Commercial! Couture! Catalogue! Stop: you're all wrong. (The correct answer is Poster Paint Bukkake.)
This episode had nothing to do with those three things, no matter how much Benny Ninja and his superhero posing kilt wanted it to be. The description on my digital cable for this episode read simply: "One feels the pressure." But what it should have read was, "Dominique talks about Dominique and what Dominique means to Dominique," since at least one third of the show was devoted to Dominique emphatically shouting the word "Dominique" in the direction of the cameras. Does talking about yourself in the third person count as a catchphrase? What about "That's what Dominique is all about"? (The "that" in that sentence obviously refers to mania.) I'm going to give it a try today.
In short: Dominique is crazy—so crazy that I'm sure the producer conducting her interviews was both excited to showcase someone so crazy in all their craziness, and terrified to be in the same small room with a lion-faced woman shouting her own name. Still, since basically no one else existed in this episode (The plume of smoke that is Anya was even more invisible than usual), we knew that Dominique and her Dominiqueness had to be in either the top 2 or the bottom 2.
The rest of the episode could be divided into two parts: 1. Whitney is funny (definitely a bad thing on ANTM) and 2. Marvita is so hood (and also pretty funny). Whitney's humor was showcased mainly through her (totally appropriate)dislike of Dominique. Whitney, you see, is sane. Dominique is not. Therefore they clash. Whitney also had the best reaction to an ANTM fight thus far: "Where's the Saran Wrap!" Peeling the outside layers off until Marvita's hoodness was in full bloom was kicked off this episode by Fatima saying, "She's a crazy hoodrat." From there, it was Marvita calling herself a freeloader at the swag suite, Marvita drinking a 40 with Lauren on the floor, Marvita saying, "I don't want to go back to the hood."
But when it came down to judging how well the girls could model dripping paint all over their faces, that's exactly where Tyra sent Marvita—though really you couldn't blame her. Marvita's sad, schlumpy slump in that photo clearly showed the dark side of Poster Paint Bukkake, and Tyra was going more for the pretty side? Whitney was also called out, but her offense was unclear.Doing a split at the posing face-off? Not taking Benny Ninja seriously? Let this be a lesson to future ANTM contestants: Take everything that happens in a graffiti pose playground full of vogueing drag queens seriously and commit! Oh, and if you're a crazy, lion-faced woman who shouts her own name, remember: a little paint dripped all over can soften your face enough to make the top 2. That's what Dominique is all about! (It's not working.)
Grade: B
Stray Observations:
—"Maybe we gonna be naked. Maybe we gonna be naked in coats. I don't know." I'm going to miss Marvita.
—I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure Vendela is a cyborg. Also, if Top Model is in 120 countries, Tyra owes the world a really big apology. Still, I'm surprised Tyra didn't insist on hosting them all.
—During the posing battle, Lauren's main move consisted of stretching out on the ground, and reaching around and grabbing her shoe by the heel, which is probably how they got stolen.
—Saleisha's life is a Cover Girl cosmetics factory!
—"A razor costs a dollar, airbrushing costs thousands of dollars." Tyra would know.