Old, drab, and sad: The Project Runway recap

The show begins with Heidi putting the designers in a much deserved time out.

They have to sit, quietly, with their backs to the stage contemplating what a boring season they have provided for us. Bad designers! Bad!

They turn around to discover the ghosts of winning looks past.

Well, in Irina’s case, it’s the ghost of yesterday’s winning look. And in Logan’s case, it’s the ghost of a 4th place finish.

The idea is to take their best look and create a companion piece, which is kind of cool, because that is the essence of building a collection.

Off to Mood they go, where Irina falls in love with some ugly brocade pattern and Christopher buys his weight in white silk.

Also, Tim Gunn does something he never does (or at least, never before on camera): He gives Carole Hannah some pretty damn specific advice.

She’s deciding whether or not to stick with her comfort zone of a dress or venture into that mysterious world of garments with legs, also known as pants.

“You can’t stretch yourself creatively if you’re not in your comfort zone,” says Tim.

So a dress it is.

The usual rippling wave of cattiness makes its way through the studio.

“Those look like Malvin pants,” says Logan to Althea. As in Malvin, the guy who went home on the second show. And because he’s boyish and oh so insouciant he can almost get away with this sort of mind fuck.

Next, Irina and Althea, munching on some sort of mysterious snack food, recreate the junior high school cafeteria tableaux of my nightmares: Two mean girls, sitting, munching, assessing their prey.

In this case, they are eyeing Logan, whose collar does look a lot like the zippered neckline Althea created for her Christina Aguilera look.

“Should I confront him?” whispers Althea between bites.

“Hell yeah,” says Irina, swallowing. (What a shocking piece of advice from Irina, who usually only has the best interests of others at heart.)

Of course, when it comes to cattiness, Althea is a mere apprentice. She steps aside and lets the master take over.

“Now that I have a minute to see what everyone else did, I think a lot of them should be worried,” says Irina.

Then she adds, “Why did Christopher’s one dress throw up the other?” —and laughs heartily at her own vicious joke.

Althea can laugh, too, buoyed by her place as the Queen Bee’s number one besty. But alas, harmony among mean girls is a tenuous thing. A little bit later, Irina accuses Althea of copying her! OMG, you guys!

Tim Gunn is back in the studio. And once again, he isn’t so much giving Carole Hannah advice as telling her exactly what to do.

After he points out that her one bit of fabric would make a great lining to the dress he exclaims, “You just had a major breakthrough!” Yes, and his name is Tim Gunn.

To the runway we go. No Michael Kors but my boy Nick Verreos from Season 2 is one of the judges! Squee! I always had a little crush on Uncle Nick.

The other guest judge is the gorgeous and talented and classy and perfect Kerry Washington (someone explain to me again why she’s not a bigger star?).

Nick + Kerry almost = Michael Kors. So I guess I can live with that.

Allow me to assess the garments.

I absolutely loved Carole Hannah’s dress. So what if all she does is dresses? And so what if Tim Gunn pretty much designed it for her? It rocked. And I want one.

I hated Meana Irina’s outfit. Sorry. I did. The dark camel color. . .again. The faux fur on the sleeves. The dress that looked like some sort of fusty old couch in grandma’s attic. Do not want.

On the other hand, Althea nailed it again. Whether or not she copied Irina’s sweater concept is a matter of opinion. But I don’t care. I loved that heather grey sweater and those bitchin’ paper-bag-waste jodhpurs. You get yours, girl.

Gordana’s jacket was not even worthy of being called a hot mess. It was barely a lukewarm mess. And Heidi was right when she pointed out that Gordana even managed to make her gorgeous model look like a “before” picture.

Christopher’s outfit. . . I think the problem here was there just wasn’t quite enough material.

Logan’s get-up: Welcome to Hot Topic in the year 2145.

So there’s a bit of sniping on the runway as Irina kinda accuses Althea of copying her oversized sweater concept. (Because there aren’t like, a zillion oversized sweaters in stores right now.)

In the end, everyone ignores Irina and Althea wins. Yay!

And Logan finally finds out that a knit cap and a pair of skinny jeans can only take you so far: Specifically, 10 episodes.

Goodbye my little hipster Hanson brother. I will miss gazing upon you. But not your butt ugly designs.