Things Fall Apart

Rumble on the  Runway – This is the first episode this season where the designers had to work in groups, so I knew that all of the goodwill of previous weeks was about to go the way of the dinosaur.

This episode begins with a recap of last week, and then shows some of the guys (Ra’Mon, Mitchell, Epperson, and Logan) talking to each other and in the interview room about how they do not want to go home next. I can’t believe that it has taken me this long to realize that there’s no model-swapping this season. Your model is your model, unless you’re eliminated, and then you’re both out. Harsh! That does do away with one source of tension, though. I guess that’s another reason they can have the companion show about the models, but so far I haven’t remembered to watch or tivo it.

On the runway, Heidi tells the designers that they’re going on another field trip. I do not know why those words excite them so, since Project Runway “field trips” usually end up being only slightly less psychologically harmful than the Stanford Prison Experiment. Tim Gunn in sandals and sunglasses?? My life is complete!

The challenge is to create a fun and fashionable look based on surf culture. And of course, because the beach offers limited options for branding, the “seamless” advertising that this show is know for enters with the second part of the challenge: designing the perfect complimentary hairstyle for the model, with the help of Garnier products. I always feel those meetings with

Mitchell’s face when he heard the word team was a little ridiculous. You’d think that somebody who’d messed up so greatly the last two weeks would have preferred to have all the help he could get. Shirin picks Carol-Hannah. Logan chooses Christopher, Nicholas chooses Gordana. Mitchell chooses Ra’Mon, and says honestly that he’s looking for somebody to carry him. Then what was with the face before? I think that maybe somebody’s a little conflicted about needing help so early in the competition… Althea picks Louise, and Spell Check (aka Qristyl), like the bitchy kid who picks second to last for kickball, can’t resist saying “This is tough” before taking Epperson over Irina. Cow. That leaves Irina to work with Johnny, the final team leader. I’ve liked things that Irina made, but most people picked their friends, I think, rather than people who would necessarily create well with them, so I don’t see this as much of a slight. Everybody gives a mock “oooohhhhh” at her being the last person, and it all seemed kind of goodnatured. Not sure how she feels about it, though.

Oh! Nice! The women modeling the surfwear are actually surfers, and are able to look good in the clothes and offer opinions and information about what the clothes need to be like. I appreciate that kind of attention to function, not just form.

Ra’Mon, for his part, understands that Mitchell is pretty much an anchor around his neck. He’s worried that the pairing is going to make the two of them targets for the judges. Understood. Spell Check, living in whatever parallel universe that she inhabits, is offended that Epperson, whose stuff so far has been far superior to hers, is treating their relationship more like a student-teacher thing than recognizing that she’s the leader. Does she remember her dress from the first week?

They have $50 and 15 minutes to shop. This is pretty messed up. They get half the time and the money of the previous week, even though there are two people. And watching the pairs shop is sort of difficult. The facades are slipping! Compromise does take a long time, I guess, and now captains are starting to pull rank. Understandable, but uncomfortable to watch.

I love watching Epperson trying to handle Spell Check’s choices in everything: fabric color, dress shapes, etc. Mitchell is being super rude to Ra’Mon. Unless I’m missing something in editing, he seems to be rude for no reason. He’s not being funny, he’s being a jerk. In the middle of the freaking work, the designers get a message from Heidi and the judges: now they’re responsible for making a second complete look. The second look is described as an avant garde look that will compliment the beach look, and just for giggles, another Garnier hairstyle must be created. What a bunch of jerks. At least they get another $200 and 20 minutes to buy more fabric. The only catch is that just one person gets to go to Mood.

It surprises me that Mitchell allowed Ra’Mon to go. Maybe he just wants to have something he can bitch about later. Aaaand Mitchell can’t sew. This is not a shock to me. Spell Check is a moron, and a horrible leader. Tim Gunn enters the room, calling himself the Prophet of Doom. Although I personally get excited every time Tim Gunn appears on my screen, I can understand how the designers might not feel the same way about him. This time he tells Carol-Hannah that her model has an issue (a commercial), and that she can choose a new model if she would like. So she chooses another model, Valerie, who was eliminated previously.

