Last week on Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious, the girls moved into a loft together and immediately started gossiping behind each other's backs.  They also had to sing the national anthem in front of a small crowd of baseball fans, and eventually attempted to perform "classic" pop hits for the judges.  While a few of the girls pulled off *NSYNC's "Tearin' Up My Heart" with panache, another group butchered "Baby One More Time" so badly that the ratty weave of Britney Spears nearly came to life in an attempt to hunt them down.  Megan went home for the atrocity, leaving us with 11 girls to root for this week.

Tonight's new episode is all about charisma, and also features a performance from Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger.  You may remember her as the girl whose solo album has been delayed approximately 957 times over the past couple years.

Tonight's hour kicks off with Ilisa saying she was surprised she didn't go home last week.  She thinks her look is too different for Girlicious, but I think it's her strongest asset.  Who wants more cookie cutter bimbos on stage anyway?

Speaking of standing out, Alexis is educated, which makes her different from most reality show contestants. She's in the top 15 percent of her college class.  Good for her.  However, will her education help her in this week's charisma-centric challenge?  Charlye, Tiffanie, and Nichole have to sing Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walking."  Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" will be tackled by Carrie, Jamie, Alexis, and Cassandra.  The song that will likely be bastardized the most is Aretha Franklin's "Respect," which will be sung by Chrystina, Natalie, Jenna, and Ilisa.

This is the episode that highlights what an oddball Ilisa is.  She's picked last for the "Respect" team, and we see various clips where the girls call her strange and "not Girlicious enough."  They think she sits like a man and basically spend much time talking about her behind her back.  However, Ilisa has the advantage of a genetic heart defect that causes her heart to beat irregularly.  She believes that her past health problems, including an incident where she keeled over dead for 30 minutes, have given her a deeper connection to music.  I kind of like her, as I always have affection for the girls who are picked last.  It reminds me of my high school days, but that's a whole personal trauma I won't go into right now.

Ilisa tries to talk to the girls about the way they're treating her, but they can't relate since they're all normal, pretty, and sociable.  Natalie advises her not to try so hard to force the female bonding.

The field trip in this episode is a trip to see Nicole Scherzinger perform songs from her solo album, which, as I mentioned before, has been delayed 25 million times in the past two years.  Nicole gives them some generic pep talk about charisma, and then the girls have to hit the stage to perform a Pussycat Dolls song for their weekly challenge.  The catch?  They're being judged by a group of fans and not by Robin Antin.  The girl who shows the most charisma will win immunity from elimination.

The girls get up on stage and perform in their separate groups while the young fans look on.  They find Charlye, Carrie, Jenna, and Cassandra to be poor performers, but praise some of the other girls.  It cracks me up that even these 13-year-old girls can tell how untalented some of these Girlicious wannabes are.  When it comes time to judge "always picked last" Ilisa, the fans admit that they loved her and thought she had a cool personality.  The girls who were talking smack beforehand now feel like idiots.  Despite Ilisa's natural awesomeness, Natalie is crowned most charismatic and is safe from elimination.

Back at the house, Ilisa tells all the girls about how she died for 30 minutes when she was younger and was in a coma for awhile afterwards.  As is always the case on reality shows, Ilisa's tragedy makes all the girls love her and feel inspired by her.  They suddenly claim that they never disliked her in the first place.  Uh huh, sure.  At least Natalie remains a bitch, saying that Ilisa won't win because the show isn't called "Tomboylicious."  Too bad, as that would be fun to watch.

I'm worried about Tiffanie.  Her rehearsal of "These Boots are Made for Walking" is horrendously over the top and obnoxious.  Nancy Sinatra would not approve.  Then again, Miss Sinatra already survived Jessica Simpson's remake of her song, so she can probably handle Tiffanie's abomination as well.

When it comes time to perform, Tiffanie's group is first to go on stage.  It's not as bad as I feared, at least at first.  Charlye is pretty great, Nichole seems bored, and Tiffanie is decent until she belts it at the end and makes my eardrums explode.  The judges like her though, so I guess I better sop up the blood seeping from my ears and move on.

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is an awesome song, isn't it?  Unfortunately some of that greatness disappears when it's performed by these girls, as they don't have the vocal prowess of Cyndi Lauper.  This performance has also made me realize that I can't tell the difference between Alexis and Carrie whatsoever, so one of them should get booted quickly.  The judges love the performance, but I think they must be grading on a curve because it seriously was not that spectacular.

Ilisa and the other girls come on stage and manage not to defile "Respect," which is an accomplishment. Chrystina, however, seems nervous and out of place on stage.  The judges think she was the weak link in the group.

Because the judges found each of the groups to be equally strong, they have to go by individual performances this week.  Alexis gets the boot for not being charismatic and memorable enough.  The fact that she has brains probably doesn't help either, as those are a liability in a group called Girlicious.  Alexis gets her feather boa taken away and prepares to go back to dental school.

Next week on Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious:  makeovers!  If it's anything like America's Next Top Model, expect to see lots of girls cry uncontrollably while their hair gets chopped off.


- Don Williams, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of the CW)