Previously: Timothy and Miranda were kind of the same person. Did you notice that Miranda had a unicorn T-shirt on at the beginning?
We start with Sandro waving his finger at Helen, who is shouting at him about respect. Sandro shouts, "Voice! Make! Down!" and then Ken gets into it, shouting at Sandro while Helen gets up. And then! Sandro gets up, tears off his microphone, and stomps out! He knocks over mannequins, who never did anything to hurt him, and goes all the way to the street. This is an exciting beginning!
Oh. Now there's a caption saying, "36 HOURS EARLIER..." Well, I'm kind of sick of this dramatic device, but I'll allow it this time because the hook worked.
So we really start in the apartments with Sandro, Alexander, and Bradon talking about Timothy. They think he was starting to break, which is certainly true. Sandro interviews that his dress was strong. It wasn't; it was a wad of blue plastic. In another bedroom, Jeremy has learned that his grandmother has died, and he's sad. Well, sure. I can see that.
There are bow ties all over the work room. Some of them are the kind you have to tie, and some of them are the cheating kind. Tim Gunn is also wearing a bow tie, and he has a special guest. It's Jesse Tyler Ferguson, here described as "the star of Modern Family." I like him a lot, but surely that's an ensemble show, isn't it? He wears a bow tie, you know. And he has provided all the bow ties here, which tells me he might have something of a problem. The idea here is that the phrase "tie the knot" has something to do with marriage, so Jesse and his fiancé have a foundation called Tie The Knot that sells ties and uses the proceeds for marriage equality. Jesse says, "Yay me!"
Anyway! It's not a menswear challenge. The bow ties will "serve as the point of departure," whatever that means. The designers get to make anything they want, but they have to incorporate a bow tie into the look somewhere. According to the caption, it must be done "in a non-traditional way." And they can use multiples if they want. They'll have thirty minutes to sketch, then it's off to Mood with a suggested budget of $200. And the runway show is tomorrow. Oh no!
Everyone grabs ties and starts sketching. Miranda tells us she's going to make "a blouse with a tie that almost ties like a bow tie." That doesn't seem all that nontraditional. It's just going to look like a regular bow tie, except that it won't actually work. Dom is going to drape her ties along the neckline. And that's enough sketching! Everyone go to Mood!
Kate is looking for silk, twills, and leather. Jeremy tells us, of course, that his inspiration is going to be his grandmother. Bradon is having trouble finding anything. And then they're done shopping! Sue spent double the recommended amount, so maybe she'll be the one to actually run out of money. End of shopping! Back to the workroom!
Sandro slouches into the workroom after everybody else. I mention that because the introduction to the episode has made me focus on his every move, watching for the incipient blowup. "Incipient" means "in an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop." I'm not defining it for you; of course you know what it means. I'm defining it for someone else who's reading. (If it's you, that's okay)
Jeremy and Alexander agree that it's nice that their judge is very openly gay. And then Alexander makes sure the workroom knows that Bradon's prediction last night would be that they'd be making wedding outfits for gay couples. Nice job! Sandro seems a little a freaked out. In an interview, he drawls, "You a bruja. You a witch!" Then Bradon says he's been with his partner for eighteen years. I like how they replaced all the product-placed yogurt stuff from last week with gay marriage talk in this episode. Bradon is sad that he can't get married properly. Ah, he lives in Los Angeles. Come up to Seattle, Bradon! Seattle's nice!
Helen asks about this fabric Sandro has. They're not sure what it is, although it's a little stretchy. He's planning to talk back to the judges and ask what it is they want. He's sick of being told that things are "too much." Justin says that Sandro is very disrespectful, which he does not approve of.
Bradon seems to be trying to interweave several ties to make a textile. It's possibly going to be a bodice, but he's not sure. But never mind that, because Tim is here! He goes to Dom first. She says that the phrase "marriage equality" led her to think of an equals sign, which is why there are a bunch of stripes on her clothes. Kind of a stretch. Tim questions her piping, and she immediately takes it off. Then Tim questions her plan to make a jacket, rather than perfecting the dress, and she seems okay with that, too. I approve of people doing whatever Tim Gunn tells them. Karen likes Dom's look a lot.
is Sue. She's made two separate dresses, which I guess explains why she spent twice as much as recommended. She has some ties around the dress, and she describes it as an exoskeleton. Miranda more accurately describes it as "a bunch of ties trying to attack a dress." And there's a train of ties. She seems unfocused.
