America’s Next Top Model 10, Episode 7: A Slippery Ride

Last week on America’s Next Top Model, the drama surrounding Dominique continued and super-sweet Aimee was sent home after a sour note in a shoot depicting different genres of music. Claire held the bottom with her, but was saved. When her name was called to stay, she bounced around and had no regard for Aimee. A few of the other girls thought her antics were a little over the top and disrespectful. Claire tells us that every week here is another week she can justify being away from her daughter.

So do you think we can go a week without some drama in the house either around Fatima or Dominique? Certainly not! This week we open to Claire and Lauren cleaning up the kitchen. One of them throws out the last few sips of some coffee Fatima had been drinking. Fatima gets angry, but meek-at-the-panel Lauren starts throwing a bunch of f-bombs at her and getting rather hostile. Wow! Remember last week that Lauren got up on a chair to yell at Dominique? There is some crazy tension going on in that house of estrogen!

But this is a show about modeling, isn’t it? The girls get a lesson from Kristy Hinze, a major model for Elite Modeling, about go-sees. The girls will be split into two groups of four and they will only be allowed to walk to their destinations. There’s a plug in there for a GPS cell phone that the girls will have to help them navigate around town.

Claire, Dom, Whitney, and Stacy-Ann are in the first group, we’ll call “Group A.” Claire supposedly knows her way around New York, so they give her the phone. The remaining girls are in Group B, so Lauren, Anya, Katarzyna, and Fatima head out in another direction with Anya leading the way. With all the drama going on in the house with some of the girls tied together on these teams, there is sure to be some drama, don’t you think?

According to Fatima, Lauren is acting pushy and bossy as she hurries the girls in Group B along. Lauren is stewing about being worried that she’ll offend someone she doesn’t know, which could prove to be fatal when trying to book a job. All but Lauren do well in the first go-see with Shoshanna, a bathing suit/lingerie designer. I think she may be Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, if I remember right.

Group A ends up at Pamella Roland, a dress designer. She is very impressed with Stacy-Ann and says that Claire really doesn’t have the look she’s expecting for her show, despite her good walk. Dominique, in true form, literally comes away from her walk patting herself back. Whitney is struggling with this challenge, especially since she isn’t the “normal” size 2 that girls usually wear on the runway. Pamella has a difficult time telling her that the size 10 she’s wearing wouldn’t be used on the runway, but tells her that she has beautiful features.

Whitney seems to be handling it well, for the most part. She tells us that she normally wouldn’t be sent to this kind of booking, but at the same time, she isn’t going to blow it. She never knows when that designer might recommend her to another designer who does plus-size. Smart thinking, my girl!

Group A heads over to visit with Shoshanna now and we find out that she does design for all body types and shapes. This is good news for my girl. Claire seems almost brusque as she tries to engage Shoshanna in conversation, but as usual, seems to push it a little too far.

Team B goes to Pamella this time and they seem more subdued. Fatima is too small for these gowns. Yes, a size 2 is loose on her. That’s just wrong. Anya and Katarzyna both do well, and Lauren lurches down the runway. Seriously, this girl needs to start working on this in the off-hours. She looks as if she’s had too much to drink and is just lumbering. It’s not pretty or elegant.

All the girls end up at the same place in the end, where Karen Lee from Elite Modeling is back to tell them their scores. The designers sent back their thoughts and the competition is close. The final go-see is with a designer from Boliva. I didn’t catch the name, sorry, but the designer wants them all to be fun and quirky. Stacy-Ann does well and the designer absolutely loves Katarzyna. She thinks Dominique doesn’t look like a model and then really busts Lauren when she tells us that our girl has a “horse walk.” That cracks me up as it nails the gait.

Both teams get praise and critiques given from the designers. Lauren’s team is downgraded for needing more work on the walks and Dominique’s team needs to be better about showing some personality. In the end, the winning team is Group A, with Stacy-Ann booking the most jobs. Wow! Their prize is a summer spread in Seventeen magazine’s June edition.

Fast forward to the next photo shoot where the girls are taken to a dark warehouse. Jay meets them, demonstrating the art of an off-Broadway show called Fuerza Bruta. I haven’t had a chance to go look them up on the web, but the show looks intriguing. In any case, it looks as if the girls are going to be doing a photo shoot on a large piece of clear plastic with water on it, sort of like an enormous, square Slip-n-Slide. I’m not sure how this will all pan out but it’s one that will be remarkably different.

In another interesting turn of events, Jay tells them that the photographer will be taking their photos from underneath the plastic, so they will be somewhat hazy. Oh and the models will not have any makeup or hair done. It’s them, raw.

The first one up is Claire. She tells Jay that she’s going to dive into the plastic, and I assume she’s thinking it is a soft surface. Jay says that she doesn’t have to, but no sooner than he does that, Claire literally does a face-plant into the plastic. You can almost hear those cartoon birds chirping around her head as you can see she’s visibly stunned and hurt.

Jay asks her to step away for a moment and allow Dominique to really go first. This is such a strange shoot, watching the girls writhe on the plastic with the water. I just don’t see the art in this one. But Jay sees something in Dominique and says that she did a fantastic job.

Claire comes back, still sliding into the water as if she hadn’t just knocked her head. She has really gone downhill in my book the past two episodes. She keeps getting more odd. Jay thinks she looked too stiff and strange.

Speaking of strange, Lauren is up next and she is struggling with the shoot. She’s awkward and seems to just muddle her way through it. She even loses a contact in the water. Bless her heart. She and Claire may end up drowning this week if they’re not careful.