America’s Next Top Model 10, Episode 5: Painting By the Numbers

Previously on ANTM, the girls strutted through a runway show, then an edgy photo shoot in a meat plant. Fatima and flaky Amis were in the bottom two and Amis was eliminated.

Fatima opens the show telling us that being in the bottom two was both a surprise and a wake-up call to her. She practices her posing and strange, prancing walk down the runway.

Dominique then tells us all about Dominique. In the third person. It’s annoying. Why on earth do people do that? I just don’t get it. Then my girl, Whitney, gets up to a confessional to mock her, saying that all Dom does is talk.

We then get an interesting piece about Marvita as she interacts with the girls. She’s not exactly a touchy-feely person and doesn’t trust many people. She was raped and molested as a kid so it’s hard for her to warm to people. Claire seems to have good insight on her, as she tells us that Marvita has many layers below her tough outer shell.

The girls are up for their first job for the week where they are taken to an old building. It’s dark, but in the shadows are people posing in different styles of modeling. In the last shadow is Benny Ninja, who is the posing coach, and international model Vendela. In his red kilt, Benny demonstrates the girls the three styles – commercial, catalog, and couture – to give them the idea of how each could look. Now it’s up to them to give it a shot.

He runs through poses with most of the girls and each seems to do a decent job of it. Whitney strikes a sexy catalog pose and Benny calls her “Anna Nicole.” She tells us that since she went blonde, she’s heard that many times. If you squint, you can see the resemblance a little. Marvita flails around and Benny just rolls his eyes. Dominique tells us once again about, you guessed it, Dominique.

Back at the house, the girls are making calls home. There’s a phone list breaking down times for each girl to get her 15 minutes to chat at home. Apparently, Dom didn’t get the memo and is upset she missed her time to talk to her kid. She blames Whitney for it and the catfight starts. The two bicker about nothing, when it gets to the point where, seemingly out of nowhere, Dom calls Whitney a racist. Whoa! What? Whitney says that she is from the south and that her best friend is black. Then dangit, the scene cuts to commercial.

After the commercial, the scene dies down and Dominique stomps off into another room. Well, that was anticlimactic, huh? Knowing the reality gods, something will come of this scene later, I’m sure.

Tyra Mail comes later the next morning, and the girls are carted off to Brooklyn where they meet Vendela again. They’re going to watch some of the best posers around. Posers, not poseurs. These people are amazing the way they contort their bodies in all kinds of ways the body probably shouldn’t work. The girls are divided into two groups where the girls will have a pose off with another member of the other team. Benny will call out styles and the girls will face off with the best pose for that style for points. The winning team will be the one with the most points, and they win a trip to the swag tent, where they will get to sort through all kinds of free stuff. Seems simple, yes?

Up first are Dominique and Claire battling it out. These two girls are working it hard, to the point where Benny calls it a tie. Next are Lauren and Marvita. Lauren gives it her all as she works the poses on the ground, hanging over the ledge and twisting in all sorts of ways. Marvita? Well, she is vacant and posey. Benny even comments that she basically doesn’t have a clue as to what the three styles are. The stark contrast between the two is easily noticeable and Lauren wins this round.

Next up is a battle between the two most annoying voices this cycle – Anya, with her odd accent, and nasally Stacy-Ann. Anya is firing away with her poses, as is Stacy-Ann. This will be a close one, but no, the point goes to Stacy-Ann. The teams are tied back up, 2-2.

Fatima and Whitney are next and the two have a confessional catfight. Fatima calls Whitney one of those girls who was a cheerleader and slept with the entire football team. Whitney tells us that Fatima was all over the place during the challenge, to the point where she nearly put her crotch in Whitney’s face for a pose. That was enough of a crack in bad poses that Whitney takes the lead for her team.

Up last are Aimee and Katarzyna, who, to me, are very much alike, but Katarzyna wins the challenge for her team, which solidly gives them the win, 4-2. Benny announces Claire as the overall posing winner of this challenge.

The swag tent is full of all kinds of freebies normally given to celebrities as giveaways at award shows, such as pink guitars, purses, and sunglasses. Each girls gets a bag loaded full of stuff. But Claire, since she is the challenge winner, gets more. She wins – get this – a trip to Bora Bora. Man, what a great prize! That’s one you see on something like The Amazing Race! That would be a great trip for her and her family later. That’s quite a prize for just posing well, don’t you think?

Back at the house, Fatima starts her condescending ways again during her confessional. (Insert Kari’s eyes rolling here.) She tells us that she’s the only one practicing and the only one who is fighting to be there. She watches as Marvita plays with the other girls and ends up calling her “ghetto,” not to her face, of course, but to us at home. Fatima is more than a little full of herself, don’t you think?

The sun rises on a new day over New York City. Marvita tells us that she’s amazed at the city around her. She’s amazed that she’s here modeling when she knows nothing about it. She’s worried that she’s too ghetto. I wonder to myself if she heard Fatima in the house saying that or if she’s reached her own conclusion.

The girls are taken to a studio for this week’s photo shoot. This week is a close-up shot with paint splattered all over their faces. They have to shine through all the makeup. Sounds interesting enough, huh?

