Cheryl Shops

America's Next Top Model recap
This week's (well, now technically last week's) episode of America's Next Top Model was all about "the darker side of modeling," i.e., every day. The girls were sent to a "top creative director," who of course was 1) a big bitch and 2) not actually a creative director but an actress, which, as the show has done this type of thing before, I saw coming from a mile away. Everyone but Jade got flustered--yes, Jade is so cocky that she thought looking like a transvestite was a good thing--and, as this was a challenge, Jade won. The prize was a visit from a "special someone"--Jade's mother came, and after meeting her...well, let's just say everything started to make sense. As Jade picked Nnenna to be her co-winner, Nnenna got a visit from her whiny boyfriend, who, while I thought this wasn't possible, is actually more annoying than Shandi's boyfriend. Nnenna, DTMFA. Seriously. After the challenge, the girls got to meet with Janice Dickinson for more tips; while I love Janice, someone needs to keep her away from the plastic surgeon, as she's starting to look like a brunette Amanda Lepore, collagen and all. The first of two photo shoots in this episode had the girls dressed up as living dolls (oh, how clever); I'm not sure how this fit into the whole "dark side of modeling" theme, but there was probably some facile explanation. In the meantime, Tyra treated all the girls to teeth-whitening; special cases Danielle and Joanie were treated to a gap-closing and veneers, respectively (although Danielle declined to have her gap closed, 'cuz she wanted to keep it real). Since veneers are a two-day process (in this case, at least), Joanie spent one night with her teeth being more jacked up than normal, then the next day she (and the others) had to go to a photo shoot directed by Tyra, in which they had to look beautiful crying. Now, Tyra actually let the girls use gylcerine drops, which kind of shocked me, because I figured she'd want to manipulate them or yell at them and get some real tears out of it. Anyway, Joanie ended up with some nice-looking but lisp-giving veneers; she also totally rocked this week, so she was called first at juding. And now I can officially announce that Joanie is my favorite and that I'm rooting for her (not because she's been doing so well the past few weeks--I just think she's the best, although Furonda is my second favorite). Jade almost got kicked off due to another stunt at judging (she pretended to cry when her "crying" photo came up), but while she is truly obnoxious, she makes for pretty entertaining television--much more so than Brooke, who was finally given the boot. Thank god.

Next week, the girls pick up and go somewhere. Ten bucks says its some obscure place that Tyra tries to pass off as "the next fashion capital of the world."