OPEN: INTERIOR: GIRLS DORM

And just as quickly flash on the boys’ dorm, where the shirtless vision of Little Emo Boy assails us. Oh, please, girl. That is not Rami of the Heavenly Arms, nor is it Kevin. It is weepy Ricky and the best that can be said of this is that he was without the twee little hat. But wait! There’s Rami sitting all backlit and shit, asking Christian how he felt about being in the bottom two last week. Predictably, Christian is in denial that he deserved it, saying that there was such uglier, shittier stuff on the runway and whatever like, he knew there was no way he was going home. And though I am loathe to say this, she has a point. That twittering little queen is most excellent teevee. And then we are swept off to Parson’s where we will see Heidi on the runway, telling the designers about the next challenge. And so she does. The challenge this week is to design an avant garde look based on the avant garde hairstyle of your model. And now, let’s shake things up a little more by bringing out the girls in their little black slips and outrageous hair, and THEN let last week’s winning designer choose her model. Good times. Victorya sticks with her model, but since I’m not keeping track of them, I can only guess by the pissy/pained looks on some designers’ faces when other designers’ call out names, that there is a lot of model switching going on. Ricky is last, and he has to choose between three girls. Since the models weren’t used last week, we have two spares. Ricky makes his choice based on which hair he thinks he can design around and then cries. Are you shocked? And I must point out that he went with an Amy Winehouse on crack (wait, that IS Amy Winehouse).... an Amy Winehouse by way of Hairspray, the Musical bouffant that I would never have chosen in a zillion years.

Back to the workroom to hear from Tim. It doesn’t have to be practical. It doesn’t even have to be wearable. It must be out there. Over the top. Ambitious. Wild. Haute. And because

the challenge is so complex, the designers will have to work in teams of two. Which teams will be chosen at random by Tim via the evil velvet button bag. Bwah-hah-hah-hah. They will need to pick a leader, and decide which of the two hair looks they will work from. And the teams are: Kit & Ricky; Sweet P & Rami-OTHA, Chris & Christian, and Victorya & Jillian. Sweet P is thrilled, and Christian even more thrilled because he has astutely figured out that the only person in the room who can do and has made a career out of doing Over the Top Excess is his new best friend, Chris. Chris, on the other hand, has figured out that for all his annoying ways, girlfriend can sew like a motherfucker, and they’ll be needing all the mad skillz and fast sewing that Christian has been flaunting around the workroom.

There is one half hour to figure those leader/look things out, and then there will be $300 for the trip to Mood. Christian gets to be the leader of Team Fierce, because Chris has watched the show and knows who gets sent home in a team challenge. So does Christian, but for once his obnoxious self-adoration does him a favor. Kit is the leader of her group because, really and come on, is there a question? Little Emo Boy in the stupid twee hat? Oh, puh-leeze, Nellie, he’d break down in tears at the very idea of a decision. Kit says that her models hair looks like a bird’s nest, and that they will be doing garden something. Rami-OTHA doesn’t even give P a chance to volunteer to be the leader because he assumes command and tells her that they will be using his model, her hair, his ideas and his choice of fabric, and his time schedule. And anything else, explicit or implied, that he thinks of between now and when they take their look down the runway.

A DIGRESSION, IF I MIGHT

By now, we all know that Rami is from Jerusalem. He is an Israeli, even if he is not a Jew. I say this because in this episode he proved to be a true Israeli, which is to say, an egocentric, misogynistic, overbearing douche. Ask anyone who has ever known an Israeli man, gay or straight, and they will tell you that last night, Rami of the Heavenly Arms was straight out of central casting. When you see P checking if she has enough cigarettes for another day of working with him? Even if she’d never smoked a day in her life, after a day in the employ of an Israeli male she would have hied herself straight to Nat Sherman’s. I say this as a woman who has done so.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT ANOTHER TABLE

Victorya and Jillian are in a battle to the death over who will become their team leader. Neither is willing to just say no, so it goes to a coin toss. Except that wasn’t a coin. Whatever it was, it landed with the Victorya side up, and she became the team leader. The model they choose to use has a funky-ass Mohawk thing going on and one of the two whispers these words: Apocalyptic Trench Coat. Which is totally the name of my next punk band.

Christian and Chris have a shared vision of 50 yards of organza, cut into hundreds of circular layers and building up the model to an organza Venus Rising From The Waves Clam Shell flying off her shoulder. Flying as in a flying buttress, not as in winging away. Chris is building the superstructure for the flying clam shell out of wire. There’s a wonderful exchange where he says that he’s trying to make an antenna to call out. And someone (P? maybe) asks if he’s trying to contact Elisa’s planet. And Chris says that Elisa left him the instructions. Brilliant. They could come drink and hang with me anytime.

