First off, allow me to apologize for the extreme tardiness of this review. Please know that I was not shirking my most sacred ANTM watching-then-writing duties. On Wednesday night, my DVR chose to commit suicide rather than tape the new episode, leaving me twitching and shaking and searching the shadiest corners of the Internet (well, YouTube) looking for a hit of Baby Topanga, McWig, Samanthduh (Get it?), and twitchy, shaky Marjorie. Unfortunately, until last night all I could find were clips of some of the girls on Big Bang Theory. But today, someone finally posted the episode to YouTube, sparing me the humiliation of watching the re-broadcast tonight on the CW. (I win after all, Tyra.) So here we are. I promise it won't happen next week when either Baby Topanga (probably) or McWig (long-shot) wins.
I'm doubly sorry because this week's episode was a pretty entertaining one as far as ANTM episodes go. Not only did it feature the three faces of Marjorie (twitchy, "flat," and drunk), but Paulina schooled the girls in the proper way to sniff herring, and Tyra called Anne Shoket of Seventeen "sexy" out of pity. But what really made this episode entertaining was the addition of a rare ingredient for ANTM: Dudes. More specifically vaguely creepy, shaggy haired, deep-v-neck-wearing Dutch boat dudes.
When was the last time we saw an unsanctioned boy/girl get together on America's Next Top Model? Usually, the addition of any young men into the formula is in the form of photo shoots, or commercial tapings, with little to no extra-curricular activities. It's always very model-tested, Tyra-approved. The last time I can remember anything resembling model/dude social interaction was the season/cycle where the challenge winner's prize was a "romantic" double faux-date. (Your prize? An awkward dinner!)
But this time around, Tyra had no hand in the planning of this rendezvous. Instead it was Marjorie, the most socially inept of the girls, who was orchestrating the model/dude social interaction. Empowered by her (frankly inexplicable) win of the who-can-kiss-Mark-Vanderloo-convincingly-after-running-on-a-treadmill challenge, and energized by the experience of wasting 10,000 perfectly good dollars at G-star, Marjorie was looking to celebrate her newfound happy awkwardness, as opposed to her nervous awkwardness. So she called up the only guys she knows in the Netherlands who have also been screened by Bankable productions, invited them over, and told them to bring wine. Naturally, they obliged. But since Marjorie is apparently the only one of the girls who drinks, she was also the only one of the girls who played truth-or-dare (with kissing!), and who ended up fully clothed in the hot tub with a dude named Bernard proposing to her.
The sober girls, Annaleigh especially, weren't very happy with that situation, and did their best to "save" Marjorie by kicking the dudes out of the apartment, all of which was more than a little melodramatic. Marjorie didn't even seem that drunk, so she hardly needed rescuing. But I guess there's only so much three sober people can take of a group of drunk Dutch boat dudes in their house.
The next day, the girls did the obligatory "you're in the Netherlands go stand by that windmill" photo shoot, but they were dressed up like zombie clown ravers. Both Baby Topanga and McWig impressed the judges with their model-y use of props–a pitchfork and a heavy chain, respectively, but Samantha and Marjorie were supposedly lackluster. Samantha had trouble finding her pose due to the fact that she was wearing wooden shoes, and that the wind is howling through her head at all times. She looked so sad at the photo shoot when she faced the camera in full Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner makeup and said, "Dude. I sucked. Really bad." But the judges were more put off by Marjorie, who had the nerve to take their "be less nervous" advice from last week and stand in front of them with no signs of twitching or nervousness. She had lost her awkward "charm." Granted, they told her to lose precisely that, but according to Tyra's mental nonsense scale, she lost it too much. It's the Catch 22 school of modeling. Therefore, Marjorie had to be sent home to figure out how to look balanced in front of a totally unbalanced person like Tyra. (Hint: you can't)
Grade: A-
Stray Observations:
—"Embrace me." Poor Marjorie. She basically got kicked off for inviting boys over.
—"This [crazy face] is how you get booked. This [crazy face] is not how you get booked. Make sense?" Obviously, Tyra.
—"Dude, I'll pull you out by your trousers." McKey was really straddling the line between American and contrived British accent this week.
—"I hate being serious cause it's really annoying." Samantha is the ideal dumb third-runner up.