Tension convention

We've been talking about this over at Tracey's cyber hacienta... and now, it's time for the spam to hit the fan, y'all. Forget fierce: there may be an actual throwdown in the apartment between the models.

Background - Tahlia had a rough week and doubted her place in the Next Top Model competition. She then went out and won the week's photo shoot. Celia, however, waited until they got to the model going home and jumped up to say that Tahlia should be sent home. Smiling faces, sometimes they don't tell the truth.

Tyra called nonsense on it, of course. And speaking of calling nonsense, I call it on the guest coach, Beth Stern, who chirped "You're all winners in my book!" after the challenge. Well, good for your book. Here in reality, only Natalie was the winner. London was a close second, and the rest were awful. Jeepers, girls, you got to pick the pictures you were emulating, and it was still mostly terrible. "Remember the face!" says Mr. Jay. "Give us some face!" Strike a pose, there's nothing to it.

Alison is still my favorite person this week. "I have these big eyes, they're on my face, they're not going away." Heheheheh. She is trying. She recognizes that they are a great gift, but they also hold her back sometimes. her challenge pics are poor.

Hey - Prince has a new album at the Target. Even the commercial sounds completely terrific.

So, yeah, the throwdown: there's so much going on here - starting with Animat saying that she's going to go take care of her business. Of course, it's Tahlia's business, but that isn't stopping Animat any more than it stopped Celia. Alison gets dragged into it, "It reminds me of why I hated high school," she says. "Tahlia makes this speech from the stairs... it's was a little too 'Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul' for me." Ha! I wish she could channel that in the photo shoots. Natalie is unimpressed: "When she's struggling she wants to go home, and when she does well suddenly she wants to stay?" Animat gets into Natalie's face and there's the sublime and ridiculous scene of someone standing inches in front of someone else calling them "Stupid," repeatedly. Missy, that ain't a mirror, you can stop embarrassing yourself now. Take my advice, I'm only trying to school ya...

Oddly, after the near Gorgeous Ladies of Modeling rumble and the challenge, we find Celia and Tahlia chatting like actual adults. Apologies, explanations. Celia is "100% certain" she'll be sent home this week, and that's not unreasonable, unless somebody really collapses in the shoot. Sandra kind of lived down to that mark, I think. So did Alison. And Celia was very good in the shoot. Hm. This is going to be veeeerrrrry innerestern, innit?

So who embodied colors the best, y'all? Aminat did green all right; Natalie was orange, and was kind of, well, round and pumpkinish. Tahlia gets ad hoc fashion advice, and we see her "violet" - looked better in the picture than in real life, they say. They tell her they have to make the photographer catch up with her, not lead her around. Then they have to ask about the late unpleasantness. She's honest about her discomfort, and they're supportive. This is one heck of a show. They're handling this great.

Celia follows. She embodied practical grey, and they liked the picture. Didn't mention last week. Teyona (yeah, sigh) was yellow - Tyra drops a hope and change comment. Yeah, sigh.

London, blue, made the judges feel her color, but in a bad way - they were kind of sad for her. Alison's pink picture impresses the judges, but they all note a lack of range. All the same picture. Please, change things up, they say. Sandra embodied white, and there's a lot of "no power" and other generally blah things to say. Uh-oh. Fo was red, and the judges are quite complimentary. The photographer pays the ultimate compliments to Celia and Fo - couldn't shoot enough of them, wanted more frames.

I think Fo wins the week, and Sandra is in huge trouble, especially after being bottom two last week.

Bing! Fo is your winner. Teyona is second, Tahlia third. Celia is getting hurt by last week already. Aminat is fourth. Alison is fifth. (Those unearthly eyes are going to carry her far.) Celia's picture was certainly better, but Nigel said it in judging - he's finding it hard to even deal with her. Natalie and London are also safe.

Sandra - lovely girl, beautiful pictures... and her second consecutive look at the bottom. Celia, again, good shots and great style, but last week dynamited her career.

Tyra keeps Celia in. "Don't mess with another girl's money," she warns. "I'll be damned if I let anyone do that to one of my girls. Your picture saved you." Consider the boom lowered. If that warning shot had been any closer Celia would be short half a boat. She takes her singed pride and shuffles back to the crowd. Sandra, who was not that great actually, packs up and takes herself off to Delusion Central - I'm the best girl here, I shouldn't be going home. Well, while you're saying that we're looking at all of your pictures from the past five weeks, and yeah, you kind of do deserve it. Boo-bye.

And the pity of it? Sandra eliminated Kortnie (yeah, sigh), who was much the more interesting and pleasant lass, and whose "immigrant" picture was actually pretty good. And she wrote a heartfelt letter to her erstwhile housemates - which was completely ignored this week amid the mass hissy fit.