Project Runway Rundown: Out of Style

Sometimes I swear that reality show contestants have never watched a reality show in their lives.

Don't they know that, especially on this show, when you're forced to team up, you should never EVER volunteer to be captain. Sure, if you win, you get a nice little notice a bit of goodwill that will last you maybe one more week. But you still have to deal with managing and "leading" people who are your competitors and, eventually, want to see you go down. Also, if your team fails, you're probably going to be the one to go home.

Well, at least Victorya (pictured, left) seemed to know this.

How else to explain the apparently bossy Queen Victorya not stepping up and accepting leadership of her team, which consisted of Ricky and spacey Elisa, but still trying to run things behind the scene. Sure, it's decent strategy, but it's also extremely gutless. And I hate gutless people. Now I kinda can't stand Victorya. I liked her better when the most interesting thing about her was the stupid way she spelled her name.

After Jack inexplicably switched models with Ricky (homeboy did NOT have a good week), the designers met up with a "familiar face" who brought along some "old friends". And although it turned out to be Nina Garcia and the designers would be working with garish fashion don'ts (like neon, shoulder pads and pleather), they all seemed considerably less horrified than when they had to simply design menswear.

There WAS a nice little twist when Nina announced that they would be partnering up in teams of three. Even though they claimed they tried to team up based on what looks would work together, it seemed to me like people mostly just got together with whoever was in their immediate vicinity (like when you needed a lab partner in high school).

Some of the highlights from the teams working together included the revelation that Ricky can apparently speak "Elisa", as he was able to communicate with her because he's a dancer (hokay). Jillian, who was voted team leader because she's actually into some of the crappy fashion trends they were working with, fretted about Kevin's ability to finish denim shorts. Eventually Kevin came through, though I was disappointed that he didn't attribute his achievement to him being the only straight guy in the competition.

On the other hand, some of the lowlights included Victorya undermining Ricky's leadership at every point (and Ricky being too weak to stand up to her). We also got Christian being cocky some more. He's a good designer, and he makes me laugh just by looking at him and some of the ridiculous things he says, but he's cocky as hell for a designer who's pretty one-note. Also, Steven busted out a truly pathetic Tim Gunn impersonation that left me missing Santino's brilliant take a whole bunch.

In the runway, Jillian's team took the week's victory (I think I actually saw Christian shitting a brick), while Chris was taken to task for not making his collection cohesive (and for a truly awful non-"update" on shoulder pads). Ricky's team joined Chris' in the bottom two, and the judges said Ricky's design was the weakest in the collection (personally, I thought Victorya's superhero-ish outfit was worse).

This was probably the most entertaining judging portion this year as Victorya and Ricky went after each other a bit, though thankfully Victorya DID give Ricky credit for pointing out that maybe squishing her models boobs wasn't the best idea in the world. Then when Heidi asked each designer who should go home on each team, I loved how Elisa refused to pick anyone other than herself (you know you're in trouble when Elisa is the steady one on your team). Also when Sweet P hesitated, I liked how Heidi got momentarily scary when imploring her for an answer.

Eventually, it came down to likable Chris and Ricky. Although Chris's outfit was worse, I kinda expected Ricky to go home, since he's been near the bottom three out of four weeks. Even though I like Chris, I felt he deserved to go home because, you know, his outfit was the worst. Also, the judges smartly recognized that Ricky's outfit probably suffered because he sort of had a horrible team.

So what'd you think of this episode? How many more lives does Ricky have? Isn't Sweet P, and her flustered, self-deprecating demeanor CLEARLY the most endearing contestant on there, now that Chris is gone? Finally, what do you think the big emotional revelation involving Jack will be next week?