Last week on ANTM, the girls got green-screened right out of their clothes and shot a covergirl commercial. Don’t remember? The relive all the fun in (yet another) late recap. It would have been done earlier, but sg-dub’s dad came over to watch the game. At least I got a nice foot massage out of it. Anyhow, relive the fun as religious and culture wars break out in the house. Who will provide the most idiotic argument? All in the recap. Plus, exciting commercial footage!

The tension must be ratcheting up on ANTM, as the bitch-fest kicks off before the models even get back from the last judging. Sheena’s worried because the judges think she’s not “model-like,” although being model-like is not a requirement for this particular modeling show, so she shouldn’t worry too much.

Elina’s complaint is a little more valid- she cried just like Tyra wanted, and it still wasn’t good enough. It takes a lot to satisfy an emotional vampire. I’m sympathetic up until Europe is dragged back into it. She and Marjorie commiserate over how their parents never let them cry because that’s the European way, and weepy Americans just don’t understand. I refuse to cede emotional repression superiority to those foreigners. Good grief, have you not seen Cindy McCain?

This is a woman who has never been allowed to cry, ever.

 

Samantha asks what everyone is thinking, “Didn’t you guys move to America when you were young?” Good point, although I will admit that no matter where you grow up, you’re also raised in the culture of parents, foreign or not. Not that Elina explains things that way. Instead, she yells “Don’t you know how hurtful that is!” Nicely showing that she can, in fact, be emotional. And no, Samantha does not know that, because Samantha has the intellectual and emotional IQ of an eggplant.

Marjorie insists they are not complaining about America. Sure, she’s whining about being a misunderstood European, about not doing well in the competition, and about her massive insecurities, but she’s not complaining.

Well, Sheena is having none of this. Why, her mom is foreign-born and just look how well adjusted she turned out! Er, maybe well-adjusted is not the right term, but she’s certainly not repressed. If those fake tatas speak to anything, it’s the wonders of assimilation. Welcome to the silicone melting pot.

“My parents came to this country so their kids could have a better life as strippers.”

Tyra mail interrupts all the fun. I don’t know what to make of the latest photo. Looks like Tyra doesn’t either.

It reads, “Work it, sell it, own it.” Hmmm, maybe Tyra’s just confused about her own mail. That’s one of the vaguest messages ever.

It doesn’t exactly match who they meet up with the next day: Ron and Richard Harris, aka the Aswirl Twins.  Every time they are on the show, I write the “Twirl Twins” because of the alliteration and because, really, who says “aswirl”? It’s not to late to go with “Twirl Twins” guys. Think about it. I bet people won’t even realize that hasn’t been your name all along.

Anyhoodle, the twins will teach the gals to sell accessories, and they don’t mean in the retail way, earning eight bucks an hour at Forever 21. They’ll get plenty of experience at that when the show is over. The twins, in their oddly robotic, track-suited way, show the girls how to model accessories on the runway.

There’s the usual montage as the gals try to show their stuff for the twins. I think the production staff must have gone through the entire CW sound clip library: goofy organ music, sexy jazz, fifties production music. I half expect a marching band to appear. Nothing exciting happens except Marjorie nearly strangles herself in a wrap skirt. It just didn’t understand her because she’s French. Stupid American skirt!

Having safely learned nothing from their mentors, the girls head off to the actual challenge on the stage of Catch One (gay nightclub in Mid-City, just FYI). They’re met by the green man! So excited!

Except when he takes off his hood it’s not Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia, it’s James St. James, washed up Club Kid from the 1980s. Crap. Well, it does give me an excuse to post this ancient clip of James St. James back when he had blonde hair. I only bother because it has young Lisa Edelstein from House,  circa 1986.

The green suit’s purpose is to erase the model, via green screen, leaving only clothes. No word on the purpose of James St. James, other than he would agree to wear the suit. Nony Tochterman, who looks exactly like your Grandma after she mistook Paas Easter Egg colors for hair dye, will provide the clothes.

Grandma and Granpa, is that you?

I like this challenge – the girls will have to sell the clothing without their bodies, although I’m sure Sheena will find some way to involve her vagina. Ann Shoket (Tyradential: Editor of Seventeen, corporate sponsor) will judge along with Nony.

The models slip into their green screens while James St. James slips into the bastard child of a suit and a stegosaurus. I have to admit, he makes it work. Must be the pearls.

The girls complain the suits are hot, and not in the sexy way. There’s extremely minor drama as Elina complains she can’t breathe, but it doesn’t affect her performance. At least she doesn’t have to worry about showing her emotions (or lack thereof), when she’s swaddled under a think coat of  chroma key green.

The green screen cause more severe problems for Marjorie and not because of cultural differences. Instead, it prevents her from noticing her dress has fallen off. No big loss, the dress managed to make to her look like a giant piece of fruit stripe gum, but still, points off in the competition.

