Now comes the point during the ANTM cycle/season when Tyra surveys the nine model heads in nine jars filled with life-sustaining fierce juice (aka vaseline, shhh, that's a secret) from her perch at the edge of the abyss, and screams, "BODIES!!" The nearby tent of the beleagured, mute Bankable productions employees rattles with the sheer force of Tyra's monstrous yell, and immediately the unfortunate Bankable Productions employees within start procuring bodies—the most awkward, uncoordinated bodies they can find—to attach to the model heads. It's an easy process, really. They just pop the head on the neck stem like you would with a Barbie doll, and boom: Model.
Unfortunately, since these models have just been heads in jars for the entirety of their time on ANTM, they have no idea how to use bodies. "What is this heavy, limbed thing where the bottom of my jar used to be?" they ask the Bankable Productions employees. "Agh! It's moving because I thought about moving! Help!" But the Bankable Productions employees had their tongues cut out long ago and can't answer the newly-be-bodied models, so they send them to a body moving expert: Beyonce. Ha. Just kidding, they could never afford Beyonce—and the mere presence of Beyonce near Tyra's abyss might deflate Tyra's gargantuan ego, which is the awful, life-sustaining force of ANTM. Instead, they send the models to a lil' nugget of glow in the dark playdoh named Benny Ninja.
This cycle/season, the lil' nugget had help from Lil' Mama, because, sure, why not? She judges a dance show with the guy from N'Sync who is not Justin Timberlake. Or Joey Fatone. Or Lance Bass. You know, the other one. Anyway, did you know that the best dancers are short people? That is a fact that two of the shortest people who dance, Lil' Mama and lil' nugget Benny Ninja, want you to believe. And so, Lil Mama informs the girls that they now have bodies (congrats!) and that they have to convey emotions with those bodies. But not emotions like "exasperation," or "annoyance," or "confusion," which they might have been feeling at the time, but emotions like, "happy," "sad," and "angry." At this point, we were all really familiar with angry.
The mini-models are separated into tiny groups where they have to use their short brains and even shorter limbs to come up with emodances. The girls are all very nervous because, OMG, they have to perform after the Jabberwokkeeezz (or the Jabberrrwockiiiiezz, or the Jabber88okaudfjneez, or whatever), who are the coolest dance crew since people started to pretend like dance crews exist. Bloody Eyeball almost achieves a nervous inflection in her stoner voice when she says, "I've never performed in front of an audience before." The good news is, she still hasn't performed in front of an audience, because there were about fourteen people at the "show," most of whom were Lil' Mama, lil' nugget, Jabberzzwokkiiz, and the woman who was giving away $17,000 versions of Claire's boutique earrings to the winners. In the end, Wonk-Eye, Rae, and Kara Not-So-Fresh were judged to be the best emodancers, which made Ashley very angry because she claims to be a dancer. Oh, Ashley. Wiggling your detachable head while it's in the jar doesn't count as dancing.
Back at the munchkin house, Kara-Not-So-Fresh reveals that she has thoughts, sometimes, about the other minature girls in the house. Clearly, Kara-Not-So-Fresh is going to be in the bottom two. Her thoughts are this, "I don't like Nicole. She's, like, slow." Takes slow to know, uh, slow, Kara. She then has another thought (a two-thoughts per day is, like, Kara's max): "Most of these girls aren't my type of people." Which really isn't fair, because no people are Kara's type of people because Kara isn't a person. Kara's type of "people" are "flat-voiced oatmeal lumps." And not everyone can be a flat-voiced oatmeal lump like Kara. Thankfully.
The next morning, the mini-models are awakened by the sound of Mr. Jay's voiced chirp, chirp, chirping for them to get up. "Agghhhhhhh!!" the girls all scream…But nobody can hear them because of their tiny, short larynxes. Mr. Jay summons the girls to Las Vegas so that he can dress up as Your Ringmaster, Lt. Fancypants. Oh, and so the girls can do a group photo shoot with Cirque du Soleil while dressed as Sigorney Weaver posessed by Zuul in Ghostbusters. Makes perfect sense. When a giant, inflatable, dazed snail is wheeled on stage by the Cirque du Soleil performers, naturally the girls all mistake the creepy, gargantuan gastropod for Tyra and they all cheer. That truly makes perfect sense.
At judging, Ashley and Kara-Not-So-Fresh are in the bottom two: Ashley for general suckage, and Kara-Not-So-Fresh for being a flat-voice lump of oatmeal. Who will go home? The bland girl who is awful or the other bland girl who is awful? It was a real nail-biter! In the end, though, Tyra sent home Ashley cause, well, maybe Tyra was hungry for oatmeal or something that day.
Grade: B
Stray Observations:
—I think Tyra really kept Kara-Not-So-Fresh around because it gives her another week to run the whole "model like the verb not the noun" nonsense further into the ground.
—"Ms. Banks is a huge fan of Cirque du Soleil." Oh, do tell, Your Ringmaster, Lt. Fancypants. How old is Ms. Banks then? A spry 60?
—That "Top model/ Top moooodel" autotune song is back. I guess ANTM does have a club track.
—"I think my angry looked more bi-polar." She's astute, that Bloody Eyeball.
—Poor Sundai, aka Black Kelly Ripa. It must be so rage-inducing to be told you're over-accessorizing by a person wearing fringed epaulets on her dress.
—"There are sooo many beautiful girls. In my career, there were so many girls who looked way better than me." Way better than you, Tyra? How?!?