We took last week off, but we’re back with a double dose of America’s Next Top Model. Let’s get it started with last week’s episode!
Samir: “The Guy Who Gets a Hickey”, hmmm this sounds promising!
Ava got best photo last week and the Tyra suite- “It’s so nice!” – Really that highlighter yellow is nice how, exactly? And being stared at by Tyra’s photos to boot!
Margaux: Maybe Ava has run of nightmare fuel to help her sleep, so she thinks the room is soothing.
Bad omens all around Dustin and we’re what, 3 minutes in? He’s the only one to engage with Nyle, but he’s also the youngest one who is perceived to not take modeling “seriously”. Being accused of not taking modeling seriously is the equivalent of spouting off about how you’re not here to make friends.
Samir: I love the times that the show chooses to show Nyle using the text-to-talk function on their Opioid phones (or whatever they’re called) – To Dustin: “You are not ready for college” because he sucks at beer pong. But yeah, Nyle saying that Dustin is the only one in the house to communicate with him and try to learn sign language, has a sad air of defeat. Maybe we will be wrong? But lo and behold, this nice scene transitions roughly to Bello and Mikey having a screaming match over something inconsequential. Have they been there long enough in this cult house for the smallest things to irritate each other to this degree?
Margaux: Time goes by at a different speed when you’re trapped in the Top Model house, so I think Mikey and Bello fighting is right on cue. Just as the multiple, ugggh inducing, ill-advised hook ups are starting that doubles as the root of Bello’s fight with Mikey, and by proxy, Ashley (and her moaning, gross and/or ick). I appreciate Bello being straight up by saying he’s “spiteful” if he doesn’t get his sleep, but the amount of weaves flying, on dudes no less, made that fight even harder to take because you can’t tell who is whom. Thanks grainy night cam!
Samir: They have also started an anorexia storyline with Courtney too, as Mikey worries about her “not remembering if she ate.” Big UGGH. You never know when the show is just manipulating a situation or actually has an eating disorder on hand. But the challenge this week is another old chestnut of the show, rocking your flaws, or being “flawsome” as Tyra once called it. Only the models get to pick out their flaws and then choose what to fix in post, thereby eliminating the reason for the challenge? And does Mikey’s shot look very much like a crazy hillbilly from that Rob Zombie movie?
Margaux: I guess meth’ed out hillbilly is en vouge again because Mikey’s photo nabs him the mini challenge win. Which I guess just means Mikey was the best of the not so great, especially when you compare Mikey’s “flawsome” comp card to Justin, who somehow FORGOT to photoshop out his very visible hickey. Not very J-Smooth, if you ask me.
Margaux: Also, Yu Tsai half confirms your anorexia storyline hunch when he and some suit from Next Model critique Courtney for her pronounced rib cage.
Samir: Project Anorexia Awareness on ANTM is a go! Two mentions in less than 20 minutes. Ironic that Dustin is criticized for not airbrushing out his smile, and for having one at all. When he says he’s just a happy person so it shows, I see him not wanting to look unhappy to move ahead here. Seriously, criticizing someone for smiling-shouldn’t that natural smize be appreciated here of all places??
Margaux: Smile with your eyes, not your mouth! Duh, Samir.
Welp, Mikey and Devin are really trying to outdo each other this episode for biggest asshole, and we thought this would be about a hickey. Surprises truly do abound.
Samir: Clearly Courtney is the target for all the horrible personalities in the house. And of course the bullying storyline has come into play now, as they all gang up on her and wonder why she cries alone to get away from them? It’s just like that poor Dani B from Naked and Afraid , who was pushed back into her clothes and a diet of regular meals from when her group all took out their lack of food and sex on the sweet girl. Only the desperation of this survival contest seems far more vicious than venomous snakes in the Costa Rican jungle. This jungle has wannabe models to contend with, sharper fangs and all.
Margaux: Nyle comforting a crying Courtney in the shower as the entire house audibly shit talks her as if she’s not crying in the shower in a towel in the room very adjacent to theirs, was one of the most depressing scenes in Top Model history, congratulations Tyra!
