America's Next Top Recap: Statues and Limitations

I don’t possess a good enough vocabulary to describe just how pathetic the final five’s performance was during go-sees last night.

In fact, if it weren’t for a truly cool photo shoot, this probably would’ve ranked as one of the Worst.”Top Model”. Episodes. EVER.

All the ingredients were there for a brutally forgettable hour: mostly uninteresting contestants doing uninteresting things (how much footage of these girls wandering around and sweating must there be on the cutting room floor?) and a painfully-predictable outcome. Not only did the typically-effervescent Chris (pictured, left) repeatedly doubt herself at the top of the hour, but Kayla was there to helpfully remind us for the second week in a row that “Chris is not high-fashion.”

The girls met up with Tyra at IMG modeling where she gave the contestants a quick tutorial on how to build their portfolios. Believe it or not, I find this kind of thing interesting because it gives Tyra the credibility we often forget she has because she acts and dresses like a looney tune so much of the time. Plus, I learned something too: in Italy, they’re called “go-and-sees.” (I said I learned something — I didn’t say it was interesting.)

Each of the girls had four hours to visit four fashion houses. (Remember this: FOUR hours to visit just FOUR fashion houses that are apparently within reasonable walking distance of each other.) As soon as Tyra revealed that one of those fashion houses was Versace, I predicted all the girls would stupidly go there first. (A better idea would be to go there second, since EVERYONE was going there first — you’d at least have another go-see knocked out.) Jane teamed up with Chris, and Ann tagged along with Chelsey and Kayla even though it appeared she wasn’t invited.

Chelsey basically won because she was the only person to make it to two appointments, and because she made it back in time. Jane and Chris made it back about an hour and a half early, but neither booked Versace. Chelsey didn’t book Versace either, but she at least booked her second job. Meanwhile, Kayla is probably still trying to find her way bag to IMG as I type this. Chelsey’s reward was a Versace jacket, which you can was real…”not a knockoff.” (Thanks for the heads-up Kayla.)

Speaking of Kayla, between her second “Top Photo” honor in a row, and Chelsey’s passion and knowledge for the world of fashion and modeling, as well as her growing momentum in the competition had me thinking that they could seriously challenge Ann for the crown. But then I saw how Versace guy’s eyes lit up when Ann walked in the room and he said she was the only one he would book. (Alas, Ann was disqualified for tardiness). That exchange reminded me, “Oh yeah, there’s no frickin’ way she’s not winning this thing.” (Apparently, it also turned me into a guy from Jersey.)

On to the week’s photo shoot which had the girls made up like statues come to life by the love of their sculptor. Or as Kayla preferred to think of it, “EWWW, boys!”

That being said, I have to give her credit for sucking up her discomfort for the second week in a row and delivering a strong picture. I actually don’t think she looked as “alive” as she should’ve, but her body pose was spectacular. (The makeup and photography this week, actually, was pretty terrific.)

My favorite picture of the bunch was Chelsey’s because she actually managed to look like she was taking a breath. Ann also delivered another strong shot, which was easy to predict because she was eagerly engaged in this week’s artistic shoot.

That meant the bottom two was fairly obvious from the beginning. Chris was a lock because she wasn’t high-fashion (thanks again, Kayla), but it was clear she’d be joined by Jane (who went first) as soon as she burst into tears during the shoot. Jane has been criticized for being too stiff and lacking personality, which you think would be great when pretending to be a statue. Instead, it turned out to be a dud.

Coincidentally, it was those tears that convinced Tyra and the judges that Jane cared about the competition (and was capable of human emotion), allowing her to stay. More importantly, Tyra met her quota of “Tears from a ingénue” for the week, which will allow her to live forever.

Goodbye Chris. I hope your aching feet are feeling better. The first instinct when someone tells you that you should be doing comedy when you’re an aspiring model is to be insulted, but I actually think she would be a really good TV host/red carpet personality. At the very least, you’re much cooler than your downer of a sister. (Admit it: you’d forgotten about Chris’ lame sister!)

So what’d you think of this episode? Were the girls’ performance during go-sees too pathetic (which is what I believe) or just pathetic enough? Finally, do you think the show is overly relying on male models this cycle? (Is it because these girls can’t quite shine on their own?)