Tim loves Miranda's jacket. Jeremy thinks it "looks like something from that film with 101... dogs." I think he remembered that they were Dalmatians partway through that sentence, but decided not to say it because he'd look even sillier. The pattern is hound's-tooth, which you might remember as being the pattern that my mother had on a winter coat in the 1970s. I mean, you probably don't, but there's a chance, right? Tim doesn't like the "prim fussiness" of her peach neckerchief. I love Tim, but when he thinks you're being too prim, you've got a problem.
Kate is doing a hunting party-slash-equestrian look, and Tim recommends she make sure not to cut off her model's legs. Kate realizes that instead of a regular tuxedo stripe up the side of the pants, she could use a bow tie, and Tim is delighted. Sandro wants to call Tim "Top Gunn," and Tim is fine with that. And then Sandro complains about the judges always telling him, "too much." He wants to give his model a bag he's very fond of, and Tim assures him that he should be true to himself. Tim says, "I don't want you to be making decisions about your design work based on what you think the judges wanna see." Sandro, missing the point entirely, says, "Absolutely! I'm trying to find the key, what they want from me!" Tim sets him straight and encourages him to be who he is. But Sandro is convinced that Zac Posen is out to get him. He sees Zac Posens around every corner. So he's going to try to design what he thinks Zac Posen might like, because that will make him a winner. Except it won't, of course.
After the commercial, Sandro is still complaining about Zac Posen complaining about details. He wants to have a challenge one-on-one with Zac Posen. Tim tells him that he wouldn't be happy to win with something he doesn't like. So Sandro decides he's going to go with the drama. Tim tells him to be who he is. Ken interviews that "who Sandro is" is a huge drama queen who wants lots of attention. What? On a reality show? The devil you say!
Tim gets to Jeremy and shares his condolences about his grandmother. Jeremy is fairly British about the whole thing: "So it's kind of knocked me off my game today, slightly." He admits in an interview that he's not really concentrating on the outfit. He's making a red lace tuxedo. Tim, quite logically, thinks that's too much lace. Jeremy seems to have a plan, at least. Bradon's , and he has a lot of ties. He's making a top out of ties, and Tim likes it. Kate thinks it's kind of literal. Literal can be good! And now Bradon's thinking of making a skirt out of tie-shingles, but Tim talks him down from that.
Helen has a shape on the front of her garment that's shaped kind of like an untied bow tie. But it's also just a standard hourglass, so she has to explain it. Her explanation of how her dress might be too much like menswear is, "To me this looks...I guess, the shape, or maybe the colors or something?" That's not a lot of confidence. She doesn't think it looks feminine, and Tim removes one thing and now she likes it. But she's worried that she doesn't know what she's doing, and now she's lost. Exit Tim.
<Miranda walks away from her mannequin and sits with Sandro in the sewing room. Sandro says that she liked her dress before Tim talked to her, which I guess is true. She didn't seem to love it, but she liked it more than she does now. She interviews that she freaks out after getting any criticism. That seems like it could be a problem.
The models are here! Miranda doesn't have a shirt done yet, and there are only three hours to go. Alexander doesn't think the bow ties on Sandro's dress work, but they're the only part he doesn't like. Bradon continues to hand-sew his top and worries about whether he needs a jacket. Ken straight-up hates both of Sue's dresses. Dom has some kind of thing she's made out of bow ties that reminds everyone of a vagina. Sandro starts shouting about clams, which no one really enjoys.
With twenty minutes to go, Helen speculates that everyone is struggling, but she's self-aware enough to know that she's just hoping that's true because she's in trouble. And now we're done with the day! Bradon is also behind.
It's the day of the show! Everyone rushes into the workroom to do their finishing touches. And in the case of some of them, create entirely new pieces. Tim says there are two hours for hair and makeup and using accessory walls very thoughtfully. Do you have an accessory wall? Why not?
Helen doesn't like her dress at all, and she's not even happy about having immunity, because she figures she'll definitely get a talking-to. Bradon's top sort of fits, and he still has a jacket to make.
Dom wants her model's hair to look like a bow tie. Now that Timothy's not here, there's very little of interest in the hair-and-makeup segment, which is pretty much solid product placement.
Thirty minutes to go! Alexandria tells her model to be a little more bitchy, which the model understands perfectly. Sue's dress has a train of bow ties, by which I mean that it has a handful of bow ties sewn to the back, waiting to trip her model. Jeremy's grandmother is still dead. Dom's dress is cute as heck.