In the corner, while the other girls are getting their hair and makeup done, Marvita is sitting with a turtleneck covering her mouth, sunglasses, and a toboggan over her head. She looks sort of like Kenny on South Park where all you can see is a sliver of face. Jay tries to coach her into doing what the judges want her to do and not let last week’s downfall get her down.

Lauren, Aimee, and Stacy-Ann go through their shoots and all look incredible. These girls are stepping up their games. I can’t wait to see how the actual photos come out. Katarzyna struggles at first, then turns out a great photo. Whitney keeps opening her mouth, which makes her look almost too pinup. Jay says that she has an effortless, timeless beauty that she needs to harness.

Anya’s shoot is a little odd, and she’s followed by Claire, who rocks it. Dominique is back and Jay says that he’s scared of her. He’s afraid she is going to come off too harsh. Amazingly enough, this shoot softens her. You can see how beautiful she really is and how much her eyes pop while she’s taking these photos. Jay says that it’s her best shoot yet, and at this point, I agree.

Fatima struggles through her session as she poses and overanalyzes her moves. She doesn’t smile nor does she do much different with each shot. Oh, and she’s way too skinny, to the point she looks emaciated.

Finally we have ghetto-girl Marvita. Jay cringes through the whole shoot, then stops the photographer for a moment to tell Marvita to do something other than the tough-girl. He thinks she’s checked out of it. And to me, I think he’s onto something. She’s lost her fight. This isn’t a good sign, and I’m sure Jay will bring something up about her shoot to the judges.

Finally, it’s panel time. Tyra looks beautiful in a gold woven dress that looks as if it could’ve been designed by Rami from this season’s Project Runway. First up is Dominique. She comes down looking as if she’s stunned to be called first for judging. Her photo is just beautiful and soft. She doesn’t look like the drag queen she usually portrays. The camera just captured a stunning side of her today.

Anya and Katarzyna are next. Both have beautiful shots as well, but the subtlety between the two is in the eyes. Katarzyna’s photo has just a slight squint in her eyes that makes you draw your own to her photo more.

Fatima the train wreck comes down to the judges and they tear into her as soon as her photo comes up. The picture itself is good, not great, but everyone is completely distracted by the armpit hair! The girl doesn’t shave! What the heck? Models are supposed to have huge, voluminous hair only on their heads, not sprouting from everywhere else. They tell her that a one-dollar razor is a heck of a lot cheaper than the thousand it would cost a client to edit out her pit hair. Oh, and her photo isn’t bad.

Lauren plops down to the judges and seems to be embarrassed. The camera pans down to her shoes and she’s wearing high-top Converse. How funny! She apologizes to the panel, saying that she can’t find her shoes. The panel laughs, saying that they were probably stolen at the pose-off, and once they find out she’s a size 10 shoe, they know they were probably stolen. At least they take it well.

Lauren, to me, just doesn’t look like a model if you were to just look at her on the street, but she takes amazing photos. This one is no different. It just grabs your eye and makes you want to look at it.

Whitney saunters up there and the judges don’t say much about her photo other than she looks like she was self-conscious. Vendela thinks that during the challenge she didn’t take it seriously, but Whitney says that she does want to win this competition. She was just mimicking what she saw of Benny’s street dancers.

Claire always looks so poised as she comes down. I think her maturity in being a mother and wife show through on this show as she seems the most “adult” of the bunch. She looks a bit like a soft version of the singer Annie Lennox in her photo. It’s edgy, but radiant. The judges’ only comment is that she should’ve lengthened her neck a bit more as it seems hidden in this photo.

Marvita schlumps down, coming across as defeated. Her photo is sad looking, but not all bad. The judges don’t tear it apart. They did hear back from the shoot that she wasn’t doing as well as she could.

Nearing the end is Stacy-Ann, whose photo really pops. The makeup she has is bright turquoise; with her skin tone, it’s very exotic. The judges like her photo, but say that there were many in her series that she had difficulty in using her hands and neck.

Rounding out the group is Aimee. Her photo is nice and average; nothing really good or bad. The judges’ only comment is that her skin is luminous, and one judge says that she’s really a chameleon. This must be good for her portfolio.

The judges deliberate. They’re not as impressed with Katarzyna, Anya, and Fatima. They really don’t think Whitney has more than a beautiful face shot. They see through Marvita’s lack of confidence. They really like Stacy-Ann and Lauren.

Tyra goes through the same breathy dialogue she does every week to build up fake tension about who will be staying and who will go. She pulls the photos of Stacy-Ann, Dominique, Claire, Anya, Lauren (to whom Tyra whispers an apology for stealing her shoes), Aimee, Katarzyna, and finally Fatima. Dang! This leaves Marvita and my favorite, Whitney.

Please don’t take Whitney, Tyra! She has some character and spunk in that house. Tyra tells the girls that both are getting feedback about not taking the competition seriously and seeming as if they want it. She pulls the final photo, which belongs to Whitney, who seems to want it a little more. Whew!

Marvita tells us that she has overcome plenty of fears while being at the house and through the experience. She’s leaving a changed person. What a classy exit.

Next week, Tyra has the girls in red leotards and striking poses with emotion. And everyone, including calm, cool Claire, has had enough of Dominique. Whoa, it looks like we’ll have another catfight on our hands. We’ll see you next week!

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Kari’s favorite photos are taken spontaneously in photo booths. Which were your favorite girls for the week? You can send her comments at flystorms2@yahoo.com.

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