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Greetings, fashionistas and fashion victims! Another episode of ANTM has graced our presence this good eve and now we need to sit back, take a look at the best shots and figure out if it is staring back at us with dead eyes, has an entirely too cheesy grin, or got its angles just right. Me, I’m voting for cheesy grin.
Putting the tramp back in trampoline.
We rejoin the models on the eco-bus ride back from the last panel meeting. Saleisha is not pleased that she was in the bottom two and wants to knock the judges out to the point of speechlessness in her next photoshoot. Well, that would make for a quicker recap, so I’m in favor of this approach.
The next morning, the girls are hanging around the sty that is their house. There are dirty dishes in the sink, some white substance spilled all over the floor, and trash strewn about the abode. Janet can’t take the mess at all and nags the girls into cleaning the house. They mainly look on disinterestedly as she writes up a list of chores. She also wants to take time to focus on her posing because she thinks she is at a disadvantage, being both shorter and curvier than most.
Out on the balcony, Heather is randomly sharing her opinion on the girls. She thinks Ebony needs work all around, and has her doubts about Janet as a model. Bianca asks Heather what her weakness is and Heather tells Bianca to pull more emotion from inside. Heather admits her own problem is having an awkward body. Ambreal then lightens the mood by serenading the girls with a song. It turns out she’s a musical theater major in college and she’s having a good time because she is on the top of the Top Model list. Uh-oh, those sound like jinxin’ words! Lisa is worried about over-thinking her poses, while Sarah comments that Lisa is insecure and in the running for the lead in a Debbie Downer skit revival. Somewhere Rachel Dratch is preparing a copyright infringement suit.
The girls then receive their first Tyra Mail of the episode; it tells them that it is time to set their clocks to spring forward, which causes some confusion when the message is taken to literally by a couple of girls. Instead of any clock changes, the girls are taken to a gymnastics center and are met by Benny Ninja, poser extraordinaire. He is there to work on posing and movement and wants the girls to convey emotion while jumping on a trampoline. I couldn’t convey an emotion beyond “I think I’m gonna puke” were I to jump about on a trampoline, but that’s probably why I’m not a model.
Janet is up first; Benny finds her jumping poses to show “uncomfortable” as the main emotion. Ebony does wild jumping, Chantal does pretty well, and poor Heather looks even more spastic than I would. Ambreal’s height aversion causes her problems and Lisa is similarly awkward and scared. Benny says Lisa needs confidence, which sets up yet another theme for the episode.
After all of the girls get their crazy jumping done and everyone escapes without a snapped neck, Benny bids them adieu for the time being, and the girls head home. At the house, some girls go a bit nuts and streak through the house to jump in the pool naked. I’m sure the CW editors had a fine time in the editing suite with that footage. While all that craziness is going on, Janet gets on the faux jungle themed runway and practices her walk. She is serious about not going home this week.
Ice, ice, baby.
It is time once again for the prize-giving challenge. The girls are taken to an ice skating rink where they are once again greeted by Benny Ninja. He tells them that they are going to have to pose in the air on ice. Lisa is understandably worried—she’s never skated before and is now convinced the producers are trying to kill them. I’d sleep with one eye open, Lisa. The next challenge may be posing with black widow spiders or poisonous snakes.
So, at this point there is a commercial break before going back to the rink. When my CW feed rejoins them, there is some dude with a horrible—and I mean truly awful in a way that will haunt my dreams—goatee. It looks like he glued some movie theater carpet on his chin. Anyway, this guy is talking about taking the girls to practice lifts off the ice. Quickly I glean that I’ve missed something due to the idiots in the local control room. Apparently this challenge involves some clothing company called “Akademiks” (which clearly indicates that the people behind the company are not fans of actual academics). The judges for the challenge are Benny, some girl who apparently models for Akademiks, and some other woman. In the end, it’s not really important to the story who these people are, unless you are their agents.
The idea is that each girl will go around the rink with some guy who is a trained skater. He will lift them as Benny calls out an emotion for the girl to portray as they are held in the lift. The girl who does the best will be in a photoshoot for Akademiks with the one judge who is the model. Janet goes first and has to portray anger; she does a “messy” job of it. Jenah has to show sorrow, and it’s kind of a pathetic pose at best. Sarah was supposed to do anger, but she looked more scared than anything. Bianca’s portrayal of joy really lit up the room but her smile was nearly matched by Chantal’s similar portrayal of joy. Heather comes out next and never can even get the lift right. She is horribly awkward and does very poorly. Lisa, still trying not to over-think anything, shows sorrow to the judges’ liking but the other girls are not impressed. Saleisha’s joy is alright, Ebony’s sorrow is really cheesy, and Ambreal played her joy to the hilt in a bid to impress Benny.
After everyone is once again safely off the ice, the critiques come out. Ambreal was too cheesy, Lisa was good, especially with her body placement, Janet’s eyes got lost, Heather defeated herself, Bianca had good commitment to her poses, and Ebony was extremely corny. The woman from Akademiks picks Lisa as the winner, and she can bring two other girls with her to the photoshoot the next day. She picks Janet and Ebony, and thus begins the cattiness for the night. Sarah expresses she thought Lisa was terrible and Bianca, Ambreal, or Jenah should have won.
The Akademiks shoot goes pretty well for Lisa, Janet and Ebony and they arrive back at the house wearing three tons of makeup. The girls left behind are in full-blown jealousy mode and had been talking about Lisa while she was out. Lisa probably would have figured it out for herself, but Saleisha, ever the pot-stirrer, made a special point of cluing in Lisa on the comments made about her. Pulling out the oldest saying in reality television history, Lisa tells the camera that she doesn’t care because she’s not there to make friends. Color me shocked!
