Open on the girls, because there are no boys. Korto is sad for Jerell, but oh, well, at least she’s showing and that’s what matters the most to her. We quickly flit to the Blowfly work room. Tim’s proud of everyone. They have to edit their collections down to only 10 looks. But not now. Now we’re going to cast models.

A rapid recap of model casting: Korto needs big hair. Leanne is particularly fond of some random little girl who looks like an alien. Kenley is advising Leanne as to who she should cast. Leanne wants Kenley to mind her own beeswax.

Back to the Blowfly room for Tim’s walkabout and the editing of the collections. He begins with our Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong, and asks again about the ropes. Kenley isn’t using a quarter-inch cord, people, she’s using an inch thick black hawser. Every where. Wrapped around necks, binding on necklines, accents between materials. It is pretty horsey. Kenley tells Tim that she’s going to put Topogigio in the feather wedding dress as her final look. Tim reminds her that the judges already saw it. She replies that they saw it and LOVED it. Tim asks if that’s really what she got from their critiques, and she lunges for his throat. “Yah, what? You think that they called me a knock-off? They’ve done that ,like, four times and it’s in-SULT-ing. I’m sick of it.” Then she interviews that it’s just too damn bad that that know-nothing Tim Gunn didn’t like her ropes, because she does and she’s keeping them and that’s that. Period. As Tim walks away from her, the façade falls for the briefest of moments and we see him arch an eyebrow and roll his eyes. It’s reality show gold. No, it’s reality show platinum.

Korto tells Tim that because Heidi said she wouldn’t be caught dead in either the wedding dress or the bridesmaid’s dress, she’s going to toss both of them and make two new dresses in the next two days.

Leanne still has work.

Collier Strong and the hair/make up consultations. Korto wants nature. Kenley wants a cherry red lip and her models to look like porcelain dolls. Leanne wants clean and modern.

Model fitting. Kenley disses Leanne’s color sense. Yeah, I know. Leanne disses Kenley’s hand-painted fabric, and calls it Holly Hobby and like someone’s kid painted it. It’s amateurish. Leanne has a point.

One day to show and the models get their test hair and make up. Kenley talks trash about Korto. Tuh-Tuh-Tuh-Tia comes in for her fitting with her pocket puppy and the little thing takes a poop right near Leanne’s work station. Tia cleans it up while still wearing her gown. Leanne has a nervous breakdown, and nothing happens to the dress. Kenley gets ugly about the little tiny dog and demands that it not go near her or her work. Honey, doggies have a sense about people. I don’t think it would willingly go within thirty feet of you.

Day of Show (finally)

We see the tents at dawn. Kenley takes a stroll down the runway and cries about how proud her parents are going to be and how her tugboat driving daddy will think this whole thing is “rad as hell”. Hmmph. Kenely is then seen being rude to her staff of assistants. Imagine that. Kenley then trumpets on about how beautiful her work is, and how amazing her models are and how she is fer sure gonna win.

And we’re off. Heidi comes out to announce the fabulous guest judge, and it’s J.Lo… who has called in sick (or indifferent) at the last minute, so the guest judge will be…Tim Gunn. We get another moment of reality show gold as the cameras cut to backstage where Kenley has a moment of realization that she’s spent the past twelve weeks being an utterly disrespectful twat, and that maybe she should have had a better attitude. Brilliant.

Kenley’s show is first, and she is using some weird industrial drone for music that makes it impossible for her models to walk with any rhythm or beat. The ropes are horsey and the colors clash. Also, although I haven’t seen anyone else say this, that first look with the too-short in front, oddly long in back skirt with the tent-striped underside reminds me of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo’s work. Most of her work is not to my taste, but I do love the pale shirt-waist dress with the mandarin collar, full skirt and single line of badly painted flowers. We see Kenley’s family and it appears that she has a twin sister and her mother looks like Amy Sedaris when she’s in her Candy From Strangers make up. Woof.

Korto comes out, cries a little and asks “Don’t I look hott?” And she does. Her show is beautifully styled, with the models wearing fake Japanese-inspired buns and holding little fans. The colors are vivid, and the integration of her large-scale beadwork into the dresses is innovative and exciting. Bianca (the stank ho from some season or another of ANTM) is looking fine and works the hell out of the microscopic green dress she’s presenting. Dani (Winner of some season or another of ANTM) is looking even better and is wearing an amazing evening dress, whose strap is the beadwork.