Gordana really doesn’t love their avant garde look, but she seems to be trying to understand and get behind it. Nicholas is kidding that when Mitchell is eliminated, he’ll help pack him up. It’s not the nicest thing to be joking about, and I sort of feel like most humor like that is at least a little based in truth. I don’t think that anybody on this show is going to lose sleep if Mitchell is sent home. It’s not good that, on top of sub-par design skills, he’s also not pleasant. I don’t really care about the hair styling meetings at all. I don’t know why this guy gets air time. Oh yeah! Garnier paid Lifetime a boatload of money! Still don’t care.

I love that Tim’s critique of Spell Check and Epperson’s design is exactly what Epperson has been trying to tell his partner all episode. Sometimes it’s wiser to yield to better taste, regardless of who is the leader. Tim is not enamored of Ra’Mon’s outfit. It doesn’t go with Mitchell’s. Tim’s parting words: “Work like there’s no tomorrow, because for at least one person, there won’t be.” I’m intrigued by the “at least one person,” part. What does Tim know???

Ra’Mon has to completely scrap the jumpsuit, and at this point I’m almost feeling bad for Mitchell. Spell Check is being a cow to Epperson and bringing up things that really don’t matter “I don’t know what kind of woman you’re used to” instead of maybe listening to him. Everybody can see that those two are not getting along well.

Nicholas to Mitchell, “Are you ready to be in the bottom two again today?” Does Mitchell understand how much Nicholas doesn’t like him? Christopher and Logan seem to be getting along very well and are both happy with their looks. With 35 minutes to go, Ra’Mon is still blow-drying the avant garde look, which he’d just dyed in the bathroom. Wow, there are some really cool looks in this room.

Heidi looks great, as usual. The judges today are Max Azria (love his stuff!), Nina Garcia, and Rachel Bilson, who I haven’t seen in anything in like 100 years. She’s still as cute as ever, though. Spell Check and Epperson’s looks are first. I thought that their beach look was great, but the avant garde look did leave something to desired; as Qristyl mentioned, the poor girl’s butt cheeks were hanging out. Oops. Johnny and Irina’s looks were nice. I didn’t love the beach look as much as Johnny did, and neither did Irina. Hmm. Mitchell and Ra’Mon’s beach dress was gorgeous, but I didn’t love the avant garde look at all. I find it sad that I can’t blame it on Mitchell, but I’m pretty sure that was all Ra’Mon.  Shirin and Carol Hannah’s dress was beautiful, and they made a bathing suit to go under it. Overachievers! Their avant garde look was amazing. I liked both of Althea and Louise’s looks, especially the avant garde dress. Nicholas and Gordan’s avant garde look seems kind of crazy, and I didn’t love their first look, either. Logan and Christopher’s beach look sort of look like the model peed the pants, or at least had a stubborn patch of sand directly blew her crotch and on her upper thighs. Unfortunate. Their avant garde piece is ugly.  I can’t believe they love that mess.

Holy crap. Ra’Mon and Mitchell are one of the teams with the highest scores. This is unbelievable. I kind of love how I spent all episode wondering how they were going to explain their partnership when one of them was on the chopping block, only to have both of them be find. Sneaky, sneaky editors! The other team in the top is Johnny and Irina. They get to explain first, and you can see that their collaboration was a positive one. There’s not jockeying for credit when it’s not necessarily due, and they defer to each others parts in making their looks. Ahh. So maybe the Mitchell/Ra’Mon implosion will still occur.

Hahah, Ra’Mon starts to speak and explain what he did, and Heidi wants to hear from Mitchell, since he’s the team leader. It clearly becomes apparent that Ra’Mon did most of the stuff, and that what Mitchell worked on the most (a swimsuit), can’t even be seen. Then Mitchell had to admit that he did almost nothing. Love it! Especially since the previews were edited to make it seem that Ra’Mon hadn’t done anything, and that he was going to be in danger of being kicked off the show because of it.

Then the people with the low scores come in. Spell Check is willing to give Epperson credit for everything, since it tanked, and the two of them are trying to talk about what happened, and they’re not giving each other a chance to explain. It’s pretty hard to watch, and I still hate Qristyl. Nicholas and Gordana’s looks are easier to explain, because they both believed in them, and didn’t have a bad time working together, which showed.

