Once more into the bitches, dear friends. The Number Three Surrogate Daughter arrived, the popcorn was made, and Miss Tyra commenced torturing the dumb and the ghetto and the delusional and the just plain weird. We begin, for no apparent reason, at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. The #3SD and I anticipate all sorts of torture, in which the clueless hamsters are made to strut like showgirls with a stack of books on their heads. Alas, such is not the case. The theme this year is Fierce Goddess, and so, with much squealing, the girls are all given gold gladiator heels and micro-mini togas and told to work it.

There are profile shots. There are unusual names: Fo. Aminat. There is the first runway, where the fog machines are working overtime, and the girls are told that they are walking on clouds. Clods, maybe. Clouds? Not so much. We get our first view of our first whack job: her name is Monique and she’s a conspiracy theorist. In the few minutes we see her, we get the Tri-laterals, the Elite, that Pearl Harbor was a set up to get the US into a war and a tin-foil hat. Just kidding about the tin-foil hat. Up next, London and her twee little brow-band. London is a street preacher who wants to praise Jesus all day and stomp the runway all night. Miss Jay says (and rightly so) that she looks more like a street walker than a street preacher. Miz Shoes and the #3SD look at each other and decide that London will be falling the day she has to get naked for a photoshoot, and we hope that it’s the first challenge.

Someone in the pack voices that OMG, here come some “staunchy dudes” and they are escorting in Tyra. This sets off another round of squealing. Tyra delivers (and by delivers I mean hams it up with a bad accent and worse “acting”) the back story that the Goddess of Fierce (herself) is tired and retired and seeking a new goddess to take over. Yeee-ah. Ain’t gonna come from this crew, darlin’. Unless it’s that 8-foot tall glamazon with the afro there in the back. Holy mackerel, is she hott! And tall. And she seems capable of walking in heels.

Angelea has three-inch long blue acrylic nails. She’s this season’s cha-cha diva, I think. She claims to be from Buffalo, but she talks like any other ghetto-girl-wanna-be, with the vague accent of somewhere and the chonga earrings and the plastered down side bangs. And a jaw like Jay Leno. She is rough. On to the interviews.

Sandra is first, and she is black and beautiful. When Tyra tells her this, she totally breaks down in tears. London shows her street preaching skillz. Jessica has an ego. Tahlia has some wicked ass scars over her belly and legs. When she was 8 months old, her mother left her alone in the kitchen with a coffee pot. She pulled the cord and pulled the pot down on herself resulting in major burning. Many surgeries. She is proud, she says, of her scars and wants to be a role model. She has the face of an angel, so good luck. Monique comes in and delivers another lecture about Pearl Harbor and government and what not. In her bikini, she is revealed to be stoop shouldered to the point of looking like a scrawny yet pot-bellied question mark. She will not be staying. Mark my words.

Natalie is a spoiled rich bitch. Animat is our glamazon. She is 6’1” and she does indeed walk in heels. Combined with the afro, she guesses that she rolls at about 6’7”. And she is just drop-dead beautiful. If she can keep it up, she’s our winner. Some hamster has panic attacks. Celia has a Really Bad Blonde bleach job, with bleached out eyebrows to match. She’s our oldest hamster at 25, and that hair and her bad makeup combine to give her that Rode Hard Put Up Wet look we all love. On the other hand, she knows her shit about fashion, and she can even twirl aswirl. And she dresses like a model. With the right make over, she could be another contender. The next girl collects gimmicky pens, and has brought some for show and tell. Tyra is not impressed. Tyra is less impressed when the girl can’t name five working models, or five current designers.

We next see another white ghetto trash talker, this is Alex from Tampa. She’s making Angelea look classy. Isabella has Julia Roberts’ smile and epilepsy. Fo is a little gummy when she smiles, has freckles and self-identifies as a Blaxican (black New Mexican, but she didn’t know she was black until she was ten or so and met her dad for the first time. I’m guessing mummy didn’t talk about him much.) Angelea has to take off the chonga earrings and the My Little Pony wig, and she still looks like crap, but she has a great set of stems. Kortnie is our marginally plus-sized girl. Allison is a lemur.

She looks like a Keene painting or a Japanese anime and she has a fascination with blood. She tells Tyra that nosebleeds are beautiful. Tyra says that she used to get them as a child. Allison says, with a valley girl inflection: Jealous. The seismic tremor you feel is the entire viewing audience getting the shivers at the same time. Eww. Teyona is tall, black and tight. She will now be known as Wind In Her Face. She is declared to look fashionably alien. If you say so.

In order to whittle down the numbers to a lucky 13 (it being Vegas and all) the girls are tossed back into their goddess gowns and given a goddess to portray. There is the usual elbowing at the makeup table. There is a horrible bitch-fight between Sandra and Angelea (of course). Angelea has given herself magenta cheeks and eyes. She is attempting to be the goddess of love, but she says that, and I am not making this up, “Sandra has been trying to pull my buttons” and so is not feeling the love. Pull. My. Buttons. Where do they find these freaks girls?

With this photo shoot in hand, the judges (Hi Nigel. Call me) bring it down to: Aminat, Allison the Lemur, Isabella, Celia (2 cups of crazy in her eyes, says Miss Jay), Fo, Jessica, Kathryn (who is the goddess of who knows what), Kortnie, Someone whose name I missed completely, LondonPraiseJesus, Nijah, Natalie, Sandra and Tahlia (not skinny, not plus and scarred.)