Last Week: AzMarie got kicked off! You feeling sad about that, AzMarie?
Four Brits and four Americans (including one member of Team LezBiModel) remain! Goodness gracious, it’s tied again! Is anyone surprised by that? Infants? Plankton? Anyone? Good.
Modelland!
The girls come back and this week the big Box of Product Placement That Fell Through is for the Brits.
Alisha is able to break her one-show strike and chat out loud to the camera because she won Best Picture (or really, Best Person in Team Video) last week. Oh, cobblebollocks, that means no more new swear words.
There is a big shopping bag with a Union Jack on it, and one of the other items is a phone box teapot. To clarify: Tyra and the producers seem to have gotten the Brits cheesy souvenirs from their own homeland as a prize. OK.
Because she is a TV presenter, Anneliese sums up and says that the UK girls are here to win, and they are real models. Thanks for that intriguing color commentary, Annaliese. It’s nothing you didn’t know, but she says it with enthusiasm while looking good and nonthreatening. I think Annaliese has a real future on E!
Kyle and Seymone have what they call a “potato party,” which is the two of them hunched over a single Tupperware container. Who among us has not had a potato party at some point? The two have decided they’re pals now because the other models gang up on them. OK, that’s one way to look at it. They also seem to be the most difficult to deal with on a day-to-day or even minute-to-minute basis. So maybe there’s something in that? Or maybe the editors just hate them. We’ll never know for sure. We just know that the right carbs can solve a lot in the short run.
Also: When Kyle says the other models are ganging up on them, she uses finger quotes. Kyle, do you know how finger quotes work? You have just called your own story into question. I feel like I have so much to teach these girls, and so little time.
Kyle also says the haters should keep hating, because she’s not going to go home. I don’t know why anyone would think hating would make her go home, except for the part where she nearly went home after focus group people loved her and her fellow models pointed out that the consumers loved Kyle in spite of Kyle’s extended suckage, thus giving Kyle a sad.
So, yes, evidence suggests that criticism from her fellow models could, in fact, make Kyle go home, as demonstrated by the past actions of Kyle. I feel like Kyle has memorized a lot of cool-sounding phrases to use on reality shows, but hasn’t really studied up on how and when to deploy them.
Laura and Sophie and a couple of the other Brits talk about the fact that AzMarie was a better model than Kyle, which is a bit of an understatement. Still: Wow, does Laura hate Kyle. “I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her skinny ass,” she says. I kind of want to go to one of those all-day summer barbecues with Laura, the kind where by about four o’ clock everyone is so hot and tired and full that you don’t care if you just breathed in a gnat again because everyone is too busy lazily saying exactly what’s in their heads. I bet Laura is fun at those.
Anyway, Laura reads a few items from her detailed Why Kyle Sucks Excel spreadsheet and accompanying PowerPoint presentation and then says that everyone is ready for Kyle to go home.
Credits! Tyra Mail!
“Beauty Is
In The
SMIZE
OF
The Beholder.”
Somewhere, the entire staff of the Chicago Manual of Style lies weeping.
And, wow, Top Model is really pushing the patented Tyraphrases this year. Is there some sort of late-night infomercial home modeling kit in our future or what?
Sophie thinks it will be a shoot with crazy eye makeup, which is actually a really good guess. Laura thinks they will have to show their own self-worth.
And just when you thought she was descending into nothing but cast-iron hatred for Kyle, Laura says she’s going to work on her own weaknesses, then gives a practical and considered list of what modeling skills she’s lagging on so she can focus her efforts. She reminds us (and herself) that she can’t lose herself in other people, and needs to be working on her own weak points. Good on you, Laura. Make Team LezBiModel proud. You’re our only hope.
Nigelland!
The ladies are going to film public service announcements for Tyra’s B.I.O. campaign, which stands for “Beauty Inside and Out,” and seems to be Tyra’s anti-bullying project. Or something? It seems to have once been a then-trendy “body-image” project that has been rebranded. Far be it for me to say that Tyra has a tendency to take up popular causes of the moment in a shallow way, but this “big project,” though I’m sure it is very close to her heart, is already tough to find on Tyra’s website.
The models will be divided into — please, for the love of all that is good, sit down and have an oxygen tank nearby for your personal safety — two teams based on nationality.