Some of the other girls have issues of their own. Samantha gets in a fight with her jacket. Joslyn takes a page from Sheena’s book and does a weird stripper routine with her belt. She says she wanted to show versatility by removing the belt and putting it around her neck. It’ll really appeal to the auto-erotic asphyxiation crowd. Sheena herself winds-up dressed like a giant tassel. She decides to spin, and spin and spin, with maybe a couple “aswirls” thrown in there for flava, yo.

Ann and Nony give the girls their verdict. The whole green screen thing was pretty pointless, since Ann and Nony were in the audience, they didn’t see the version with the green screen blanked out. They just saw a bunch of green spastics prance across the stage. At any rate, Elina wins, again. She’s awarded a photo spread in the holiday issue of Seventeen and decides to take Analeigh and Marjorie along.

Samantha resents the win because Elina is an atheist. Wait, what? Where did that come from? It’s not like she’s playing the Virgin Mary in a nativity scene for Jesus! Magazine. Here’s her photo from the shoot.

I can’t believe Elina would mock Christmas like that! Well, it could be worse, Samantha, someone could be callously exploiting your religion as a marketing tool to sell magazines and overpriced fashion. Oops! Too late!

After a Tyra mail (“A well read model is always prompt”) the house devolves into a level of idiocy rarely plumbed on the show, even after eleven freaking cycles. It was like standing in a shooting gallery of dumb. There was nowhere to hide.

Samantha kicks things off by using an accent along the lines of Rosie O’Donnell’s infamous Chinese imitation. Analeigh mentions it could be perceived as offensive, but Samantha is as clueless as ever. Sheena just shrugs if off, yo.

Erg, did I say she shrugs it off? Yeah, that lasted for about a second, until Marjorie gave Samantha a “look.” Yo, Sheena be chill with accents, but looks?  Sheena goes off on the Europeans for playing the victim. Yes! I am on board. Then she gets mad about Elina doing the holiday shoot as an atheist. No! I am off board. Everybody in this conversation is retarded, something fully demonstrated by how it ends.

“Are you finished?” 

“Are YOU finished?” 

 Ah, the scintillating debate over cultural assimilation and the commodification of faith. We’ll have to leave this clashing of intellectual titans behind to embark on the commercial shoot. That’s right, the girls  will film a commercial for yet another unpronounceable CoverGirl product: Blast Eyeshadow and Lashblast Mascara.

A very pimped out Jay meets the girls in Bel Aire. And look, it’s Whitney! I hope she brought cupcakes! Hmmm, doesn’t look like it, maybe she didn’t want to carry them on the bus. From what I’ve learned from her commercials life as a cover girl involves a lot of baking and public transit.

This commercial proves to be a far cry from the Italian debacle of last cycle. For starters, it’s in English, and for seconds, they’ll use a teleprompter. Boring! On the other hand, they’ll have to walk and talk at the same time, so the potential for disaster still lingers. Elyssa Traub is there from CoverGirl. Jay must be heartbroken over Jay Poer, the rep from previous cycles, going AWOL.

“I can’t believe I wore my Justin Timberlake outfit for this. Where in the HR department did they drag her up from?”

Have I mentioned poor Joslyn is sick? It may have gotten lost in the culture wars back at the house. She’s really, truly, sick and vomits copiously to prove it.

As Joslyn spreads disease throughout the make-up room, the other girls shoot their film. Samantha, thankfully, does not trot out any of her terrible accents. Between her and Tyra, I’m not sure how much of that I can take. Elina’s hair is at full bozo, but she delivers her lines just fine. Jay complains, again, that she’s too controlled. Racist! Elina returns that she’s sick of hearing it. How about if she punches you in the face, Jay, will that be enough emotion for you?

Marjorie is just bad. She manages to get lost on set, and there’s only one room. She’s also back to looking a little trannie-ish, thanks to the hair. Marjorie delivers a poised performance. Ha! Of course not, she cries after the first take. Jay complains they coddle her through every shoot. He’s actually pretty nice about it, although if wanted to be really nice, he’d score a girl some Xanax or a drink.

Analeigh and Sheena fare far better. Analeigh in particular does a spectacular job, and I’m not just saying that because she’s the only semi-sane person left in the house. Sheena drops the homegirl accent long enough to deliver a good performance.

And then there is Lady Barfsalot, not quite ready for he close-up. Jay tells her to stop filming if she feels sick, and it won’t count against her. Just don’t vomit on the upholstery; it’s  a rental. Joslyn tries her darndest, pulling a full Sarah Palin, complete with fake laugh and winking. Jay complains she was hammy on the first take, then went flat. Poor girl, she’s doomed.

