Somehow I survived the binge drinking extravaganza that was episode two, aka "The Frenchening", to make it here to episode three in which the modelettes finally move into what is annually generously referred to as "the model mansion". I feel we're going to need a whole lot more vodka to cope with this.
But before we start poisoning our livers for the second Monday in a row, let's take a look at some of our final 12. Or is it 16? Or 200? It's hard to tell as they all look vaguely the same this year - I think the ultimate plan is to farm all the similar looking ones for parts to make a super Frankenmodel that runs on natural gas and can walk five runways at a time.
Here's one at last year's New York Fashion Week.
There's Cassy who... OK, can we all stop pretending Cassy is going to be a model?
"Would you like fries with that?"
She's a pretty girl, sure, but I think we all know the real reason Cassy is here is because of three things - Gucci, Supre and conture.
Then there's Simone, who won't win but will probably get a gig on
Packed to the Rafters as Jessica Marais' long lost younger sister Jade who comes back to home to live after breaking up with her no good boyfriend who's on the run from the cops and Rebecca Gibney discovers she has a drug problem. Not Rebecca, I mean Jade. Simone.
ANTM welcomes its first transgender contestant, "Simon"!
Then there's Caroline, who may not win but will be able hire herself out to parties as a Mila Kunis lookalike:
"Remember when I was on that sitcom that sucked?"
There's Montana who... sorry, Montana? Never heard of her.
Nope... not ringing any bells.
And then there's Izzy, who will win.
What do you mean I said Madeline was going to win? I don't recall.
Anyway all 37 of them are on a speedboat, where we get such great insights into their complex characters as "I'm a pretty positive person, I get sad sometimes but I think life is more fun when you're happy" (Rachel) and "This is so different from my normal life back in Tassie" (Madeline). So, flying back from Paris to speed across Sydney Harbour in a luxury vessel is NOTHING like your life in Launceston? NOTHING?
"They keep throwing the most amazing things at us like Paris, and Sydney Harbour," says one of the oversized sunglasses wearing horde on the boat.
Next up...
Suddenly one of the modelettes spies something waving on the shore - it's Dawson, who is skin and bone after having been stranded on Model Island without food or water for the last four days...
Oh no wait, that's how she always looks.
If Only Pezza had been stranded there with her, they could have used his shiny head to signal for help. Pity.
What follows is the requisite "most boring five minutes of the series" they have every year, in which the modelettes are shown running through their new home squealing at household objects as if they're accident victims just awoken from a coma and overjoyed to remember what things are called.
"OY MOY GOURD, BEDS! DRAWERS! OY MOY GOURD A WALL!"
Meanwhile I take this opportunity to wonder why the adult channel hasn't jumped on the obvious publicity grab to launch
Australia's Next Topless Model. The challenges would be far more fun - like giving them two hours to UNDRESS in Paris - and you could do every judging session to ACDC's
The Jack.
"Our rooms are amazing, everything is so opulent," coos one modelette.
Opulent, adj: Tiny, prison-like and uncomfortable but with colourful bedspreads.
Suddenly Dawson appears and orders them all to grab their heels and get in the car, which is obviously a cunningly disguised challenge to see how flexible they are.
OK, where's the car?
Off they zoom in the INSERT PROMOTIONAL REQUIREMENT HERE to... a beach, to walk up and down in heels. Obviously the beach five metres in front of their house didn't have runway quality sand on it.
To guide them through this arduous task is choreographer Adam Williams, who may or may not be a partially melted and reconstructed wax model of Wil Anderson
He's still not funny.
This is all punctuated by Dawson barking various "styles" at them all to portray as they walk like "edgy vamp" and "expensive", all of which results in the modelettes doing exactly the same thing - walking in a straight line with a blank expression on their face.
Dawson barks at Simon(e) to walk "futuristically". Or if you're Simon(e), "future-really-sickly".
"I had no idea what to do because we're not in the future yet, we're still in 2011," she says.
Well, at least she got the year right.
But guess what? This is the internet, so *zssshhhwing!* - suddenly we're in the future, FIVE WHOLE MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE, where Bros has turned up to show off his new stick-on tattoo and "girlfriend".
No one's buying it, Bros.
Turns out the girlfriend is actually some fashion designer, who Bros describes as having just launched "her own eponymous label".
"Who names their collection after a hippopotamus?"
Speaking of new labels, I think it's time to rename this show to something like, ooh,
Wipeout or
It's A Knockout, or
Yan Yan Super Happy Fun Time Rainbow Show. We can screen it at 3am on Saturdays, except in Japan where it will air nightly at 7pm and become a nationwide hit. This is why:
I think you'll find this checks out.
"We set challenges like this because the girls are going to find that runways aren't always planks of wood. Sometimes they're in swimming pools, with big plastic balls," says Dawson, one milisecond before bursting out laughing and shrieking "HOW FUCKED UP IS THIS, SERIOUSLY? A PLASTIC BALL? HA HA HA HAA HA HA!"
Yan Yan Super Happy Fun Time Rainbow challenge in a nutshell:
- Jess lurches out looking like she's just pooed her pants, wobbling all over the place in order to not fall off the 13 inch plank of death and possibly drown. "I don't know about her face," says The Shiralee, demonstrating something of a lack of awareness of the catastrophe rolling across the pool in front of her.
