After last week’s surprise double elimination—baby-faced Ebony and supermodel-in-training Alisha, the final three contestants seemed beside themselves with happy surprise.
The final three contestants this season weren’t, for the most part, very predictable. There’s hypersexual American Laura who wooed the judges with her bendy-curvy pictures and rock-‘n-roll chick persona. Annaliese is short and pretty and seems more like a presenter—to the judges and the viewers—than a model. Blonde Brit Sophie is starting to annoy everyone with her constant talk about sacrifice and waitressing, but she looks quite a bit like Twiggy.
This week, we find out if the inevitable battle of the blondes is avoidable.
To begin, new evil bitch judge Kelly Catrone tells the contestants that they have to go on bookings in Hong Kong. Although it seems like a difficult task at the outset, it’s soon made lamer by the insertion of Chinese male models who take the girls around. The pot is thickened by the incentive of $500 that the contestants can win if they book four go-sees. $500? Thanks so much, ANTM!
Turns out, Laura is a really terrible walker—remember how she got fired for her walk in Toronto Fashion Week?—and Sophie wins the challenge. Catrone changes her mind about Annaliese—the real prize—saying that a great personality could help Annaliese overcome her height issue and make it in the modeling world.
Next, the contestants are supposed to sell ANTM’s fragrance to young teenagers, who are supposed to tell their mothers that they want/need/gotta have the perfume. There goes all that bullshit that the models are always spouting about being “role models” to young girls. Truly, the show just wants to sell them stuff.
The fashion shoot in conjunction with this idea is totally lame. The models have to pose inside a giant perfume bottle—that has nasty handprints all over it—wearing pouffy pink dresses and tulle skirts. They are supposed to look like princesses, apparently.
After a poor performance in the go-sees, Laura continues trying to nail her own coffin shut. She says that she only knows how to be edgy or sexy, that she doesn’t know how to just be pretty.
Luckily for her, the other contestants don’t perform particularly well, either. Sophie wins best picture—advancing her to the finale—but the judges say she looks too old. The judges also say that Annaliese looks like a tennis player in a catalog in her shoot—she really did—so they send her packing long, long after she should have left. She’s an actress.
That leaves the inevitable: the Brit and American blondes battling it out for the win.