ANTM Recap "Sonia Dara"

"Ok ladies, should we visit our algebraic formulation or our graphic aid first? And remember to SMIZE."

This week I made sure ANTM recorded on time but did not recap it particularly on time. So here you go, two days before the next one comes out: THE ANTM MUD SHOW BLOWOUT EPISODE!

This week the girls pose in mud after learning about archetypes and fame monsters. Tyra visits the girls' apartment at the top of the episode, bursting with fashion/modeling information. She has the girls categorize themselves as girls-next-door or bombshells or edgy kids, then draws a fully unintelligible diagram on a whiteboard I guess to prove that she's been going to her Harvard Business School classes. Symbolic logic point proven!

Preparing to greet hoardes of Top Model fans for their challenge, Jaclyn the Baby Voiced declares that she won't have a problem with being famous because she loves little kids. Then on the other side of the mental spectrum, Natural Swagzandria says, "I'm as tough as a diamond...and that's as tough as you can be." Great work, you two. You clearly have a good grasp of what is going on right now.

Olivia Munnique has the worst day ever meeting these fans. She gets sick of talking to some guy and tells him to go grab a kiss from Alexandria. For all the work Monique has put into antagonizing Natty Swag and for all the hormonal imbalance that Natty Swag wears on her sleeve like a 1st place ribbon, it's insane that their rivalry isn't going anywhere. They're either too lazy or too oblivious to retaliate. When the guy goes up to Nattxandria, she's just like "Oh, well I have a boyfriend who is an Ultimate Fighter. But I will peck you on the cheek." When she does, Miss J is not pleased. After all, she could lead on stalkers that way.

Kasia wins the challenge and gets to have dinner with Miss J that night, which I assume means four straight hours of Miss J shitting all over everything you say and wear and order to eat. The losers have to clean up after the superfans, which makes OMunnique uber-pissed. She throws rolls of paper towels around on the sidewalk and keeps saying "kiss my ass." Shoulda saved that for the superfan!

When the girls get home, a Tyra Mail informs them that they'll be "tangled in the webs they weave" tomorrow. Everyone is like "oh no, spiders!!!!!!!!" You just did bees. Think, girls. Think.

Jonathan Mannion is back yet again, ready to photograph women with the best of 'em. He orders them to get covered in mud as the brunettes split off from the blondes. The shoot produces very pretty group shots with very unfortunate instances of grossness in both groups.

The Blondes

The Blondes go first and Natural Swag, the Director of Everything, tells the girls to move their hands from where Mister Jay placed them. Big mistake! Then she makes a face like "A-duh! That's what I'm telling you!" in the final picture. Way to go, egghead. The other three girls look amazing. It brings up thoughts of why blonde hair is unfair in the world in general.

The Brunettes

The Brunettes go second, and according to Hannah of the Blonde Group, it "kind of looked like a family portrait of cavewomen." I don't know, it sort of does I guess. But here's one thing I know for sure: Brittani KILLS it. She's the one in the bottom right corner. At one point, she hits a pose that inspires Jonathan Mannion to shoot only her for a little while. Tyra somehow neglects to bring this up in panel, probably because Jonathan got too stoned and forgot to tell her that it happened. Another thing I like about this picture is how the top row of girls leans left and the bottom row leans right. Like a chevron!

At Elimination, we finally meet the episode's namesake, Sonia Dara. Dara was the first South Asian model to be featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. This is weird because whenever I think of South Asians in swimsuits, I'm like, "oh clearly Tia Carrere has been in every swimsuit edition of every magazine that has one." But nope! Dara's the first (and Tia Carrere isn't Indian in the first place). She graduated with my roommate's class at Harvard.

In the end, Tyra declares Brittani as the winner of the week! Brittani, who has taken her Dutchboy makeover and turned it into the poshest, most "fabulous, fabulous woman in charge of her own destiny" look of the entire series. Brittani, who is the dorkiest of any contestant ever to come before. Brittani, who spells her name like maybe she intended to give herself the nickname "Tani" at some point. She's KILLIN IT!

Mikaelampire and OMunnique land in the Bottom Two, even though nobody really dislikes Mikaela's picture this week. They're more upset that this was her only shot where she wasn't controlling her eyeballs or something. At this point, I get scared that the Munnster has already started to get people kicked off for too much proximity to her/sphere of idiocy. But guess what! Mikaela gets to stay!! Monique the Dumbique is banished forever!!! Say goodnight, Olivia Munn lookalike!

Unfortunately, according to next week's promo, we're going to see some really crazy stuff happen. Tyra demonstrates on the whiteboard:

Wherein the top line represents all the men and women symbols that do not watch this show; the second line's "B" represents Tyra's nervousness about Brittani's impending nervous break-down in Elimination next week; and, as always, the bottom line represents "TYRA BANKS WILL PERSEVERE." Because that's always Tyra's bottom line.

all photos courtesy CWtv.com