May 04, 2009
"The Girl Who Thinks She's All That"
Previously on "America's Next Top Model," London got eliminated for being fat, so Fo, Aminat, Teyona, Celia, Allison and Natalie are going to Brazil.
Montage of the girls "sipping on Hate-orade" and realizing -- DUH! -- that they are in a competition and things are probably bound to get nasty. We can only hope!
Fernanda Motta is there to greet the girls once they land in Brazil. She's the host of "Brazil's Next Top Model" or whatever. Wow. This is quite a little franchize Tyra's got going here. Anyway, Brazil is GORGEOUS.
The girls have to go find the girl from Ipanema... there really is one. Huh. Never thought about it. The girls pair up according to color. Teyona and Aminat; Fo and Natalie; Celia and Allison. Weird. The tan girls are first to get their clue. The black girls are close behind. And the yellow girls are laughably lagging behind.
But somewhere along the way, the yellow girls overtake the black girls. And the tan girls are the winners. The girl from Ipanema shows up, the song plays, and then she lectures them about moving gracefully before giving them the key to their new home.
The house is, of course, stunning. Fo and Natalie's prize is waiting by the hot tub. It's a basket of designer flip-flops, some of which run $500 per pair. It's a pretty suck prize, if you ask me. But then, I hate flip-flops, so you could make them out of Coach leather and chocolate, and I still wouldn't wear them.
Natalie is unimpressed with Brazil, which earns her some hate from the other girls. She is seriously ungrateful. Aminat notes that her arrogance seems to be growing daily. Natalie bitches that they don't have a pool or a view of the ocean. Boo-fucking-hoo.
Tyra Mail! "Fight or flight? You better give me both." Are they going to be on wires again?
Aminat says, "I want this more than a fat kid wants cake." HA!
The girls are taken to a streetcorner where some people are doing capoeria, a Brazilian martial art. Hee! Master Eddy Murphy! He teaches them some basic moves and pairs them up to make fools of themselves in public. Natalie may be even more uncoordinated than I am. How sad.
Celia and Aminat put on a pretty good show, due in part to the drama that already exists between them regarding Tahlia. Jeez, I almost had forgotten her name. She's gone! Can we forget the Tahlia drama, please? And then Celia does a roundhouse kick and connects with Aminat's face.
Celia interviews, "It was completely on accident, but... tee-hee! That's for calling me disgusting."
Aminat interviews, "Obviously, Celia kicked me in the face on accident. But there's no second time. That's when you get your legs broken."
Oh, it is ON!
Eddy Murphy takes them to get uniforms and then pairs up Celia and Aminat for another fight. But before they can bloody each other, The Js show up and ruin everything with their blah-blah-ing about the photoshoot, in which they will have to use what they've learned about capoeria.
There's a challenge, and the winner gets to take 50 frames away from another girl. Teyona sucks, but the next four girls do really well, especially Fo. Then there's poor, awkward Natalie. Celia sums it up when she says, "She just feels like she has to be hot while doing everything. She doesn't quite go all out, and she ends up looking... silly."
Judging from The Js! Yay! Let the bitchiness ensue! Teyona forgo there was a camera there. Allison got it. Celia kept blocking her own face. Fo's body was great, but her face was "a big question mark." Natalie looked like a can-can dancer. Aminat moved her body well but her face was awful.
Fo wins! Huh. I thought it would've been Allison, who gave good body and face. Clearly the fix is in because The Js want to see if Fo disses Teyona right back by taking her frames away. And she does! HA! Hell hath no fury -- never forget it! Oh yeah. It's every bitch for herself now.
Tyra Mail! "Tomorrow you will enjoy the fruits of your labor." Celia says, "A photoshoot with men feeding us grapes, yea?" I hope they're dressed up like the Fruit of the Loom guys.
Oh, and here we go between Teyona and Fo. Teyona's like, "I'm honored that you chose me to get frames taken away because that means you know I'm competition. But if it was me? I wouldn't have shot your ass down."
And Fo's all pouty, "You shot my ass down last challenge."
Teyona says, "So that's why you did it? If you're still mad, you should've told me last week."
Fo says, "It's over. So what." And then there's boring back-and-forth in half sentences that basically boils down to -- they are not BFFs anymore.
