Slightly Less Frankenstein: The ANTM recap

Talk about a reversal of fortune. On the same week that Claire is unseated as the Cover Girl of the Week, she also gets kicked off the show and hurts her neck. (But besides that, how’d you like the episode, Claire?)

Oh well, such is the fickle finger of ANTM fate. Also fickle? The editing strategy. I was pretty sure that Whitney was a goner, since the show started with random talk of her plus size struggles. If not Whitney, then surely Lauren, who demonstrated that “punk rock temper” means “acting like a raving lunatic.”

This episode, they mixed things up a bit by having the go-sees a few weeks earlier than usual. Apparently, Sprint could not wait any longer to have that GPS product placement.
So the girls got into two teams and went on go-sees.
Things went vaguely Keystone Kop-ish, until Anya discovered the remarkable power of teamwork.
“Lauren answered the phone. Kat wrote down the address and I typed it into the Sprint phone!” she gushed, as though they had all just collaborated on the Manhattan Project.

Of course, go-see day pretty much exists to crush the spirit of the plus-sized model. And I have to say this, of all the plus- sized models they’ve ever had on the show, Whitney is the most genuinely confident. She knows she’s hot and she also knows the truth—that 9 out of 10 guys would find her more sexy and appealing than her stick figure rivals. Still, it can’t be pleasant when Pamella Roland is telling you that you’re a fat pig (okay, not in those exact words.)
So Stacey-Ann wins the go-see challenge, which is good for her, because I sometimes forget she is there. (Speaking of which, what happened to Fatima? She was definitely Princess Mean Girl in the early episodes, with Dom as Queen Bee. Lately, her personality has been disappearing as quickly as her waistline.)

Next, they have some crazy avant-garde theater challenge, hereafter known as the “bug on the windshield” challenge, where the models had to slither on this giant wet Slip ‘n Slide suspended in mid air.
The best moment? Seeing Mr. Jay doing his creepy aerial Running Man impression with Anya noting, “He looked like a silver robot.” Yes, even more so than usual.
Overly exuberant Claire decided the best way to tackle this challenge was face-first, so she face planted and knocked her neck out of whack. Yikes.
Next up? Dominique, who did a good job with this challenge, just as she did with last week’s folk music challenge. This is getting alarming.

Here is the problem with Dominique, as I see it: She is smart, she is focused, she is determined. She does well in challenges. But she’s just not that pretty! I mean, yeah, she has an "interesting" look. And when she’s not sporting Something About Mary hair and slutty tube dresses, she can actually be quite striking. But that Elite casting agent said it best: she looks nothing like a model. Nothing! I defy you to find a single model that even vaguely resembles her. And yet she keeps excelling. How can she be stopped?
Anyway, I hated this challenge, which may have yielded some interesting photos, but had nothing to do with modeling.

They did give Kat the haircut, and, although it wasn't as short as the cool emo wig they gave her, it did allow her to “lose that Eastern European tackiness,” according to Paulina Porizkova (apparently, Eastern Europe is the Staten Island of that continent.)
Panel was interesting, with Tyra continuing to speak in random British accents (watch out girl, they institutionalized Britney for that shit) and hurling a few pointed insults at Nigel (she suggested that he wasn’t enamored with Fatima because “she might not be as attracted to you as the other girls are.” Ha.) Also, Paulina said that Lauren’s walk was “slightly less Frankenstein” than usual. (Not exactly one for the resume.)

So it was Claire’s time to go. They totally sabotaged her with that alien haircut, for sure. But she was something of a one-trick pony, anyway. And lately, she'd been showing a certain amount of “bitchassness” (thank you, P Diddy) that was unbecoming.
Still, she did kinda win me over in the very end when she said, “I left my baby and my husband. . .and my dog.”
Awww. Is it too late to do a recount on Cover Girl of the Week?