The show started off with Brittany complaining about how much Erin complains and then continued for an entire hour with Brittany complaining about how much Erin complains. And, since this is Top Model, that means Brittany is out, spoiler alert. Did you know that Brittany is 21, which means she’s way older and more mature than all of the other girls in the house? And did you know that she can remember being 18, in a distant hazy dream-like memory sort of way? And did you know that if Brittany were not a delusional wannabe petite model, when she turns 30 or 40 or, like, 23, she’ll be, like, “God, I was an asshole when I was 21″? But, for now, she complains about complainers.

The girls return to their house, which has been condemned. Tyra explains that “Hazmat Men” had to be called in because of the disorder of the house, and that, when she lived in a model apartment (and it’s good to see that she totally abandoned that whole “do as I did” model mama philosophy by never making the models live in anything less than $5million dollar mansions), the models were much neater, which is probably more due to the fact that models in model apartments totally don’t want to get their shit stolen out of the open suitcase next to their tiny little beds. The Hazmat Men are busy waving very obviously non-operational sprayers around the house while Tyra makes the girls repeat the word “danger” written on the accident tape strewn about. I mean, all of this obviously means that they’re going to “the abroad”, but the girls totally don’t understand and look very guilty and principal’s office-y about the whole thing, until Tyra opens up the door to the backyard and tells them that they’re going overseas to…

Hawaii! I mean, you do have to go over the sea to get to Hawaii, so I guess it’s classified as a foreign country. Hey, did you know Tyra lost weight? ‘Cause she totally did. And she lost weight FOR HEALTH REASONS, but it’s not gonna stop her from ripping off her hazmat suit and donning a bikini and a grass skirt. Not that I care if she flaunts her body, but on her talk show, she will not shut up about her weight loss, but also won’t shut up about her “kiss my fat ass” thing from two seasons ago, so she gets to have a great body and also capitalize on being discriminated against for being, like, a size 14.

In Hawaii, Erin sings a song about her roommates that clues us in to the fact that Lazy Eye Too farts a lot. Brittany thinks it’s immature and is tired and can’t believe the girls still want to stay up so late because she’s so much older than them. I slept a lot when I was 21, too, but it was mostly sleeping off very late nights of drinking.

The next day, the girls learn to surf from some short model who’s been on the cover of Surf Monthly’s Swimsuit Edition – and I’m not making that up – plus some pro surfer. Their challenge is to surf in tandem with another male surfer and pose for pictures while up on the board. The funny thing is, they introduced the challenge by having these two skeevy guys wander up to the girls and ask them if they want to go surfing and then Mr. Jay popped out to say, “Hello, we’re here to work, not party,” but the girls seemed very Stranger Danger when those guys came up. Anyway, while paddling out, the male surfers rest their chins on the girls’ butts, so keep that in mind if you’re ever looking for a good first date activity. The girls all do kind of crappy, except for Brittany and Erin. Erin wins the challenge and gets to take a helicopter tour of Maui. She picks Brittany and Weird Girl to go with her, which I thought was kind of weird, since Brittany seems to hate her, and I thought everyone hated Weird Girl, but whatever. In the helicopter, Erin says that a prize like jewelry or money would have been way more awesome than a helicopter ride, and Brittany complains some more about how childish Erin’s complaining is.

Back at the Hawaii house, Erin reiterates that lunch dates with modeling agency presidents who obviously hate you and Walmart gift cards are cooler than helicopters that you don’t get to keep, and the girls stare at her like she just took the name of the Lord in vain, and I guess she did, since she questioned a prize from the Great Tyra. For shame, they say, and also, stop acting like a brat. Brittany complains some more.

So, the photo shoot. I don’t really know how to describe it except… remember when they had to model as if they were freshly murdered corpses? This was more offensive. There are a lot of biracial people in Hawaii, I guess, and Tyra was their photographer (for the second time, which is the first time this has ever happened in Top. Model. History, and believe me, it has nothing to do with the fact that the girls “are beautiful and inspire” Tyra, and everything to do with the fact that this cycle is way cheap) and came through some reeds to tell them that they were all going to model in blackface. And then she told each girl their biracial combo (Greek and Mexican! Russian and Mongolian! Japanese and Tibetan!) and the girls all screamed and screamed and pumped their fists like they were from Jersey and kissed the ground Tyra walked on, and the only one who was appropriately “WHU?” about the whole thing was Erin, who was like, “I don’t know anything about Tibet, so…”

