Fattie's back! Jillian is icy! Elisa is back to hideous form! And Steven and his squinty eyes, French-Stewart-stuck-in-molasses voice, and rehearsed quips are gone! If only I'm-The-only-Straight-Guy-Here-Kevin had won with his cute little button tunic instead of Christian with his one-note puffy sleeve shirt (honestly, Christian is like Uli but with puffy sleeve jackets instead of beachy print dresses), and this episode would have been tailor-made for me.
Even the challenge was a good one: Make an everyday outfit for a newly skinny person from their favorite fat clothes. (By the way, how appropriate was it that Fat Chris was resurrected for the fat clothes challenge? I'll answer: it was so deliciously appropriate!) The challenge was a perfect melding of the best parts of the Clothes Off Your Back challenge from Season 2, and the mom challenge from Season 3: making something wearable from existing clothes, and dealing with 'regular people,' respectively.
The person who had the most trouble making something from existing clothes was Squinty Steven. The reason? He is alternately boring and terrible at making clothes. First there was the replica of the Banana Republic suit that he made for the first challenge. Then there was whatever that fringey burlap thing he made with Marion was. Then there was his second Banana Republic replica, this time for a man. Then last week it was the silk robe he cut in half and put over leggings. And finally tonight it was the dowdy pilgrim frock he somehow managed to make from a gigantic wedding dress.
Both Jillian and Elisa also had problems making things from other things, but in the case of the former it was because she just decided to pretty much ignore that part of the challenge (due to severe latent bitchery), and in the case of the latter, it was probably because she didn't spit on it. The results of their difficulties? Jillian made a cute red halter dress (that wasn't as cute as Rami's outfit, and he actually followed the rules of the challenge), and Elisa made a jacket/dress/visible slip combination that gave the impression of a colorblocked duck.
Naturally, the person who seemed to have the most trouble dealing with regular people was Christian. He wears his hair like that as a scare tactic/defense mechanism, like a bird that will puff up its feathers to absurd lengths when faced with an outsider, in order to keep the regular people—who may not find him as fabulous as he finds himself—away. Still, despite his initial whining, Christian learned a valuable lesson. He discovered that he can simply make a regular-person version of the same puff-sleeve jacket he always makes and just call it a day. And he'll even win the challenge!
Elsewhere in the episode, I'm beginning to notice, as some of you did, that Michael Kors quips are way, way off this season. Has he grown tired? Has laziness set in? Are there only so many bitchy things you can hurl at the feet of fashion designers on a reality competition? Yes, yes, and yes. (Still, Heidi seems to be pretty spot-on most of the time, but maybe it's just her German-ness.)
Kors called Steven's outfit "very French maid, all she needs is a feather duster," when it was clearly very "Pilgrim widow, all she needs is a butter churn and a bible." And he said of Fat Chris's ensemble, "It's Paris hooker 1950s," and likened it to Shirley MacLaine, when it was obviously very Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones. Kors needs to sharpen his observations before the next challenge, or at least, you know, observe.
Grade: A-
Stray Observations:
—How sad/scary/weird was Jack's staph infection face? Answer: very, very sad/scary/weird.
—Ricky (and his hat) cried again, for no real reason, in this episode, so I am now instituting a Ricky Cry Count. Let's call it at 31 times so far, and go from there.
—"I've made more bad decisions at 3 o'clock in the morning than I can count." I'll count them, Tim: 2, one when you agreed to do Tim Gunn's House Of Style with Veronica Webb, and one when you did those annoying Macy's commercials, right?