After last week's over-hyped episode, where the most exciting part was Lauren chipping a nail and Fatima having to wait for the mailman, I wasn't super excited about this week's show. But, you know, they're in Italy and all, and I'm a sucker for accents. Tonight's show did not disappoint. Or should I say, did-a not-a disappoint-a me (now that, my friends, is a bad accent).
The girls cruise through the airport and soon they are on a tour of Rome. Their bus driver drops them off near the Coliseum and as they get off the bus, Anya falls. Or in Hawaiian dialect, 'eats it'. The tour is pretty cool, but really, they're only in the most beautiful city in the world, after all. Soon, their bus driver hands them their first Tyra Mail, and how cute, Ty Ty has morphed herself into the Mona Lisa. Modesty is Ms. Banks’ middle name, after all.
Anyhoo, the first Tyra Mail instructs the girls to check out their new pad, and it's pretty cool: there's a pool in the middle of it, but the girls are still all stuffed into one bedroom. Still. It's in Rome. So no complaints.
Fat crawls into bed right away; she's a bit sick. The other girls are sitting around the table talking about Fat and Anya feels badly that the other girls are being so catty, so she gets up to look after Fat. Right then, I sense that Anya might win this whole damn thing. I also sense that Dominique has the worst hair ever. Even worse than my own prized afro.
The next morning, the girls wake to Lauren banging around the apartment, and also the second Tyra Mail (more Mona/Tyra Lisa). I notice that only one girl gets to read the Tyra Mail out loud now, none of this reading-in-union business. The card says: Be careful how you roll. You may miss the beauty in Rome'. Anya, bless her blonde heart, is always the first to guess what the mail means. She thinks they're going to row, row, row their boat, gently down the Seine. Well, Dom is a little bit funky with her pronunciation, so it's possible that she read 'Be careful how you row'. But not to worry, the subtitles show the truth: Anya is an idiot.
The girls leave and meet up with some dude who is from the House of Gai Mattiolo. I love that about designers, they have 'Houses'. Classic. Anyhow, this dude from Gai's House takes the girls on a spin around Rome, where they check out random Italian women standing on the streets, looking chic and gorgeous. My (limited) experiences of Italy evoke a different memory. By that, I mean:
How I remember Italian women:
Not that Italian women aren’t gorgeous, but my memories are more about groups of Italian men loitering in groups, smoking cigars, and each talking loudly over each other. Not too many women around. But it doesn’t matter what I think; it matters what Gai (that’s pronounced guy) thinks. And Gai thinks he wants the girls to dress up like Italian women and strut around and he’ll judge them and make comments:
Fat – ‘elegant’
Dom – ‘natural; unfresh’
Kat – ‘beautiful’
Anya – ‘blonde, skinny’
Whit – ‘American, beautiful face’…of course Whit takes this as a personal affront to plus-sized models
Lauren – ‘how do you say…awkward?’
Anya wins a silver dress and the gals are jealous. Back to the house where a third Tyra mail is waiting (I swear, they must have gotten a deal on those Mona Lisa cards) and this one reads: Facile, Brezza, Bella. Brilliant Kat cracks the da Vinci code: Easy, Breezy, Beautiful, Cover Girl! Hooray! The girls are going to do their Cover Girl Commercials! In Italian! Double Hooray! I’m going to ease back on my couch and take a sip of my vino, because this is going to be entertaining, I just feel it. Bring. It. On.
At the shoot, Jay is sipping a cappuccino with one his boy toys when the girls walk in. And they are nervous, girlfriends, because they have to walk and talk. AT THE SAME TIME. I’m giddy.
Anya’s up first and her Italian is pretty bad. She does look good, though, if you mute your television. Up next is Kat. I think Kat does pretty well, and it’s obvious she knows how to speak another language. Then my old friend Dom is up to bat. Dom, Dom, Dom, when will she learn? She is literally puking out words that she’s hoping are Italian and all I hear is ‘caliente – novo- tata – nintendo – focaccia – parmesan’. Nice work, Dom. Way to represent. Then we have Lauren. I was really afraid that she was really going to bomb at this, and she did. Sooo awkward. And by that I mean imbarazzante, goffo, impacciato (oh yeah, I googled it). Fat did really well – she rocked it in one take. And finally Whit, who faked it in about six or eight takes.
The girls get back to the house just in time to read the fourth Tyra Mail, which lets them know that tomorrow is judging time. At the start of the judging panel, Tyra begins with a little lesson about Italy for the dumb viewers at home. Three points:
1. High fashion is haute couture in French and alta moda in Italian.
2. The Spanish Steps are pretty cool
3. Tyra has done four runways down the Spanish Steps (see point 2).
Everyone’s best take on the CG commercial is reviewed and it’s the usual: the girls are giggly, Paulina’s brutal, Miss J can’t stop laughing, Tyra thinks she’s objective and constructive, Nigel and the Italian guy take it way too seriously. Yawn. I did enjoy Tyra’s fake accent, particularly when she was talking about working with Gai – it was meant to be Italian, but came out sounding more Jamaican, mon. Miss J sums up Lauren’s performance by holding up a sign, ‘Hell to the No’. Katrazyna is a bit snotty about how her name is pronounced, but Tyra is indifferent. If Tyra wants to pronounce it more like guitar-shin-ah than Katrazyna, than Kat will just have to suck it up, sistah. Nobody disses TyTy like that.
The judges deliberate and Fat, Kat, Anya, Dom, and Whit (who barely scraped by) are still on the road to becoming America’s Next Top Model. Stay tuned for next week, when Whit becomes Xena, and Anya becomes Gabrielle.
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