Ten minutes! Run around! Freak out! Miranda turns her shirt into a crop top. Sandro is still hand-sewing! And now it's time to go! And they all do!
It's time for the Runway! Heidi comes out in a shiny black number to talk about fashion, being in and out on separate days, and marriage equality. The judges are Zac Posen, Nina Garcia, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. And Heidi. And Tim!
Dom's dress is pinstriped and looks great. The bow ties are all stuck around the neckline kind of haphazardly.
Jeremy's look is less tuxedo-y than he claimed it was going to be. It's basically an orange top and brown trousers. And he used the bow ties in a conceptual fashion, which means I can't see any bow tie anywhere on it.
Bradon's model takes off her great jacket to show a top that's kind of crude for my taste. But it's clearly made out of ties!
Ken's dress has a leather dress, and he claims the ties are in the seams. He doesn't like the exposed zipper in the back. Neither do I! They've been a plague on this show for a couple of seasons now.
Miranda's got a kind of dowdy pattern, and the jacket does not disguise the ugly green shirt.
Helen thinks she might have gotten away with her look, but it doesn't fit around the breasts at all well.
Alexander has a really fun dress with bow ties kind of fanned out to make a Elizabethan ruff. Sort of. It has kind of a circus clown quality. Look, you can see the bow ties, and that's what was supposed to happen.
Sandro has made an awful peach dress with ridiculous silver bow ties pretending to be suspenders but really just draped over the shoulders.
Sue's dress has bow ties trailing off it for no real reason. She claims that it's "very avant-garde," which it could be. Any time I don't understand a dress, there's a chance that it's avant-garde.
Justin's dress is a regular black dress with the shape of a bow tie picked out in white. He admits that it doesn't have much impact.
Kate made "some ready-to-wear," which means trousers and a blouse. I think it looks good, but if I didn't know the trouser stripes were bow-tie shaped, I don't think I would notice it. Everyone seemed to base their tie shapes on the way a bow tie looks when it's untied, which is weird. Most people think of the bow, don't they?
Karen's got kind of a businesswoman thing going. The low-cut collar has a cutout that looks like an untied bow tie that has been left loose around the neck, which is absolutely the coolest way to wear a bow tie. It has a great Rat Pack After Hours vibe.
Alexandria has a clean backless dress, and the bow tie is the edge of the fabric. That just looks like an uneven hem.
That's everyone! It's so many people! Kate, Bradon, Jeremy, Sue, Dom, and Miranda are the highest and the lowest. But Heidi takes a moment to scold Helen, who knows she's lucky to have immunity. Helen doesn't argue with them. Nina speculates that Helen could have won last time just because she had Kate on her team. Helen has the sense not to talk back.
But you know who does not have that sense? Sandro! Although he's safe, he still wants to get some notes about his garment. Zac says, "It looks like somebody went home with a man in an evening gown and came back with the tie attached to it and half her dress ripped. It looked like the walk of shame after an awards show." I like that, because Zac wouldn't have had that quip prepared. That came off the dome! Sandro complains that he had only eleven hours. Zac praises the construction; it's the taste he didn't like. Zac makes Heidi admit that she wouldn't wear that dress. He tells Sandro that he doesn't know who he is as a designer, because it's all referential to other designers. Sandro demands more direction, and Zac says this isn't a student show. Finally, Heidi reminds Sandro that he's safe and dismisses them.
The back room. Helen complains about the judges saying she only won because of Kate. Sandro tries to enlist her on his campaign against the judges, and everyone tells him he's being disrespectful to the judges. Helen tells him she's not going to scream at judges. He starts interrupting her, and she starts yelling. We get to that "Voice. Make. DOWN!" from the beginning of the episode. Helen tells Sandro he doesn't have respect. Ken tags in and tells Sandro to calm the [BLEEP] down. Sandro tells him that if he doesn't shut up, they're going to have a problem. I think Justin turns off his implant somewhere around here. Sandro flips off Helen to prove that he doesn't care that she's a woman, and now she's crying openly. She gets up to leave while he keeps shouting, and then he leaves. Just like at the top of the show!
Sandro gets up, takes off his microphone, and walks out. It's not clear who he's angry at at this point. He walks past ladders and a secret backstage accessory wall. A camera follows him out to the sidewalk, and he threatens to smash the camera. And then he apparently does! The screen goes wonky for a second, but then it's back and watches him walk away. Good! I hope he doesn't come back.
