America’s Next Top Model Review: If You’re Not First, You’re Last

“If you’re not first, you’re last,” declared Brittani, quoting her personal role model, Ricky Bobby, of the movie Talladega Nights. I kid, I kid, but Brittani did in fact utter the phrase after discussing last week’s elimination of Alexandria, which made me think: Brittani’s wacky wording was almost correct. With only three girls left, there’s no room left for error.

With the America’s Next Top Model season finale around the corner, it was tears, tears and more tears this week. First, the models were surprised with their first semi-challenge of the week when Mr. Jay busted into their Moroccan pad with a video message from Insider TV host Lara Spencer. Spencer explained that each of the models would be doing some corresponding of their own, picking a current Moroccan fashion trend and reporting from the Medina market. Each girl had ninety seconds to fill, no more and no less, and the winner’s video would be posted on the Insider TV website for the world to see. Brittani staggered through her segment with the ease of a prize-winning Thoroughbred limping its way to the gate, in other words, disastrous and a little hard to watch. Hannah surprised me when she said she had studied journalism in college and she was pretty much born to do this but all she gave was the deer-in-headlights look while sputtering out some jerky dialogue. Even though Molly had an extra five seconds at the end of her spot that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with, except to proclaim her segment “horrible”, her video clip was the most flowing and informational and for that she was the semi-challenge winner.

Later, while the ladies were relaxing in the model house, Tyra stopped by for an impromptu photo shoot and a little female bonding. Each girl recounted their tear-jerking personal stories of insecurities while Tyra helped them hug it out. Talk about the feel-good moment of the episode!

For the final photo shoot challenge, the models dressed in traditional Moroccan style wedding gowns and posed with the handsome male model Younes Tazi. It seemed that even though the models were doing fairly well with their photos, they still had problems showing a believable connection with their model counterpart. Brittani brought the waterworks once more after Nigel Barker tried to give her some pointers to use in the shoot. Luckily, Hannah didn’t bring the boo-hooing for a refreshing change when Nigel offered his opinions on set. She actually took what she was given and did quite well. Molly wasn’t left out though and was completely down on herself afterwards for not seizing her moments on camera.

Finally, the time came for deliberation. The Tyra panel was joined by Sr. Vice President of IMG Models, and guest judge for the day, Ivan Bart. This was probably the first week that Tyra was so impressed with everyone’s film that she picked two photos of each girl to display to the panel. After a difficult decision, Hannah was ruled not strong enough to continue and, just as I predicted, Molly and Brittani have officially made it to the Top Model finals. This is it, folks! Next week, we finally find out who the next America’s Next Top Model winner will be.

Season 16, Episode 11: Ivan Bart (originally aired May 11, 2011)

For another take on this episode, check out “Forty-Five Minutes of Airtime Fulfilled” by Savannah DuBois.

Images courtesy of Walter Sassard/Pottle Productions/The CW.