more intimacy between complete strangers at a frat party than between these two. To his very small credit, FRANKIE is trying. Well, what he's mostly doing is rolling around with a practically-visible thought bubble over his head that reads: "I AM SO HOT. YES. YES, FRANKIE IS HOT." Meanwhile, Holly is crushingly embarrassed and seems confused and repulsed. Frankie -- who must be lower-cased now because I can no longer deny his assholishness -- says in an interview that he doesn't think Holly has what it takes to be in this competition. "Her pictures are good," he says, "but, she's boring as hell. Who would want to work with her, dude?" How is he supposed to build chemistry with someone who seems like she is disgusted by him, he asks, and dick or not, he's right. "It just sucked," he says, "like I was trying to fuck a blow-up doll, man." Ugh, hate.
Speaking of hate, remember when I hated Perry? Well, no more. I love him. He and Casey step through the door in their briefs, ready for the shoot. "See this right here? This dynamic duo of sexiness?" he asks the camera. "We're about to rock the sheets." Diana tells Casey and Perry that, you know, they can do whatever they want on the bed. "You can strangle each other," she suggests, "if that turns you on." Perry looks to the sky for answers as to why his life has come to this, and laughs a little as he says, "Okay." Diana interviews that the boys started out shy. "So," Perry says, as the two of them crack up in a down moment, "did you see the game last night?" Love. Quickly, they move past their shyness and really get into it. Seriously, there's licking, and waistband grabbing. They get fired up when they are given props and tie each other up and get crazy. At some point, a lollipop becomes involved...somehow? Who knows, but Diana tells them that she's not sure about it, since it could end up looking "a little bit gay." The boys freeze and look up at her. "Really," Perry deadpans, and Casey cracks up. "Don't want to come across as that," he says. "Definitely a lot of licking going on," Perry says. Casey: "And biting." Perry: "And nipple pinching." Later, he says that he was glad to be photographed with Casey, because now he won't have to explain it all to his girlfriend: "Now it's just like...my girlfriend's all, 'Wow, my boyfriend's gay." Hee. Diana repeats that this is all about acting, and that Casey and Perry did well. Afterward, they adorably sit on the edge of the bed, pretending to be uncomfortable and talking about hot girls. It is made a thousand times funnier because Casey is in handcuffs.
Shannon and Ronnie are , and they bring the heat. Shannon jokes beforehand that Ronnie has never been with a woman and that she will now take his virginity. Not really that funny, nor do I believe that Ronnie has never made out with a girl, but I like the two of them together a lot. Ronnie says that he was really surprised at how much he enjoyed the experience, but when a half-naked Amazon is rubbing all over you and kissing you, I don't see why it would be so surprising. Diana says that Ronnie and Shannon left their personal lives out of the shoot, and were great. "We're getting married!" Shannon cries as Ronnie carries her over the threshold of the dressing room. I really like them both.
Diana must like them as well, because she says that the top two pairs were Ronnie and Shannon ("they totally made out") and Casey and Perry, who she says "acted so well, it actually does look like they would totally have sex." She reiterates that Jay just seemed like he happened to be there during his shoot, and that Holly was really difficult because she looked so terrified the whole time.
Back at the house, Holly is crying. God, she's beautiful. But she talks like a thirteen-year-old and needs to get a hold of herself. She says like, people, like, don't understand like, how much she like, wants this. Like. And then cries anew because she knows the photos were bad, but she doesn't want this experience to end just because of one bad shoot -- with Frankie, of all people. She and Frankie clearly have some issues beyond just their lack of chemistry. Upstairs, Frankie is dogging Holly out to Ben, Aryn, and Ronnie, who are probably just waiting for him to leave so that they can jump each other again. They all look really grossed out by his tattling on Holly -- he's saying some crap about how, bro, she like, drank so much champagne, dude, seriously. Holly is also grossed out, and crying about it in the room to the other girls who look uncomfortable. She's just warming up about how she doesn't get drunk and go to work, so "what the hey?," when Frankie appears in the doorway. First of all..."what the hey"? That slays me. No one who says "what the hey?" gets drunk on champagne. That girls has never been drunk in her life. This is what she says to Frankie when she turns around and sees him. "I would've did better if I was drunk," she says, with some questionable but understandable rage-grammar. Frankie says that's how he perceived it. Then, in a truly conniving move, he starts all over, yelling that "not everybody gets drunk before a photo shoot! People don't get drunk before photo shoots! It's unprofessional!" With that, Frankie storms off, having said he piece in a perfectly controlled soundbite for convenient editing back at the studio. Honestly, can we stop making these shows now? The players have learned all the tricks and are now gaming the game, you know? Holly is left in disbelief, and can only manage the true, but weak, retort of "you're an ass."