Trying to ward off evil spirits, a/k/a Tyra’s wrath.
After the ice skating rink challenge and the catalog photoshoot, another Tyra Mail arrives for the girls’ review. This one says, “When you’re on top, never look down.” and causes no end of speculation by the girls. Soon enough their speculation comes to an end, when they are taken to the roof of the Omni in downtown LA. Ambreal is freaking out majorly, as she has a serious fear of heights and can barely get up to the roof. Jay Manuel is there and tells them that they are going to be styled as gargoyles and pose very near the edge of the roof. Mike Rosenthal of the first shoot is there to take the pictures.
The shoot goes by fairly quickly. Heather does really well, in Jay’s opinion, but needs to start looking at the camera, rather than just doing profile shots. Jenah’s poses are good, while Sarah’s aren’t that great. Janet is obsessed with her underwear showing and needs a lot of direction from Jay. He worries she needs too much direction and could not do a shoot without it. Saleisha’s shots look too “men’s magazine” for Jay, while Chantal’s are great. Bianca does well, but Lisa thinks too much about the shoot at the start. She does loosen up a bit by the end though. Ambreal, as expected, completely freaks out at the height but she does get through the shoot. Finally, Ebony comes out, as dull and demure as ever, but completely rocks the shoot. Jay comments that she’s like two different people.
Back at the house, the last Tyra Mail arrives and reminds them that someone will be going home the next day. Ambreal is very concerned that her fear of heights has done her in on this shoot.
That’s Liza with a Z, bitches.
Finally judging time arrives again, and Tyra once again goes through the litany of the spoils the winner of the cycle will reap. It’s probably been discussed endlessly around here, but each week I’m a bit put off that the winner will have a spread in Seventeen magazine, yet they continue to do “high fashion” shoots. Maybe things have changed since I last picked up that particular mag, but as I recall, there was no high fashion and there was more an emphasis on boyfriends cheating and what lip gloss was cool. Perhaps I’m hopelessly out of touch, and there are now ads for Prada and Marc Jacobs.
Our panel this time around has the usual Tyra, Twiggy, Nigel, and Miss J, who is apparently sporting the same wig worn by Cadet Laverne Hooks in Police Academy. The guest judge is Benny Ninja, who grows on me a bit more with each appearance. One by one, the girls’ pictures are critiqued. They love Ebony’s photograph, but ask her why she doesn’t show a toothy grin in front of them. She says she’s self-conscious about her gums and doesn’t like to smile broadly. Chantal’s shot shows about a mile of leg, but Twiggy doesn’t think it looks too “men’s magazine,” though Nigel somewhat disagrees. The judges thought Ambreal’s pose was almost comedic, and she cops to being extremely scared of heights. The panel did not like Sarah’s pose at all—they though it didn’t have anything “gargoyle” about it and was kind of boring. Nigel thought Bianca’s shot was the best of the bunch, and the other judges thought it was quite fashion-y. While Twiggy liked Janet’s shot, the other judges weren’t so favorable, noting she looked too compact and should not have been concerned about her underwear showing. The panel liked Lisa’s shot, especially her body and intense face, but Tyra asked her why she looked so down in the judging room. Lisa explained that she was a bit out of sorts because some of the other girls had been a bit mean to her after she won the prize challenge. Heather’s picture is liked, but they take her to task for only posing in her profile—her comfort zone, as Tyra calls it. Jenah comes up next, looking like she’s a Courtney Love on a bender. They love her shot but think she needs to get her act together when she comes before the panel and look a bit more refined. Finally, Saleisha gets mixed reviews, with some judges thinking she looks like she’s in an ad, and others thinking she looks too hip-hop. Tyra, however, is impressed with her performance.
The girls are sent away while the judges deliberate. Overall, the judges think Ebony is progressing at the photoshoots well, but not in front of the panel. Twiggy likes Chantal but Ambreal is too “posy”. Sarah missed the point of the gargoyles while Bianca’s shot looked pure high fashion. Janet, Tyra says, is pure Liza but not a model. They think Lisa had the best picture but needs to get more confidence. They want to see Heather out of profile and really liked Jenah’s pictures, though she looks like a hot mess at panel. Finally, they think Saleisha improved over the last week, with much better eye contact in the shot this time around.
After the deliberation is over, the girls come back before the panel and are called out to stay by Tyra. Lisa gets called first, which was her goal, and is told she’s the strongest in the bunch and needs to have confidence. Tyra encourages Bianca to keep up her strong eye contact performance. The remaining girls are called out to stay and the last girl called before the bottom two is Sarah, who was on the verge of hyperventilating. Janet and Ambreal are left in the bottom two. Tyra tells them that they are beautiful, striking women but not beautiful, striking models. She says that Janet has a great athletic body but requires too much coaching on the shoots while Ambreal’s photographs have gotten progressively worse over time. Tyra then lets Ambreal go on for another week with the admonishment no to let fear get in the way of her dreams.
Janet is out, but Tyra encourages her to keep on modeling. Janet is a bit teary-eyed as she departs, but thanks Tyra for the opportunity. She hopes she can continue to model in the future. I hope Janet continues to rock the Liza look but I implore her to stay far away from David Gest.
Originally Posted by PhoneGrrrl 
you mean Danielle? Winner of Cycle 6?
I always love your recaps.
Excellent snarky recap, PG, thanks for keeping me entertained throughout. 
