ANTM Cycle 14: The Girl Who Left Pine Bluff

You will go forth into the world,
and the righteous will know by the T upon your brow
that you are but sculpted clay,
and possess no spirit of man
but imprison a djinn in your heart.

I like the title of the second to last episode as it read on my DVR, "Ugly Pretty Woman". First of all because of the Julia Roberts nod, and second because I love when pretty people get so bored of looking at themselves that they lapse into making ridiculous faces in the name of art.

We know right away Krista is going to win because she used to be a store manager. The editors can't give her such a banal back story and then send her back into that world. All the other girls are going back to families or college or commercial careers. Krista will go back to managing a store. I want to know what kind of store. It seems really important. But she never says. Instead we are introduced to Krista's superstitious side, where she latches onto simple percentages as lucky icons. 25% 25%25%! I imagine its her version of a hail mary, this ocd recitation of her odds. She ends up saying it a lot, because she is terrified of Raina, and know the time will soon come when the three of them will enter the pit. Raina and Raina's Face. Locked together like some sort of Minnesotan Super Battlebot/Snowblower.

A wizard stops by the penthouse to have a sit down with the girls. He leaves the glass slipper and ticket to Manila at home, but brings them flowers. Real flowers. Hey Angelea, here's a tip for you: Do not ever act like this, whatever it is, is the first time it has happened to you. For instance, when I was taken to my first really nice restaurant on a date, did I tell the guy that? Did I say "go you!" Fuck no. I'm happy for you that you got real flowers for the first time, even if they are from Babar in Black, but keep that shit on the DL. Talley is actually incredibly likable in this part, as he talks to the girls about how to treat Japanese designers versus French ones, and how he worked for Andy Warhol when he was a young baby fashionista, and Warhol paid him 50 bucks a week and made him sleep in the YMCA. Which sounds exactly like Warhol, who was a dick. And now he works with Wintour, hinting at a very long history of asshole bosses, but yet he's not an asshole? So I'm on Team Talley now, despite the fact that calling something Team Anything reduces it to below soccer hooligan status. More on that later. Talley is fucking tall and huge by the way, not Yoda like at all.

I think my hard heart softens at the end of every ANTM cycle. Talley and his climb to eccentricity. Angelea and her naivety. Alex and her stink of desperation. I want them all to fly away to a hotel in the sky, where they live fabulous unexamined lives and get real flowers all the time.

So the Jays hijack a plane. They make the girls walk the aisle, as if the two of them were just sitting there in first class saying to themselves "oh my god, none of these girls can walk" "Who do you think walks the worst, Raina or Angelea?" "I bet you fifty bucks and a handjob Raina." "Alright, let's see. "

In my scenario, Mr. Jay wins, because Raina really does have the worst walk ever.

Then the girls are parachuted down into the wilderness of Queenstown to rescue a group of hostages, unaware that they are also being hunted by a extraterrestial bounty hunters.

No, actually, they are crowded onto the Hogwarts Express and taken to the mountains to get their O.W.L.s in making ugly faces while dressed as steam punk prostitutes. At least, that's what I got from the soundtrack.

Krista wins a bunch of jewelry, and the photo shoot, and then there's elimination finally and...
It's 50/50 versus the Second Coming of Brooke Shields. The Second Coming of Awesome gets sent home, because apparently Brooke Shields is better than awesome? Just like I would guess she is also better than puppies, cotton candy, Colombian snow, and pistachio gelato. You know what creeps me out about Brooke Shields? Those new commercials for growing your eyelashes. Where they are all like "side effects include staining your eyelid dark and maybe turning your eyes brown permanently." Angelea cannot resist one last embarrassing awkward moment of dancing, and then she is swept out of our lives forever.

Tyra yells at us violently to not go anywhere, like a CW drill Sergeant, and it works, I am frozen to my seat. Of course, it's 2am when I watch this, so I may actually be asleep, and this may not actually be what happened. Did anyone else hear her?

The finalists, Krista and Raina, are kidnapped and taken by black ops helicopter to an abandoned island resort, where a strange man gives them champagne and a butcher knife. They relax for a moment, savoring the drink after days of dehydration, when knock knock at the door are the Covergirl legions, led by zombie Nicole who looks like someone has been keeping her sedated in a lab and experimenting on coloring her hair through genetic alteration. The girls fight off the hordes as long as they can, but are overwhelmed and dragged down to the basement of the resort, where they are hooked up to every cosmetic torture device CG owns. After days of "treatments", Krista emerges as a high class New Orleans escort, Raina as a Russian underwear model/sex slave. They both bomb the commercial, and have their ankle bones shaved.

Later they find out their families have been kidnapped and brought to this same Island of Misfit Makeup. Tyra briefly shows them their loved ones faces, then drags them away again, promising to use them as test subjects unless the girls successfully walk in a Rock in Roll Circus show which appears to just be "dress up like an English school girl" show. All the other sad unhappy toys are trotted out, and they will all walk to school together, taking away any meaning this prize has at all. It's like they only got their New Zealand Air tickets in bulk or something. Someone needs to burn that hat Jessica keeps wearing. The girls divide themselves into Team Krista and Team Raina, proving Stockholm syndrome works across the equator. Fuck you Twilight.

There is a runway show. It features insanely boring clothes. Krista pictures her mom and stepdad, locked in that cold lab with shampoo in their eyes, and smiles smiles smiles until her face is frozen that way. Raina cannot fight the fear for her father, and her walk is stilted, stompy and uninspired. At the end of the night, Raina's father is brought out for the audience, tied to a wheel, and they throw daggers at him until one hits home. Alex wins, just for a brief shining moment, and is then sent back to the fishing village.

They meet at elimination, all our familiar characters. Raina is inexplicably wearing a tail. Tyra saved the best jumpsuit for last, an electric blue which symbolizes all the pain and wear and tear we've suffered to reach this final scene, all the sorrow and shame, the pride and dignity required to make it here. They crown Krista queen of the chocolate girls, and Talley cries a little. Then she is allowed to beat Raina to death with her bare hands.

THE END