Nigel hilariously gives instructions to a point just above and to the right of a camera lens, and then we cut between him and models shot at a different time to make it look like he’s talking to them. Each team has to make a 2-minute commercial, and they’ll be incorporating some young girls into the PSAs with them.
The winners will get to watch video messages from loved ones on their [product placement] phones! Every now and then I forget how much Modelland is like prison with more decorations and fewer visitation rights. Sophie wants that message!
The Brits confer and seem to be making some diagrams. Kyle talks to the Americans and thinks they should acknowledge that they all have flaws, but there’s something inside everyone that can shine. And wow, some editor reeeeeaaalllly hates Kyle, because after that fairly good moment we cut to her in an interview making a total snot face and saying that she doesn’t like the other girls or want to be friends with them.
Eboni says she was bullied by racist creepballs when she was a kid, and further made fun of because she grew up poor. We get a shot of Laura’s face as she takes in what Eboni is saying. Laura seems to have the self-awareness to know that that’s a particular brand of horrible that she herself has never had to deal with. And, wow, Eboni. Good on you for not being an angrier person.
Eboni interviews that this challenge is hitting her pretty hard, which I can totally believe.
Laura notes that she “hasn’t always shown others her inner beauty,” and wants kids to know that bad patterns can be changed. I can’t tell if Laura is saying she wasn’t always been nice to other people as a kid, or if she didn’t see her own value, and the edit seems to deliberately obscure that. Maybe a little of each?
The models have to paint their own backdrops for their PSAs, which is pretty much among the standard duties of any high-fashion model. That’s why they are so often paint-splattered and smell of turpentine on the runway.
The Brits paint demurely, and the Americans’ backdrop is all over the place. This heavy-handed metaphor for how the season is going has brought to you by the legendary Lead-Fists Jane, creator of metaphors that simply cannot be missed. Lead-Fists Jane: Metaphors to Suit Your Densest Loved Ones.
Oh, time for everyone’s cynical heart to grow three sizes. Each model gets paired with an adorable girl of about junior-high age. We get great shots of Sophie and Alisha genuinely hugging their new friends, and then one of Kyle giving her kid a stiff don’t-muss-my-hair hug. Nigel tells them to talk about what beauty means to them.
Sophie is winning a lot of points back this week: She seems to be genuinely good at connecting with the kids, really listening and not talking down to them. Sophie talks about going through her own unattractive phase, and then a remarkably self-possessed girl blows the models away by saying your inner beauty can’t be bullied. I bet that’s getting taped up on a few mirrors in Modelland tonight.
The Americans talk. Laura’s partner says that beauty is good grades and making her mom and dad proud and seems to hit Laura right in the heart. Laura talks briefly about growing up insecure with alcoholic parents and always trying to please them because she never felt like she was worth enough to keep them sober.
This ridiculous show sure swings wildly in and out of heavy territory, doesn’t it? We get a quick hit of “Wait, you WHAT?!“ and then suddenly it’s back to butt tutorials and pouring maple syrup on people. It’s like drive-by meaning.
Oh, no. Alisha’s sweet, pretty little girl bravely says that she thinks she’s not beautiful when she looks at the color of her skin and her hair, because when she looks at princesses, “they’re all pretty, and they have different hair.” Alisha almost can’t stand it. She breaks down crying more than the girl does, and totally gets where she’s coming from. Alisha’s really terrific with her — completely open about her own emotions, but not lost in them, and for just a few minutes, Alisha totally focuses herself on making things a little better for another human being. Which means she probably won’t win this show, but bodes well for the rest of her life.
Can I just say how much wished AzMarie had been there for this part? Couldn’t they have brought her in just long enough to drop some Zen wisdom on finding your own glittering beauty in your differences and then choppered her out? I guess not: The girls would have just broken the door off its hinges and gone forth to kick ass and no PSAs would have gotten done.
You know, those PSAs. The ones that are all over the TV and Interwebs? I’m sure they’ll be there soon enough.
The models design T-shirts with the kids and do matching face paint jobs. Laura interviews that they really got along with the kids, and, seriously, kudos to whichever producer matched them up. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and the models really seem to be identifying with the girls. Sophie practices and dances with her girl, and says she really wants to nail this.