No, seriously. Blackface. At the shoot, Erin did a crappy job, because she was confused by the concept and also was intimidated by the fact that Tyra, since the last time she photographed them, told Erin that she sucks and has no personality. When she expressed a little bit of confusion about the whole Tibet thing, Jay’s helpful advice was that Tibetans really like rituals, so, you know, use that in your modeling. Laura was Greek and Mexican and Tyra kept telling her she was awesome and then changed Laura’s outfit a little and then Laura was like, “Hey, Tyra, I really like when you don’t dick me over and actually tell me the truth,” and Tyra made fun of her accent and then told her that was doing a terrible job. Then Laura changed everything she was doing and ended up doing really well. Tyra was really shocked by Laura’s request, because I guess it was a hard concept for her to grasp, the fact that someone doesn’t want to be told they’re doing well by the photographer who also is the judge and then told at judging that they were the worst.

Sundai was Russian and Mongolian and they actually put her in a fur Russian hat. Brittany (Native American and East Indian) was put into a giant Indian feather headdress. I’m surprised Laura didn’t pose with a burrito in her hand or something. Laura was being photographed with a gold-plated laurel wreath on her head and Tyra decided halfway through that it was too obviously Greek and turned it around so that the laurels were resting at her temples and going around the back of her head. Like every effing Greek statue. This shoot is such bullshit. Anyway, Lazy Eye Too was stuck until Jay told her that (I can’t remember the name of the country she was supposed to be from) plays a lot of drums or something, so then she channeled National Geographic and did better. Weird Girl did a good job, but I don’t remember what countries she was supposed to be from. And then Brittany decided that American Indians are stoic and regal and then just stood there and looked like she thought everyone around her smelled bad.

Hey, did I mention I hate when Tyra shoots the girls because she stands off to the side with Jay and imitates all of them and then imitates what she would do if she were them and then tries to make Jay say the dumb phrases she makes up in unison with her? Well, I hate that.

At judging, Tyra wore yet another oddly tailored, unflattering jumpsuit, and Weird Girl, Laura, and Lazy Eye Too were all praised for their pictures. Sundai was told that her picture made her look like she was modeling for Gap Kids: World Division, because she photographs short BECAUSE SHE’S SHORT. No one’s going to hire a model who’s 5′3″. There isn’t a trick besides the liquify tool that could possibly make her look tall. She’s short. Get over it. Stop trying to make petite models happen.

Erin and Brittany were in the bottom two. Erin was there because she has no self-confidence. Somehow the fact that Brittany likes math (which =/= being a mathematician, Tyra) landed her in the bottom two. According to Tyra, she mathematically over-analyzed her photo and didn’t compute the integer or whatever that sometimes American/East Indians aren’t “stoic”, but Tyra added 1 + 1 to make Indians wear feathers and Russians wear fur hats forevs and always. That makes Brittany a stoic mathematician and Tyra a dunce.

Brittany’s complaining sent her home, but she’s fine because Tyra opening up ANTM to petite models means it’s just the beginning for her. She should add those numbers up again. I, like Michael Bolton, also forget small insignificant details in math equations, leading me to the totally wrong conclusion all the time as well, B.

The girls started out the show once again talking about how much they hate Weird Girl, which means she will obviously make it to the top 2, but probably will lose due to “lack of personality”. Or, as the rest of the contestants will have you believe, a creepy lack of soul.

They go to the Insider (current home of Jon Gosselin, like, literal home, like he actually lives in the studio since he has nothing else to do but be on that show) where Lara Something is interviewing that guy Ant, and Ant is pretending to be a bitchy celebrity and then Lara gets him confused with Mario Cantone and he gets all pissed and I know that this was all scripted, but seriously, Ant ISN’T Mario Cantone? Anyway, their job today is to learn how to interview people without actually learning anything, because what the hell else kind of job is a petite model gonna get? But, then again, who ever gave a speaking job to a model without making sure they knew what the eff they were doing? Lara makes a big deal about how great Tyra is at thinking on her feet and rolling with the punches not only while being interviewed but while interviewing others, and I would invite Lara to watch AN episode of the Tyra Banks Show, any episode at all, to see how completely off base she is.

