Get Shorty
America`s Next Top Model Season 3 - Episode 12

By wench
12/17/2004

I took all day yesterday to prepare myself, you know. I did my nails, exfoliated a half-pound of skin, bleached my hair silver a la Jay Manuel, and sat in a tub of avocado and yogurt for an all-over facial. My spa day was an undeniable success up until the dog got into the bathroom and started to lap at me. Turns out avocado-yogurt is a good dog conditioner, too.

Anyway, my anime/Tokyo Street Style makeup and hair were perfectly uncoordinated with my fashion forward clothes, so I grabbed the remote and prepared to be blown away by what was sure to be the totally fierce Grand Finale Cycle 3! Because, you know, after a whole cycle of cat-fighting and weeping and vomiting, no WAY could this last episode be anything but Janice Dickinson-on-crack-good. Fierce, bitches!

Not quite. ANTM producers treated me to a tepid rewarmed-over hash of the entire cycle, full of dull girls just off the bus and without an ounce of modelness to them. If some poor slob was watching for the first time, that poor slob would have quickly clicked back to the second or third two-hour rerun of Lost and thanked some lucky stars they never got suckered into the vortex of Tyty. Blah.

Once again, I got to see the Biblical scene of Ann and Eva, where Ann is banished from the garden by the Panel Gods and hugs the two-headed Amanda/Yaya snake before snubbing poor apple-cheeked Eva. Without much explanation of the history between the two Pink Positives, this drama was wasted, although Amanda shared that in the past days, "Eva has been treating Ann like poo." My closed-captioning improved the comment, saying Ann was treated like Pooh. Ann may not have had much of a rumbly tumbly, but she was indeed of little brain.

At least I figured I'd be treated to a bang-up model competition for the Final Three. There would be no dead eyes, no open mouths, just furious fierce bitchin' model anger, baby! They would have to STEP UP, yo. In faux-reality, they stepped down, so as to lay across some Zen rocks in the midst of a small puddle. The photo shoot was a several-minutes-long commercial for Cover Girl's brand new exciting lip goo, just in time for the holidays!!! Each girl shivered in anticipation as her lips were lacquered with Wet Slicks Crystals. Eva was thoughtful enough to ask for some of the selling points of the product, even while she was being glossed!

Contrary to every other damn shoot, the models were told to be happy and approachable. Jay wanted big pretty smiles that would have made him weep and moan any other time in this crazy Cycle 3. Could the girls smile? Could they be happy? It would be tough, but Amanda vowed to think of bunny rabbits and France. Yaya conjured sweet superior thoughts of her excellent education and famous humility. Eva was glad for a break from the two snobs. After gushing that all three had really stepped up today in this super-extra-difficult challenge, Jay segued into a paid commercial and advised one and all to splash on the sparkle dust for the holiday season. I foresee a run on Dollar Store glitter makeup in the next few days.

Next our fierce contenders trundled off to the design studio of Noriko Fukushima. This woman specializes in making clothes that people actually wear. Sorta. Now that they have had weeks of fashion training, Yaya and Amanda are able to critique the hoochiness of the designs. I must have missed their pointed comments at that skanky La Perla shop. All three do some walking in the Fukushima designs, and soon it is time for Panel! Even having watched all three entire cycles of ANTM, I can't remember the term "panel" or when it became one of those article-free words like "prom."

Tyty does her sponsors proud and rattles off the list of prizes even though I could do the same in my sleep. In fact, I am close to sleep now. Why didn't I plan a Cover Girl drinking game? This is boring me more than Cassie's vacant smiles or Ann's dead decrepit eyes. Speaking of dead eyes, the judges cluck that Amanda's use of glasses is not fierce, and she should dump the specs. Hey, she can't see, anyway! And she'll be really blind in the blink of an eye! And yet, her eyes are her bestest feature, say the judges. Oh, the Alanis-irony of it. It's like wanting to model in a tank full of sharks, but you just started your period.