Leanne’s collection is last, and it is the most cohesive of them all. She is working with a tight palate of colors: ivory, tea, aqua. The line is a complete collection of separates that don’t necessarily look like separates, but she has skirts, shorts, pants, tops, evening wear and cocktail dresses. Her inspiration (waves) is obvious as the flaps and noodles move on the runway. It really is amazing work. The wedding dress is maybe the most beautiful thing to come out of PR since Laura’s grey evening gown with the chartreuse beading. She has chosen a watery-sounding techno for her music.

After the Show

We see Fern Malis complimenting Kenley. Oh, NOES! Korto is voted fan favorite and gets the big check. Oh, GOOD.

At Parsons the judges fill a little airtime with empty chatter about this being the year of the women and how every one of them had their own point of view and blahblahblah.

Michael Kors tells Kenley that he liked her collection. He calls it charming, not a word usually associated with Kenley. Tim says that her workmanship was good. NinaGarcia says that the flowered dress looks like Balenciaga. Kenley says that she heard that a lot today, but that she wouldn’t know because she NEVER looks at anyone elses work.

Korto is complimented for letting her heritage show without resorting to clichés. NinaGarcia says that she made it look effortless and cohesive. They rave about the long green gown. Tim tells her that her short (and one of her last minute additions) taupe dress looked “sublime” on the runway.

Leanne’s workmanship earns a “divine” from Michael. NinaGarcia raves over the fact that Leanne put everything into the show: shorts, gowns, etc. Then we get the criticism of the look. Michael says that he’s afraid that she’s going to be known as Petals Marshall (great porn name,BTW). NinaGarcia frets over what a show of 40 pieces would look like.

The designers each say why they should win. The only notable reason is that Leanne’s collection was at least 50% sustainable (green) fabrics. We get one more round of judges chatter: Tim says that Kenley needs to take a fashion history class. Korto makes complicated look deceptively easy. Is Leanne a one-note designer? Korto understands women of all sizes and shapes and can dress/design for them all. The fan poll comes in for Leanne for the win, a landslide at 50%.

Heidi announces that they have decided. Kenley, you have a great future, but not here. You’re out. Kenley leaves with a display of the same class she showed throughout: It’s bullshit. I should have won. I’m not a copycat, I’m a true artist.

Leanne wins, and Korto cries. Chin up, Korto. You won fan favorite, and you have probably already gotten at least half a dozen offers from high-end designers.

And another season comes to an end. Will there be another? Will it be on Bravo? Stay tuned.

A special tip of the wingtips to my GirlCousin, who sent me this one. Turn it up and sing along. I agree with everything, except I think the RLA and I are bound for New Zealand if this election goes to the McPalin ticket.

Previously on Project Runway, Kenley was a stank bitch, Korto fell apart and Jerell won the evening gown portion of the competition, but was still eligible for elimination, proving that anybody can get screwed over by ratings at any time.

Heidi comes to the runway in something sheer and poofy and possibly by Christian Siriano. The four designers will have to go home and make a collection of 10 looks. They will have two months and eight thousand dollars. And since they all sucked in the last challenge, one of those ten designs must be a wedding dress. That dress should sum up their collection, and will be the deciding challenge when they return to New York. One final cut will be made and only three designers will compete at Fashion Week.

And they’re off. Jerell sits in the lobby as Stankenley pulls her suitcase past and refuses to say good-bye to him. She delivers a final interview where she says that the other designers hate her and the feeling is mutual and they all sabotaged her and blahblahpoorpoorpitifulme. The other girls reach the lobby, there is much hugging and loving, and they are sent away to make the magic happen.

Tim’s On the Road, Again

First stop, Little Rock, Arkansas, where he meets up with Korto in her super-cool studio in the woods. She says that she’s inspired by the snakes and the trees and the beautiful shades of green around the studio. She’s also inspired by her native culture. She is accessorizing with her own beadwork (which is very nice).

She shows Tim a lime green snakeskin dress that is extremely form fitting and which has a vulva-shaped inset in beige in the girly-bits area, and the whole thing is so overtly sexual that Tim gets a little unsettled. Of course, Korto doesn’t see it. Her wedding dress is not looking like a wedding dress, and Tim thinks there’s a lot of work left to do.