- Caroline manages to look fierce despite being clad in hot pink felt pyjamas and a giant plastic ball.
- In a totally unscripted, unplanned, completely spontaneous accident, Izzy falls into the water. AND THAT WAS AFTER BROS TOLD HER HE EXPECTED HER TO BE THE BEST, WHAT A COINCIDENCE. But then she falls over again, and it's so funny I think we can forget the first incident ever happened.
Hypnotic, no?
- Meanwhile, Dawson shows off some of the decorative nautical rope work skills she taught herself during her days marooned on Model Island:
Stylish AND practical.
- Ten more models stagger slowly down the catwalk encased in plastic bubbles. I check my watch to see if it's still 2011.
Yep, it's not the future yet.
- Another modelette stacks it. Fortunately, the crowd is sympathetic.
"She's probably got a back injury, ha ha ha!"
- Um, she's still in the pool. She can't get back on the runway. You guys, she's stuck in the bubble!
Someone hook her up to the mains, she can power the Model Mansion for days!
- Meanwhile, this is Jo Blogs, who has clearly sold her soul to the ANTM devils which obviously means you can't trust her for impartial judgement ever again.
No that's fine, you go and have fun at ANTM tapings and I'll just sit here and do my blog *sniff sniff*...
Some girl wins a spa treatment, an achievement which is somewhat dampened by the judges awarding a second prize to the girl who fell over "for demonstrating perseverance", otherwise known as "insurance against getting sued".
*Zwisssh!* We're in the future again, in the garden with Bros who is explaining the next photo shoot to the modelettes. But there's obviously something broken with my time machine, because he appears to be wearing my mother's jacket from 1983:
I blame the flux capacitor.
This week the modelettes must stand in front of a wall in bathers while men throw buckets of water over them. See, the Yan Yan Super Happy Fun Time Rainbow Show is practically writing itself.
Photo shoot that is obviously conducted in a state without water restrictions (I'm looking at you, NSW, how about thinking of the bloody Riverland farmers why don't you) in a nutshell:
- Annalise is first and... um...
Yep.
- "I don't do cold water, or water in general," says Simon(e). Now her rolling around in the dust every morning is starting to make sense.
- Tayah puts on a blue swimsuit and... hang on, who?
Seriously, was she even in the opening credits?
- Izzy does a 10 minute shoot in a minute and a half, wins the whole show. Oh no wait, that part comes in about 10 weeks' time. D'oh.
- Cassy is totally not deliberately put in THE MOST BORING SWIMSUIT OF THE DAY, which coincidentally matches her face.
This photo isn't very fair, is it?
- The photographer praises Amelia for "doing poses that professional models do". Like putting hands on hips, turning to the side and pouting. AMAZING.
- Liz takes a whole reel of duds, so gets to go back for a second go. BECAUSE THAT'S TOTALLY HOW THIS COMPETITION WORKS.
And with that, it's off to the elimination warehouse, where cast-off models are chained up and forced to sew shoulder pads into Bros' jacket collection.
To celebrate Dawson not attacking anyone this episode, the producers have thrown a costume party! Sadly they forgot to tell anyone except The Shiralee, who has come as an Oscar statuette:
"I'd like to thank the Academy..."
Time to picture bitch:
- Rachel is described as looking like a racehorse and a bitch, which would be perfect if she were going for first prize at the Easter Show, except she's on a modelling competition.
- Hazel looks like she's been photographed at the exact moment her lower body spontaneously exploded, which maybe explains why everyone keeps saying her legs are "dynamite".
Well, she could always be a hand model?
- Everyone criticises Hazel for looking "flat" in her photo. "I think for a 16-year-old to give us THAT much behind the eyes is a real achievement," says The Shiralee, which speaks reams on what she thinks of teenagers these days.
- Izzy looks like a semi decapitated Wonder Woman who's had her right arm ripped off at the elbow by Dr Cyberr, and is trying to hold her head on with her left hand.
Unsurprisingly, this is not quite the look the photographer was going for.
- Neo does a striking impression of Kanye West:
I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger. I'm saying she looks like Kanye West.
- Cassy looks like someone called Shazza muscling up to some dumb bitch called Debbie at KFC in the Westfield food court cos she's been rootin' around with Dazza.
"OI, I said get your farken hands off him ya slut!"
- Amelia does a great impression of the last chicken at Coles seconds before the deli staff sluice out the cabinets:
REDUCED - $4.99!
- Dawson compares Annalise to the Easter Bunny, then tries to pretend it's because she's "cute".
Nice backpedal, Dawson.
- Pezza describes Simon(e) as "modelling with her tits", which is something of a win for the transgenders, if nothing else.
In the end it comes down to two - Hazel, who has the unique gift of exploding and looking flat at the same time, and Cassy, who has the unique gift of not being able to model very well. Both fine choices for the bottom two but alas there can be only one loser - and of course it's Cassy.
"You know what? Keep going, Cassy," says The Shiralee, before adding "Out the door, that's right, keep going... no, ALL the way out thanks!"
Never mind Cassy - work hard, and one day your dream of modelling for Supre might just come true. Pity you had to put up with all that French couture crap first though, eh?
Tune in next week for the next thrilling instalment of Skinny Girls Walking, series 7. Before we go, what's Bros been up to?