Anyway, the girls all have to interview Ant, who pretends to be all different shades of shitty interview subject, and the girls all do kind of crappy jobs because obviously Ant is making it so no one can interview them, because he’s a comedian, and his only credit is hosting Celebrity Fat Club and this was a paycheck but not a very good one so he’s not trying to help anyone out, but Lara still coaches them like a frustrated middle school drama teacher all, “I’m gonna stand back, and then kind of lean in like I’m gonna say something, but bite my tongue, but then touch your shoulder and still not say anything, and then sort of sigh, and then jump in when you finally start asking a question and say, ‘Okay, that’s not how I would do it.’”

Then the Seventeen editor comes out to tell them that they’re going to interview one of those people from 90210 and the girls start screaming and say that they’re excited to interview a “celebrity”, because they don’t really know who she is, and whoever wins gets to be in a beauty shoot for Seventeen. The girls get a teleprompter and 30 seconds into everyone’s interview the teleprompter “malfunctions.” Most of the girls freak out a little, but keep going. Weird Girl asks the 90210 girl if she, like her character, has ever had kids herself and the actress laughs and says, “Well, I’m 20, so no,” and Lara up in the control room says, “She’s wondering WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO ME????” and I didn’t see it like that, but I’m not a great celebrity interviewer so maybe Lara saw a subtle change that I didn’t in that 90210 girl’s face. My favorite contestant since the mail order bride, Laura, is dyslexic and thinks for several moments that the random jumbled letters and numbers and symbols are words that she just can’t read and tries to read them and then gets all red and then finally realizes that they don’t really say anything and then continues her interview and Lara says, “Oh, great. She took a minute to compose herself and is moving on. Good for her. But it WOULDN’T HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD.” Like anyone would give Laura a job on the Insider. She’s the kind of person who would get a job on the Travel Channel where she could be really interested in all the strange customs and animals and food from all over the world and want to experience everything but then squeal a lot and then laugh a lot. And her show would probably be canceled and I wouldn’t watch it because I don’t like seeing people eat, period, let alone gross things, but I would be happy for her, because I like Laura.

The only one who doesn’t hesitate at the teleprompter mishap is Erin. That Seventeen troll comes out to condescendingly say, “Remember when I told you that you would get a shoot in Seventeen if you win?” like, no, we don’t remember, it was ten minutes ago, and it was so obviously a prize we all wanted to win, thx for the reminder Atoosa the Second. So, obviously Erin wins. When I was in high school, we had a class at the college about putting together a tv show and I ran the teleprompter and two things happened. 1) The girl that was supposed to be reading the teleprompter said that whoever was running the teleprompter was running it “too fucking fast” and I was really annoyed because I had missed the day of class where everyone was learning how to use the equipment and I was assigned the teleprompter without ever having learned how to use it and I was doing the best I could, okay? so why don’t YOU come in here and try to use the equipment, like reading off of a cue card is such a hard job. Also, 2) I was so stressed out about not knowing how fast I was supposed to turn the knob after she said that that when one of the guys who ran the college tv station who probably runs the teleprompter came up to help me and put his hand on my shoulder, I yelled, “Don’t touch me!” I didn’t see him, but Laura saw him slink away nervously.

The girls are going to do a Cover Girl commercial, and are told to write their own 25 second scripts about this matching mascara/shadow/liner combo. Erin is done really fast and then goes to bed, which obviously means she’ll fail. Laura helpfully reminds us about her dyslexia and points out that it’s also very hard to memorize lines with dyslexia. At the shoot, Nigel is going to be the director because he probably had nothing better to do that day, so Mr. Jay sits in a green room with each girl and reads their little script and then consults his grading rubric and hands out gold star stickers accordingly. Lazy Eye Too does a pretty good job. Brittany acts like a weird robot. Rae, I don’t know, isn’t “herself” or some “easy excuse to send her home” bs. Sundai still has a more annoying voice than Weird Girl. Weird Girl freaks out a little in the beginning, but then does fine. Laura gets to have that beginning of the year student to teacher convo about her dyslexia and how she needs to sit in the front of the room and needs a little bit more time for tests and possibly a buddy to help her copy down homework, but Nigel kind of doesn’t understand and just nods and tells her that what she could try to do to finish the commercial is remember her lines. She eventually gets through it, but stumbles a lot.

