Aww. Poor Cornpone Laura. From castratin' bulls to crumple-face crying on the CW because she came in second on America's Next Top Participant At Capetown Fashion Week. And even though she should have known Bloody Eyeball would best her—after all, the chicken-fried, homespun, molasses-dipped musings, charming though they are, could only get her so far—Bankable Productions certainly did try their best to convince us that Cornpone had a shot.
When the girls got their scripts, and poor Cornpone was trying so hard to overcome her dyslexia (in one night) to learn her Cover Girl Lash Blast Sweeping Views For You To Choose Aloha Mr. Hand Extreme Mascara script, I thought, "Hmm. 'From castratin' bulls to overcoming dyslexia to win America's Next Top Model' might be a pretty good line. Maybe they'll use it." But then they showed poor Cornpone's eyes glazing over and staring off into nothing, perhaps with visions of haystacks and bulls' butts dancing in her head. Immediately following that shot, was a shot of Bloody Eyeball perfectly whisper-reciting her memorized lines and triumphantly swatting her script. I knew then that Bloody Eyeball had bested Cornpone for sure.
Incidentally, Bankable Productions, leaving a note in a model's house that reads, "If a model falls in the forest, will anybody hear?" isn't just a common proverb as filtered through the stupidity gravitron that is Tyra Mail™. It's stalking and threatening that person with bodily harm. Just so you know.
Another clear sign that Cornpone would soon go from castratin' bulls back to castratin' bulls: Nigel's noted lingering hug with a very uncomfortable-looking Nicole following their Cover Girl print ad shoot. Down, noted fashion photographer. The only way this episode could have been more creepy was if Kara Not-So-Fresh, aka Baby Kelly Bensimmon, had stuck around long enough to encounter Gilles Bensimmon. Oh, the inappropriate, lingering, creeptastic hugs that would have taken place.
Anyway, after the Lash Blast ad shoots, and the Seventeen cover shoot with the corpse of Kelly Bensimmon's ex-husband ("He's shot Naomi Campbell, and Gisele, and Tyra, and he was married to that walking overtanned handbag on The Real Housewives of NYC…"), and the girls flushed their eyes for about 20 minutes to get the sight of Ann Shoket's shimmy greeting out of their sensory receptors, Cornpone and Bloody Eyeball opened the front door and shrieked loudly. Tyra, the same Tyra who had left that threatening note in their armoire a day earlier, was right there on their doorstep. Instead of calling the police, Nicole and Laura each had an awkward one-on-vacant-space chat with Tyra out on the lanai. Nicole told the vapor where Tyra's brain once was that she was always awkward, which was quite a revelation, and that she used to eat her lunch in the bathroom stall in order to avoid talking to people. Nicole then went to go find a bathroom stall, and Cornpone came in and cried like a just-castrated bull about how much she loves her Gramma Wanda Sue. Tyra's hair flapped impassionately in the breeze.
Next, Cornpone and Bloody Eyeball were rolled in glitter for the big runway show. Who else was in the big runway show? Oh, you know, a bunch of the eliminated modelettes. Tyra probably wanted to give them all a chance to walk in a real ("real" here meaning "attended by Eddie Murphy for absolutely no reason") runway show, before being relegated to the much smaller runways usually frequented by petite models, like the decks of houseboats at boat shows.
The big runway show had a theme, The Three Elements: Fire, Wind, & Water. Presumably, Earth wasn't included in the runway show because they couldn't get a runway-length mud trough in time. The show closed with all of the tiny lil' model nuggets on the runway groping each other while being drenched with water from the sprinklers. It was all probably very thrilling for someone. Maybe Eddie Murphy?
Then, of course, the two remaining tiny modelitas were brought before panel so Tyra could drag out the process of naming Bloody Eyeball the winner. Poor Cornpone Laura! Once Tyra squeezed those Gramma Wanda Sue tears out of her, she was no longer of any use to Tyra. Also, Bloody Eyeball is the tallest of the shorties, so, you know, she can probably actually get high-fashion work.
Stray Observations:
—"What else do you like besides milkshakes?" "Hmmm, little baby cats!" Nigel does not like Laura's noted smile motivation.
—"I'd rather have actual boogers in my nose then sound snotty."
—"The way you pronounce words is very precise, and not ever'body talks like that." Good one, Laura.
—"So now the girl who was eating in the bathroom stall could be America's Next Top Model." To think that all this time Bloody Eyeball could have had her own colorful catchphrase: From eating in the bathroom to [Fill in the blank].
—For the finale judging, the petite girls were finally allowed to wear heels.
—Nicole's "signature walk" was more of a gahlump. And I'm pretty sure Frankenstein already has the patent on it.
—Nicole would be "loved in Milan," Laura "loved in America." Oh, Cornpone. Any other season and you would have won. Actually, any other season and you wouldn't have been accepted due to your height. Hmm. Maybe stretch 2 more inches and try again?
—Now that Le Petit ANTM is mercifully over, I can't wait for Ru Paul's Drag Race: Season 2 to obliterate it off the face of television forever.