We open in the kitchen, with Whitney, who is opining as to how happy she is to be there. Lauren exhibits some serious Dittoheadness and allows as how she is very happy to be there, too. Stacey Ann is happy and doesn’t want to leave. O, editors, have you gotten as jaded as the rest of us? We haven’t even gotten to the first commercial and there is already foreshadowing of doom? Happy to be here, happy to be here, doesn’t want to go home. Which of these three girls will be packing their bags by the end of the episode do you think?

But wait! Here is Fatima, reminding us that she is not a US citizen, and thankfully, not reminding us of her special condition i.e.: her female circumcision. But really, and come on, who, having heard about it once, can ever forget it? In any event, her lack of citizenship is noted because she is also, somehow, without her travel papers, and she’s thinking that it’s about time to leave the country or get thrown off the show. One or the other. And I think that I speak for a lot of us when I say that getting thrown off the show is sounding pretty good to us right now.

Finally, Anya says something about something. There is a lot of debate on the intarwebs about Anya. Is she foreign-born, but not allowed to be Slavic/Eastern European because we already have one of those in Katarzya? (Sort of like Nic wasn’t allowed to be gay because they already had Kim cast as the lesbian in that season) Or does she speak pidgin as a first language? Or is she deaf or born of non-hearing persons? Does she just have a weird-ass speech impediment or a really weird-ass accent? We’ll never know, I suppose. But she needs sub-titles.

Finally, we are gifted with some action. Paulina comes to the loft and this elicits much high-pitched squealing from the hamsters. She is here to do the interview and mingle lesson that all top models need. She will practice with them as they pretend to be at a fabulous party. She will be Miss Dubois, the owner of a cosmetic company. They must impress her. Anya goes first and except for the fact that nothing she says is in the least bit understandable, she does well. Stacey Ann comes up next and grovels over Miss Dubois’ line of moisturizer. Dominique-inique-inique blahblahblahs on and on for about thirty minutes, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Paulina’s eyes glaze. Keep it short, she says. Whitney had blank eyes.

Next we play pretend red carpet and the hamsters must think on their feet. This will be hard. It’s bad. It’s so bad, that we cut to the kitchen, where Lauren and Whitney are going to make potato pancakes, or latkes, as my people say. We get a close up of Lauren being as graceful with a kitchen knife as she is with her big ole size 10s as she Frankenlopes down a runway. This is not boding well. And, sure enough, she slices through her thumbnail and thumb. She’s pretty stoic about it, and the producers haul her off for this season’s emergency room visit. Me? Every time I do that shit, I’m cursing like a longshoreman. But Lauren just sucks it up and goes.

Back to Fatima and her consulate telling her that she waited until the last minute to get/replace/deal with the missing papers. Insert Casablanca joke here. I am impressed anew with how truly terrible Fatima’s skin is. Where’s the dermatologist they had for Yaya? Respeto! Well, whatever. Back in the living room is a huge gold box, containing… lemons, limes and an invitation to a 7-Up green carpet event. Whitney blahblahblahs about being plus sized. Yeah. We get it. You’re a big girl. Bitch, you are still younger, prettier and thinner than me, so stick a sock in it already, OK? Well, her problems are solved, because the doorbell rings and in comes a big old rack of party dresses and a stylist, all courtesy of one Jay Godfrey, who is the subject of this green carpet event. Or is it diet 7-Up? The product placement is making me dizzy. Unless it’s the carbonation.

Fatima is too stressed about her

bad skin

missing visas to unclench long enough to look pretty. It doesn’t matter, because they have to go and work the carpet and the party. Don’t forget to mention who designed your dress! Rock on, little hamsters.

Anya tells the interviewer that she (Anya) is an inspiration. To what? To whom? Why? Who says? Dominique-inique-inique says that she’s wearing Jay Georgio. Which she isn’t. Oopsies. Lauren is looking hot with an enormous thumb bandage and probably a fair amount of pain killers on board and answers the question of why she should be AMTN by saying that she could just kick the shit out of the other girls in the house. Works for me. Whitney, on the other hand, says that as a Normal Sized woman, who eats like a Normal American, she should be the winner. And off they go to the par-tay, where Nigel disses Whitney with a “wots all this then?” Lauren shmoozes Nigel and Ric Ocasek (with whose work Lauren is actually familiar, and thereby earns even more of Miz Shoes’ love). Nigel is impressed. Ric is too, but that’s the last we’ll see of him.

Stacey Ann interviews that she has this one in the little beaded handbag because she is aces at selling herself. Indeed. She’s up on some platform, announcing who designed her dress and shaking hands all around and telling everyone that she’s from Miami and geez, I’m exhausted just watching snippets of her. The editors are over her too, so off we go to the judges telling us what they thought.

Anya was charming. Eh? Dominique-inique-inique didn’t know her designer. Lauren needs to lose the potty mouth. Why? Works for Kate Moss. Stacey Ann charmed no-one and over thought everything. So Anya wins, and Whitney’s face falls because she clearly thought that she won just for keeping the girls covered in that horrible metallic blue, cut to her pipik, trash bag Jay Godfrey stuck her in. What does Anya win? A photo shoot for Diet 7-up that involves being “natural” (aka nekkid) in a bunch of leaves and lemons and limes. She gets a check for ten thousand dollars and a basket of lemons and limes for her troubles.

