America's Next Top Model Recap 8.6 - "If I Only Went To Harvard."

It's Opposite Week on America's Next Top Model. Girls look like guys, guys look like girls, girls that usually do well don't do as well, and girls who usually don't do that well do very well. But rest assured some things are still the same. Renee is still a huge bitch.

Sadly, there won't be any pictures in the recap this week. Some folks are out on vacation, but more importantly my computer crashed this morning. Died just like that. RIP. I'll try to post the photo shoot pics on the blog, but that's probably all I'll be able to manage this week. Hopefully, we'll be back on track next week, though. Sorry!

The episode starts off with Natasha on the phone with her much older husband. He puts their baby on the phone. I didn't even know Natasha had a baby. I thought Renee was the only one with a kid. After all, she's the one that won't shut up about it.

Whitney and Diana (who are like the dynamic duo of this show) are dishing about Natasha while she's on the phone. Whitney is telling Diana that Natasha got married when she was 18 to a 40-year-old man and she spoke no English. They call her a mail order bride (which...) and say that it's gross (well...).

Cut to scene of Natasha growling and meowing into the phone. She and her pervy old husband then proceed to more or less have phone sex. Ew.

Back to Whitney and Diana. Now they're discussing being the big girls on a show full of sticks. Again. Diana says she's trying to lose ten pounds by eating only tuna fish. Or something like that. I don't know and don't really care.

Tyra Mail! "Looking your worst can be the best thing that ever happened to you. --love Tyra." Huh? Jael cheerily says, "I win this one!" Ha!

They go to some factory somewhere and are met by the very scary Cathy Gould, director of Elite Model Management. She has that Revenge of the Plastic Surgeon look so popular among models of a certain age. (See: Janice Dickenson.) With her is Claudia Mason, who Cathy assures us is a well-known top model. If you say so. I've never heard of her. And she's not that pretty. Her eyes do this weird googly thing where they kind of slide off in different directions at the same time.

So Cathy and Claudia send the girls off to put on some clothes they've chosen for them, then ask them what they think about their outfits. Natasha loves her outfit. It's something she would wear. Whitney loves hers too, especially the jewelry. Jaslene thinks her outfit is young, fun, and hip.

Surprise! The outfits are all examples of what not to wear! Hahaha! Burn! Mean Cathy then proceeds to tell them how everything they just praised is actually wrong for them. She makes them take some articles of clothing off and swap others, supposedly to create better outfits. Personally, I didn't see much improvement. That was stupid. You wasted my time and theirs, Cathy Gould.

Back at the house, Renee turns her Bitch Meter up to 11. She's talking to Whitney in an extremely condescending tone, "Do you honestly believe that there's never going to be a plus-sized model on the cover of Vogue?"

Uh, hate to be the one to break it to you, but Jennifer Hudson just graced the cover of Vogue in March, and by all accounts, she's plus-sized. So eat it, bitch.

Renee runs her mouth some more, but the general gist of what she's saying clearly has that Mean Girl "I'm just trying to help you" vibe, as in, "you're fat and someone needs to point that out to you, I'm only trying to help."

Whitney doesn't get any where near as mad as I would have. Instead, she sits up and says, "I can be a model." Renee nastily shoots back, "Waiting to see it, waiting to see it." I hate Renee. So very much.

Whitney tells Diana what Renee said, and just in case Diana is too slow to get it, she explains that Renee was saying they can't be models. Diana gets all fired up. Well, as fired up as Diana gets. Which is pretty much the equivalent of a Bic lighter.

The girls walk into the Sears warehouse. I'll just stop right there for a sec. Top Model. Sears Warehouse. Which of these things just doesn't belong here? I realize that Sears is a sponsor of the show and all, but come on. The Sears catalog is not in any way considered high fashion. Or even fashion. It's like the American cheese of the fashion world. Emphasis on the cheese.

Anyway, they are met by two creepy looking mannequins, who turn out to be twins Lawrence and Gregory Zarian. They are not identical. Lawrence is taller. They are former male models turned stylists. The show doesn't tell us the stylist part. My fashion obsessed friend fills me in.

The reward challenge this week is to create an in-store display using teams of three to create a cohesive look, while also creating looks and styles suited to each individual girl. The individual winner will be chosen from the winning group. They have twenty minutes. Go!