Back at the house, Sheena roots for either of those damn heathen Europeans to go home. Marjorie, as usual, thinks she’s in trouble. Part of her reasoning is that “Joslyn can’t be penalized for being sick.” Wanna bet, Marjorie?

Tyra’s looking very taupe at the judging. I’m always concerned when there’s no immediate wide shot of Tyra. That usually means trouble is brewing down below.

Whither pants, Miss Banks?

Before they get to the judging, Tyra announces a mini-competitions, like the ones they used to have all the time during judging and mysteriously dropped. This time the girls have to do a runway walk in ginormous clogs. There’s a lot of clomping around as you might expect, but who cares? Certainly not Tyra, she doesn’t give a damn how they walk in clogs, it’s just a hokey set up. She announces the girls are off to Amsterdam! Mayhem and cultural clichés ensue, including two men dressed up as giant windmills and Paulina as a milkmaid.

Spliffs and hookers are nowhere to be seen. Tyra brings the happy mood down by reminding everybody that someone, coughJoslyncough will be sent home.

Samantha is first. Her commercial is fine but not great. The director complains she couldn’t enunciate CoverGirl’s horrifically named product. I have to admit I spent more time trying to figure out her clothing than paying attention. I thought she had been attacked by a pair of scissors until I realized she was wearing a  vest.

Marjorie, also vest-clad, is a little too twitchy for comfort. I feel like she’s trying to tell me about these awesome new diet pills she found that  let you eat nothing and you’re not even hungry and you get so much energy and you won’t have any side-effects aside from a little sleeplessness, and some drymouth and maybe your heart will stop but did she mention the energy and weight loss? And I also want to feed her a sandwich. The judges also knock her for talking fast, and Jay makes fun of her chicken-like head movements.

Analeigh scores a compliment from Tyra before her commercial is even shown. And after they see her awesome spot, Tyra yells it’s the best in history. Not that the competition there is strong, mind you, but it’s still a big compliment. The commercial director comments she was the only one who used the product on camera. This is helpful for viewers who do not realize eyeshadow goes on the eyes.

Joslyn looks recovered, passing up the opportunity to be the first contestant to vomit during judging. Tyra admires that she does not look sick in the commercial. On the minus side, her laugh was extremely fake, and the wink was just bad. Paulina hates how she threw her arms around. It’s too bad, it seems like Joslyn could be good at it, aside from the hokey bits she was good.

Elina’s commercial is also really strong. The only criticism the regular judges can come up with is that she looked down at the stairs when walking. Then the director dude chimes in with the same old criticism- she’s too controlled. I really don’t get that from her commercial. Then again, I couldn’t conjure up that much emotional enthusiasm for eyeshadow either.

Sheena’s performance is very breathy. Seriously, you can hear her audibly inhaling at intervals. Something like “New CoverGirl Blast Collection shadows [huuuuuuuuuuh] a blast of big beautiful look at me color [huuuuuuuuuuuh] with 23 head turning shades [huuuuuuuuuh]….” You get the idea. The judges don’t comment on that at all. Jay just accuses her of almost slipping into some homegirl moves. Overall they like it.

Lastly we have McKey, the contestant no one remembers, even though she is eleventy feet tall and can kick their asses. She’s terrible, and also kinda breathy. It doesn’t help that producers play weird music. The judges basically tell her to stick to the more silent forms of modeling.

During deliberation, Samantha, Analeigh and Sheena all receive high marks. Marjorie, obviously, is awkward, but only because awkwardness is the cornerstone of French culture. Joslyn’s commercial leads to a discussion of the old days, when there were runway girls and print girls. The print girls were beautiful but had no personality, the runway girls were less pretty and had a lot of personality, and the film girls would blow the director.  Nigel feels Elina’s beauty doen’t translate to film. I disagree, and it would help if you didn’t stick an orange mop on her head.

Pantsless Tyra stand before the girls with five screengrabs in her hand. Analeigh wins! She’s followed by Sheena, Samantha, Marjorie and McKey.

Joslyn and Elina step up to get Joslyn’s bad news. As for the past two week, Tyra says its about personality over looks, and lord knows, this is a personality contest. I’d be worried about Elina, except she’s caused a lot of drama in the house. That will trump both looks and personality.

Joslyn, as expected, goes home. Tyra mentions she doesn’t get any pity points for being sick, even though five seconds ago Tyra praised her for performing while sick. Tyra tells the 23 year old to practice. For instance, if you can practice getting younger, this whole modeling thing might work out.

Joslyn admits she’s in shock. I believe her. After auditioning 30 times, she probably can’t imagine a world without ANTM. I liked Joslyn, so I hope she finds something, anything, else to do.

 

brilliantmistake | 10.31.08 | Filed in America's Next Top Model,Recaps