This isn't the time for pretty

The title of this post quotes Nigel, who simultaneously meant to compliment Isis' face and critique her lack of effort. If you ask me, though, it's a really good comment on this entire cycle (nay, show!) without qualification. It cold even be the tag line: "ANTM All-Stars: This isn't the time for pretty."

Oh well, at least Isis went out gracefully.

Haha, just kidding. This show is a void set to vacuum society of the very concept of grace!

Anyway, bye Isis. She was weirder this time and her speech pattern highly resembles that of Basketball Wives' Jennifer Williams, so that was something cool to learn. "I leave here with a great impact on the other girls, and hopefully the world," she said upon leaving. I'm no sociologist so I can't vouch for that, but as long as she thinks so, it barely matters if that's true.

I'll just get right to to the point:

"Bitch, I worked at a bank," is all you need to know about grace, class, elegance, Angelea, this show, television and civilization. No, but really, I think at least half of the reason they invented this all-stars cycle was to give Angelea another platform for her personality. It not only cannot be contained, it must be broadcast. That's how big it is.

Previously, my favorite soliloquy in the history of America's Next Top Model, was Brandy's post-tennis rant at failed sympathizer Tatiana: "I was making a joke to make myself laugh. Don't say nothin' to me. If I'd a shut up talking to you, don't say nothin' to me, 'cause I ain't said nothin' else to you, and you don't know me like that to be sitting up here gettin' an attitude over nothing." (It happened during the fourth episode of the fourth cycle, just saying!) And while I'm sure for the rest of my life I will periodically and randomly say to myself, "I was making a joke to make myself laugh," and proceed to crack up in public (a joke to make my own self laugh, see?), I do think that Angelea may have topped Brandy:

"Whatever, I'm not gonna get on there and be all, 'Oh. Yeah. Yeah. OK, 'cause you want me to be this hood, ghetto bitch. That's what I'mma be, in the interview.' No, I know how to conduct myself. Bitch, I worked at a bank. I worked at a bank. You think I was talkin' like this at a bank?"

I actually do think she was talking like that at a bank, and I would give up my ATM card to be on the receiving end of that kind of labyrinthine catharsis routinely. More boxes of checks for me, please!

(I just typed "ANTM card." Just so you know, I'm losing the battle.)

My second favorite thing about this, after, "Bitch, I worked at a bank," which, incidentally, is my very favorite thing in the history of the spoken word, is that Angelea went from 0 to ranty, so that Alexandria was still nodding in empathy when Angelea started admonishing her.

Maybe Alexandria is just so desperate for human contact that she takes what she can get. However, I like to interpret this in a more upbeat manner: she was just trying to encourage Angelea to deliver the performance of her life. Best decision she's made since ditching the bonnet.

Also wonderful from Angelea: "I'm a strong bitch, but I'm a weak bitch."

And I love that she called out Nigel for giving her contradictory advice, and then he proved her entirely correct when he tried to explain himself with this nonsense: "My advice to you is sort of, know when to rein it in, but also know that it's your personality that is so wonderful that we want to see, we need to see it. And that's why in the Extra challenge, my critique to you was: please I want to see your character, and I didn't see it. I thought you were being reserved." In other words, reined in?

Tyra's advice was even less helpful, as it was just an excuse to remind us that she'd been parodied on Saturday Night Live. Proof that at one point, people cared enough to write skits about her. Whatever, I'm making a pearl necklace out of this masturbatory interlude:

It did give us that gif, at least. This is my second favorite kind of Tyra gif (after ones of her saying, "Me," as seen in last week's recap and thousands before it).

Also?

She worked at a bank. Associate that.

I know this show is something of a celebrity ("""""""") finishing school and that part of winning will be convincing everyone that you've somehow changed for the better/savvier, but my biggest wish that just popped into my head within the past 30 seconds is that Angelea both stays exactly this way and wins this thing. Maybe that's prolonging further pain (she said she's "gonna have a solid, stable future if I win this," which is very, very misguided), but I'd rather she be momentarily happy than not happy at all. She is the best.

