ANTM Recap "Eric Daman" a.k.a. The First Time I Have Disagreed With Tyra Banks

This is exactly what it looks like.

This week, Gossip Girl's own Eric Daman dresses the girls in a manner surprisingly toned-down for him. That is, they're dressed as crazy people who are obsessed with various fashion items in front of the Bates Motel. But before any of that goes down, the girls talk breast cancer, win a car, and FREAK THE HECK OUT ALL OVER THE PLACE!

(This recap is doozy-length, just to warn you.) 

Inauspiciously, the episode starts with Brittani's very long monologue about how much she hates Natural Swalexandria. This hatred stems quite naturally from the vast root system of Alexandria's horrid personality, but it's strange that Brittani is so bothered by it. One would think that the best way to deal with an annoying person would be to ignore her, not to make her your own personal problem. But Brittani's 17- or 18-year-old brain hasn't gotten that far yet, so she takes out her proverbial shovel and starts digging her own grave from the very beginning.

After Elimination, the girls get home to find a ton of Ford "Warriors in Pink" swag in their living room. It's a lot of tacky pink t shirts with terrible Ed Hardy tattoo designs on them, but the girls seem very pleased nonetheless to be donning anti-breast cancer gear. Somewhere in here there's a flashback to Natural Swag during the Monique-directed commercial from a few weeks ago. She's listening to Monique's direction, and then she interrupts her to say "But...I'm the talent." Wow, oh wow, I can't believe I missed that the first time around. Good one, NS! That is perfectly OK both to believe and to say on national television. "BUT........I'M THE TALENT!"

So the challenge this week is a self-styled photoshoot for Ford's new breast cancer awareness program, the aforementioned Warriors in Pink. The girls all do stupid things that aren't funny or interesting enough to write about. One thing, though - at one point, Nigel asks Brittani what she's thinking about during her photoshoot, and she says "I don't think...I just do." I get it, Tani, but come on. Don't say that kind of stuff out loud, especially not to Nigel. 18 YEAR OLDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

During the commercial break there's a Ford ad with hairful Nigel in it. He has so much hair he looks like one of the brothers that Chris Parnell and Jimmy Fallon used to play on SNL that were so dorky and awkward with women that they just giggled and cried the whole time. UPGRADE!

Alexswagria goes last as always and poses as a stupid freaking tree. She wins the challenge, picking up a national print ad and a PSA for Warriors in Pink...and A FREAKING CAR. This is fishier than fish, itself. Nobody has ever won a car on ANTM, and I doubt it would be for winning a challenge in the middle of the season. They want Swag to win, they want to stir up trouble, so they give her a car. And guess what, all their dreams come true.

Brittani cares wayyyy too much about NS's ridiculous win, and she complains about it too loudly to the other girls. She's disgusted that NS could ever win a "role-model" competition. Natural Swag pulls a classic "uh, I can hear you" and the girls get into it right then and there. Nigel, along with the Ford clients, are standing 3 feet away. It gets ugly very quickly.

But not as ugly as Alexandriswag's stupid PSA. Her right eye is squinty, like Melissa Joan Hart but without any of Clarissa's trademark moxie. If this girl doesn't win the entire competition, I'll eat my hat. I'll eat it all the way to the bank!

Everything is terribly awkward at home. Anyone in the apartment who is not Alexandria hates Alexandria. I would feel sorry for her but somehow it's impossible. Totally, completely impossible. Of course, this isn't to say that Brittani makes any right moves today. She makes basically every wrong move. But then again, she's not a tremendously huge bitch all day long everyday.

The next day the girls go to Disneyland, where they get dropped off in front of the Bates Motel. Mr. & Mrs. J do a Psycho skit for the girls and it (of course) makes a lot of sense and totally has to do with modeling.

