America's Next Top Recap: Wrap Artists

So how long until they officially change the title of this show to “Walmart Presents: America’s Next Top Model.”

Two weeks ago, Rachel mentioned that she worked as a cashier at the superstore (maybe she’s back there now, seeing as how she was cruelly eliminated in the middle of the same episode) and Laura admitted last week that she often treats the Walmart aisles as her own personal runway.

I realize TV shows have to pay the bills, but last night the product placement was more egregious than ever.

With the Walmart sign gleaming brightly behind his head, noted fashion photographer/pitchman Nigel Barker and his wife Crissy took entirely too much time introducing the week’s makeup challenge. Or maybe it only seemed like this portion took forever. All I know is that whenever they start talking about makeup on this show, my eyes glaze over and I take a mental nap the same way I do when Collier Strong gives one of his hair tutorials on “Project Runway.”

The girls would run from station-to-station in the empty store and acquire clothes, shoes, makeup in a mad dash to the finish line (that no one could find). The musical chairs-style catch was there weren’t enough items for every girl at the stations, so they had to hustle.

Erin, especially, got into the competitive part of the challenge. At one point, she grabbed little Sundai’s arm and yanked her backwards as they were both running. Towards the end of the race, she had gotten a hold of Ashley’s photo (which they needed to advance to the final station) and, rather than give it t her competitor, she threw it behind her on the floor.

Let’s break it down. I actually don’t mind the picture incident. It’d be silly of Erin to stop what she was doing and help Ashley win. The Sundai arm-yanking, however, is unforgivable. Erin complained afterwards about the rest of the girls not understanding the concept of a race. Well I understand the concept of a race perfectly — you try to get somewhere faster than your competitor. There’s no tripping, or pushing or any other sort of physical contact - that would be playing dirty. All I know is that if I’m racing someone and they put their hands on me, we’re gonna fight. Karma agrees with me because Sundai ended up winning the challenge and a $1,000 Walmart gift certificate.

In what passed for drama this week, Erin gave a tearful-yet-half-hearted apology on the way to the week’s photo shoot after Ashley kept harping about the race, and had rallied Bianca and Sundai to her cause. This continued the great tradition of black girls ganging up to make a stunned, overmatched white girl cry on “Top Model”, but it also made me feel like Ashley is kind of a major whiner/bully herself.

Speaking of the week photo shoot, Tyra was (literally) revealed to be this week’s photographer. She would be taking beauty shots of the girls — beauty shots are apparently petite models’ bread and butter — in which the emphasis would be on their faces thanks to being wrapped in brightly-colored head scarves.

Thanks to Tyra being the photographer, we got an early dose of her craziness (pictured, right). The highlights included her confusing “Lord of the Rings” with “The Wizard of Oz” (for the record, Gollum says “My precious” not “my pretty”) and describing Bianca as a verb instead of a noun (meaning that she CAN model, but IS NOT a model — I actually would flip those around). My favorite moment was her repeatedly yelling “Model through your mishap” to Brittany as the wind machine whipped her scarf all over the place. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind seeing “Model Through Your Mishap” on a T-shirt.

Brittany ended up earning best photo of the week, but I actually liked Nicole’s a little better. (Still, Nigel’s right about her needing to show a different pose). I also thought Rae’s alien-y shot was stronger than Erin’s.

My least favorites included Ashley (it looked like she had a cool blue aura, but getting the shot proved to be entirely too much work). I love how Tyra didn’t tell Ashley that she was stinking up the photo shoot out of fear of shattering her confidence, but that’s what ended up happening anyway. I also didn’t care for the photos from Bianca (unable to soften her face once again), Kara (TOTALLY on cruise control from last week’s win) and Jennifer (the judges, including guest China Chow, fawned over her screamy picture, but I thought it was scary in a bad way.)

Not surprisingly, Ashley and Bianca would up in the bottom two. This was Bianca’s third time in the bottom two, while Ashley was the girl who Tyra handpicked to be in this competition after spotting her in the audience of her talk show. Who do you think got eliminated?

Truth be told, Ashley was probably weaker last night, but it wasn’t exactly heartbreaking to see beastly Bianca go home. Especially not when she gets to pack her bags to the new-ish, indescribably horrific, Auto-Tune-riffic exit music. (Auto-Tune, this show is so current!)

So what’d you think of this episode? Any sponsors out there want to purchase the naming rights to this column? How long do you think Tyra was standing there wrapped in those cloths waiting for someone to unwrap her? Finally, what exactly was the point of revealing the top photo a day early? (Honestly, it’s not like Brittany got to sit out the judging panel and watch TV back at the house or anything.)