And now we go back to the regular judging, which was going on at the same time. Probably.
Bradon explains that his look came from his love of textiles. The technique he used for sewing the ties together is called "faggoting," which he thought would be a very serious pun. Jesse enjoys that. Heidi loves it. Nina loves the texture, which seems very specific. Zac loves the colors. Jesse says he likes the braveness of bow ties, and of this garment. Incidentally, Bradon is wearing a bow tie. I hope he stole it from the work room!
Dom points out that the bow ties she used were all thick colored stripes, and her dress is a simple party dress with thin black lines. The back panel looks really neat, and Zac loves the details. Nina thinks it's adorable. Jesse finds the whole thing heartwarming, which seems like something that happens to him a lot. Dom is also wearing a bow tie!
Sue claims to like her dress. Heidi calls it a mess and asks what she was thinking. Zac tells her to keep it simple, stupid. "We're looking at a jersey dress with ties wrapped around her." Nina finds it disappointing. Jesse compares it to coming out of the sea covered in kelp.
Jeremy is wearing a regular tie, not a bow tie. He says his grandmother was a young girl in the forties, and that's what led to this. Heidi thinks it's not hip at all. Zac allows that it's well made, but it's kind of lackluster. And he calls her visible belly button her "tummy eye." Jesse thinks she looks like a gorgeous 68-year-old actress receiving her Kennedy Center Honors.
Kate immediately tells Jesse that she was inspired by his cause, so she wanted to have a look inspired by a tuxedo. It looks nothing like a tuxedo. She points out the bow tie shape in the stripe on the trousers and the vertical strap on the back. Zac thinks it's clever, and Heidi finds it sexy and hot and modern. Nina says the pants are "sick." Kate says they're only her second pair ever!
Miranda brings up her military past and claims that she does gender-bending. Heidi says, "I don't think the challenge was to hide the bow tie completely." It's in the collar of the shirt, apparently. She also doesn't like the green top being so short. Zac and Nina also hate that. Zac is getting impatient with Miranda's pencil skirts. Jesse likes the idea of blurring the line between masculine and feminine, but...(and this is the part he doesn't say) that didn't happen here. At all. It's a pretty lady in a skirt. Her gender remained unbent.
Time to take a closer look at the models. Tim helps them down the steps. But before the examinations, he tells Heidi that Sandro "bolted from the building" and is missing. Nina is delighted! Heidi is scandalized! Now, back to the dresses. They love Kate's pushing out of her comfort zone. Jesse loves the way Dom's tie-collar works as kind of a three-dimensional bib. Tim tells them about how Sue spent twice as much as recommended, and they are shocked at how there's no money visible. Zac picks up the train of ties and drags the model away.
Tim takes some blame for Miranda's top, since he told her to sex it up a little. He didn't mean to just leave her midriff bare! Jesse is delighted to talk about Miranda's taste level. I bet! You know, if anyone wants to pay Jesse Tyler Ferguson to talk about taste level for thirty minutes a week, I'd tune in. Heidi makes them admit that Jeremy's jacket is beautifully made, but they really wish it were in service of a cooler look. Bradon's model is named "Ya." I like a nice short name.
The top and bottom designers come back out. Bradon wins! Congratulations, Bradon! He takes the opportunity to propose to his partner. Josh, you've been with Bradon for eighteen years. You should marry Bradon. Heidi agrees with me! And she wants to be a bridesmaid, which Bradon's totally okay with. Everyone in the back room is happy for Bradon. Dom and Kate are safe, of course. That leaves us with the bottom three. But Sandro has eliminated himself! And he won't be allowed to come back, so all three of these people are safe! Miranda is sad that Sandro's gone, but she's reluctantly happy that she's safe because of it.
Well, that's kind of disappointing. I mean, I'm not sad that Sandro's gone, because he's crazy in a very tiring way. But it kind of undercuts the dramatic flow of the show.
Tim comes in, but he's not here to tell anyone to clean up their space. Instead, he's just very happy for Bradon. Then Bradon gets to do a video chat with Josh. Josh says the Supreme Court has just dismissed Prop 8! And before Bradon can say anything, Josh proposes to him. Bradon decides he might as well admit that he proposed to Josh in the episode. There's no point waiting around until it airs now. They love each other and it's very sweet.
week: ANOTHER unconventional materials challenge?
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.