The girls meet Jay at a pavello, which is "a neighborhood originally built by the poor." Jay asks if they know who Carmen Miranda is and reference Chiquita Banana, whom Teyona thinks is "Chica Banana." *sigh*
The girls will be dressed as Miss Miranda and must embody the sex appeal that she made so famous. And Natalie is like, "Finally, something I'm good at!" I am so tired of her.
Sutan the make-up guy tells the girls that Carmen Miranda was one of the highest paid entertainers of her day, which is something, considering she was both female and Latina. Allison asks if she died a normal death. Appropos of absolutely nothing, except her morbid fascination with blood.
The crew goes to some ghetto street to shoot the photos, and I can't shake the feeling that they're somehow exploiting these poor people by using them as props.
Anyhoo, Aminat and Teyona talk smack about Fo behind her back, except that it's more just to the right of her and totally within hearing range. Fo is all, "Screw you, bitches." This is totally going to mess with Fo's shoot today.
Celia is good in her shoot, but not great. Allison comes alive and finally was something other than a woodland creature. Natalie does her whole shoot sitting down, and the photographer loves it, but it looks like all the same pose to me.
Aminat shuts herself off when she comes to set. Teyona does really well since learning how to smile without looking like a denture cream ad. Fo is "Carmen Miranda on crack as a drag queen," according to Jay. In short, not good. She definitely needed the extra frames.
Tyra Mail! Judging! Holy bananas, "America's Next Top Model" is in over 120 countries, according to Tyra. Day-um. So they all look at the girls' photos.
Aminat looks good but not great. She needs to take more chances with her posing. Tyra calls it "101 Black Girl Model Pose. Holla!"
Paulina: Aminat, you are beautiful. And you are boring.
Aminat: I'm not boring!
Paulina: Well, not as a person -- as a model.
Boy Aminat is really taking it on the chin today. I hope she doesn't go home. She's still my fav.
Nigel says of Natalie's photo, "I don't think it's particularly extraordinary. We've seen this sexy, sultry look on your face the whole time."
All the judges pile on the Natalie Is Lame Express, and then Natalie makes the fatal mistake of argueing with them. She tells them that she was getting great feedback from Jay, so essentially, it's Jay's fault that her photo sucks. Can we get Jay in here to defend himself, please? I wanna see he and Natalie throw down!
She continues that Jay told her to do the same exact thing for 50 frames, and the judges are SO not buying it. There's lots of cocked eyebrows and scrunched mouths. The Queen is not amused!
[By the way, there is no picture of Natalie in her Brazilian garb on the CW website. Weird.]
Celia is lacking spark.
In contrast, the judges lap up Allison's little puddle of cuteness like a fat kid eating cake.
The judges call Fo on looking too much like Carmen Miranda in her photo and not making it her own.
Teyona looks like an editorial version of Carmen Miranda and very at-home in her surroundings.
Deliberations!
Natalie hasn't "pushed the envelope" at all. Her entire body of work is boring, boring, boring. By comparison, Allison has kicked it up a notch.
Fo is more of an actress than a model. Aminat is everything a model should be, except that she can't model.
Tyra says of Celia, "She's 25," [gasp of horror from Paulina] "But in her close-ups, she looks my age." Hee! See? I told you, Tyra!
Teyona "took a nice picture for a change," says Miss Jay.
Allison gets her photo first, which means she's the judges' favorite and gets to be digital art in the house. Next is Teyona, Fo and Gramma Celia, leaving Aminat and Natalie in the Bottem Two.
Natalie is wow-beautiful but uninspiring. Aminat has the best body, but her fierceness is stuck up in her head. Luckily, Tyra thinks she can bring it out of Aminat's head, so she stays. YAY! Natalie can go home and resume ordering the servants around!
Natalie gives Tyra a begruding hug, and you can see the loathing in her face. She gives each of the girls a quick, one-armed hug, and... is that a knife she's holding in her other hand?
Next episode: go-sees and a bikini-clad photoshoot with Nigel.
And you guys? I think I'm a week behind on the episodes, but I've stopped watching them on t.v., and the CW doesn't update their site often enough!
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TiVo
Posted by: Hope at May 4, 2009 12:44 PM