Episode Report Card Al Lowe: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Asses On The TV
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.30.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.America has voted, and Aryn is going home. HUH? If it makes you feel any better, the panel is just as shocked as we are, and agree with all of us that Jay should have been the one to get the boot. Meanwhile, back at the house, the remaining contestants discuss which contestant they'd like to see leave, and Ben and Ronnie get offended in Aryn's defense. The contestants are "happy" to see Holly and Jay return, by which I mean they act like assholes until the minute the two walk in the door. This week is all about the body being a work of art, and the contestants are stunned when they walk into an art studio and are confronted with a naked woman serving as an art model. The contestants will be posing nude for ten minutes each. They're all terrified. Some of them are nervous, but most of them seem to do well. Katy is complimented for her fluid body, and she and Holly do well with holding their poses, while Jacki, Jay, and Casey have a bit of a hard time. Meanwhile, Perry and Stephanie are standouts. Ben is worried about his wife -- and especially worried that his friendship with Ronnie is being misunderstood back home. Later, the models must use their art class experience to work together to make pieces of a portrait. They will be photographed together in two groups: all the girls in one group, and all the boys in the other. Each group gets to choose one member of the opposite sex to join them in the shot. The guys choose Shannon, and the girls pick Perry. Before he begins, the photographer tells all the models that if, during the group shot, someone is not cutting the mustard, he will remove that person from the shot and keep shooting without him or her. From the boys' shot, he removes Casey and Jay. For the ladies' shot, however, he is so pleased, he leaves them all in. Their next assignment is to be painted head to toe and participate in a living art installation as a group. The installation will be built around a "leading lady," and to decide to gets that role, each girl must try to walk in a pair of spike-heeled toe shoes. Stephanie manages to do it while the others nearly break their ankles. They look really fantastic, all covered in black and sparkles. Back at home, the models have a teacher/schoolgirl night, or something? Frankie raps? I don't know -- the show is not exactly lingering on anything this week. Then the boys go sit alone and compliment each other and talk about how much they love each other, and don't like the girls. The catwalk challenge this week is to wear some crazy Viktor & Rolf and Lacroix creations and work the runway like human statues. They all look great, but Katy gets busted for seeming distracted, and Casey nearly cries when they notice that he seems a little off. They love Holly this week, which is gratifying, and say that Shannon could be doing Paris couture right now. Finally, the bottom three are chosen, and into the pit go Katy (not again!), Jay (yes, again), and Casey (oh no!). Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Last week, Dominic went home, and the models had to get all sexy with each other in a photo shoot. Holly, Aryn, and Jay performed badly, according to the panel, and went up for the vote. It's generally agreed by the entire universe as a whole that Jay should be the one to go. He is very handsome, and maybe would be a great sports model -- or hell, a toothpaste model -- but he's not qualified to be a supermodel, from what I can tell. Of course, the whole idea that there are qualifications to be a supermodel is hilarious, anyway. The bottom three pack up to go face the music. "You better be coming back," Stephanie tells Holly, "or else you're going to see a Stephanie-shaped hole through this window." Aw. Ben and Ronnie tease Aryn about how much they'll miss her -- they're really just kidding, though. "You're not going anywhere," says Ronnie. Meanwhile, Casey asks Jay if he's nervous, and Jay says he's not ready to go. "Don't worry," Casey tells him. "One of the girls will go home." From his bed, Frankie pipes up hopefully: "Holly'll go home, fo' sho." Shut up, frankie, ye who are now so very lower-cased. Oh, how the pretty have fallen. Next week, I'm going to start chopping letters off your name.
At the panel, Niki gets all serious and tells the bottom three that they have "disappointed us." Dang, Niki. Y'all, they give her the dumbest lines. But, she's so beautiful! And, is it just me, or has she lost at least twenty pounds since this show started? Anyway, Holly's safe, and they don't draw it out any more than necessary -- Aryn's going home. It's an injustice, but you can't blame Jay, you know? He very sincerely wraps Aryn in his arms and tells her not to let this stop her, and to keep going. Well, she has to keep going...straight off the catwalk. The members of the panel are visibly pained to watch her walk away. Backstage, Aryn cries, and tells the cameras that she deserved a chance, and had a lot of potential. "It's hard to hear that America didn't agree," she says, and back up front, the panel echoes this. "Did America make the right vote?" Niki asks, and Jennifer immediately says that she's not so sure. She thinks that Aryn should have stayed and that Jay should have gone. Well, bitches, why did you put Aryn and Holly up against him? They split the ladies' vote, Nader-style!
Back at the house, the waiting models have a totally staged and ridiculous conversation about which contestant they want to see return. Several of them, including frankie, think Jay and Aryn are coming back, for some reason -- meaning that's who they'd like to see come back. Ben kind of crappily says that he'd like to see Holly go home, and Jacki jumps in to compare Holly and Aryn, managing to put them both down. Wow, I don't like Jacki's personality on this show. She talks some smack about Aryn, saying something vague about how Aryn doesn't really want to come back for herself, and that she hasn't been working out as much, or something? She comes off as nothing less than smug, and it pisses off Ben, who sarcastically says that if Jacki would ever speak to Aryn, she'd know how much Aryn wanted to stay. "Well," Jacki shoots back, "I don't sleep with her every day, so I wouldn't know." SNAP. Ben gets serious: "Well, neither do I, so shut your fucking mouth." Jacki remains snitty and tries to laugh it off, but if girl's smart, she would be scared right now. Before it gets ugly, we cut to the triumphantly returning Jay, coming in alone. They all beg to know which girl is with him, but he won't give it up, telling them to guess. "Aryn!" some of them (including frankie), shout hopefully. But, ah, it's Holly. Jay runs out and returns, carrying her on his shoulders, which is cute; frankie, Ben, and Ronnie don't do too well concealing their disappointment. Come on, you jerks, doesn't a supermodel always find a way to be polite? Obviously not. "Sorry man," Ben snarks at frankie, disappointing me down to my soul with his rudeness, and frankie continues to act like an ass, but not nearly as much of an ass as Casey, who eagerly gossips to Jay that all the girls who now seem happy to see Holly were just saying that they wanted her to go home. Dude, shut up. ALL OF YOU SHUT UP. You know which contestants are not talking, and who I love even more for it? Stephanie and Shannon. You know why, probably? They have good parents who told each of them, as they walked out the door to participate in this travesty: "Don't be a BITCH on TV. I mean, wear a thong, pose as a lesbian, whatever, but don't be a bitch." It's a very simple rule.
Outside, Ben and Ronnie interview that they feel guilty for talking Aryn up before she left. Both say that they'll miss her. "All we got is each other now," Ben says, mock-flirtatiously, and Ronnie giggles along. Later, Ben tells Jay how much he wanted to "slap" Jacki for saying that sleeping-together thing about him and Aryn. Jay is amazed, but stays quiet on the issue -- now, Jay can't take a good picture, but he is trying not to embarrass his mama, so he shuts up. See how easy? My favorite part of this conversation is how Ben is complaining about how much "fakeness" there is in the house. Fakeness in a house full of people competing for a job in an industry where one's sole qualification towards success is to...be fake? Yeah, there's a little of that. Ben says some other bullmess about how he and Ronnie were basically "like big brothers" to Aryn, and that she liked to hang out with them and talk. That's probably true, but when I talk to my male friends, I somehow keep myself from lying on top of them. Especially the married ones. When there's a camera around.