In episode two, the girls go back to school. Or go to school. They also get schooled in walking by the dragalicious Miss Jay, are forced to hold a “fashion show” on the school basketball court, and do a photo shoot of high school cliches: bad girl, teacher’s pet, class clown, unpopular loser weird girl, class ho, class brain, class jock…

You know, I hated high school so much that even reliving it like this makes me queasy. Let’s just say that I was the class weirdo, except much better dressed.

In what must surely come as a surprise to you, Renee whines and bitches and cries. Jaslene exhibits amazing powers of self-delusion, Natasha still doesn’t understand English and Jael proves more and more endearing to me.

So. First we have Tyra mail, and in what must be a first after 7 seasons of ANTM, the girls figure out the clue: even babies learn to do this. Instead of the usual crickets chirping, we hear some girl sing out “WALKING LESSONS!” And where better to have that than at a high school band practice where Miss Jay explains that high school marching bands are known for their precise choreography and fine, high stepping. Uh-huh. Where I came from that translated into precision milling-about-smartly. But I digress. The girls get dragged off to the track oval and are given directions for walking in groups of three. I had had two cocktails by the time we got to this point, and I was chatting with RJ and MJ, and I have no discernible sense of rhythm (unless I’m standing in front of the amp banks at a rock show and you’d have to be dead not to feel the rhythm) and I can still tell you what that complex routine consisted of: Three girls start. The middle girl stops at the half way mark. The two girls cross at the end of the catwalk, stop & pose, turn and go back up the cat walk to the middle girl. They stop and the middle girl goes to the end of the catwalk, poses, turns and comes back. When they are three abreast they all walk to the beginning/end point on the runway. Next three girls go out and do it all again.

I’m sure you will all be shocked to discover that this was way, way too complicated for a couple of the girls. For the other girls, this was just a floor show for dissing the rest of the girls: cackling and crowing about how they (which ever one was doing the speaking at the moment) had the Very Best Walk and the rest of these girls are pitiful at best, and borderline epileptics at worst. Miss Jay critiques the girls and this results in Natasha thinking that he said she was a “Martian.” What he said was that he didn’t know if she was walking or marching.

Then they go inside to the gym to repeat their steps in a “real” show featuring (and I’m not kidding, but Oh. My. God. how I wish I were) Prom Dresses through the ages. We see monstrosities from the eighties and would someone please put that decade out of its misery already and stop dragging its rotting zombie corpse back to torture humans with eyeballs? Metallic fabric, bows bigger than ponies, attached to any body part not in need of a pony-sized bow and puffy sleeves to match.

There were dresses that theoretically came from today, but I couldn’t see much difference, and then the third sweep down the walk is defined as “ghetto fabulous” and consists of skin-tight micro-skirts, cowl necklines that plunge to below the girls’ belly buttons, a lot of animal prints and a certain touch o’ ho. Sara works it so well that her boobs pop out of the six-inch wide neckline. Jael opines that Sara’s boobs escaped and that she found it very liberating for Sara and she’s proud for Sara that it happened next to her (Jael). See why I love Jael? She is so…funny. Funny ha-ha. And maybe, yes, a little “funny”. But who among us would be secure throwing that particular first stone?

Samantha gets to wear some itty-bitty thing that she felt should be burned because it wasn’t a dress, it was a blouse and boy-howdie, she wouldn’t have been allowed to go to the prom in Alabama lookin’ all hootchie-mamma like that. Renee claims to have been amazing, and she was… in the way that watching the space shuttle blow up is amazing. Renee does not like hearing that she was unaware of the other girls on the runway with her (and the difference between that and her normal level of awareness of other people is what?) and says that it didn’t matter what the judge thought, the audience ate her up and loved her.

See. The audience were high-school students, and really and come on, who cares what they think? Except the other high-school students who, the last time I checked, weren’t the people in charge of ANTM. But I digress. The winner on the catwalk was Britney, who really is beautiful in a classic sort of way, and doesn’t appear to be a ho-skank like the last Britne

y we had a couple of seasons ago. Britney wins a trophy. It is a least four feet tall, looks like a high school basketball trophy, except instead of a little metal b-ball player on the top, there is a gold stiletto pump. I squee’d a little bit and told RJ that I so want the trophy. There’s plenty of time till my birthday, sweetie.

Sara voices over that the trophy is “redonkulous” and thereby wins love eternal from RJ and me because that proves that Sara reads Cute Overload.

The next day, the girls go back to the school for a photo shoot where they do the whole cliche thing. To get these looks, Mr. Jay has brought in the official hair stylist for Clairol’s Herbal Essence line. She says things like “This will give you perilously straight hair.” She says it with a perilously straight face.

The girls all have to pose as “types”, Sara is the class flirt and Samantha is the class ho. Sara nails it, Samantha almost passes out from Mr. Jay’s art direction (put your hand on the inside of your thigh like you’re masturbating). And I’d just like to say right now that Mr. Jay is less orange and a lot funnier this season. And also, maybe, doing better art direction. Maybe. It’s only week two. Jaslene is magnificent as the weirdo, but lemme tell you, when Nigel says to send the photos and not the girl to casting because the girl can’t get the gig, but the girl in the photos can… I’m just thinking that Jaslene won’t be in at the finish.

Britney is dressed like a fat frump as the valedictorian, because we all know you can’t be smart and have fashion sense, the cheerleader shot looks a lot like the ho (letter sweater, but no shirt and the sweater is wide open.) and I still don’t understand why there is both a bad girl and a ho… they were pretty much the same in my high school, but that was 30 years ago, so maybe everybody specializes these days. The girl who everybody calls BabyTyra does well as the jock. Jael rocks the house as the nerdy bookworm. Natasha has no clue what the words “teacher’s pet” mean, and says that they don’t have that in the Soviet Union. Diane (one of the two plus sized girls) is stunning as the class president. Renee has to be the class clown and she blows chunks. Then she complains that it wasn’t fair that she had to play against type when nobody else did and then she cries. (RJ: “I’m going to send her a wheel of cheese to go with that whine.”) She also whines about having the other girls on the set, and why didn’t they ask her if that was alright? She almost pops a vein when the photographer suggests she get some posing advice from Jael. RJ and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

There is an interlude at the house where we see pixelated nudity (Jael) and horseplay and what not and we see Samantha sniveling about being all alone in the house and how she just isn’t very outgoing. MJ astutely notes that “sure you are, you’re going out of the house.”

Finally, we get to judging. Predictably, Jaslene complains that the other girls are already dissing her, Natasha mistakes the comment that she was the hardest girl to art direct since Ann the Man for a compliment (“I remember Ann, she was one of the most beautiful girls on this show ever.”) and Renee rolls her eyes at everyone else’s compliments. In the end, it comes down to Natasha and Samantha and MJ proves to be right. Samantha is out going the door back to Alabama, where she’ll never have to pretend to be a lesbian or ho again.

Next week is makeover week. Squeeeee!