During the shoot, Brittani does some really amazing and lively posing. Like, terrific work. The photographer, Miguel Starcevich, LOVES her. Jaclyn the Baby Voiced and Kasia the Zaftig also have a great day, but everyone else is weak. Mister Jay tells Alexwagria to show her frustration about the other girls. She screams half-assedly, and Jay tells her it looks great. WHO IS HER FATHER, BENNY MEDINA? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!!!!!!!!

Brittani does a confessional where she says she hopes she doesn't flip out at panel. I guess that means she's planning on it. Great. At pre-elimination, Tyra thinks her boobs look weird in her shirt. When the actual Elimination panel starts, she's wearing something completely different.

Here are the girls' pictures:

 


Hannah struggles all day but ends up with this one, which is perfect. It's hilarious and modely and crazy. She's taking all the bags before anyone can notice!









 



Molly also struggles but ends up with a similarly great picture. Note to self, if you want to look crazy, just bite your bakelite cocktail ring.

Jaclyn the Baby Voiced gets to have lipstick all over her mouth, so it's pretty clear that she's going to win. Eric Daman thinks she channeled the Joker during the shoot. That seems right because it turns out, she wins!

 


Mikaelampire has no ideas, so she ends up with this piece of baloney. "I love sales so much that I'm crazily throwing a box into the air, I guess." She will be going home.

Kasia cracks me up in this picture. Her eyes are so huge and distinctly unmodely. But the rest looks great, so she passes!

 

Natural Swag Idiot is supposed to be crazy about fur, but she just looks like a mannequin. Miguel Starcevich has a spectacular eye for composition, though. Oh yeah, and they applaud her because she won so much at the challenge.






Nigel takes it upon himself to bring up her argument with Brittani in front of Ford. Tyra is displeased, and she teaches Brittani a lesson in being a role model by shutting your mouth in front of clients. But then Tyra gets angrier and angrier, never dropping it for one second after she's picked it up. She starts avenging Natural Swag with every ounce of strength in her body, I guess because she's been "bullied" before and now suddenly in her eyes Brittani looks like a Naomi Campbell bull with steam coming out of her nostrils.

"Andre, you don't even want to know how RIGHT I AM"

Tyra goes nuts on Brittani. Brittani cries so much she starts hyperventilating. She leaves the studio to get her breath back and to calm down before coming back. Tyra clearly takes offense when she leaves the soundstage, then doesn't let Brittani's brave return change her opinion at all.

Tyra must have heard about this whole toilet flush in advance, because she picks Brittani's stupidest pose as her final photo:

It still isn't even that bad. It's just not as great as her other 999 photos were. Obviously, she ends up in the Bottom Two with Mikaelampire the Blood Thirsty.

For the first time ever, we are shown an actual voting process for one of the contestants. Tyra makes a huge deal about how she's getting voted down and how everyone thinks that it's impossible for her to not get her way but it happened with Toccara and it's happening now. She reiterates this three more times. They vote 3:1 to keep Brittani. We're still kept in suspense when she and Mikaela stand in the Bottom Two spotlight.

Tyra restates her outvotedness thing eight more times in front of the girls and shames Brittani as much as possible. Talk about overkill, Tyra. The girl has already apologized sincerely a few times, and Tyra's still steaming ahead through her own bank of oppressive memories. Tyra's taking out years of frustration on one girl without even watching the footage of the actual event. And frankly, even though she brings it up in the complete wrong way, Brittani has a pretty excellent point: the Warriors in Pink winner should be a role model, and Alexstupidia is anything but. It doesn't matter what the judges see - the 10-year-old girls watching the show get to see NS misbehave everywhere she goes on camera. Tyra's just pissed that she can't unload like this on all the people who ever made it slightly difficult for her when she was 16 and just starting out in the modeling world. This is misappropriation. This is Tyra Banks when she is wrong.

Next week it looks like they're doing go-sees in LA instead of going anywhere special. Great, sounds like an excellent point for the season to start heading downhill. First Tyra's wrong, now boring go-sees are happening before (or even instead of) vacation? Fantastic, I'm so glad I've been recapping the stupidest season ever.

Photos courtesy of CWtv.com