This season of ANTM All Stars continues to surprise me every week. Top contenders and once fierce competitors are slowly dwindling away and not making it past the judges’ panel. What is more surprising is the fact that the wild girls that would be considered “good tv” are being cut left and right proving that in Tyra’s world, it really is about the modeling. Bre’s elimination last week had quite a few people in an uproar and the decision has left Bianca to fend for herself. Just like Bre, however, more and more of the girls seem to lose that spark that Tyra first saw in them and this week was no exception.
It all started with the week’s first semi-challenge: branding a fragrance. The topic of branding has been practically beaten over the heads of these girls (with good reason), so here we go once again. With Nigel’s and Hatch Beauty founder Ben Bennett’s assistance, each model explored a few key note scents and then had a personal scent blended just for them. The ladies then had their new perfumes debuted and judged live by their fans at a meet and greet event. I’ve been waiting all season for the crazy and outlandish stunts that the models are asked to perform every season and so far it’s been disappointingly tame. The fragrance semi-challenge involved the ladies wading around in bath tubs while trying to desperately push their brand to the audience with perfume samples. That is, everyone besides Bianca who was just too good to have a little fun in the bath because after all “You’ve never seen Beyonce promoting in a tub!” So who won the scented challenge, you ask? Was it little Allison’s "Blood Honey" or maybe Alexandria’s "Diamonatrix"? It was without a doubt Lisa’s “Neon” perfume and marketability that blew Nigel and guest judge Eva Marcille away. The grand prize for the little venture: immunity at the almighty judging panel.
Along came the big photo shoot for the week and the models’ inner reality stars were summoned. The inspiration for the shoot was based on two of the reality television world’s biggest personalities, NeNe Leakes from The Real Housewives of Atlanta and Jersey Shore’s Snooki. Over the top is what they were looking for so over the top is what they got with a night time shoot where the ladies rode on the back of a motorcycle while posing as one of the two reality divas. Before you get excited, it was not the typical danger stunt that Tyra likes to put the girls up to. The motorcycle was stationary on a trailer that was pulled around town (booo!) so the chances of road rash were minimal. Lisa was a bubbly NeNe on the bike and Allison was a super cute Snooki but not all of the models fared quite so well. Bianca’s brilliant idea of requesting a jar of pickles for her Snooki persona seemed brilliant at first until the shoot became a bit, let’s say, inappropriate.
At panel, the models were greeted not only with the looming knowledge that this week would be a dreaded double elimination but also by a sweet surprise, Miss Kathy Griffin. Griffin bantered with Tyra and provided much needed comic relief but only for a short moment before joining the rest of the judges. The ladies were critiqued and allowed to state their cases, if necessary, and Bianca was the only one who was forced to defend her holier than thou attitude at the anti-tub challenge. It seems Bianca has been tooting her own horn all season and has completely forgotten where she has come from which was made evident when she, Kayla and Shannon wound up in the bottom three. No one could compete with Lisa this week who, despite being given immunity, still pumped out the best photo. As I mentioned, this season has given me more jaw dropping moments during the elimination round than previous and tonight continued the streak with the announcement that Shannon would be sticking around for at least another week. Kayla’s once enthusiastic personality and Bianca’s uppity attitude have evidently ran their courses in the Top Model world and Tyra cut them loose.