The morning, the contestants arrive at the gym for a brutal workout at Studio X. Is it really interesting to watch people work out? No. Nor is it interesting to read about it. Let it suffice to say that Clay, the trainer, pretty much kicks all the models' asses. It appears that everyone does at least passably all right, but that Aryn has a hard time breathing and keeping up -- I am sure they want us to think she hasn't eaten in five days or something, which may be the case, but whatever. "Are you kidding me?" Clay snaps. "Toughen up." Exactly.
That evening (or some evening -- from the clothes, it was probably the night before the workout), we see what has to be a staged conversation between Ronnie and Ben about whether Ben feels weird about talking to his wife after the sexy photo shoot. Moments later, Ben is on the phone to her with his one phone call. They missed a chance here for a little joke about how the prison guard is only allowed one phone call, or something. The conversation with April, his wife, seems excruciatingly dull and uncomfortable. Ben's such a sweet guy, and it is heartbreaking to hear the tears in his wife's voice. Bless her heart. Later, Ben says that it gives him a different perspective to talk to her and hear how sad she is and realize that, "I'm here having this amazing time, and back home, my wife's missing me like crazy." We hear her ask him whether everyone in the house is nice to him, and he says that he and Ronnie are good friends. "Yeah," she says. "I know." He laughs uncomfortably. "No, I said 'good friends,'" he chuckles. "Not 'gay friends.'" Oh, honey, you're on TV rolling in a bed with that guy. And week, hello, she's going to see it.
For whatever reason, they have Ronnie tell us how nervous Aryn was going into her phone call, because she's confused about where her life is going right now. Or something. She talks to her country-fried man, Landon, on the phone, and is crying from the second the call starts. She says in an interview that no one knows what the future will bring, so she has to put her relationship's future on hold to concentrate on her individual future. She tries to explain this, in kinder words, to Landon, but he cuts through the bullshit: "Where is this speech going? What's it about? Do you like someone new? Do you still want to be with me?" All good questions, for which Aryn will not give a straight answer, except for this really awkward truth that Landon's the only person she has to come home to, so...I mean, not the answer he was looking for, Aryn, right? "I want to marry you so bad," he says, "I can't see straight." Ah, ROMAYNCE. After the call, Aryn goes to lay on top of Ronnie and cry a little, eventually telling them that her boyfriend wants to marry her. "What?" Ronnie asks, sweetly. "What did you say?" She says that she can't see going back home and doing that after "all this." All...this? All two weeks of it? Apparently Landon and Aryn have problems, though, or something, in which case, Aryn should have slung him off before she even left Sweet Home Alabama.
It's time for the catwalk. The models arrive to find Niki, who explains that since this week has been all about chemistry, they need to keep the heat going on the catwalk. This week's assignment is "equestrian with a fetish twist." Did y'all know what fetishes really were when you were twenty? I mean, for real? Especially equestrian fetishes, which really exist, but please do not make me link to something about it, I beg of you. I ain't judgin', though. I mean, to each their own HORSE TAIL BUTT PLUG OH MY GAAAAAHD. Anyway, uh, Niki says that they need to think Gaultier and McQueen, and while they're thinking about it, I'm going to go join a convent, bye. They'll each be working again with their photo shoot partners, and to give them some inspiration, she reveals a table full of whips and various apparatuses used for taming the stallion within themselves, or whatever. She reminds them that, at the end of the show, three of them will go up for the vote, and that they should think big on the catwalk and really go for it.
The models all get dirtied up -- literally -- with crazy hair and makeup that looks like dirt that whores have been rolling in before picking it up and smearing it on the models, and they worry about the pressure of doing well for themselves and their partners.
Ronnie and Shannon come out first and look freakin' deadly hot. Ronnie -- shirtless, but in a ruff and a riding hat -- does sort of a prance walk while Shannon goes alongside with her feathery whip. At the end of the catwalk, Ronnie grabs Shannon's ponytail and pushes her over, causing Cory to gasp in delight. "This week was all about chemistry," we hear Shannon say, "and Ronnie and I had chemistry. We went out there and we had a blast." Awesome.
Stephanie and Jacki come down together, one in white and one in black, and while Jacki does really well, Stephanie moves a bit awkwardly. I feel like she should have played a submissive part here, and let Jacki lead with the whip, and maybe that's what they were going for, but it doesn't look like it worked. Doesn't matter to Tyson, though. "Oh, how I love my job," he says as the two girls come strutting toward him.
Frankie and Holly look bored and clueless. This time, Holly seems to do well, and Frankie appears not to be into it in the least.
Ben and Katy, however, look great together, and have fun with it -- though I think they get a little too smiley at the end. There's no smiling in equestrian fetishism...at least from what I gather here in the convent.
Jay and Aryn both look awesome and have a cool moment at the end where he grabs the whip from her...