Korto takes Tim to her home to meet her family, and there is a review of her emigree background. She says that the experience taught her that just because you fall, you don’t have to stay on the ground. She and her drumming partner perform a drumming session for Tim. There are nice looking cocktails on the table.

Next stop: Portland, Oregon and Leanne

Leanne welcomes Tim to her home and introduces him to her sort of nerdy boy friend. Then she tells him that when she got back to Portland, she went to the waterfront and sketched and sketched. Her inspiration for her collection is wave patterns and how she interpreted the movement. Her color palette is tight and limited, but in a very ethereal range. Tim is concerned that the white is too white and suggests that Leanne tea-dye some of it.

Her wedding dress is stiffer and less flowing than the rest of the collection. Tim reminds Leanne that the wedding dress is the make or break piece. Then Leanne takes Tim for a ride through the woods on a tandem bike. Tim is still in his suit. It’s sort of, uh, awkward. But sweet. Leanne tells her back story: baby ballerina, started making her own costumes, wanted to be a designer since she was twelve. Sweet.

Los Angeles, Here Tim Comes

Jerell has grown a goatee. He’s hotter than ever. He takes Tim to his studio where we see piles and piles of fabrics, each one more glittery or ugly than the last. Jerell is into mixing textures and unexpected colors. Or, Jerell is color blind. I think we should look into that possibility. His wedding dress is beige and grey and rouched and tulle poufs and beaded bodices and everything else he could throw at it. Tim thinks that Jerell needs to edit himself. He’s also unhappy with how asymmetrical the wedding gown is. Tim cautions that the collection needs to be believable, and not look costume-y.

Then it’s off to meet the family. Pretty people (especially the love interest. Damn.) Jerell’s mom says that she always knew Jerell was going to do something in the creative field. Jerell says that when he was four, he took a tube sock and cut it up to be a dress with a train. I’m not sure if it was for him or a doll. Very sketchy. Jerell’s daddy was a truck driver who was never home because he was working to lift his family out of the neighborhood they lived in (Rodney King riots were literally next door). Jerell cries.

Back in NY

Kenley is working from her studio apartment in Brooklyn. She has a sofa that’s either from Urban Outfitters or Anthropologie. I recognize the black and white print, at any rate. The editors attempt a redemption arc by letting her say that she really values everything Tim has to say, even if her snotty attitude and eye-rolling and “what does Tim know”-ing makes it seem that she doesn’t. She tells us that her grandmother was a calendar girl, and shows us a photo that is clearly the inspiration of everything Kenley has ever made. She cries and picks her nose.

Tim comes in and gushes all over the wedding dress, which is, as much as I hate to say it, totally amazing. There is a feather bodice and peplum that explodes into a huge tulle skirt. She’s got some green thing on a mannequin, and has accessorized with black rope wound several times around the mannequin’s neck. This squicks Tim right out, and he asks Kenley about the noose thing and if she had given any thought to the fact that it might look like someone was hanging themselves. No, she hadn’t and of course it doesn’t look like that. Her daddy was a tug boat captain and she grew up playing with rope. She has no friends or family to introduce to Tim. (Figures)

And We’re Back

Korto arrives at the Atlas first, and is nervous about seeing Stankley again. She doesn’t want to have to room with her. Fortunately, Leanne is the next to arrive, and she and Korto stake a claim on one suite, together. Jerell shows up next (without the hot goatee) and the girls apologize for making him room with Kenley. He asks them to check on him once in a while to make sure she hasn’t killed him in his sleep.

Kenley finally shows up and as she’s dragging her suitcase past the others, throws back over her shoulder, “Yeah, sorry if I was a bitch or whatever.” It’s as heartfelt as it’s gonna get, people. The sponsors arrive with champagne and nibbly bits and so, to bed.

In the BlowFly Workroom

The designers unpack and check out each other’s work. Tim comes in to give them a final pep talk and ruin their lives with one more, final, last challenge. Let’s make a bridesmaid’s dress to go with your wedding gown. One day to have a nervous breakdown, and $150 to spend at Mood. Let’s roll. Leanne knows exactly what she wants to do and the colors and fabrics she wants to use. No drama to see here, let’s move on.

Back in the workroom, Kenley is digging at and picking a fight with Korto, who just ignores her. Jerell is miserable and says that all bridesmaids gowns are butt ugly. Korto says that hers weren’t.

