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America's Next Top Model
This was an episode of America's Next Top Model tailor made for me: an insane but practical teach, lots of romantic comedy (Mark Vanderloo! Marjorie gets proposed to in a bathtub!), and plenty of Paulina. I just wish the photo shoot had been as compelling as the rest of it. And that Sam had gone home instead of Marjorie. Oh, I said it!
Let's skip over Sam "Hoo-hoo-hoo"ing like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, wearing her hair like Pebbles from The Flintstones, and performing a bad cartwheel, and let's pick the action up at Paulina's school of silent modeling. This lesson should've been administered way earlier in the competition. Paulina said she was teaching the girls how to "incorporate your senses into selling wordlessly," but what she really was doing was asking them to live the moment and find their motivation. See that bucket of herring? "Smell it! Smell it! Smell it!" Sure, McKey sniffed at it like a puppy pushing something away with its nose, but then she busted out with her most eloquent quote... ever. "Quite honestly, it kinda smells like when you go to beach in the morning." We didn't get to see her channel that, but I'm sure it was beautiful. Or, at least better than Sam's cartoonish sniff-and-sigh. I agreed with Paulina's assessment of the ladies, as usual: Marjorie is real. Like, I believed there was no way she would use that rough toilet paper. Sam is a clown; too immature to work with high-fashion TP. McKey immerses herself in her surroundings and somehow still manages to focus on the camera. And Analeigh is a great actress, who, if nothing else, should land a walk-on role on a CW show that needs a guest star who has great legs to look upset while reading a letter.
This week's challenge was one of my favorites ever because honestly, who doesn't love Mark Vanderloo? Also, because the treadmill reminded me of the time that my friend Susi was on one, dropped her Walkman, forgot where she was, stopped walking to bend down and pick it up, and was propelled off the machine on to her ass. (All in front of a guy we'd gone to high school with. Wish I'd been there.) Anyway, like Sam, I expected the girls to shoot their sports-shoe ads in the street, but I guess Paulina wanted to test their acting abilities by making them jog on a treadmill and flirt with Vanderloo as he passed by in an imaginary cab. Sam had an appropriate reaction to this assignment — "We're gonna be kissing Mark Vanderloo. Calvin Klein supermodel. Kissing him. Together. [Smooch sound.] Weeeird" — followed by an inappropriate thought (Should she tongue him?). I thought Sam would be a train wreck, but she wasn't horrible. Just, um, enthusiastic. ("Very convincing," Vanderloo said, when asked about her face-swallowing kiss. He's got a sense of humor, too!) While McKey looked the most like someone you'd see in a sneaker ad, and, in my opinion, made a nice move when she wrapped her arms around Vanderloo's neck, the judges' clear favorites were Analeigh and Marjorie. Analeigh was a master at the double take — very sly, very sweet. I actually watched her scene a couple of times, which means she's totally getting a guest spot on some CW show. But Marjorie took the prize (a $10,000 denim shopping spree that she split with Analeigh). She was, as Paulina put it, "sorta awkward and at times a little scary, but the originality level was a 10." She was bumbling and unpredictable, which Vanderloo correctly surmised didn't require much acting.
NEXT: Marjorie gets her drink on
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