You know who else is the best? Laura. When Kristin Cavallari condescendingly (although, let's be honest, correctly) said to the girls upon meeting them, "Get another shot at fame, huh?" Laura looked like what she really wanted was another shot of...

...Ovaltine. I also love that she explained the concept of immunity as a result of the challenge: "The winning team is safe from elimination, which is either amazing prize or really crappy for the losers." Newsflash: There are good and bad things in the world and they happen to people. Laura's got the story at 5.

But first...

Laura's facts are the funnest facts.

Shannon's, meanwhile, are the dumbest.

"It's a bathing suit! Already checked it out 'cause I thought you'd ask!"

Her no-panties shtick is eclipsing Sharon Stone's at this point. She's holding onto principles like a 5-year-old lemonade stand manager who just refuses to expand into the realm of iced tea. And she sounds just as taunting and bratty.

And just a few more words on Cavallari, who now that I look at her, might be the prettiest woman I've ever seen? I never watched Laguna Beach or The Hills, but god, she is gorgeous.

Also, "So, lots of great things can come from it, even if you are the bitch," is a really good pep talk for girls on reality TV! So modern, too! Technology speaks...and it sounds kinda SoCal and hella, "Whatever duuuuude!"

Also, did you notice that one of her critiques was, "If I was flipping through a magazine, I would definitely stop on this photo"? Are people just going to say that every week now? Is there a list that they hand out to guest judges of phrases to say ("The camera loves her!" "Smize!" "Extend/hunch/crumple into a ball your X!" "I'm very emotional.")? Can we burn that list and also Tyra's eyebrows off because ha ha ha, that would be hilarious?

You know...

I feel kind of bad talking shit about Camille because she seems like she's trying not to be an asshole, and I get the sense that she doesn't even really understand the extent of her assiness. However, I'll take advantage of her questionable (at best) comment regarding her modeling partner Isis ("It's like, I need to go up there and I need to deliver, because how is it they're gonna have somebody who's, you know, transgender, do a better job than the actual real woman?") as an excuse to note that she really reminds me of a budget Omarosa. Like what that Maxxinista girl ("MY FASHION BLOG!!!") on those commercials is to Tavi Gevinson, Camille is to Omarosa.

And speaking of that shoot:

Being on this show must be like being in Alice in Wonderland, except instead of drugs you get sleep deprivation and a weave tugging at your scalp. Sounds fun. I can't believe everyone in the world hasn't been on this show.

Also, the point of this shoot wasn't to show cool girls with stilted peg legs. It was to show cool girls with stilted peg legs falling.

It all worked out! Just another day at the circus.

Just another day on top of Lisa's head.

Just another day of Dominique being among the most confusing people ever to walk the planet ("I'm like, 'More faces? What do you mean?' 'Cause I have a whole lot of face going on right here.")

But you know what was unique? ALT's showing. Bam! Bam! Two instant classics in a row!

On Alexandria and Shannon's picture:

"So Lady Gaga. It's culturally so exciting." Spoken like a true monster. Last week's extended paw was no coincidence.

On Angelea and Allison's photo:

"I feel like I'm in a cinematic moment of something wonderful."

A made-for-TV adaptation of The Music Man (according to still the realest bitch in this recap game, Potes from TWoP), perhaps?

I guess my question to ALT is when doesn't he feel like he's in a cinematic moment of something wonderful? He strikes me as carrying the self-love of person who, instead of hearing music when he walks down the street, hears the staccato clicking of 8mm cameras.

Sucks that he pulled out these gems the day that it was announced that he's being replaced by Kelly Cutrone next cycle. Yikes. That is a dive. There's letting yourself go, and then there's eating store-bought icing from the tub. ANTM's cabinet is apparently stocked with Duncan Hines.

Oh well, we'll always have this:

He's never struck me as wall-eyed before now, but he is serving Notorious B.I.G. majorly there. Call him Biggie Saks.

