America's Next Top Model Series Eight #11

Just a cotton-pickin' second, here. What the HEYLL?!
Aspiring modules visiting designers' offices, trying to get work?
A swimwear photo-shoot on a cold beach at the crack of dawn?
Normal make-up, clothes and accessories, without a freaky prop or drag-queen in sight?

I don't want actual reality in my reality television, thank you very much. I've got windows for that shit.
Anyway, it's the Got To Be Real episode of America's Next Top Model. Fo' real.

· Australia is a desert, a beach, an opera house, and a harbour bridge. Thank you, oh Montage O' Stereotypes. Now hug a koala and be on your way.

· Everyone's a bit sick of Brittany's litanies – the crying, the drama, the endless excuses, the brain damage – and Renee makes no secret of her opinion that Brittany used her bad short-term memory as a crutch at the last elimination panel. She should really just do what other modules do, and use her crotch as a crutch. Dionne then brings up a very good point – in the theatre challenge three weeks ago, Brittany remembered every single one of her lines, but in last week's Cover Girl commercial, she couldn't get past "Strewth". I'd forgotten about the theatre challenge. You see – when I was seventeen I was hit by a car, and…

· A Tyra-Mail whisks the girls off to the offices of Priscilla's Model Management, where they're met by Priscilla herself, accompanied by Jodhi Meares, or as anyone who watched Australia's Next Top Westie Scrag knows her, Joydhi, as featured in Cle-oy and Voygue. Priscilla outlines this week's challenge, and as happens every series, it's go-see time! The modules are required to race around in cabs to the offices of various designers, throw them their portfolios, try on clothes, walk up and down in a straight line, and be back at Priscilla's by 4:30 or risk disqualification. Joydhi stresses that at goy-sees, it's important to be a chameleon. Y'know – like how when you're applying for a home loan, it's important to be an alpaca.

· I love go-see week. It has designer clothes, tantrums, a split-screen and a giant super-imposed ticking clock. It's the It's A Knockout of fashion.

· Renee looks good, walks well, uses her sass, impresses the designers, and is the first back to Priscilla's office. Yawn. I know a handful of go-sees in which nothing bad happens should be interesting, but I'm momentarily distracted by milk.

· Jaslene also does well, although the opportunity to see her in this many different outfits in a short space of time pushes one point home – bitch is almost transparent. She must keep her organs in her handbag or something, because there's certainly no room for them in her torso. The designers are quite impressed though, as they put their clothes back on their relatively voluminous coathangers. And speaking of coathangers – look! It's the Harbour Bridge! Right, Skippy?

· Dionne, too, impresses the designers and makes it back in time. She's also my new free-loading bargain-basement hero, as she asks if she can keep every single outfit she tries on. She doesn't do too badly, either, scoring a free bikini and shirt. I'm calling it the "What The HEYLL" Discount. Fo' real.

· Natasha pouts and pony-struts her way through the go-sees, doing well because, in her words, she's "very saxy, using averything I learn". Unfortunately she misses the deadline by one minute, so she sits out on the office balcony and pouts. I think. Hard to tell.

· Not one little bit of Brittany's go-sees goes well, due mostly to a combination of being unable to walk, tell time, read, or count. I'm not sure her previous car-accident merely dented the part of her brain which controls short-term memory. I think maybe her whole brain fell out of her nose. Evidence:
o Whilst angrily and repeatedly pushing a doorbell to no response, she can't understand why, when she has an appointment at 13 Cook Road, the occupants of 13 Cook Road don't answer the door. I don't know, Brit – perhaps when the inhabitants of 15-19 Cook Road, where you are, answer their door, you can ask them.
o Brittany has a bit of trouble with her walk. She's a little awkward and gangly, and turns like she's a horse with a tick in its crotch. Wayne Cooper comments that she looks like "her whole brain is trying to work out how to catwalk". That's some energy conservation, right there.
o Whilst angrily and repeatedly pushing the button for level three in a lift, she can't understand why the doors keep closing and then opening again, without the lift moving. It can't be because she's already on level three, surely? Yes. Yes it can.
o Running late for the deadline, she mouths off loudly and furiously about her cab driver, and how he didn't meet her outside her last appointment, as she clearly instructed. Um… Honey? You're kind of being recorded on camera, and you kind of never told the cabbie any such thing. You're one big, big slice of Lying Ginger Stupid Cake.
Eventually, about four weeks too late, Brittany makes it back to Priscilla's, and is more than a little upset that, through no fault of her own (I know, Skippy. I'm tutting too), she's now disqualified. The Joydhi/Priscilla-led critique inside is rudely interrupted by the sounds of Brittany's crazed and lisped ranting outside. My asterisks are mimicking the show's actual censorship as I quote: "I asked my f*cking cab driver! He didn't f*cking show up! It's not my f*cking fault – I asked him to meet me over there!" and so on, with spit and portfolio being flung in all directions. Natasha listens calmly, and when the tirade subsides, says quietly: "You know – some peoples have war in their countries". I love her, I love her, I love her. I do.