Erin cries. Over and over. It’s the most stressful thing she can possibly imagine, so I guess she can’t imagine her entire family being killed in, like, a boat explosion or something, and not that I think that should happen to her, but a phony Cover Girl commercial is more stressful than anything in her imagination? Really? The interesting thing about the Cover Girl commercials is that they sounded like real Cover Girl commercials, because the girls had to write them and probably just thought about the CG commercials they’ve seen with Drew Barrymore and Ellen DeGeneres and all of the real CGs that get real actual work with the company. Normally, they’re given scripts that rhyme, which is ridiculous, because CG commercials don’t rhyme.

At panel, Laura has to describe what dyslexia is, which I had a problem with, because who hasn’t heard of dyslexia? But, then, I guess most people think that dyslexic people write all their letters backwards like sdrawkcab and not like a b looks like a d, so maybe she did have to explain it. Tyra managed to treat Laura’s dyslexia with the same “isn’t that cute????” contempt that she treats Laura’s handmade clothes, but then it quickly turned to some kind of bitchiness when Laura got into the description of exactly what dyslexia is and Ms. J told her he was impressed that Laura has “madness” going on in her life but still manages to take great pictures (which, one doesn’t have anything to do with the other, but maybe he was just uncomfortable and wasn’t sure what to say) because she gave this strained, fake, annoyed smile and said, “All right. Thank you, Laura.” Like, please go away now because dyslexia is fake because I’m now a scientologist and I don’t care about your supposed hardships, but let me tell you about my IBS, because that’s probably what’s flaring up and making me act like a major bitch today. Sundai’s commercial came off like a crappy sales pitch because of her crappy sales pitch voice and Tyra spent four hours imitating it with Ms. Jay. They all like Lazy Eye Too. Weird Girl acting in her commercial like they’ve wanted her to act for weeks – bubbly and friendly as opposed to “melancholy” – is told by Tyra that she did okay, but she didn’t act like herself, like, WTF do you want from these people? Tyra also snapped at her, “What’s up with these glasses?” and Weird Girl explained that she has poor eyesight and sometimes doctors prescribe a specially curved piece of glass to help their patients see more clearly, and Weird Girl’s not getting her photo taken right now and I’m sure there are lots of models out their with less than perfect vision and, like, I realize that I’m biased because I have to wear glasses all the time, but, like, What’s up with your stupid face, Tyra?

They thought Brittany was professional but too boring and Tyra remembered that she liked math, so she came up with a better commercial, like, right on the spot, because Tyra can do that. Her commercial went like this: “I’m a mathematician and I can tell you that 1 and 1 makes 3 with Cover Girl Exact Eyelights.” And first of all, Brittany’s not a mathematician, like, she likes math, but she doesn’t have a job as a mathematician. And second of all, there are three products in the Exact Eyelights line that are supposed to be used together, so no, 1 and 1 does NOT make 3. 1 and 1 and 1 makes 3, so your idea is not clever, it makes no sense, and it wouldn’t work. Period. But she’s praised by the panel, and the models look at her in awe, and Tyra looks around at all the impressed murmurs like, “It ain’t no thing! But, keep being impressed!” Thankfully Brittany seems kind of confused, like, she’s still trying to work out how this phony equation has anything to do with anything and where it would apply because it’s certainly not here, but Tyra said it so she has to pretend it’s amazing. When she gets through, Tyra prompts her with, “1 and 1 makes…?” and Brittany says, “3,” seductively, but then goes, “Wait, 2,” and Tyra’s like, “No, 3! Because of that stupid line I came up with! 3!!!!!” and Brittany repeats, “3,” but still looks totally confused.

Erin cries again as she explains why she cried, and Tyra tells her that no one in the history of America’s Next Top Model has had to have their makeup re-applied FOUR TIMES at the shoot, because every other girl in every other cycle that’s cried during the shoot had their makeup re-applied three times or less. She’s also told that she should put her chin down, because with her chin down, she’s 85% prettier, which is kind of sad, because it seems that her natural inclination (probably due to her sense of haughty indifference to everyone around her) is to put her chin up, so Tyra just told her she’s generally 85% ugly.

But, then again, so is Tyra. Erin and Rae are in the bottom two and Rae goes home for reasons unknown if you didn’t realize that Erin was obviously the ringer this year.

Next week, their house is “condemned”, so they’re probably going on their trip, but Sally thinks they’d be laughed out of Europe, and we can’t even imagine where they would go anyway since this cycle’s been so cheap, so we have a feeling the big trip is going to be down the road to San Diego, or possibly a bus ride to Canada.