Although Tyra says that with "tooch," "we've put a new word into Top Model's vernacular," it's been there for years (at least since Cycle 8). It's just like how they always said, "Smile with your eyes," and then they decided to get weird about it and adopt, "Smize" as a linguistic tic. Anyway, her pontificating is not needed. This is all you need to know about tooch from now until forever:

And here's another if you still don't get it:

And that should be it, right? Wrong. They're going to milk this thing like a booty with a nipple. We already know that Tyra's going to make a song out of it (we heard yet another preview in this week's show, which instills more dread in me than the Jaws theme at this point). So whatever. Just the world we live in.

That's not a Tyraism, that's a Tyraism:

On Bianca's pose:

"The only reason why it works is because of the push looks like, yeah I'm pushin' and I'm chillin'."

Pushin' and chillin'. Just another day on the toilet/this show.

The best thing that came out of "tooch" was Allison saying it strangely.

Come to think of it, wasn't "tooch" also Maggie Simpson's first word?

 

Right, that's what I thought.

Oh Allison. At long last a self-conscious weirdo whose self-consciousness is endearing instead of maddening.

Like, I know she knows there's a hood fashioned to look like a bear's head on her head, but I'm not sure that she's cognizant of it the exact moment she's saying, "I know I'm very strange," and so the whole thing becomes this adorable useless mystery. And I'm not just saying that because I want her to come over and pet my cat. But if I were saying it for that reason, I'd be offering her a mutually beneficial prospect. After all, she's excited to have some creature crawl around on her face. After all over again, of course she is.

But then, other times, she seems utterly aware of how ridiculous this thing is and that she's smarter than it. Like when she says "tooch" like Maggie Simpson or when she calls winning challenges "very new" with the same astonishment as a grandmother after Lasik surgery.

And speaking of awareness, Lisa gets props this week for giving Nigel's stupid question ("Do you ever have your photograph taken with your legs together?") the snappy answer it deserved ("Of course I do.").

Her rant for Bianca was also amazing: "If Bianca blows this thing for me and I get eliminated, she better learn how to get on stilts, because she's going to have to run and her stride is gonna be...have to be real big because I'm coming after her."

Very nice save. And imagery that suggests peril on stilts is just perfect for sharing on this show. This shit is in Lisa's blood.

Oh yeah, Bianca cried.

6. Bianca

Measly Crying Count this time. OH WELL, WHO CARES?

Also, Bianca, I hear, is afraid of Chihuahuas. Also, she's impressed that Allison doesn't let people walk over her because you know she's tried. Also, she sings "Like a Prayer" in her head. (Just kidding. But doesn't it sound like she said that?)

Also...

...she said this: "Shave your legs tonight whatever it is." Best advice I heard all episode. I leave you with that.

Comments

[YEP]

"They're going to milk this thing like a booty with a nipple."

Very disturbing... very hilarious. Disturbarious.

[DTS]

A pleasure to read, as always! Thank you, Rich!

[CP]

Hopefully if Allison makes it back to your place Winston can do another of his award winning interviews with her...as long as a banana is involved again, because that was adorable.

[laura]

That whole Extra interview thing was so boring I guess you didn't even bother to recap it. I love this show but this all-star thing is grating...can we have more photoshoots and less branding please UGH

[estebanito]

The ONLY reason I'm continuing to watch this show is only for your recap....and Bianca's live Twitter updates where she writes, "Can Someone please tell Lisa to just SHUT UP!?!"

[MJ]

PLEASE let Allison come over and interview Winston again! Bring Angelea along too and ask her about her time working in a bank.

[annie]

lisa and bianca's photo = queefblast

a new line of cover girl mascaras?

[mtb]

You are a freaking SAINT to watch and post updates of this craptaculous extravaganza for us all. My eyes thank you. Brain not so much as it was fried around cycle 4

[LVV]

"we heard yet another preview [of the Booty Tooch song] in this week's show, which instills more dread in me than the Jaws theme"

This is absolutely brilliant. It's genius because it's TRUE!

