the crying game...& don't toy with me...

i guess this is the danger of waiting to post. life goes on, my mind goes to other things, and when it returns to antm the details are fuzzy. but i'll try to do what i can, and in the event that i lose my place i'll do what comes damn near natural to me - i'll imporvise. this week, the girls were toyed with in more ways that one. then jade and nnenna received gifts after the challenge; jade's response was priceless. nnenna acted like she wished she had the reciept...


so you figure models must be pretty confident people, right? they are painfully beautiful and always the center of attention; they wear clothes that are completely outrageous and sometimes next-to-nothing. these ladies want that life, so this week tyra decided to test their metal. a model/actress pretended to be a cut-throat agency scout who didn't bite her tongue about the girls' imperfections. she told nnenna she had a gut. she bothered daniel about her gap. she told furonda that her nose was too big. she bothered joanie about her teeth. she told sarah that her bottom lip was "too much bigger than the top." i don't remember brooke's lashing, but miss agency played jade with the drag-queen card (saw that one coming). some of the girls took the comments to heart. nnenna went back to the waiting room pinching her mid section. joanie was really down. furonda was totally flustered...and so on. but lo and behold! jade's pomposity was her saving grace. she took every malicious critique andd spit it back out as a golden asset, and she won the challenge.

jade chose nnenna to share the wealth this week,and when everyone returned home jade and nnenna had huge gift boxes waiting for them. jade's response was so totally human - and unexpected. jade's mommy was in the box, and when she saw her, she cried. it was the most geniune, moving emotion i've seen for her all season. the way she touched her mother's face and embraced her - as if she was trying to convice herself that her mother was reallt standing there - it was so tender, so loving. that may have created a chink in my anti-jade armor (drats!). nnenna's surprise, according to her face, was not so pleasant. boyfriend, johnny-boy, came out of her box and she looked like she wanted to put him back in. well, i guess being on the phone 23 hours of the day with a person doesn't really give you a chance to miss 'em, does it nnenna? she was hoping it was one of her sisters. i admit, that would have been beautiful...

the photo shoot was very fun this week. the girls were dolls to work with...no really, they were dolls. baby dolls, rag dolls, glamour dolls, MANequins, etc. furonda was awesome at this shoot. she was a rag doll and totally had the body language down. joanie was another one; she was a vantrilaquist's doll, but the ingenius way she pulled off the shot makes her far from a dummy. daniel was a marionett and also brilliant with the body language. jade did very well as a MANequin. brooke's glamour doll attempt just looked, well, plastic. sarah as a teen doll could have used more expression, but her head looked like one of the Brats dolls, so i guess that's good. and then there was nnenna. i'll just say this, if i had baby dolls that looked like nnenna when i was young, i'd second guess having children. now that's a little harsh, but nnenna knows how to soften her expressions. she just didn't...

there was another mini-shoot that the girls did with tyra. she did these crying beauty shots where the girls had to - i guess that's pretty obvious. nnenna and joanie stick out in my mind for this shoot; they both captured a beautiful intensity that came from very different places. nnenna's cry needed to happen; she'd been holding it in, and the shoot gave her th oppotunity - she thought about her sisters and how much this competition could mean for them. she was still crying even after she nailed the shot. joanie's tears came from a very recent and tangible place. upwards of 12 hours in a dentist's chair would probably have the same affect on many (shout-out to daniel who not only stayed with joanie, but kept her gap - i think it's beautiful, daniel!). both of the girls used their inner emotion to create a striking photo. brava!...

at panel, daniel was scolded for not have her gap closed. my heart skipped a beat when i thought it would cost her the competition (especially since the judges started pulling negative comments out of their asses because she was on point). joanie continues to rock the house, so of course she made the cut. nnenna, despite her terrible babydoll photo, has been consistent to this point, and she too was safe. furonda is progressing every week, and the judges see it - she stayed. personally, i think they don't want to be wrong about the "golden child" they recruited, so sarah is safe for now (her crying beauty shot helped too). jade was in the bottom two again - with brooke. brooke's awkwardly perfect looks didn't help her this time (i'm thinking that's because next too jade, brooke's not so awkward). she said goodbye, but i respect her demeanor. she wasn't a cry-baby[doll] about it.


the number of girls is steadily dwindling. it will be time for them to leave the country soon. that's the most exciting part, for me. i have no idea where they will go, but it has to happen in the next week or so. i don't want to peg my predictions for the final three again. i see what it did for leslie and brooke.