Although the original extremely poor quality of these screen caps cast an appropriately stank haze over all of Kara’s pictures, thanks to whoever uploaded a better version of the episode to YouTube, because my screen caps are now fixed.

Now that Stiffy and Stumpy are gone, Lazy Eye has officially taken over shit-talking status, but apparently her very deep friendship with Lazy Eye Too has dissolved within the week, because they’re only shown talking shit together once. Instead, Lazy Eye has recruited Sundai (that’s her real name) to talk shit about Weird Girl, because they can’t believe that Weird Girl is still in competition with them, considering how monotone and annoying her voice is. PS, Lazy Eye has a lazy voice: she’s one of those girls that lets all of her words sort of drag at the end into that deep part of the back of her throat ’cause, you know, she’s like so over talking, so I don’t know what the eff she’s thinking making fun of someone else’s voice. And Sundai has a voice like a bad SNL skit of a frog woman. Also, someone refers to Weird Girl as not having lack of social grace, but rather a lack of soul. Poetry + ANTM = ANTPETITEM.

Normally this beginning space is reserved for shit-talking about the girl in the bottom two who didn’t go home, but Lazy Eye was the girl in the bottom two who didn’t go home, so I don’t know what her problem is, or why no one on panel has ever noticed how one eye looks up and one eye looks down, and not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that because my Dad has a lazy eye, and except for occasionally thinking he’s looking in the rear view mirror at me when he’s not, it’s never been anything that bothered me, but then again, my Dad’s not trying to be the first petite supermodel to win ANTM.

Their challenge this week is go-sees, which, again, I’m concerned about because this is always relegated to after they take a trip to “the abroad”, so what is going to happen with the trip?

The guy from Wilhelmina, once again, is so over pretending as he introduces a petite model whose credits are rattled off in five seconds flat, because she’s petite and nobody cares about petite models. He teams them up and gives each team a car and sends them to five go-sees and they have to be back by four and, you know, the usual. The teams are Sundai and Rae, Laura (my favorite contestant since the mail-order bride from the Ukraine) and Weird Girl, Brittany and … Lazy Eye I think, and then Lazy Eye Too and somebody else. They’re sent to a jewelry store and some commercial casting place called Wangdoody, and I’m not making that up, and I can’t believe that these girls haven’t figured out yet that petite models aren’t a real thing, like, have you ever heard of any of the petite models they feature and did you notice you’re being sent to, like, the Jacquelyn Smith section of KMart and the fruit stand on the corner for your go-sees? Because none of this is real!

Anyway, Lazy Eye is declared “scruffy” and “greasy” at her go-sees because she just is, and her partner Brittany puts her shoes on the table and the designer gets passive-aggressively mad at her, all, “Yeah, we don’t put shoes on the table, and I don’t want THOSE shoes anywhere near the clothes, okay?” Sundai complains and complains and complains that Rae is a mother and therefore drives slowly and I didn’t understand why Sundai didn’t just drive them, but I think it’s because her legs were too short to reach the pedals. I don’t know about Lazy Eye Too’s team, because they were boring and I didn’t pay attention. But, everyone loved Weird Girl and Laura because, duh. Plus, they get back to Wilhelmina first, and Lazy Eye and that other team get there, but Sundai and Rae are late and the guy from Wilhelmina doesn’t even want to look at them and Sundai complains in her SNL frog-girl voice that everything about this is stupid.

Weird Girl wins the challenge for having booked the most jobs (only 2 out of a possible 5, so these other girls are crapola) and gets clothes from all the designers + gets to film a commercial for Wangdoody, but we never see her film anything and also, “a piece from each designer” turns into, like, 25 outfits, so I guess the designers were cleaning out their closets of the too-short factory mistakes and figured they’d give them to the short models instead of the poor box. Laura wanted to win, but is happy that Weird Girl won because “she hasn’t won nothing” yet, and it seems fair, though one of the other girls asks Weird Girl if maybe she won simply because she has won nothing yet. That girl didn’t get the memo that shit talking is supposed to happen when the person is not around. Sundai and Lazy Eye, btw, are pissed that Weird Girl won, and talk shit in their stupid voices about how Weird Girl has a stupid voice, and Lazy Eye talks shit about how she can’t believe designers called her dirty, and Sundai can’t believe people care about her being late.