I cannot get over the grossness of Tyra's face-scraping, finger-licking "Want some?" from the opening credits. We all know Tyra's weird, but that is some seriously out-there shit.

[loopygorilla]

i havent even watched the episode :P i prefer to read your recap first lol

thanks rich.

[loopygorilla]

lol bianca and lisa photo look like lisa was about to pee or take a dump on her...

anyway Andre leon talley wont be back next season yal.

i just read it lol

i guess anna wintour didnt want him to be associated with this mess anymore, i guess they will probably lose italian vogue and all the top photographers and go back to the crazy old batshit crazy top model show, instead of pretending that they are legitimate modelling talent scouting show.

[loopygorilla]

lol bianca and lisa photo look like lisa was about to pee or take a dump on her...

anyway Andre leon talley wont be back next season yal.

i just read it lol

i guess anna wintour didnt want him to be associated with this mess anymore, i guess they will probably lose italian vogue and all the top photographers and go back to the crazy old batshit crazy top model show, instead of pretending that they are legitimate modelling talent scouting show.

[Ben]

My favorite part of this episode was that Bre thought that Kristen Cavallari was a good person to ask for advice on how to have a career that wasn't just bouncing from reality show to reality show...when literally, that is all I am aware of this Kristen bitch doing. Laguna Beach, the Hills, nothing for a while, RuPaul's Drag Race, here.

[Alex]

I think the single most baffling thing about this season (I refuse to say 'cycle') is that these women still peddle the same shit about this contest being their golden ticket. You've already done this, you already KNOW it isn't, that's why you're here!

I guess it fits perfectly in with the thousands of other contradictions that make up ANTM.

[Vanessa M]

So, I had to follow the link to see who she was. I saw Kelly Cutrone on something as a judge or guest and while I can't remember the details, I still recall that she was a singularly wretched person. Hmmm, more mental cruelty and nonsense heaped on vulnerable young women for our "entertainment." Consider the shun back in full effect after this cycle.

I knew-KNEW-that you would have a sound wave of "Bitch, I worked in a bank" when the words were barely out of her mouth. Damn it, Angelea. Fuck Nigel. Never change.

Shannon and the fucking panties. God, was she this annoying the first time? Would she wear pasties if I called them evening wear?

Laura bobbing her head enthusiastically at whoever that chick was (I just refuse to waste the Google time to find out) broke my heart a little.

[Sparky]

SERIOUSLY so many good quotes in this episode. This season is absolutely killing it. Dominique won me over 130% after that face comment.

[hungryandfrozen]

Love that you call it "soliloquy", gives it a sense of gravity. Amazing gif-ery as always!

[Katey]

I took the phrase "ALT's showing" to mean "ALT is showing". Like ALT is pregnant and you can tell. I don't know. It seemed like something you might say.

[Andrew M]

Do we notice that Tyra does not seem invested in this season? She looks slovenly at judging, doesn't visit the girls in their loft or on location, didn't even show up for the "Tyra-INSPIRED makeovers," and I'm sure you caught this week that she said she wasn't even aware of the theme of the photo shoot until she saw the pictures for the first time in the editing room.

[matthew (hardcore ANTMer)]

Kelly Cutrone: mafiosa (she looks scary!!)

[Dara]

Rich....xoxoxoxox...you are fabulous!!

Alison for the win!!

[faggotblogger]

omg hahahaha. You need to make a GIF of Camille clapping whilst giving side eye. Best shot to date.

[Meg]

Bitch, now I'm gonna tell jokes to make myself laugh when I think about this recap later today and I'm giving all my faces. While tooching.

[Hänni]

Fabulous recap. I too am dreading the booty tooch video. And also? Lisa looks like Woody Harrelson in profile (ref: the crying count pic), except Woody has better hair.

[Lauren]

Until now, hasn't Tyra always referred to a booty tooch as a negative thing? As in, "You're getting a little hoochy with that booty tooch. Make it fashion!"