Katarzynana, na na na na, hey hey hey...

Riddle me this:

Was Katarzyna so boring that the shot above serves as a visual metaphor for her ability to fade into whatever background she's given (even big, ugly, pink bed linen), OR, was she so boring that I kind of had to just take whatever half-assed concept I could dig out of my butt to serve as the intro to this recap?

Hmmmmm.

I have sad news, but don't cry about it. No one else is: for the first time in the history. Of. My. Recapping. Of. America's. Of. Next. Of. Top. Of. Model. Of., no one cried! Whitney came the closest when she was almost eliminated again...

...but you know that you're not going to see Whitney crying until Edna's Edibles burns down again. And no, I'm not just saying that because she's the plus-sized girl. Edna's Edibles had soul; Over Our Heads didn't. Real talk.

So yeah, I can't even know what to say about this lack of tears. Actually, it's kind of a relief - the fewer things to write about, the longer I get to sleep. Tonight, I shall dream of demons playing slot machines and disembodied sex in which I'm not sure whose what is going where. Heavenly, no?

Update: I fucked up. All of this is wrong. Well, all of it except for the part about Edna's Edibles having soul.

Actually, I don't even get that much of a break because there was a plethora of Tyraisms this week. Janice leaves, she picks up the crazy slack. The girls cease crying, she picks up the easy-target slack. This woman is bleeding for us. Bleeding! I hope you appreciate it as much as I do.

Tyraism of the Week No. 1

"Mama's in charge today, and mama's going to be taking her babies' pictures!"

The best thing about this is that she's holding the camera up to her tit, as though it's a breast pump. She lives as she speaks, I suppose.

And speaking of tits...

Tyraism of the Week No. 2

"Us girls that have these boobies, here?

It's like, yeah, fashion is all about...

...uh uh! But because we have these, we have to go...

...uhhhh."

I'm fairly confident that merely regurgitating and gif'ing that (regurgigifing?) suffices in explaining its awesomeness. I just have two things to add: what about girls with boobies that aren't "here," but that are on their backs? Are they not allowed to be high-fashion?

And the second thing is: uh uh all through the day to the break of dawwwwwn.

But that kinda goes without saying: pretty much the second supporting point to any of my arguments is "Freak Like Me" owns you and your life and your ass, you dirty little whore.

Tyraism of the Week No. 3

"Yes, that's your thing. You have to think, 'More fashion, less sex.' It takes the hooch away."

I think by that logic, anyone who's emaciated needs to think more food, less undernourishment. It takes the starvation away.

(Major props on "hooch," though.)

Tyraism of the Week No. 4

"Bonsoir ladies...wait, wrong country..." What follows is about 50 seconds of free-associative nonsense and bizarro accents. It's pretty much this show in a nutshell: stupid shit begets more increasingly stupid shit until it all climaxes with Tyra talking like a vampire. Yep, that's pretty much how it always goes, always!

Voilà!

Tyraism of the Week No. 5

"This kills me because I photographed both of you this week. And remember, I said, 'Mama's photographing the girls'? And that's what I feel. I feel maternal toward both of you."

One girl's going to see the end of her dreams of pseudo-modeling and yammering mindless lies at us for 15 seconds during the Cycle 11 commercials, but the person it's really killing is Tyra. Hmmmm. Sounds like someone's finally getting their comeuppance!

Tyraism of the Week No. 6

"You have it, but that's not enough!"

If she were to follow Tyra's example, Katarzyna would have needed to add a "bull" and an "sh" to the front of her "it." But knowing her, she would have made it completely unpronounceable, too. Mind the Z's, Kat!

1. Speaking of, why don't we listen to one last Katarzyna megamix? For the road? No amount of learning tools would have ever helped these people learn. The poor, poor thing.

I have two wishes for Katarzyna's future: that she finds herself in the company of people who respect her pronunciation requests, and...

...I hope that Katarzyna finds herself a katarzybra.

(But for real, she did seem gentle and lovable and thus, not at all right for reality TV. I hope she doesn't feel bad about being all but edited out of the show - the strength of your reality TV character most likely has an inverse correlation to the strength of your real-life character. I don't know why I feel the need to spout such obviousness in the wake of Katarzyna's leaving. Maybe it's just that Katarzyna was so docile that she was the equivalent of a human deer to me, and every time she talked [all twice], she took on the persona of Bambi's mother as a girl. And like some acid-eating, Disney-obsessed, chronic-masturbating Holden Caulfield incarnate, I feel the need to save her from this world of falseness. That's just a guess, tho.)