The photo shoot has all the girls picking weapons and then jumping around and posing with weapons and then three photos are chosen and put together into one photo and it all sounds like it’s going to be really interesting, except whoever does the photo editing was on vacation that week, so someone who doesn’t really know photoshop that well just, well, literally took three photos and put them side by side, so there’s absolutely nothing artistic or interesting about it being three photos instead of one. Sundai helpfully explains that, as a model on this PARTICULAR shoot, she had to be aware of her face, her body, where the camera was, and the prop she was holding, and that it was extra hard.

That’s why she’s in the bottom two with Lazy Eye. Weird Girl and Laura (who wore a blazer that her grandmother did not make, but fitted for her, was laughed at by crazy Tyra who thinks that Laura’s grandmother is hilarious for making clothes even though I’m sure Laura’s grandmother does not think making clothes is hilarious and I kind of wish Laura’s grandmother would come and beat the crap out of Tyra for laughing at her) were called first and second, btw. It’s always fun when shit talking friends are in the bottom two together. Sundai, however, is slightly less hideous than Lazy Eye, so she stays, and Lazy Eye cries and cries and cries and barely is able to get her lecture/pep talk from Tyra. Then, when she was packing she cried some more and said, I think, that she just wanted fame? So, there’s no reason to miss her, because she was lame.

Remember that episode of The Wonder Years when Winnie broke her arm and her parents told Kevin that she didn’t want to see him anymore and he climbed up on her porch roof and looked through her window and told her he loved her and she told him she loved him and that song by Bob Seger was playing and everyone who ever watched it was like, “Boo hoo, most romantic thing that ever happened”?

Well, spoiler alert, Kevin turned out to be a murderer.

(more…)

So, there’s this girl who doesn’t want to lose specifically because then people would only know her as the girl on ANTM on the [insert name of winner here]’s season. I think she’s looking at things all wrong, but it might just be her excessively lazy eye.

The girls go to meet Benny ninja, who is going to teach them to express themselves through dance so they can understand how important dancing is to a model, even though every single dancer that’s ever been on the show has been told that they’d probably be able to model better if they would forget everything they ever learned about dancing, so I think Benny Ninja’s just there to eff with them. Benny Ninja brings along some helpers.

Like Lil Mama, post embarrassing jumping uninvited into Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s VMA performance, but pre even more embarrassing Tyra Show interview where she revealed that she was not aware that when Jay-Z pushed her to get back he meant to get back and not to join in, and when Alicia Keys was ignoring her it’s because she had no idea what kind of dangerous lunatic had made her way past security and that she’s been trying to get in touch with them to apologize and neither of them will return her calls. And then she optimistically/dementedly told them on air that she WILL work with them in the future, and I think she really is turning into the for-real Paula Abdul of America’s Best Dance Crew. Either that or the subject of an upcoming Lifetime movie, which I will preemptively put on my dvr, hoping Lil Mama plays herself after she gets out of jail. Lil Mama didn’t want to be the only lunatic creeper in the room, so she made two of the girls dance emotions, and they both did the cabbage patch, and then she brought out the Jabbawockeez to do a little emotion dance routine.

So, the girls had to get into three groups and develop a happy-sad-angry dance routine in an hour because they would be performing later that day at a big event where the Jabbawockeez were going to be performing, but the only thing big about the event was the giant space they were in, which was made to appear even larger by the pitiful amount of people (production assistants) in attendance.

Stiffy is a dancer, and she got stuck with the least coordinated people in the house, but she tried to teach them some moves. They came in dead last, because their moves were lame, but Lazy Eye was genuinely surprised by the fact that she wasn’t able to impart her years of dance training wisdom + teach a complicated and exciting dance routine to her group members in an hour and Lazy Eye, therefore, was happy that her group won three pieces of jewelry that were, in total, worth $17,000, but I don’t think anyone really understood this concept, because each group member gave a separate ecstatic interview displaying their one piece of jewelry and saying they’ve never owned anything worth $17,000. There’s still time, though. Maybe someday they will.

In the middle of the night, they were all awoken by the terrifying image of Mr. Jay on a tv screen, his supremely disturbing voice beckoning them to Las Vegas. Then this happened.