Samir: To cap it all off, their lessons in retouching leads to a photo challenge where…there will be no retouching. Mikey announces he looks natural anyways, and he wishes all his photos were untouched. I wouldn’t go that far-can we retouch the smarminess and brush out the serial killer vibe in the cock of your head?
But what is with these 80’s patterns meet football uniform outfits?? They look like something Christina Applegate designed in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. What did you say they reminded you of?
Margaux: Xanadu; it’s 80s roller rink chic from space, aka Xanadu. But I also agree with your Don’t Tell Mom note, I could see one of those models whipping up trouble in those boots.
Samir: Right on over the backyard swimming pool. Thank you Katrina!
Margaux: Regardless, it’s pretty silly looking, like they’re about to bust into some step-and-repeats at any given moment, one-and-two-and-three-and-four!
Lacey especially is giving me Olivia Newton John realness, child!
Samir: Let’s get physical…with Nyle. Dustin does not fair too well, and the editing and more featured tears from Courtney tell us she didn’t do too well either.
Margaux: Even though they put emphasis, again, on Courtney being shaky and possibly hungry, Yu Tsai feigning concern for Courtney only really means she’s gonna turn out a fierce photo. But based on the feedback from the others, Hadassah and Dustin will be seeing each other in the bottom two this episode. Hopefully Hadassah’s face will be in focus this week though.
Samir: So Tyra says this week’s challenge was about “Retouching, or not retouching.” So she doesn’t even know what this week’s challenge was about. But she has brought back another old chestnut- “TENSION” and apparently Nyle, Justin (J-Smooth) and Hadassah all need it. I get plenty tense around Nyle already, but maybe she has a point. Maybe. As Addison deWitt said in All About Eve “An idiotic one, but a point.”
Margaux: Ha, Tyra seems to make A LOT of those.
Luckily Hadassah’s face managed to be in focus, but that doesn’t help much, and that word tension gets dropped once more with feeling. Rut roh. Meanwhile, Dustin gives one of his best “faces” to date, but lost his neck and height in the photo as a result. These two are marked, EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM HADASSAH AND DUSTIN, THEY WILL JINX YOU!
Hate to admit it, but Devin’s photo was the strongest one out of all the dudes.
Samir: Gurl please, he still looks way less amazing than they give him credit for-I would not by what he was selling, even if it was antibiotics and I had malaria.
Margaux: Out of the guys – Justin was called ‘a sack of potatoes’, thanks Kelly; Nyle is still trying to figure it out, Mikey just literally hides behind his hair, Bello’s creepy vampire is not working – Devin’s picture had movement, at least.
Samir: He gives me sci-fi horror face, I normally love that, but maybe he’ll grow on me.
Margaux: Devin’s personality will see to it that he doesn’t grow on you. It’s just one photo in an entire episode of him being more unlikeable than Hadassah. It can’t or won’t last for Devin (let’s call it your can’t and my won’t); I think it is the sci-fi horror face that I’m really responding to, but the pool of guys in general has a lot of work to do because Lacey deservedly wins photo of the week. Followed up by Mamé, whose photo was also remarkably strong. Get it ladies!
Samir: Yes Mamé is living for her Diana Ross hair and it looked amazing all fanned out in her shot. Even with the unfortunate outfit. Boys better beware! Side note- what is happening with Tyra’s Joan Crawford hair, and Miss J is still going with these braids?
Margaux: Let’s just say I wouldn’t be shocked if Tyra announced her unisex jumpsuit line.
So, another dude bites the dust as Dustin is sent packing, whomp whomp. Shoulda gone to prom and walked in your graduation, bro.
Wanna talk stars?
Samir: Of course the one who looks happy doesn’t belong in a modeling competition. We should have known that if Dustin missed his graduation and his prom to be here, the exquisite agony of eliminating him after he’d missed those events was bound to occur soon, as it has before on this marvelous show. I say 4.5 stars.
Get more, more, more America’s Next Top Model talk by subscribing to our podcast, We Were Rooting For You!
About Author
