Last week on Make Me A Supermodel, Niki Taylor and Tyson Beckford put Ben DiChiara, Casey Skinner and Frankie Godoy up for the vote. Ben has been continually disappointing the judges with his lack of self-confidence. Casey, too, faltered in the runway show on last week’s Make Me A Supermodel, performing only two instead of the required three poses on the spinning turntable. Frankie also had a bad week last week, performing the worst at the snowy photoshoot at the Windham Mountain Ski Resort. This is the first all-male bottom three, perhaps in an attempt by the producers to even out the boy/girl ratio on the house. But the Bravo promo guy assures us that the battle of the sexes has only just begun!

It’s elimination time. The three boys appear before the judges to hear their verdict. Ben and Casey are safe, but Frankie cannot be made into a supermodel. Casey, by the way, is wearing this crazy navy blue jacket with gold tassled epaulets. Back at the ranch, Holly Kiser doesn’t really like Casey or Frankie, so I’m sure she’ll be happy with the outcome. Shannon Pallay is also happy that she doesn’t have to hear Frankie’s irritating laughter anymore, which she describes as a cross between Fran Drescher and a dolphin in a blender.

Tyson comes over to the house to tell everyone that it’s Niki’s birthday, and they will be throwing a party for her. Many luminaries from GQ and the fashion industry will be in attendance. The boys get busy writing a birthday song for Niki, and the girls bake a red velvet cake.

Everyone goes out to a club for the party. Tyson leads a blindfolded Niki in, and she is immediately presented with the girls’ cake and the boys’ a cappella song. Sorry, ladies, but she looks like she enjoyed the song more. Shannon doesn’t think so, however. The party is ground zero for the battle of sexes, and unfortunately for the ladies, the GQ guy wants more boisterous personalities from them. Actually, he says that they should make him want to sleep with them. Classy, huh?

The models learn that this week is all about branding and selling a product. They must model on film, in  a video look book. The director is Manu Boyer, who will cast them for several small scenes in which they play roommates in a fabulous apartment.

The first scene will portray people being in a big fight. He picks Perry Ullmann, Holly and Ronnie Kroell. It’s a very artsy piece with no talking. Perry is excited about this challenge because he wants to be an actor as well as a model. Holly has a hard time at first but does much better after she relaxes.

The next scene is with Casey and Shannon, in which Casey acts as fashion photographer with Shannon as the model. Shannon does really well, but Casey doesn’t, so Manu swaps him out with Perry. Perry and Shannon clearly don’t like each other, and Casey feels like crap after being booted.

The final scene is a late night scene between two lovers. Manu tries out Casey and Holly, but then swaps Casey for Ben. And then he swaps Holly for Ronnie. Yay! It actually looked really awesome seeing Ben and Ronnie together. But in the end, Manu goes with Ben and Holly. Surprisingly, Ben is really good in this sexy scene and not stiff at all.

The next morning, judge Jennifer Starr wakes the models up at 7:30 and gives them ten minutes to get ready for a job. They are shepherded over to Bloomingdale’s where they will be brand ambassadors today. Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s, gives them a crash course in what it takes to be a glorified sales rep. They get dressed up in clothes and they have to learn everything about the clothes they are wearing, including the price and material. They must go out and sell their outfits to ladies who lunch. Well, everyone except for Ben because Stephanie thinks he is too stiff to be a good ambassador. Stephanie has to give Perry a talking-to about toning down his manic schtick, but eventually, he does really well. Stephanie is over the moon about every single model’s performance, but her two favorites are Casey and Shannon.

For this week’s Make Me A Supermodel runway show, they must “live the brand.” They must capture the essence of the label their wearing, and they must model two vintage looks each.

For the first round, everyone has on fabulous old-timey looks which I adore, except I could do without the guys’ two-tone saddle shoes. The second looks are uniformly more formal and glamorous for everyone. I’m hard-pressed to say which looks I like the best.

After the runway show, Cory compliments Holly, but is still concerned with her presence. Cory asks Perry and Shannon about what each thinks about the other. The judges tease Ronnie about his first walk that made him look like an English butler. All the judges are disappointed with Ben’s sad-sack attitude. They are surprised that he doesn’t want to be a salesperson, even though being a model is essentially selling the clothes on your back. He actually says that he doesn’t know what the f— they want. The judges are unanimous in their praise with the girls this week, but not entirely so with the boys.

The models are brought back to hear the final decision. Shannon and Holly are in the top two, with Holly as this week’s winner. In the bottom three are Ben, Casey and Ronnie, which means that Perry is safe.

But wait! Hold your horses, because Perry hasn’t escaped all woes. Back at the house, he gets a call from his girlfriend Amanda, warning him about a story about her that was reported in the National Enquirer. She’s is very reticent with the details and doesn’t even say whether or not she wants to stay with him. The story, which you can read about here, is that Amanda has been seeing Britney Spears’ former paparazzo boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, and may be one of the reasons Britney broke up with him in the first place. Seems like Britney’s problematic life is affecting everyone within at least three degrees of separation from her. Poor Perry!

Ben

Casey

Holly

Perry

Ronnie

Shannon

-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of Bravo)

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Staff Writer, BuddyTV