Now the judges are beside themselves with a difficult decision: which short not-modelly girls do they want to be stuck with once they send the third one home? Tyra is shaking over the momentousness of this choice. Select the wrong girl, and she could wind up with an America's Next Top Model who has a career that will go nowhere. For the third time, even. The rest of Panel is concerned, too. I don't care how desperate UPN is, if all ANTM can feature is short graceless girls with acne, the show will lose its "credibility," and poor Nole and his little pooch will be back on the streets, fighting for scraps of food with Janice. I know who I'm betting on.

If they had put a little more thought into it, they might have devised a more definitive challenge for this final cut. Each girl somehow managed to smile prettily while wearing shiny lips and not being hoisted from a ceiling or covered with maggots or getting yelled at by Mr. Jay. All the pictures were equally mainstream magazine-friendly. Tyra drew the first photo: Yaya. NONO!!!!!!!! Yaya gave her lovely self-satisfied humble smile, then Tyra faced Eva and Amanda. She babbled something about each having something the other needed, but left out the part about how Eva needed a little height and Amanda needed a little sight. I guess some damn PC thug determined it would be bad form to question whether Amanda could really hope to make a career of being a supermodel when she can't see the runway without a guide dog. And no matter how cute that gimmick might be, Panel stepped up and chose Eva. Poor Blindy, she probably missed the peeved look on Janice's face at the announcement.

Once Amanda has gone, Yaya realizes that playing friendly with Eva is in her best interests. I like that she can put aside all the crummy low-down things she's said about Eva in the past and become soul mates with her at this late date. Win or lose, Yaya has enough faces to make it in the world of modeling. Tyra grabs a last one-on-one with each girl, probing for tears, practicing for her upcoming daytime talk show. It's sure to be a weepy hit as Tyra shares her wisdom, her fierceness and her Mama with anyone who's managed to avoid them so far.

Streetwise and Afrocentricgirl arrive at the show, and get to sit with real models as they take mental notes. Some genius made the decision to make a square runway for this, just to fuck it up a little. What's more, after learning how to attack the runway Miss J-style, now they have to walk.very.slowly. all whilst avoiding any other model they meet at the crosswalk. And then battle ravenous ankle-biting weasels that have been loosed amongst them. Oh how I wish.

Mr. Jay stage-manages, cues the music, and Oh My God, Janice Dickinson is up there beating on a Taiko drum! No, my mistake. She's in the audience, next to Miss J. in his not-in-the-least-pretentious kimono. The models start their torturous slow death march to Bataan while some equally torturous music turns them into robotos. Domo arigato, bitches. Yaya and Eva both look like the walking dead, and I can't tell if that is the intended effect or not. These last few episodes in Japan have made me question whether I really know anything at all about fashion. Tyra, send me home!

After the show, there is some bosom-collapsing, then Eva and Yaya head back to Panel. Nole, Nigel, Janice and Tyra confer, then summon the model wannabes one last time. Too little, too late, Tyra gives Yaya advice on how to walk better on the runway. Nigel gently scolds that she looked too much like a zombie. Portfolio pics are displayed and it's clear that both Yaya and Eva had some beautiful photographs. Tyra is even kind enough to pretend that the anime and trampoline shoots never existed. Poof. Sequestered again, Nigel and Nole seem to pull for Eva, while a refined gal like Janice appreciates her sister-under-the-skin, Yaya. Face it, dorks: neither one is tall and willowy. Half a dozen people you've rejected over the last few seasons could wipe the floor with either one of these shorties. Your winnowing process rivals only the Democratic Presidential Primaries for insuring certain defeat. If you're throwing the tall mannequin criterion out the window, why couldn't you have kept Toccara?

Down to the wire. Yaya's humility makes it difficult for her to believe that she won't win, but she does feign a lukewarm comment about "having a fifty-fifty chance." And yet, and yet...America's Next Top Model is up on the screen and Yaya is leaving the room! Ta ta, Yaya! Janice launches a full-frontal attack on a temporarily defenseless Eva, and all hell breaks loose. It's a Cinderella story outta nowhere, ladies and gentlemen. May I present to you, America's Next Top Model Miss Eva Pigford!!!!!

Okay, maybe just use that first name, huh?

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