The judges are gaga over Ra’Mon’s avant garde dress, which I still don’t get, but whatever, nobody asked me. They’re trying to figure out how to judge Mitchell, who did relatively little. They loved the backs of Johnny and Irina’s looks. Nicholas’s design ethic was questioned, and they said that he’d have to watch which prints he used, especially with sexier pieces. They decided that Spell Check was weak and Epperson took advantage. Results coming up soon. So I think that Ra’Mon will win and be given immunity. I think that Mitchell might be tossed out. If it’s not Mitchell, it’s probably going to be Spell Check.

I was right. Ra’Mon won! He has immunity for next week. Irina and Johnny are dismissed, as are Nicholas and Gordana. Suddenly the final three are Epperson, Qristyl, and Mitchell. Oh wait, Epperson is dismissed, so now it’s down to Qristyl and Mitchell. How many times can one person screw up on this show and not have to go home because of it? Answer: three. Later, Mitchell.

I forgot to mention that I’m pretty sure the judges know of (or can see) at least some of what happens in the work room. They always seem to pick at least one look made by somebody (or in the case of teams, somebodies) who are flipping out for one reason or the other. That can’t be a coincidence.

Recap of Monday night tv

I didn’t watch as much television today as I thought I might. I watched yesterday’s Gossip Girl, Heroes, and Chuck, and read parts of several books. Heroes was better than it was last week but I’m convinced that it is essentially a really stupid show, so my praise falls into the category of “faint.” Gossip Girl was pretty good; there was a great catfight between Serena and the ever more deranged Blair, and pretty much every character came out looking interesting (except Dan Humphrey, because Dan Humphrey is the definition of boring). So that was fun. Hands down, though, Chuck was the winner of the night.

The plots of Chuck are pretty standard – spy stuff, stunt casting, more spy stuff, wacky hijinks!, meaningful character interaction, and the conclusion to the spy stuff; so it’s the non-spy stuff that really makes this program. This episode saw the return of Bryce Larkin, Chuck’s former college roommate and Sarah’s former partner who used to be dead but isn’t anymore, and who stuck the intersect in Chuck’s head in the first place. I like Bryce, because he’s kind of like a younger, hotter, American James Bond, and he’s so freaking sexy that I don’t actually mind his visits, even though they’re always bad news for Chuck.

So anyway, this episode was really well-acted, and managed to address one of the things about this show that has been bothering people since the fifth episode of last year: how useful can Chuck continue to be if the information in the Intersect is never updated? Did all of those bad guys stop doing bad things once the government compiled their information? Extremely doubtful. So thanks, Bryce, for leaving those shades for Chuck. And thanks, Chuck, for being dumb enough to take anything from Bryce Larkin. Bryce, who seemed to still have serious feelings for Sarah, watched the way she interacted with Chuck and realized that the two were totally in love, and not just acting out their cover. That love ended up getting in the way of the stated mission several times today, and directly led to Chuck getting fired from his cover job, Sarah ignoring the mission to rescue him, and then being unable to shoot a suspect, for fear of hitting Chuck (in an earlier, similar scenario with Bryce being held by the baddie, Sarah had no problem shooting the bad dude right in the middle of the forehead).

Chuck finally faced the facts: he and Sarah are never going to be a normal couple with a normal life, even when he’s no longer the Intersect (Chuck’s not yet aware that, if the General has her way, he’s going to be eliminated as soon as the new Intersect is functional). He’s not going to know stuff about her, he’s not going to be able to know what’s really going on in her life, and she’s so awesome that she can’t possibly be expected to do normal. In a scene filled with appropriate face-redness and blinking, Chuck breaks up with Sarah, who’s totally sad and moved, too. It was awesome.

Also awesome? Michael Strahan as a jock bully from the sporting goods store in the same shopping complex at the Buy More. Athletes usually make  terrible actors (see: Anderson, Brady on Sabrina the Teenage Witch – it’s been over a decade and I’m still rolling my eyes over that appearance), but Strahan was a natural. He didn’t mug for the camera or chew scenery, and he injected just the right amount of menace into the role of Mitt (horrible name, btw) to make me buy it. They should bring him back to sit on Nicole Richie, who put the “stunt” in stuntcasting and will be in next week’s episode for a girlfight with Sarah. I refuse to link to her, because if you’re reading this blog, you know who Nicole Ritchie is. Can they bring back Rachel Bilson? I really liked Lou, and Chuck could use some awesome-but-normal love right now.