Salacious-D has Cover Girl ad. And she tells us that now that she’s a role model and everything, Cover Girl has dragged her ass down to the courthouse and made her register to vote, something she hadn’t bothered with before now. Miz Shoes doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry, thank or curse Cover Girl for this. But they’re pushing the vote, so I have to fall on the side of thankfulness, I guess. Unless there was some subliminal message to vote Republican that years of jaundice over the state of the union caused me not to see.

Well. Anyway, Fatima gets a meeting at the consulate through the auspices of the show’s producers. Which is a good thing, because the next scene is the hamsters squealing (again) over some Scrolling Tyra Message that leads them to believe that they’ll be heading abroad in the next 24 hours. Squealing. Packing. Fatima wandering around like a zombie. At 5:30 in the morning the girls and Dominique-inique-inique are hauled off to an airport with their carry-on luggage. At 7 a.m. they find themselves on a tarmac with a mini-jet. Squealing. Excitement at flying away in a tiny little jet plane. Somewhere close, I should hope. You couldn’t shove Miz Shoes on a plane that size and expect her to fly to Europe. Nuh-uh. No sireee. No freaking way. Bermuda. Maybe. If we had enough fuel to by-pass the triangle. But it doesn’t matter, because the only place the hamsters are going is hair and make up because it was a FAKE OUT!!!! Except for Fatima, for whom it is a freak out, because she has to take her spotty face back into the city and try to convince the consulate to issue her travel papers. Unless she can find Ugarte and his letters of transit. Unless he’s already given them to Rick. In which case she’ll have to try and get them before Victor Lazlo.

I digress. It’s a group shot, and each girl and Dominique-inique-inique will get a chance to be the star. There is a vintage theme to the shoot, and our photographer is Bill Heuberger. They must be finished and off the tarmac by 3 p.m. Tick tock tick tock. Will Fatima make it back in time to participate? Will Fatima get her travel papers? Will the audience give a rat’s ass? Lauren struggles to look excited while the pain killers are wearing off. Stacey Ann is from Miami and has never experienced the cold, bitter wind that blows across a NYC tarmac, or maybe it’s Newark. In any event, her eyes water to the point where they have her posing with tissues. Whitney was too dramatic and pageanty. Mr Jay says that Whitney is backsliding. Anya is thinking outside the box, whatever that means. Dominique-inique-inique is giving us “remedial posing 101”. Remedial. Not even just Posing 101. She sucks, in other words. And we are done. It is three and we see Fatima in a cab, trying to get back to the shoot.

The girls and Dominique-inique-inique finish up and go into the hangar, where they find the judges! OOOOOh. Drama llama. There will be an elimination. Right. Now. But where is Fatima? says Miss Tyra, ever astute and alert. We are one girl short. And in straggles a ratty-looking Fatima, who must take her place in her puffy anorak next to the models with hair and make up and wardrobe. Sigh. It is not good for Fatima. Fatima, she is worried. The audience is cued to worry by showing other seasons where, for one reason or another, a girl skipped a shoot and was sent. home. This is the season of surprises, so our surprise judge is Mr. Jay, and the surprise foreign destination is… a surprise! We aren’t going to tell you. Neener-neener.

Katarzya had a great 1960s shot. Lauren did something that resulted in Miss Jay or Tyra (I get them confused) saying that she was “living for the tippy toe on the extended leg.” She was also great at the party and she nailed a 1940s look in her shoot. Nigel says something vaguely pervy about bringing the party girl to the judging. Dominique-inique-inique nailed it for the first time. (Oh, shut UP. That dog nailed it for the first time before he was 15.) Stacey Ann was too fake at the party and oversold herself and she had a lousy shot at the plane, too. Whitney gets praise for her “natural” pose and then ragged on for the next five minutes for being too pageant and too fake at the party and just a big old fakey faker. Stop smiling, beeyotch. Anya is praised, on the other hand, for being herself and letting her weird speech thing hang out at the party and being so lovely that nobody cared that she can’t really speak English. Or anything else. She also stole the whole photo shoot today.

So. The judges deliberate thusly: Katarzya has legs for day, but they can’t remember her. Dominique-inique-inique is given high praise for NOT looking like a man in this shot. Lauren is loved by Mr. Jay and Paulina. Whitney gets the “stinky personality and too pageant” edit. Is she a Big Girl pageant girl? Wouldn’t that have been mentioned by someone by now if it were so? Stacey Ann is getting weaker. Fatima missed the shoot, so the judges will look at her portfolio to date. And Anya gets the Big Love of the week. Photos go to: Anya, Lauren, Dominique-inique-inique, Katarzyna and Whitney. Fatima and Stacey Ann stand side by side, waiting for the ax to fall on one of their dreams. Fatima disappointed everyone by not being prepared to go overseas. She didn’t participate in the shoot. Stacey Ann, on the other hand, had her papers and a lousy shot. She’s not getting any better, and she’s not getting on the plane. Buh-bye Stacey Ann. Maybe that WAS you I saw crossing Biscayne Boulevard the other day.

So everyone get on the plane! We’re going abroad! Oh, not you girls. You ride coach. The judges will take the private jet to ROME! And the helacious squealing commences once more. Next week? Fatima gets sick and Dominique-inique-inique proves that languages are not his strongest suite.