The photo shoot was with Cirque Du Soleil, which explains why Mr. Jay’s dressed like that, but it also doesn’t explain why Mr. Jay’s dressed like that, and then he was shot through the air and sounded genuinely surprised and frightened, and I really like the idea of the Cirque Du Soleil people trying to terrify Jay Manuel. The girls were, again, being put into groups of three + giant hair and eyebrows. Stiffy was stiff, once again, and Lazy Eye couldn’t see anything around her, so she sucked, plus her bff in the house, Lazy Eye Too, also turned out a pile of garbage. But Lazy Eye was the most upset about the fact that Mr. Jay didn’t give her a critique at all – positive or negative – and instead acted like he was just happy the shoot was over, and I think he was mostly just sad that he’d never get to where this outfit again. She then acted like a big baby at the house and cast forty lines of please-tell-me-I’m-not-going-home bait.

At judging was yet another “petite” model I’ve never heard of.

Tyra called up the girls by their groups instead of individually, and declared that each shot had a good person in it and an okay person and a person who brought the whole group down. In Stiffy’s group, she was the poop anchor, but Lazy Eye was helping to weigh down the poop anchor, and the only one who was any good was Laura, who they declared was awesome. But, then they made this big deal about how Laura got so good and where was she able to pull out a sexy photo from, but Laura, who comes from the south and gets excited over everything and always has a smile on her face and wears these outfits designed and sewn by her grandma which sometimes remind me of outfits I wore as a very young child, may be kind of kooky in person, but she’s consistently turned out great photos and been called first or close to first every week, and every cycle they pick a girl who they like in person and who takes great photos and then they pretend to be amazed that she was capable of taking a good photo and then the one week she’ll end up in the bottom, they’ll refer to one of her great photos as possibly a fluke and I will be screaming at the tv that she takes good photos every week and this. is. some. bullshit.

Lazy Eye Too was also bad, but she managed to keep out of the bottom two by happening to be part of the best photo of the week, so Poop = Stiffy + Lazy Eye, which is partly the equation for pink eye. They were both told that they were beautiful girls and that sometimes being pretty isn’t enough, but, like, wtf was Tyra talking about, especially re: Lazy Eye? I thought that Lazy Eye was supposed to be that ugly pretty shit she’s always spewing, but apparently we’re supposed to now buy that Lazy Eye’s just pretty pretty, and I’m still wondering why no one ever brought up her Lazy Eye which is always a lazy eye, or Stiffy’s lazy eye which is always a lazy eye, but they wouldn’t shut up about Lazy Eye Too’s lazy eye which is only visible occasionally?

Stiffy was kicked off, but will probably be welcome back at the Tyra Show as an audience member anytime, so things are looking up.

Next week they’re doing go-sees, but does that mean they’re not going to another country? Because normally they don’t do the go-sees till they’re in another country, and if they’re not, then that means the trip to Vegas was it, AND we don’t get to hear anyone say “we’re going to the abroad” and, if this is true, I’m sad.

Welcome to Lifetime Fridays. Fridays, as in an update every Friday. Seriously.

The Lottery premiered in 1996, just at the same time that my high school English class was reading the short story upon which it was based. That’s a little fun fact for you.

But, clearly, this is the main reason anybody ever watched it. Sweaty, confused Dan Cortese.

(more…)

So, Tyra and co. once again tried to convince America that top high fashion models buy Cover Girl makeup for go sees at Walmart, and sent all the girls over to Walmart at, like, 3:00 in the morning to meet Nigel and his wife, who gave this strangely stilted speech about how great Cover Girl’s latest mascara is (and I can assure you without ever having used it that that’s absolute bullshit), and then the girls had to have a race through the Walmart to win the amazing prize of having their picture on the Cover Girl section of the Walmart website, like, woo hoo. And meanwhile, last year’s winner never even made it onto the Walmart website, because, after their mini-Walmart-challenge win, I checked it out, and it still had the mini-Walmart-challenge winner from the year before.

So, they have to run from section to section, picking up their clothes and makeup for an imaginary go-see, and at each station, two girls are dropped due to insufficient (funding and) amount of products available. This one girl Erin, who is one of the ones who was made over with bleached eyebrows and is, like, pretty good in all her pictures but not amazing, but the panel wants you to think she’s amazing even when she’s not so that we’re not surprised when she wins in a couple of months, has a motto about races that “a race is a race, not a chance to make friends” which roughly translates to pushing, pulling, and tearing up other people’s pictures that they need to win. But, she wouldn’t just admit that she fought dirty and not by some arbitrary race rules, which is the reason she’s stupid.

Erin didn’t win, though, because her makeup was “blah.” This girl Sundai won and, upon hearing her added prize of a $1000 gift card to Walmart, she finally knew her ship had come in, so good for her.