The girls do their PSAs. Eboni interviews that she’s been trying to be present and spontaneous with her girl without completely losing it — her years of being bullied aren’t that far away, and they’re still pretty raw.
Laura’s girl says, “Beauty is freedom! And freedom is mold!” Laura laughs and points out that freedom is breaking any mold, but seems to do it in a way that doesn’t bum out her cheerful partner. She and her girl have matching hearts on their cheeks, which is sweet.
Aw, Kyle is stiff, and someone has given her girl a speech to memorize, so for a moment Kyle’s young partner is as stiff as Kyle. But then the girl snaps out of it and turns real again. Is that’s what’s up with Kyle? Is she always saying something she’s been practicing in her head? Now I’m sad again.
Catherine and her girl think that smart and funny is beautiful. I award Catherine 4,000 secret bonus points, then say a silent prayer of thanks that she is straight and thus not part of the competition for those smart, funny women.
Alisha does a back and forth with her kid. They are practiced and photogenic. Alisha wants to hear from her mom. Annaliese is professional and fun with her kid, and then slips into a moment of actual almost-unrehearsed fun.
Sophie and her girl are silly and spinny and very fun. OK, Sophie is fully back into my good graces.
Nigel really liked the whole project, as well he should have. He addresses the Americans, praising, oh, dear, the “simple words” they used, but says they didn’t seem to show their friendship with the girls as much as he’d have liked. Nigel thought the Brits were well rehearsed, and maybe too well rehearsed, which is a valid point.
Kyle speaks in a vocal fry monotone about her emotions and says she hopes the Americans win. The Brits win! They jump up and down and hug each other. Alisha, happy with her win and drained of sentiment, says she wants to see her mum and the Amercians should have worked harder. Wow, a certain interview room just got frosty.
Modelland!
Time to see the videos on the product placement phone! Which we hook up to the TV! We couldn’t have burned a DVD and given the Brits product placement phone calls? No? Fine. Annaliese gets a nice message from her roommate, who says it’s too quiet with Annaliese gone. Ha. Catherine’s parents bring the family dog into frame with them and are appealing, in that sort of businesslike, not-too-many emotions British tradition of family relationships, but then Catherine’s mom makes the dog wave and suddenly they can’t help it and burst into sweetness.
Be sure to throw around some cotton batting and reinforce yourself with duct tape before Alisha’s mom, dad, and adorable little brother come on: You’re in danger of exploding from the cute.
After all that, Sophie is stoked to see her boyfriend. He’s an ordinary cute dude in his 20’s and is not interested in being schmoopy to her on video and kind of does a little video diary instead. Sophie is (cheerfully) pissed at his lack of gravitas. She calls it bollocks.
Tyra Mail!
“Tomorrow
you will be the
CENTERPIECE
of attention.”
Sigh.
One of the girls theorizes that they are going to be statues. Because of all the goodwill that has been flying around, I am not going to scroll back and see who that is.
Yikes. Kyle really does not like other human beings. We see shots of the models enjoying themselves around the house while Kyle monologues that she’s tense enough and really doesn’t want to deal with the girls or get to know them or recognize them as fellow carbon-based life forms. Kyle says that part of her strategy is not to let the other girls “see the emotions [she’s] having.” Well. Full points there, Kyle. She says she’s going to nail this photo shoot.
A Great Big Mansion!
Mr. Jay arrives and informs us that we are not done with booty tooching. Criminy. It’s like a slasher movie, only instead of a villain who keeps getting up, it’s a butt that won’t stop sticking out. Remember: children under 17 cannot see The Tooching without a parent.
Jay says we’ll be taking the booty tooch to the “high-fashion extreme,” and then without any warning at all, we flash back to Tyra’s profound lesson from last week. Eek! Don’t go into the dance studio alone!
The models are going to be “art installations” at a crazy-opulent dinner party with some “extreme tooching” and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WILL YOU ANTM MONSTERS PLEASE ADOPT SOME SORT OF STYLE GUIDE FOR USAGE OF THE WORD “TOOCH!”
