Project Runway 2, Episode 12: The Reunion Show

At a New York City lounge, John Wade tells Heidi Standridge, “If there’s one perk to being eliminated first, it’s that we get to drink first.” (Wow, John has lost a ton of weight. I wouldn’t have recognized him.) After a moment, pregnant Kirsten Ehrig joins them. When Raymundo gets out of his taxi, we see flashbacks of Michael Kors dissing Raymundo’s “barefoot little Appalachia Lil’ Abner Barbie.” Daniel Franco is next to join the group, wearing a bright black, red, and white print jacket. He looks positively wild. (I, for one, am very sorry he didn’t make it further in this competition.) We see a flashback of Daniel receiving his second “auf Wiedersehen.”

Next to join the group is Lupe in a silly hat, followed by Marla and Diana. Dirty Diana once again appears, doing a little dance in flashback form. After Emmett exits his cab, we are treated to a flashback of Emmett in his pink skating shirt during the Sasha Cohen challenge. Zulema joins the group and I have to admit, I love her new hairstyle. When Andrae and Nick enter the club, they receive shrieks of greetings and hugs. Everyone is so happy to see them. Finally Kara makes her appearance. The guests have all arrived.

After the commercial, we find all of the designers (minus Daniel V., Chloe, and Santino) in a studio with Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum seated across from them. Heidi welcomes them to Project Runway’s second season reunion. She’s happy to see them again. Heidi also introduces mentor Tim Gunn, who receives a round of applause. Tim shares that they have a lot of clips to view as well as questions to answer from Bravotv.com readers.

Heidi asks how life has been for the designers since the show aired. Heidi S. says that “one lady” has offered her a head designer position, plus she is putting on a charity fashion show. Heidi Klum notices how much John has shrunk. John admits he’s changed a lot. Tim adds that Nick has designed a red carpet gown for Brenda Strong from Desperate Housewives. Andrae gives Nick an open-mouthed, dropped jaw look of delight as he applauds him. (Damn, I love Andrae.) Nick gushes that it was a wonderful moment as Brenda had loved his Nicky Hilton dress and wanted one for herself.

Heidi asks the designers how they reacted as they watched the show. Nick says he would put a hand over his eyes, especially after the Barbie episode. Heidi shares that those Barbie dolls went like bagels! She was thrilled that she got one. (See, I’m not the only one that grabbed one up.) Tim corrects Heidi saying that the Barbie Dolls sold like “hot cakes.” Oh, yeah. Heidi wants to know who the designers think should have been in the final three. Raymundo speaks up and says, “Nick Verreos performed fantastically!” Tim asks how it felt for Kara to not make the final three. She explains that she felt like the little engine that could. After all this time, she doesn’t even remember getting eliminated.

Now it’s time for Heidi to call in the final three designers. First out is Daniel Vosovic, who does a little harem dance behind the Project Runway screen. Next, Chloe is called and from behind the screen we see her shadow of her lifting her skirt for a sideways “moon” silhouette. Nice. Finally, it’s Santino’s turn to join the group, and he greets us from behind the screen with turkey shadow. (If that’s not what it is, please don’t write to correct me, as my impression seems rather fitting even if it’s wrong.)

Tim starts with Chloe and asks her thoughts regarding how the other designers questioned her lack of passion and desire to win during the last episode. Before she can answer, Heidi shows a clip from the last episode to remind us what the designers said about this on the runway. Santino is shown saying how he isn’t wowed by brilliant pattern makers. Daniel chooses Chloe to be out, as does Kara. After viewing the clip, Chloe answers that she does have the passion and for months she has hated Santino’s guts: “What he said is the worse thing you could say to a designer.”

Santino agrees that his remark was cutting. Daniel Franco asks, “What about that cutthroat s**t? Why do you have to do that cutthroat thing?” Santino explains that it was merely trash talking, like when guys play basketball and say, “You suck,” or, “Yo’ mama.” He continues saying that he didn’t come on the show to make friends (how reminiscent is that of Wendy Pepper?); he came on the show to win. Chloe pipes in and tells Santino that he managed to offend all the designers along the way. Santino says that his remarks didn’t come from a mean, evil, or bad place. They meant nothing, really!

Heidi says since they’ve been chatting about the bad stuff Santino says, they should take a look at it. The screen comes on and there’s Santino explaining how he doesn’t like to be a critic but Kara is having trouble in her head. Zulema’s dress is pretty bad. Daniel Franco has mental defects, Emmett is, like, “Oh my God,” and Daniel V. is “full of s**t!” Diana is on screen now saying that she really liked Santino until he complained about her voice. Now we hear Santino doing his screechy imitation of Diana. The next clip shows Santino talking to Andrae, saying, “Emmett, eat my a$$!” He quickly moves on to saying how Nick will be upset that he is moving on to Fashion Week while Nick is not. Next, he talks about how he defecated on Chloe’s fabric. We see Santino towering over a huddled, eye-popping Andrae and playfully screaming, “I want your soul!” This segment ends as the final bit of the clip has Santino explaining how he is definitely a compassionate and nice person.

Heidi remarks how Santino would just say it like it is. Santino says that when he watches the show he doesn’t recognize himself. “Who the heck is that?” Lupe pipes up and screams out, “I love Santino” which earns her a laugh and a shake of the head from Santino. (Heh. Did Lupe get looped at the bar?) Kara says that Santino was very hurtful and she didn’t appreciate how he hurt Diana when talking about her voice. Diana says she was surprised with his remarks. She would have been more understanding if his criticisms had been about her designs or her sewing.

Tim mentions that Nick and Santino have had a major falling out. Nicks says that from the beginning he didn’t have an easy time with Santino, but he did respect his vision and creativity. After watching the show, what Santino said behind the scenes was very hurtful and damaging. Andrae speaks up and says that that it’s not true when people say, “Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you. They are really painful.” Santino doesn’t regret anything that he said. What he does regret is the way he made other people feel. He further admits that his intention wasn’t to hurt the other designers’ feelings.