Tim comes in for the walkabout and starts with Kenley, who is doing a dark blue bubble skirt and a darker blue boat neck top, with the same cut away armholes she used on her Solo in the Spotlight lizard dress. I find the skirt way too short.

Jerell has mangled some slate blue crispy organza into a column dress with a sash decorated with a stem of silk orchids. It is bunchy and wrinkly. He tells Tim that he’s going to use what looks like ivory acrylic bulky-weight knitting yarn to attach the silk flowers to the dress. Tim is very properly horrified at this suggestion and tells Jerell not to fight with Mother Nature. Or NinaGarcia, says Jerell. Or NinaGarcia, agrees Tim. I love Jerell, but he has thrown this challenge in the toilet with that bridesmaids monstrosity.

Tim discovers that Leanne has taken his advice regarding her wedding dress and completely remade it. Now it looks like an origami meringue, and I say that in the most respectful and quite frankly, awestruck way possible. Her bridesmaid’s dress is the perfect compliment, and Tim tells her to bring thought to the length of it.

Korto has pretty much given up, too and her bridesmaid’s dress looks a lot like the wedding dress. Too much so, says Tim. And then, our man Tim Gunn starts to cry. He loves them all, and he wants them all to do well. Tim’s never cried on the designers before. What’s all this then?

Runway Day

Jerell dresses funny. That’s all I’m saying. The designers all look like five miles of bad road. The models are coming in for hair and make up. Kenley complains to the camera that when she looked around the workroom, she saw that both Korto and Leanne copied her paper. Those big cheaters made short bridesmaids dresses, too. Just like her. They knocked off her design. Remember that. There is crying from Korto. There is Heidi in another sheer blouse that looks like a Christian Siriano.

And there is the show. Jerell’s models come out, and the girl in the bridesmaid’s dress is wearing the rest of the potted orchid on her head. Oh, Jerell. The colors are gorgeous, but the whole thing looks like he dug it out of the bottom of the dirty laundry hamper.

Kenley’s wedding dress is still amazing and gorgeous. I still don’t think the two pieces work together and the bubble skirt is still about 6 inches too short.

Korto’s dresses don’t look like a wedding party. Leanne’s wedding dress is stunning. And it has pockets. I love it, but what do the judges have to say? And there is no guest judge, just Heidi, NinaGarcia and Michael Kors.

They love Leanne’s dress, too. NinaGarcia calls it “chic, modern and dreamy.” MK loves it and Heidi declares it “Fan-TASST-ik”. Jerell’s dress, though, not so much. Michael loves the wedding dress from the empire down, but the rest he finds garish. Jerell says that he finds it regal. See, this is why drag queen is a bad phrase for designers. Not all queens are regal, sweetiedarling. And the flower pot on the head is certain death to Jerell’s dreams. NinaGarcia thinks the colors look dingy and dirty.

And now, Kenley. Well, they love her wedding dress, and Michael says it’s fabulous but it’s also Alexander McQueen. Kenley denies it and reminds everyone that she doesn’t look at other collections. You be the judge.

And then, in the biggest fix since I don’t know: the 2000 election in Florida, Heidi and Michael just gush all over the fucking wedding party, heaping undeserved love all over the knocked-off wedding dress and the too-short bubble skirt. It’s disgusting. It’s crazy good says Heidi, and Kenley is obnoxious in victory, squealing an over-the-top “RILLLLLY????” and dabbing onion juice at her eyes so she can cry without the snot running down her nose.

Korto’s two pieces get a series of disdainful sniffs, snipes and an “I wouldn’t wear that on a bet” from Heidi, and then we are on to the judging.

Leanne’s dress is both architectural and romantic. Kenley’s rip-off of AMQ is a great show finale dress. Korto’s doesn’t look like a wedding and Jerell went hog wild, threw too much of everything into both pieces and lost his last semblance of taste. Despite the audience voting overwhelmingly to toss Kenley off the stage for good, and not let her show her sour puss at fashion week, the final three are Leanne, Kenley and Korto.

Jerell is not down though, as he tells us in his exit interview that he sees himself at 80 getting a call from the Metropolitan asking to do a retrospective of his life’s work. And with that, we are done. Until next week, when we finally learn who wins. And if it isn’t Leanne, then I’m done with this show, too.