I will accept it as a verb meaning “to stick one’s butt out,” and I will accept it as a noun meaning “the resulting pose when one has successfully stuck one’s butt out.” But I categorically refuse to also accept “tooch” as a synonym for butt. Make up your minds, Model People, here and now: It is either your butt or it is what you have just achieved with your butt. It cannot be both. That is a bridge tooch far. For crying out loud, you’re starting to throw that asinine word around like “smurf.” I’m not asking for sanity here, just a little order.
Hair! Makeup!
Jay says he wants to see Alisha’s legs in this one, even though the judges have said not to overdo the legs before. Do they talk with Jay ever? Alisha says she thinks the UK girls can get this one.
Estelle is here! Sophie says that Estelle really unusual because she’s one of the few British singers who has managed to make it in the States. Um.
Estelle tells the models to just be themselves in front of the camera, but to also give it that little something extra. Someone’s been getting tips on how to give useful advice from Mr. Jay.
So there’s a big dinner table set up, and each model is supposed to perform/be art/tooch for the dinner party, and Estelle and the other models are the dinner guests she’s trying to impress. What’s with all the group photos this season? Harrumph.
Laura is up first, and does angular shapes all over the table and everyone. She looks fine to me like always, but seems to be making the people at the table tense. Ben Shaul, this week’s photographer, says its tough because she’s trying too hard. We see Laura squeeze a tomato to pulp by way of illustration.
Jay says Catherine is lost and claims she just started grabbing props from all over the table. Annaliese seems to grab her hair (and a fish) a lot, but everyone seems to think she did well.
Ben keeps shouting “Decadence! Decadence! Decadence!” to set the mood, which is the most valuable thing I have picked up from this show ever. I can’t wait to bust that out at my next corporate meeting.
Alisha is booty tooching so hard that she says her back and shoulders hurt. Catherine says Alisha struggled. Sophie and Eboni need to take a break from the tension of Alisha’s shoot and say she isn’t being extreme enough and is playing it too safe. Sophie is worried for the Brits.
Sophie is up next, and Ben comes up with more wonderful things to shout: “Be extravagant! Be eccentric! Watch out for that meringue pie, it’s real!” Sophie does all of those things and rocks it.
Jay tells Eboni not to look so young, which is the second time this show we’ve seen him directly contradicting the judging panel when giving advice. Is he that far out of the loop, or is he secretly a chaos monster? Eboni poses all crazy.
Seymone looks fierce during her shoot, then breaks things up by hitting Annaliese right in the kisser with a pie. Annaliese is a really good sport about it, but notes that Seymone owes her if she makes best picture from that.
(Pro tip for getting clobbered in the face with a pie: Your body will want to breathe in with the surprise. Don’t do it!)
Kyle complains about having no butt to tooch and gets a fake one from Wardrobe.
Which means that Wardrobe had those on hand, just in case someone wanted an extra butt.
I would never, ever be able to stop asking Wardrobe for things if I saw that happen. “I need elf ears! A pirate hook! A drinking skull! Both kinds of drinking skull!” You know they have them.
Maybe they nice people in Wardrobe have been waiting to be asked for an evil second head for their entire careers. How can you disappoint them by failing to ask for it?
Laura is pissed about FakebuttGate and the girls at the dinner table look desperately bored with Kyle. What on earth did she do to that editor? Maybe just sixteen hours a day of being conscious and being Kyle was enough.
Estelle limply tosses some bread to enhance a shot. Decadence! Decadence! Decadence! Sophie notes that Kyle had an advantage, because she didn’t have to tooch, which apparently hurts your back if you’re doing it right, because Kyle had a fake butt doing the heavy tooching for her. It’s just like a steroids scandal, only even stupider!
Yes, that’s Kyle with a beef snake on her shoulder. Please, please do not ask Lead-Fists Jane about it.
Modelland!
Alisha says she is not packing, she’s preparing. But she’s not down for the count yet, and says she’ll be pissed if she goes home instead of Kyle. Alisha says, “I did not cross this water for nothing.” I love her a little bit more for that.
Panel!
Tyra is wearing a stained-glass window from Sin City. Do not look directly at it or think about it while operating heavy machinery. Your brain will not be able to take in anything else.
Pictures! Catherine looks like she’s maybe starting a footrace and her butt looks great, but her face doesn’t do much. Estelle breaks and acknowledges that this photo shoot was difficult because it was completely ridiculous.