2. You wanna see what gay is?

I see this:

...and I think this:

(You know that instead of a heart-string-pulling, twinkling melody, a belch would sound for as long as you had that thing open.)

I see this...

...and I think...

...this.

Seeing these girls dressed like "gladiators" or whatever definitely struck me as ridiculous...

...but what's even more ridiculous is that I have no frame of reference for this shit at all. My dorkiness just doesn't enter the arena of leather-clad hand-to-hand combat. No Gladiator. No Lord of the Rings. Nothing. Not even Willow. Come to think of it, I guess I avoid this sort of thing, however unconsciously. I like Caligula, and while I'm tempted to do something with the fisting scene (as always), I don't think y'all's ready for it.

Like, I'm so gay and lame that as we're seeing close-ups of the girls in their gear...

...I'm thinking that something like this is the next logical step:

That's me: so gay and lame that, unlike the rest of the planet, I liked the Ewoks. I thought they were cute and, be it a repeat viewing of Return of the Jedi or the TV movie Battle for Endor, I'd watch them like this...

...saying all the while, "Those lovable scamps!" and sighing frequently.

All of this is to say that the only kind of sword fighting I know about has nothing to do with actual swords.

3. But the best thing to come out of the gladiator thing?

...after seeing this, Whitney will forever be known to me as:

4. The second best thing?

Getting to look at the smoking-hot Alex Mariotti. And don't even think about taking points off for the spandex shirt. He's Italian, OK? He can't help it. If you start knocking him for his shirt, that's like being racist against Italian people. Who are you, Titney? Is your best friend Italian? Huh? Huh?

5. And speaking of stupid things Dominique implied/said begetting further stupidity, this might take the oddly-bitten-for-lack-of-teeth cake:

"I was a real high-fashion model, OK? And Tyra took my pictures! I mean, this is just a slap in the face to everybody else in America, 'cause nobody else can say that Tyra took their pictures. But she took my pictures! And Tyra loves me." First of all, I'm shocked that she could remove her mouth from mama's nipple-camera long enough to actually say this much. Second of all, why's it gotta be "slap in the face?" You and I know what Dominique means, but she uses the most needlessly hostile language to get to her destination that doesn't even exist (like, no matter how long you suckle, your shit's over in two weeks and you're not a high-fashion model, Oldie Hawn). This is, like, dictionary-definition aggressive stupidity.

There's a real love-me-because-no-one-else-does vulnerability in Dominique's words and sometimes the social awkwardness that comes out in just the way she moves her eyes breaks my heart...

...but I wonder if that isn't part of some plan to turn me to stone or something.

6. This week, in an email titled "antm comparison craze," a reader named Meg B., wrote: "Did you notice how many people were compared to other things in this last ANTM episode? Here's the ones I heard... Dominique is Cruella DeVille...

...Whitney is Xena's Sidekick...

...Whitney is a mushroom..."

(And to this one, I say, that's not a mushroom...

...that's a mushroom!)

"...Whitney is Mae West, etc."

So true. Everything is the new everything else. <Corky St. Clair voice>That's fashion!</csv> And there were even more:

In this one, J said to Katarzyna, "You were making this face," although the side-to-side proves that, uh, no she wasn't. I love how the judges not only spell out their uselessness, they spell it out phonetically.

This was more of a contrast than a comparison from Nigel, in which...I don't know. Katarzyna was so wrong she was right and then she went back around to wrong again and landed in Dominique's cleavage that so badly wants to exist while Tyra fed them both with her lactating camera. Or something.

I'd like to add a comparison to the mix:

...and one more, on a meta level:

It's all one big analogy, and frankly, that makes my job ("job") a lot easier.

7. Two things connect the following shots: they all occurred within seconds of each other, and they all illustrate the various ways people facially deal with constipation:

   

Give it up for the clenched fists!

And you know Tyra's got IBS, so she's all...

And that ends this week's Pretty Party.

8. And who haven't I talked about enough. Oh, that's right!

For one thing, she looks like Jon Stewart in that picture. For another, she isn't always easy on the eyes to begin with, but she makes her situation so much worse with the nasty faces she makes. She, like so many, is her own worst enemy. She's also my corneas' worst enemy. Consider this gallery of Dom's most unfortunate faces to be the Pretty After-Party:

 

Maybe it's not her fault, though. Maybe it's those interesting bones Paulina rhapsodized. Paul-Paul makes Dom sound like the Elephant Man, which...is pretty spot-on, actually.

9.

That's because, unlike Anyway, you are not the Princess of Power. Hang up and try your call again, She-Naw.