· Priscilla reads out comments from the designers, none of whom would apparently book Brittany, despite her obvious wit and professionalism. Jaslene wins the challenge, the prize being a quick climb up the Harbour Bridge for a photo-shoot with Spunky Nigel Barker, all in regulation BridgeClimb fugly overalls. That's a prize, see. A skinny module gets to pose on top of a windy bridge in a shapeless, flapping, dark grey tent. It's like giving Beethoven a CD of soothing dolphin noises as a thank-you for the Moonlight Sonata, or, for the lowbrow amongst you, like tipping your bikini-waxing technician with a complimentary photograph of your wadge. Okay, okay – the photos actually rock, and Nigel's there, so it's not all bad. Hi, Nigel.

· Photo-shoot time, and our modules head beachward where Tyra greets them and tells them about their two-part shoot, in which they'll be photographed in swimwear and hair extensions at sunrise with male modules. Sexy male modules. First, Tyra will be the photographer, and they're to pose "women's-magazine style". Next, Michael Omm (What, Skippy? No, me neither) will be the photographer, and they're to pose "men's-magazine style", which Tyra demonstrates by sticking out her Secret Herbs and Spices and shaking them around. It's cold on that there coastline. A decidedly non-Summery summary is as follows:
o Brittany's up first, posing with hot David. She complains about the cold, but still pulls some stunning shots out of her arse, even though Tyra claims she's "afraid of her sexuality".
o Dionne is next, posing with hot-but-badly-named Brad "River" Rope. She's gorgeous with longer hair, but Tyra complains about her visible nostrils and her mean, mean eyebrows, and as my housemate says "one of her eyes looks bung". Dionne responds with "It's hard in this cold-ass water tryin' to be sexy and seductive".
o Jaslene poses with hot Tamati William, manages to pull some curves out of nowhere (certainly not her non-arse), and rocks it.
o Renee should absolutely and without question grow her hair long (you know – exactly like she did before she was butchered in the make-over episode and given an "Ellen"). With hot Adrian Allen, she sits in the frigid water and looks gorgeous, especially in the men's mag shot. Renee may have a lot of personal issues, but she sure can bring out her Inner Slut at the drop of a hat. Tyra, who has been squatting in the water in her jeans to take the shots, makes a hilarious joke about her wet jeans by pointing to them and saying "I made a pee-pee, Mommy". Oh, Tyra. You're such an arsehole.
o Natasha, with hot Samuel Sirena, launches instantly and easily into Saxy Russian Siren, yes? She does have a problem with constantly hanging her mouth open, and she does have to deal with Tyra imitating her accent just like a polite smart person wouldn't, but she still takes an awesome photo. She's pleased with her performance, saying "You get so many compliments that you feel yourself like a top model". I have nothing polite to say about that.

· It's time for an arsing as the modules assemble in the Elimination Opera House to face their antipodean fate. Tyra greets them in quite a nice black frock, without so much as a kerchief on her head, but with ridiculous eyelashes that you could use as bookshelves. Cover Girl seems to have removed the clump from all their commercially available mascara and deposited it on Tyra's face for want of a better place to put it. She introduces the judges, including eight-ruffled Mr Jay, shouldn't-wear-pink Twiggy, guest judge Priscilla and Spunky Nigel Barker, who I'm watching through binoculars. Tyra forgets to mention the prizes, which I think would have included a packet of fruit roll-ups and a sewing kit, and drags us through the photographs. With an earnest expression and the gravity only a mentor can possess, Tyra gives Renee a carefully-considered critique. No, wait – that's not strictly correct. What she does is tell Renee that she "did the booty-tooch". Then she says she was "toochin' that booty". Then she says "tooch" and "booty" a few more times. Fine, Tyra – FINE. If you're just gonna make shit up, then I will too. Please stop farnargling my woozie. Thank you so much.

· The judges deliberate, the modules are called back in, and names are called until just Ghetto Dionne and Brain-Damage Brittany are left. Brittany is told that she has beautiful photos, but that nobody wants to hire her, and Dionne is told that she has 'nice' photos, but she has to be coached. A year passes, and Brittany is given the flick. Bye, Brittany! Don't forget that you've just been booted on your way out!

· I have to devote a paragraph to Dionne as she's being handed her photograph and being given a pep-talk by Tyra. She executes the best slow-mo single screen tear I've ever seen. It rolls down her face like a solitary diamond being gently dragged down a grassy hill, and I forget for a moment that she's a twangy single mother whose family members get shot by drug dealers. It's kinda beautiful.

Next week, the girls dress up as our indigenous ancestors and dizzy themselves by dancing around in circles, and Natasha engages in a bit more phone-porn with her mail-order husband. Indigenous. Vertiginous. Libidinous.