...but the camera barely lingers on them before our dashing duo Perry and Casey come out. Perry cracks the whip hard, wearing a tuxedo jacket and leather garters and brings Casey out to be led by a chain. They kill it up and down the catwalk and slay the judges at the end when Perry bites at Casey, only to have him bite back, to Perry's mock surprise. It's so great, and the panel loves it.
When everyone is brought back out for questions, Shannon and Ronnie are congratulated for their fine performances in the photo shoots and on the catwalk. They worked together, and that impressed the panel. Not so impressive? Aryn and Jay. Niki asks Aryn whether she felt like she and Jay had chemistry. Aryn says that although there was no natural chemistry between them, they tried to create some. Jay looks kind of embarrassed at this, but he should have thought about that when he was not making the most of his photo shoot. Niki asks whom he would have chosen to pose with, given a choice, and he says Jacki. Lame.
Perry and Casey are wildly celebrated for their ability to get it on for the camera. They do a little jokey-joke about how in tune they are. Perry: "We get each other. I mean, we finish each other's..." Casey: "...sentences." Oh, how the panel laughs. Truly, it is cute. Jennifer asks Casey what went through his mind while Perry was licking his forehead. "The only thought was that there was a camera right there," Casey says. "I'm really sorry, Dad." Aw. Perry adds that his only thought was that Casey was "very salty," and Tyson jokes that it takes a real man to put his tongue on another man.
"Frankie and Holly," Tyson says, moving on. "The chemistry wasn't all there, huh?" They both admit that, no, it wasn't. "What is it?" Tyson cracks. "You guys don't like each other?" Holly mistakenly says that they have had some differences in the house, but tried to put it aside. Why they don't just stay quiet, I don't know, because Cory says tells them that whatever bad blood is between them came out in the photo, which wasn't good. Frankie says that he did try, and that he's a really sexual person, but that Holly was looking at him like he was disgusting. And I hate to agree with the child, but he's right. Tyson says he knows that Holly is a religious person, and wonders if that had something to do with it; in front of everyone, she says again they she and her fiancé don't have sex. The looks on the faces of the New York people when she says it break my heart. Tyson is at least nice about it, but says that Holly needs to forget what's up at home and just do it. "This hurts you," he says in a worried voice. "This was really bad for you guys."
Moving on, Tyson asks Stephanie and Jacki if there was a little attraction there. Stephanie says that while she's not sexually attracted to Jacki, she does think women are beautiful, so it wasn't hard to get into it. Good answer. They get a little silly when Jennifer asks whose idea it was to kiss on the runway, sort of stuttering that they just did it to stand out, but actually I think that's the only reason they did it: don't try to come up with some kind of storyline here, no matter how much Tyson would like it.
They completely skip over any review of Ben and Katy, much to my chagrin -- since I wanted to hear them praised after getting beat up the past two weeks -- and send everyone back to the dressing room while they deliberate on the bottom three.
The judges love Perry and Casey, and are impressed with the forehead-licking. Finally mentioning Ben and Katy, Jennifer says that she thinks their photo looks great, and that she can see how hard Katy's trying. However, Tyson says that Ben is still weak in the walk: "He's got a great look, but his walk is killing the dude." Poor Jay gets raked over the coals, and Aryn along with him, when the judges look over their photos. "It's work," says Jennifer, about every photo shoot Jay's been in. They just can't pull it out of him, and every photographer has said so. Frankie and Holly also get the stink-eye. Their inability to get along shot them in the foot, Tyson says. Meanwhile, in the awesome column: Shannon and Ronnie, who the judges all love, and who always give 100%; and Stephanie and Jacki, who really stepped it up on the runway (though Tyson still thinks Jacki's playing it safe).
After that scintillating conversation in which we learn nothing new whatsoever, they bring out the Random Eight. Shannon and Ronnie, and Perry and Casey are once agaaaaain congratulated on their steaminess and ability to play gay or play straight or whatever. Poor Niki Taylor sounds like a fool during this segment, basically because she's repeating things she's already said twice before. Left on the catwalk, after those four are released, are the bottom four: Holly, Frankie, Aryn, and Jay. I cannot stand their sad faces as they wait to hear who goes up for the vote. Tyson says that Aryn failed to make a connection; that Jay has no spark; and that Holly, letting her personal circumstances get in the way of her job, brought Frankie down with her. "Frankie," Tyson adds. "you couldn't bridge the gap with Holly. Hey, a supermodel always finds a way." The Richter Scale couldn't measure how hard I laughed when he said that. Yes, a supermodel always finds a way! Through rain, hail, sleet or a troubling dearth of cocaine in the VIP lounge, Super Models will find a way! To wrap up, Frankie's off the hook,and Holly, Aryn,and Jay are up for the vote. I hate to see Holly and Aryn there, even though neither did well with these challenges. Jay, who is so cute and nice, really just does not seem to have what they're looking for. I hate to wish ill on him, but I feel like these girls have a better shot.