Thoughts on last night’s “debate”, if by debate, you mean competing talking points and stump speeches.

According to the LA Times, McCain used the phrase “my friend(s)” 24 times in 90 minutes. If you allow for the questions and Tom Brokaw reminding them of the agreed upon time limits, that would be maybe 35 minutes of talking time for each candidate, which means that John McCain referred to me as his friend on average of once every 85 seconds. It got on my nerves. There is no way in hell that he and I could ever be friends in real life.

Another annoying verbal tic on his part is that simpering, self-deprecating snigger (heh, heh, heh) whenever he says something that he thinks is clever. It reminded me of nothing more than Mickey Mouse, who does the same thing. In the same octave and register. Make of it what you will. At one point I turned to my husband and said, I would never let that man near a grade-school playground. He is very creepy. The RLA said that he thought McCain would scare the children. I was thinking something a little more sinister.

My man Barack Obama has his own little verbal ideosyncracy, which is no less annoying: He begins his statements with “Look.” And I understand, I do, I sympathize with someone who had to be the smartest guy in the room last night, trying to make a point to those who would not see…or hear. “Look, it’s really simple” is what I’m sure he wanted to say.

The faces on the crowd members ranged from “I’m smelling something nasty” to “you gotta be fuckin’ kidding me with this shit, right?” And yet, there was that control group, sitting there talking to the talking heads and professing that they still couldn’t decide who to vote for. Like there’s a choice? It’s the economy, stupid. And the economy is in the giant, reeking crapper. And that propped up rotting corpse with the FemBot Veep in the wings, waiting to bring on the End of Days has been in the catbird seat for thirty years. Keating Five. The Great Recession of the late 80s-early 90s that resulted from the deregulation of the S&Ls. Sort of the dry run for the Even Greater Depression that we are careening into today, as a result of deregulating the traditional banking industry.

I’ll tell you something else. I don’t give a flying rat’s patootie if drilling off the coast of Florida would solve all of America’s energy problems tomorrow and for the next 100 years. It would fuck up the environment irrevocably long before that. I don’t want drilling in the Gulf or the Atlantic or in the Florida Straights. Period. Stick a few hundred wind mills out there, instead. Figure out hydro solutions with the tides. Put solar panels on the roof of the new Marlins Stadium. But no drilling off-shore.

I loved the question from someone on-line who said what would you ask the American people to do, to sacrifice to help the various challenges the nation faces? Obama almost came close to having concrete answers to that. Finally, what ever happened to real debate? You know, pro/con? Lincoln vs Douglas style oration and on-your-feet thinking? I’d pay to see that, but I fear that I’ll never see that kind of political exchange in my life-time.

The best political reporter today is an ex-sports writer. But he’s not afraid to take off the gloves when dealing with the Fem-Bot/Stepford Veep. Twenty-three Skidoo!!

I tried to watch the Veep debate, I really did. I played Palin Bingo, and was a single “Working Mom” away from winning when she delivered the punchy soundbite she’d set up the minute she walked on the stage and asked Senator Biden if she could call him Joe. That zinger, that you know McSame pundits just pissed themselves over was this: “Say it ain’t so, Joe”.

“Say it ain’t so” is a line from baseball legend, the apocryphal tale of a small fan asking Shoeless Joe Jackson if he had, in fact, been involved in the plot for the Chicago White Sox to throw the 1919 World Series. Yeah. 1919. Except for baseball junkies, and movie goers who saw the film “Eight Men Out” (which was the movie we went to see the night the Anti Christ and I split, and he moved out, and which, in my head will forever be “Nine Men Out”), who knows what that phrase referenced? In terms of archaic humor, this little guy is a whiz-banger. Twenty-three skidoo!

Next, instead of saying “yer darn tootin’” or one of her other patented down-homey colloquialisms, Ms. Palin will be exclaiming that her running mate is the bee’s knees. I can’t wait to see them cut a rug, maybe doing the Turkey Trot or the Charleston. Good lord, how pathetic is this? And they’re claiming that Obama and Biden are out of touch? Let’s practice speaking McSame, shall we?

“That Sarah Palin is a bearcat in cheaters.”

“She tried to sound like she knew her onions, but it was all a load of chewing gum.”

“John McCain is a flyboy who keeps saying things are jake, but he can tell that to Sweeney.”

Your turn. To help, a list of Jazz Age slang can be found here.