10. I took this gif, for no particular reason (perhaps to have another fake conversation with Titney Warner, as talking to myself on a blog always makes me feel socially adequate)...

...and then I realized that I really want one of those cat clocks with Whitney's head on it, and so I made it:

It doesn't tell time, but I'm quite sure that doesn't matter.

11. Here's one more for the road:

I guess aggressive stupidity was kind of the motif of this recap. But then again, when isn't it?   

Comments

[cdawg]

i was thinking too that Jay's "where'd she go" would make it into the recap, as a somewhat gay turned straight reference... Tyra thinks she's all that she could turn Jay with a mere BJ!

[KT]

I always preferred Over Our Heads to Edna's Edibles. does that make me shallow?

ugh i fucking hate shitney.

[Lau]

What? No GIF of Tyra looking like she's going down on Mr. Jay?

[scorzi]

In no way am I fashion model pretty, but if I'm going down I'm taking Dominique down with me. She looks more busted than Lisa did! She looks like a recovering alcoholic pushing forty. I'm glad she's gotten sober, but stay away from a camera.

[BlackRaspberry]

I also have not seen Gladiator/Lord of the Rings/Willow, etc, and COMPLETELY thought the Ewoks were adorable. Power to the people.

[Sarah]

Love the cat clock.

[nate]

I thought Over Our Heads was actually pretty cool. But I also preferred Punky's Place over the Warnimont's.

[barby]

The ewoks were my favorite!

And Katarzebra as an ewok made my day.

Thanks!

[Bebop]

Titney! Love it!

When the hell are they going to axe Dom? Is it going to be like Renee and only tell her that she's too old when she's in the final three?

[pete]

i was thinking about Grace Jones too. Tyra pulling out all her accents is SO ridiculous, and to me a Jamaican accent is the easiest to fuck up and make her sound ignorant. i am fairly amazed that Dominique has made it this far. i'd like to see her make top 3 just 'cause i need the laughs...she reminds me of Lisa, the one who peed her diaper w/ the jackass dudes a couple cycles ago. she was definitely one i wanted to last longer for comic relief.

[pete]

i was thinking about Grace Jones too. Tyra pulling out all her accents is SO ridiculous, and to me a Jamaican accent is the easiest to fuck up and make her sound ignorant. i am fairly amazed that Dominique has made it this far. i'd like to see her make top 3 just 'cause i need the laughs...she reminds me of Lisa, the one who peed her diaper w/ the jackass dudes a couple cycles ago. she was definitely one i wanted to last longer for comic relief.

[I'm just sayin'...]

Uh, Rich -- I watched last night and I'm 99.9% sure thatDominique cried at elimination.

[Marcella]

Wish the Whitney-cat-clock into the cornfield!

[aB]

If you watch Jay's lips in that last GIF you can see that him silently mouth 'i love you' to Tyra.

[Cdnluv4Winston]

Your recaps always kick-ass! I find myself looking for moments in ANTM thinking 'will Rich have this in his recap, how about this?'

I think Paulina looked AWESOME at panel, her hair was gorgeous.
No mention of the hot guy they had to 'battle' against in the challenge? hubba hubba he was smokin

[MJ]

You're totally not the only one who loves Ewoks. I wanted to live with them in their tree houses on Endor and have wacky adventures...Still do, actually. They're like grown-up chattery teddy-bears that LIVE!

[Kay]

Seriously, I never thought I would get to the point where ANTM made me question...ANTM. Dont get me wrong. I will watch until the day I die, and the recaps just make it so much more fun (Thanks!) but seriously they just arent even tryint to make sense any more. Since when do they keep the one that doessnt look like a model in person, especially this late in the game and get rid of the one thats good in person and in photos. Doesnt make sense. but really this whole thing has never really made sense. So whatever. Im just thankful I have something to watch to take me away to a far away fantasy land.

[Erin]

oooooh my god, the titney cat clock was hilarious!!!

[Henry Evil]

I'm surprised you didn't get a gif of Tyra looking like she was about to go down on Jay.

[Amy]

Rich, you missed it!!! Dominique and Whitney both cried after Kat was eliminated.

[Amy]

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r188/kimjongilyi/whit.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r188/kimjongilyi/dom.jpg[/IMG]

[Frank]

If you ask me, a MUCH better name for Whitney is Shitney.

[hilarity ensues]

dominique cried at the elimination!
i remember wondering why she was so sad when she keeps talking about stomping out the competition. PLOT HOLES.

[Rolling Prawn Hold]

I HATE the annual ANTM boring edit. It's usually my favorite model of the season, too.