America's Next Top Model : Cycle 7 Recaps:
Episode 9 “The Girl Who Sticks Her Foot in Her Mouth"
by D. Yueh

Close Calls — Last week, CariDee came close to having her dreams smashed to bits when she and Mr. Jaeda found themselves at the bottom dos. In the end, CariDee was given a reason to live, and Jaeda hightailed it home, where she went straight from the airport to the nearest weave shop.

CariDee and Michelle are lying around in the living room of their Barcelona digs, comparing which one of them is suckier at panel. Michelle's only real crime, besides having the limbs of a gibbon, is not wanting to be a model in the first place. The Power of Twins compels her to be with her sister, not her own dag nab gumption.

Conversely, CariDee “worked her ass off at this competition.” She wants it so badly, it's scary. If only she were more model and less stripper. Not that there's anything wrong with strippers … Ah memories, like the corners of my mind.

Booty Calls — The girls are going stir-crazy because, you know, there's nothing to do in Spain. A Picasso exhibit? Who's that? Medieval architecture and cathedrals? Do we have to? Mediterranean beaches? Boring. So what do the girls decide to do? They call up the himbos from last week's challenge.

Melrose wants to go out with them because when she's in a foreign country, she wants to “go out to dinner and have a glass of wine … or four.” That's our girl.

At the appointed hour, everyone meets at a restaurant for some good old- fashioned boy-girl interaction. Amanda, the group's cultural anthropologist, says, “Spanish guys and American guys are very similar. They all have the same jokes and stuff, but Spanish guys smell better.” This conclusion would be based on … what? All her first-hand boy experience? If Amanda doesn't become a model, I'm pretty sure she has a career waiting for her as a nun.

CariDee, that old horndog, asks, “Are you guys gonna come hang out with us after this?” Miss Thang, you better behave yourself, we know you have a boyfriend.

The guys agree to continue the party elsewhere. Someone off-camera says, “Yeah, we'll play games.” Amanda looks like she thinks they mean Cranium, but says anyway, “What happens in Spain stays in Spain.” Well yeah, until it airs on American broadcast television a few months later.

Michelle reports that CariDee and a himbo named Victor went out to have “a chat,” and she wonders how their conversation went. She's so innocent it almost pains me. Actually, they went out to smoke. What the hell is the world coming to when you can't even smoke indoors in Spain? What next? A legal drinking age in France? What's the point of leaving home anymore?

CariDee and Victor are smoking, all right. They're making out in the dark — just the two of them. And the camera man. And the audio guy.

Eugena thinks CariDee doesn't know when to stop. CariDee doesn't give a rat's chorizo what Eugena thinks, because Eugena is an android who has no soul and no womanly needs. “It's just about having fun and being in Spain and having amazing experiences,” CariDee says. I'm not really sure what constitutes her “amazing experience,” but Victor is next seen leaving the apartment.

House Call — The girls are brought into a room with a row of five chairs. They're all eager beaver-faced as Tyra walks in and sits down in front of them. She begins sternly, “What I want to talk to you about is …” I want her to say “your slutty behavior,” but instead she says, “the harsh realties of the modeling industry.”

All the girls drop their goofy grins. Another Life Lesson from Mama. She tells them modeling is hard because unlike acting and dancing, it's nearly impossible to improve on your modeling “product.” I see. That would explain what all the plastic surgeons, dermatologists, hair stylists, makeup artists, dietitians, personal trainers and cosmetic dentists are doing down at unemployment.

“What is America's Next Top Model?” Tyra asks. Is this a trick question?

Tyra wants to know what's the harshest thing each girl has had to hear about themselves. Ooh, I want to play this game. Michelle starts off by saying someone told her she looks like a 4-year-old walking around in her mother's heels. Nah, like certain lesbians, she's just missing the high-heel gene. That's OK; she has other abilities. Last week, she showed us her canoe tongue, a useful inherited trait that might come in handy later in life.

CariDee just wants to be respectful, not be misunderstood and to represent the show well, last night notwithstanding. Melrose felt “a dagger” when Nigel told her she sometimes photographs like an old hag, which she totally does. Eugena says she doesn't want to be a disappointment, is all. She also says dismissively that she's immune to the slings and arrows of the panel.

Eugena just might have a shot at winning this thing. She doesn't blow anyone away, but she doesn't totally blow, either. She doesn't have Melrose's annoying personality, and she isn't as unhinged as CariDee. She's no beauty, but she's not the fugliest girl at Top Model school. Being pleasantly bland is Eugena's biggest strength.

Amanda didn't like hearing that Jay felt she shouldn't be in the competition at all. “Wow, that's really harsh,” she says. Who cares what the Mini-Wheat says. Even if it's true.

Tyra says: “After this competition, I want you to be strong enough and lift your head up high and be able to handle anything and everything that comes your way. I want you to speak well. I want you to look great. I want you to be intelligent. I want you to know this industry.” And gosh darn, people will like you.

Tyra's vision of ANTM is to whup the idiot out of each and every one of them, so when they go out into the “jungle,” she's prepared them well. So if she tells you you're stinking up the room, it's for your own good, honey child. Go give mama a big hug.

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