America's Next Top Recap: An Uncomfortable Fit

Last week, I wrote about how happy I was to see Hannah crash Marjorie's pity party. (Though maybe Hannah should've been worrying about herself since she got kicked off 20 minutes later.)

This week, Marjorie's insecurity was the main source of drama in the house. However, given that Marjorie's Debbie Downer act received a significantly higher amount of screen time than in weeks past, I was surprised by the fact that I actually found myself siding with her more than I was with "Git-r-done Samantha."

Don't get me wrong, I still think that Marjorie (pictured, left) needs to do whatever it takes to get over her self-esteem issues or perfectionism or whatever you want to call it. I also don't buy for a second the justification by Paulina that Marjorie's European upbringing is part of the problem (see one of my all-time faves, Natasha from cycle 8). As you may have guessed, I'm not European, so I can't understand her plight.

Mostly though, it was a pleasant surprise to see Paulina have Marjorie's back on the matter because, as much as I love Paulina on this show, affection and sympathy haven't been two of her trademarks during her season and a half on the show. Also, I believe Marjorie is a strong enough model to make it far in this competition, assuming she ever gets out of her own head.

This all came to a head during the mini-meltdown Marjorie had during the week's challenge, which was to make unflattering catalog clothes look flattering using random items (I hadn't even seen a clothes pin in years thanks to dryers). I figured that shoulder pads could pad other areas besides the shoulder, but who the hell knew that water bottles are a perfectly good substitute for ass.

I thought the girls would have to do a better job of hiding all the jankiness in the back, but since this was a two-dimensional challenge, McKey took the top prize because she made every part of her outfit more flattering. On the other hand, Samantha, who takes good pictures, but is kind of a sweet idiot when it comes to every other aspect of modeling, altered the outfit to the point that it was unrecognizable from its original form. That's great, except that anyone who ordered the outfit would feel completely ripped off. Oops.

Back at the house, Clark obnoxiously crowed about her victory more than any other winner (we've seen) so far. I should've definitely seen her fall coming. I guess I was distracted by the slower, more gradual decline of Joslyn, who got more and more stressed out about her performance in photo shoots.

After a typically confusing and scary introduction by Mr. Jay, who was dressed as a monster (I still say he looked scarier last week when he was accidentally dressed like a woman), the girls learned they'd be posing as L.A. natural disasters. Sounds like a fun idea, right? The only problem was the contestants were also inexplicably wearing 60's mod fashions. The show should've either gone all out and made it a natural disaster challenge or made it a 60's mod challenge. Either option would've been better than the uninspiring mash-up we got last night.

The best of the bunch were Samantha who got-r-done as a tidal wave and McKey who didn't even need the extra 50 frames she received as challenge winner, but was sort of victimized by the meh photo Tyra picked for her.

The worst were Clark (LOVED Paulina telling her that she seemed to be more into her own legs than being a blackout), Elina (can she do anything else other than smoldering/sultry) and Joslyn (truly the worst of the bunch. Also, for the second week in a row, I didn't get the praise for Analeigh's photo (what was with the hair dryer?)

Clark and Joslyn landed in the bottom two, and the judges decided to keep Joslyn based on the strength of her personality and early photos. They also could've kept Joslyn based on the fact that Clark doesn't really look all that model-y at all, but whatever reason they want to use works for me. Her elimination was worth it if only for the quick reaction shot of Elina trying not to look devastated.

So what'd you think of this episode? Will Elina find someone else to faux-make out with? If these contestants are really going to be doing 90% catalog modeling, is the title of this show a farce (like everything else about the show?) Don't you wish Mr. Jay had directed the photo shoot in his monster outfit? Finally, I first noted it last week, but what's up with the fact that Sheena's portfolio is still not back on the "Top Model" site?

(NOTE: I didn't forget to link to the photos that I liked and disliked. I also didn't get lazy on you. They just weren't up on the site at the time I wrote this.)