Rami-OTHA is announcing that they will have a corset and attached gown over a pair of fitted trousers. P will do the trousers, because the corset and draping requires the hand of the master and he cannot, as commandant, allow anyone to sully what may be his chance to win big. And then he proceeds to micro-manage Sweet P into an early grave, all the while complaining that he has to micro-manage her and that is eating up his valuable time.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering and dithering and dithering. And fretting. And dithering. And then, just like that, it’s time to go home.

MORNING: DAY TWO

We see P packing up her smokes and wondering how horrible her life is going to be today, and says, ever so politely, that Rami may have heavenly arms, but to work with, he is a total dick. Girl, we hear you. Once in the workroom, P offers a few bits of feedback which are blown off and ignored. Maybe thrown on the ground and kicked a little, too, just for good measure.

Tim comes in and because

the challenge isn’t hard enough, tells the designers that, GUESS WHAT? You also have to send a second look down the runway: the commercial, prêt a porter version of your avant garde look. They will only get $50 and 15 minutes, and only one of them will get to buy the fabric.

Kit says she’ll pick out the fabric and Ricky’ll make the dress. Jillian and Victorya are not even close to being finished with the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (Oh, I love that name. Do you think the band should be Japanese? Like the 5.6.7.8s?) and Victorya says that she feels horror and nausea. That’s funny, ‘cause, like, that’s what she engenders in me! Christian offers to go to Mood because he’s fast. And he is.

Back over on the Gaza strip, Rami-OTHA is telling Sweet P that no, they won’t be using navy as she suggests, and that unless she shows him sketches (and he approves them)  he won’t let her make the dress, either. I wonder if P started biting her nails when she ran out of smokes, or thought about cutting herself with the Olfa? Or cutting him, because didn’t she used to be a biker? Sadly, no blood is shed, and P buys some silver shantung silk. Mmmmmmm.

FITTINGS

The models are sent in for fittings, and we see Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude sticking whickety-whack all over everything while P rolls her eyes and accepts that she is not going to have one word of say in this.

Jillian has nothing finished, and Victorya only has the pants mostly done, but she also has immunity and that’s giving Jillian hives, because if they are the bottom team, she’s saying bye-bye-bye.

Chris says that he just wants to send out a dress that makes the judges’ jaws drop to the floor and never forget it till the day they die. OK. I can accept that as a goal. The second best footage of the night comes next, as Christian gives his model some lessons in how to walk a couture catwalk. It’s all about the broken back and the thrown out hip. Hey, haven’t we heard Tyra or Miss Jay say that, like a million times a season?

And over in the corner, we have Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude brow beating P over her time management skills…or his perception of her lack thereof, and all the while she’s sitting there steadily working on the ready to wear dress. He storms off, and the model pets P’s hair while she cries.

UNDER PRESSURE, PRESSURE, PRESSURE

Surely we haven’t had enough sturm und drang, so Tim comes in with a special guest, Nathaniel Hawkins, the Tresemme guy. He’s there to help them get a street version of the avant garde hair. He’s also there to tell them that the winner of the challenge gets a Tresemme ad in Elle magazine with their models.

Then Tim circles the room, striking fear into the hearts of those wise enough to listen to his advice. Team Fierce (Chris and Christian) he tells that their day look looks cheap and that it worries him. They fret. To me it looks like another version of Daniel V’s winning flower pot pencil skirt and poofy blouse, except not poofy, just ruffled. Tim tells Kit and Ricky that their effort looks very costume-y, and not in a good way. It needs some more work and some more exuberance, because right now it’s looking a little Mary on the Prairie.

When he comes to Rami and P, he tells them that this is another Rami draping exercise and it’s starting to get a little old. This also worries him. Rami tells him that the problem is that he and P think differently, or to put it another way, that she doesn’t know her place and she keeps trying to have an opinion.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering, but Tim is encouraged by the look of their coat…if they can finish it. They are moving as fast as they can, but you know, hamsters in a wheel. They haven’t even started their second look as the day ends.

Rami and P are no longer talking. I think that this may be a good thing, but it’s making Sweet P sweat. Still, having heard Tim dis the draping, she is working like a fiend over the ready to wear dress, so that she will have something of her own to hold up should their team go down in flames on the runway.

RUNWAY DAY

As the girls prepare to leave their apartment, we hear P saying that she doesn’t want to end up in a fist fight with Rami. I should think not, sweetie, we have ALL seen the size of those biceps. Assuming that he uses them, and doesn’t slap fight.

In the workroom, Jillian cuts a spiral of black jersey. The high concept models are already in hair and make up. The designers have two hours for fitting the ready to wear look and getting those girls off to hair and makeup.