Tyra says, for real, this: “The art of the booty tooch is all about scooping out your lower back. And you have scooped the lower back and have me looking at your booty.” Nigel’s frontal lobes rebel for a second and he starts to call out Tyra on even thinking of the phrase “the art of the booty tooch,” let alone managing to utter it, but then he thinks about his paycheck and settles back down.
Alisha is not committed, even though her butt looks great. Nigel, cerebellum battered back into submission, says it looks like she has a toochache.
Sophie looks like she’s about to rip our throats out with her teeth, but in a good way. Nigel says, in all seriousness, “I think this is more of a smize than a tooch shot.” I hope he gets a nice beach house out of that.
Annaliese pulls her own hair and gets what Nigel and Kelly think is her best shot ever. Whoops, Tyra is not so thrilled. She calls Annaliese commercial instead of high fashion. Quelle horreur!
Eboni looks like she’s suspended in antigravity.
It’s what I think is an undeniably interesting shot, but Legendary PR Maven Kelly Cutrone says, “I just think it’s a little topsy-turvy-upside-downy.” Fine.
Kyle cops to the fake butt. But we already know she’s in trouble because they picked a shot where you don’t see the tooch much. Perhaps they were worried about a cheating scandal after all. And Kyle’s making the same face she’s been making since the Cretaceous Era. Kelly Cutrone pretends that Kyle’s vacant, wooden Andy Warhol shot from the first week was really good. Why are we still pretending that?
Laura has an extreme body and a good face, but Nigel isn’t into it. Tyra is.
Seymone does a deep backbend and looks great. Nigel says to her, “I would have thought that the shape of your tooch would be enormous… but it’s not. It makes sense for me.” Charming. Nobody send Nigel to counsel middle school girls, OK? Anyway, they like Seymone.
Deliberations!
Nigel liked Catherine’s PSA, but not her photo. Kelli Cutrone takes a huge pause and then says, totally spontaneously, and not at all having practiced saying this dozens of times in her legendary PR office, “I don’t know… This looks like a leg of lamb that should have gone back into the freezer.”
Kelli Cutrone, if it ever actually gets released, I have a PSA I think you should watch. Just be yourself.
Alisha is flat in her own photo, but looks fantastic in the backgrounds of other people’s shots. Kelly says Alisha is good in person and worth working with to help her improve, and wins absolution from further cruel comments for the rest of this recap.
Estelle loves Sophie. Simon and Tyra growl at each other in imitation.
Nigel says Eboni is blossoming, but Kelly doesn’t think it’s magazine. Tyra says it’s totes Italian Vogue, and she can imitate the editor of that publication, so that settles it.
Nigel praises Kyle’s smize, but the others aren’t haven’t. Tyra accuses Kyle of Poochy Tooching, one of the tooching no-nos she warned us against last week, and suddenly more footage from the Tooch Teach rears up without warning. Why?! Why did we all split up to go skinny dipping?!
They think Laura maybe went too far in her posing, but come on, she’s totally in.
Annaliese’s commercial pose comes up again, and to his credit, Nigel points out that a major component of their prize package is commercial, duh. Kelly doesn’t think Annaliese is “high-end.” You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her tooch.
Seymone gets high marks from everyone. Trya calls her “fiercely real” again. Ladies and gentlemen, the Condescension Fairy has landed. Don’t forget to bring home some transparently insulting descriptors for the kids!
Eight Girls! Seven Photos!
Best Picture: Sophie
Runner up: Seymone
It’s down to Kyle and Alisha! Kyle is pretty, but not great at modeling! And is a little boring! And possibly does not have a soul! Tyra says modeling is about having “diversity,” but keeping your brand. Ugh. They love Alisha! But her pictures don’t measure up! Maybe she should — Gasp! — be in commercials but not model!
This week’s obsolete model:
Kyle. We get a shot of Laura regaining her faith in a just and comprehensible universe. Tyra says she was once a girl-next-door type just like Kyle. What?
As we hear her farewell and watch her final montage, Kyle is proud of herself and, let’s be honest, still pretty boring.
Next week: OH, MY GOD, THEY’RE MAKING THE MODELS WEAR GIANT HELLO KITTY GEAR. Top Model, all is forgiven.
