It’s only week three, and I already feel like I’m watching this boring trainwreck so you don’t have. SO I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE IT. Remember how last week I was disappointed that the the drama levels were low because sleep deprivation hadn’t yet kicked in? Well, this week starts off with (minor boring) drama about sleep deprivation. Mark (Canada’s Nigel, remember) and Yasmin (Canada’s Paulina, I guess) keep the girls up until 2 a.m. for a stupid challenge in the unimpressive and badly lit hotel pool – they have to keep their faces pretty while getting splashed. Fierce! Everyone blinks and laughs and shrieks except for Meagan with the braces from Winnipeg. Then, in a message from Jay, they’re told that they have to be up at 5 a.m. and they all cry. I feel for them, but…surely they’ve seen this show before?
Anyway, the next morning, everyone obeys their early wake-up call except Nikita, who may actually be going home this week, for all the whiny airtime she’s getting. So Jay goes and wakes Nikita up, and she’s all zoned out, and people bitch halfheartedly about her, and then they have a photo shoot where they smear berries across their face, except Nikita, who gets a beet for some reason. (Maybe to punish her for oversleeping?) The pictures all look like shit, even Linsay’s, who wins 50 extra frames for the next photo shoot for being the best berry-smearer.
And now Jay tries -and fails – to amp up the suspense before he tells them they’re going to the Bahamas. Awww, they’re so excited and happy! But you can’t have a Top Model cycle without some manufactured passport drama! It looks like Maryam’s not going, and none of the girls have any sympathy for her. Nice.
So far, the most disturbing thing about this cycle (and possibly ANY cycle of Top Model) is the creepy beefcake mural painted on the wall in the girls’ suite. If you’re watching the show, you know what I’m talking about, and if you’re not, well, I hope you never have to witness such an atrocity.
Ok, back to the Bahamas. They’re just really happy to be there. Especially Ebonie. She thanks Jesus every morning. It’s all very cute. The girls all pose in wedding dresses on the beach and then have a heart to heart in a hammock about girl fights.
Nikita complains about her photo shoot, and the girls complain about Nikita. Heather gets the first laugh of this cycle out of me when she laments her photo shoot, chirping “I wasn’t really channeling the sadness?”
Back in Toronto, Maryam has some Jay Mail of her own – she gets a photo shoot too, and she has to “pretend to channel the heat of the Bahamas”. I’m terrified that this means she’s being sent out to the Beaches (the show was filmed back in March, when it was damn cold up here), but she’s just posing against a white screen in a studio somewhere. And she knocks it out of the park, weeping, but in a beautiful model way. She’s a bit square-jawed, but she seems to know her angles. Plus, I like her glasses. The rest of the girls, however, show their petty colours when they get mad that she got a photo shoot even though she doesn’t have a passport. Nikita says something idiotic about how this is like a free pass for Maryam, and in real life she wouldn’t get a free pass, which makes no sense, but maybe Nikita’s still delirious from lack of sleep. Whatever, I’m sick of her. I hope I’m right and she’s going home today.
In panel, Yasmin tells Nikita to suck it up and Jay gives Maryam another guilt trip about not having her passport. Give the girl a break, she missed out on a sweet trip to the Bahamas. Don’t pretend like she’s not one of the best girls you’ve got right now.
Ebonie goes home. I will miss her cute French Canadian accent. But I will not miss her constant implications that simply wanting something really badly means you deserve it.