Ricky and Kit are making a cute little sundress (or so Kit says) but Ricky is worried that maybe it isn’t so cute and that their haute look is not so haute. (Oh, man, I just couldn’t NOT do that, could I? I’m sorry.)

Christian is bouncing up and down, sure of the win. Jillian has somehow managed to get a dress on her model, but she thinks it looks like an afterthought. I think it looks a little, what with the pink silk plaid edging and funky layers and levels, sortakinda like Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo’s yellow plaid haute couture dress. But Team Last Minute has done a most excellent avant garde look.

On the runway, Heidi comes out in a brown dress with a big old belt, an asymmetrical neckline and some weird-ass bunching in the arm pits to start the fashion show. Judges tonight are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Alberta Ferretti.

First up we see Team Rami’s drape-y, corseted thingie with the long flowing skirt over a pair of plain black trousers, and a great little silver short dress that has very little to do with the haute couture look, but is absolutely wonderful on its own. Go P.

Team Fierce’s model comes out doing the broke down doll and thrown out shoulder, just like Chris taught her and sells the shit out of a giant flounce. And there’s a skirt and blouse with a ruffle to go with.

Ricky and Kit send out Scarlett O’Hara by way of Forever 21 and a forgettable sprigged cotton shift with pockets. As the model exits, we see that there is a ginormous hoop and train with furbelows and bows and whickety-whack that actually looked sort of cool. Well, the one red bow, did.

And in the evening’s shocker, the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (no, really, like punk covers of Broadway show tunes? In Japanese? There is nothing like a dame…with a Ramones’ kind of guitar riff?) rolls down the catwalk like a fucking chrome-plated Peterbuilt. That thing is awesome. I mean, fucking brilliant. Black with a pastel pink silk plaid lining? And oversized lapels? And a white equestrian, bustle-backed blouse and jodhpurs. Where the fuck did that stuff come from? How did they manage to sew all that and we not see even the first glimpse of it? Oh, you evil, naughty editors.

Ricky and Kit, and Sweet P and Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude have the lowest scores, and will be dealt with momentarily. For now, though, we will revel in the gloriousness of the two top teams.

Christian chirps that they wanted old-world romantic, and Michael Kors just comes undone. It is beautifully crafted, he coos. Soignée, even, he sighs. The skirt on the day look is a throw away, but the blouse is yummy.

Victorya and Jillian say that they were going for punk equestrian, and they surely succeeded. When the ATC comes off, and the judges see the little plaid ruffled peplum, they just fall off the director’s chairs. You have three looks here, says Michael Kors, and Victorya agrees, adding, “so we should win.”

The losers are called up to answer for their sartorial sins. Ricky is getting weepy. Rami steps up and says that they wanted to combine corsetry and flowing, like the model’s pleated hair. He admits that he made the corset and gown, and that the pants you don’t even see came from P. NinaGarcia is bored. She says that the judges know Rami can drape, but really, and come on, can he do ANYTHING else? And they say that the little silver day dress was much more avant garde than the same old draped rag he keeps showing them. And much more fashion forward. Then they look at the pants, and say that the model looks like her ass is on her front. P ventures that she wanted to put that fullness or bustle shape on the back of Rami’s piece, but he told her to stuff a sock in it.

Alberta Ferretti disses the Ricky/Kit effort by saying it looks like a cheap Scarlett O’Hara. Michael Kors says that Scarlett took her momma’s drapes and made haute couture, but that what they are showing looks like Scarlett ripped the sheets off the bed and ran out of the house. Schnort. And your day dress sucks, too, he adds.

IT COMES DOWN TO THIS

The Team Fierce of Chris and Christian, despite everyone’s misgivings, turned out an amazing piece of work. NinaGarcia is ready to give it the cover right now. Team Last Minute cranked out something that women would want to wear, says MK, and Miz Shoes says damned straight. Where can I get that coat, and where can I possibly wear it?

Rami, it is generally acknowledged, was a shit and tried to throw P under the bus, but the judges saw what he was doing and won’t let him. Besides, her dress was beautiful. Over on the other hand, we have Ricky, her tears and her stupid little twee hats. And Kit Pistol, who is firing blanks. What they sent down the runway was rank amateur, from start to finish.

Team Fierce wins!!! Christian gets immunity! Christian does the chicken dance of joy. Miz Shoes loves how he worked with Chris and doesn’t hate him anymore. At least until next week.

Ricky gets to keep his stupid little twee hats and stay. P gets to stay. Rami gets to keep his heavenly arms around for our viewing pleasure, even if he was a jerk and a lousy team captain. And that means that poor Kit Pistol gets fired.

Next week looks like the recycled trash challenge again, and Ricky cries and Victorya hates the challenge. As they say on 7th Avenue, so nu?