The next day, everyone was pissed at Erin, and I mean, I would have been pissed at her, too, because she was fighting dirty but pretending that she wasn’t and that’s obnoxious, but then everyone spent the limo ride to their photo shoot lecturing her and telling her that she should just apologize, which caused her to start crying and then say, “But if I apologize now that you guys have all made me cry and directed me to apologize, it’s going to sound insincere and you still won’t be satisfied,” which is so aware for someone on top model, on a season about “petite” models, no less.

Tyra was their photographer at the shoot, and she explained this to them by talking in a baby voice about how much fun they were all gonna have, + she was wearing a jumpsuit made out of, like, silk. Fashion.
They had to do beauty shots because they’re midgets and Tyra wanted something in their portfolio that every casting director in the world wouldn’t laugh their heads off at, and also to continue the weird delusion that all of these girls will become models for being petite but need to learn how to not look petite but they’re petite dammit and if you don’t like it you need to step off but you wouldn’t even know they’re petite, right??

So, all the girls got scarves wrapped around them and posed and Tyra told them all they were doing great jobs and then talked shit about most of them, while wearing the scarves they had had on, backstage, so she’s a faker.

That shit-talker from last week (Stiffy) was so bad at posing that Tyra put her into three different scarves before she realized that she was just crapola (and also has a way wonky eye, I’ve noticed), and that maybe picking someone out of the audience of your stupid talk show doesn’t mean she’ll be an awesome model, but maybe she will, so, keep encouraging her, I guess. Bianca, the one that everyone was annoyed with last week, also did bad because, even though she thought of Jesus again, she still looked like she was gonna beat some bitches up (or fall asleep, actually, i mean, they say she poses too hard, but i think she just has a real bland face).

Anyway, there was a BIG TWIST this week, where Tyra decided to announce the best photo during the shoot and give that particular girl immunity, which is so fucking stupid, because the girls are called in order of best to worst picture at judging, so it’s not like the girl that gets the best picture at panel has ever been in danger of going home, so immunity means absolutely nothing on antm unless it’s given before pictures are even taken! Tyra probably watched, like, a Daisy of Love marathon over the weekend and then googled the word immunity and then called up Miss J and asked him to explain it but he’s got that weird marble-mouthed way of speaking and she just kind of said “sounds good!” and figured she’d give it a try even though she kind of didn’t get it.
So, this one girl (the one that Stiffy and Stumpy made fun of for her walk last week, the walk that one the challenge, ps) won and got to pose with these really creepy male models that Tyra “discovered”, one of which looked like a concentration camp survivor from the back and I know, like, not funny and stuff, but we’re not on Jezebel, so I can say what I want.

So, at panel, there was an immune girl and she didn’t get infected with the other girls’ crappiness, so she got to go stand on the side, like, at the beginning, which was making the other girls uncomfortable and clearly kind of angry, and I would be, too, because it’s a convention that means nothing. Anyway, some short pants model was on the panel and I’ve never heard of her or seen her and Tyra mentioned three photographers she’s worked with, but no magazines or designers so it all seems kind of shady. Like a dwarf hiding under a tree.
Most of the pictures were good, but the two worst ones were Bianca and Stiffy, because Bianca was “angry”/bored and Stiffy was a waste of extra scarves + time, but at least Stiffy called out Tyra on being a faker and telling her she was doing great when she clearly wasn’t. Tyra went on and on about how she was struck with how beautiful Bianca was standing in front of her and she couldn’t believe that she was in the bottom two because she’s so gorgeous and Stiffy must have felt like crap at that point, but she deserved it for questioning Tyra’s intentions when being phony. Anyway, Stiffy stayed and Bianca went home, because it was her third time in the bottom two and, I mean, come on already.

And then Tyra hugged her and basically said, “I just remembered that you’re prettier than the other girl, what the hell were we thinking?” but, she couldn’t get rid of Stiffy yet because, having picked her out from her Tyra show audience (I hope it was the episode where they talked about beauty treatments from around the world, which i think were all phony because one audience member sat in a bathtub filled with Ramen, like, literally got into a bathtub on stage that had Ramen noodles and Ramen broth in it), saying that she had no potential really means that Tyra has no potential, and so does putting her in the bottom two, kinda, but at least she could say that she’s giving her another chance and now take on the role of benevolent house mother, so it’s still all gonna work out. For Tyra. Don’t you worry.