‘America’s Next Top Model’: The second-most famous Alaskan

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While it was disappointing to see one of the cooler girls in the house get sent home on Wednesday night’s episode, I was mollified to see one of the more annoying girls also eliminated, so all is relatively well in the land of ‘America’s Next Top Model.’

The episode was the runway lesson, wherein J. Alexander made the girls practice their walk at an unusual place, this time a bowling alley. This was followed up by the runway challenge, wherein the girls modeled the clothing of Jeremy Scott wearing eye masks for some reason. His collection had to do with ‘opulence and glamour,’ which is unfortunate timing for him because not too many people are feeling opulent these days. However, Scott turned out to be a charming judge on the panel, reminiscent of ‘Hairspray’ director Adam Shankman when he guest judges on ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’

The only fallout from the fashion show was Samantha, who, despite instructions not to, pulled her skirt up around her private bits during the fashion show. In some genius parallel storytelling, private bits also happened to be the problem for Isis King, who was a little worried about her ‘his’ parts during the watery fashion shoot. I’ve been watching this show for a long time and it’s definitely the first time a contestant on ‘Top Model’ was worried about her penis falling out of her swimsuit.

I was bummed about Isis leaving because I really liked her -- she actually seemed genuinely grateful for the experience and seemed quite down-to-earth. Plus, she reminded me of Prince a little bit on the runway. I would have been a lot more angry, though, if Hannah ‘I’m from Alaska!’ May also stayed, but fortunately she was eliminated in a surprise move after the runway challenge -- Tyra definitely showed me when she said ‘You think you know ‘Top Model’ but you have no idea.’ Hannah was never very pretty to me and her tendency to repeat that phrase irked me, and I just happened to realize that her voice was quite annoying as she discussed her exit saying, of course, ‘I’m from Alaska!’ OK honey, you’re not the only one.

Now that Isis is gone I think that Joslyn Pennywell is my favorite top model contestant. It feels like we’ve seen girls like her before on the show -- happy-go-lucky, cute, unassuming, but they’re often taken for the fool or the ridiculous optimist. It’s nice to see her doing so well on the competition so far (even with her floundering in the water), especially after she tried out so many times. I would gladly hear ‘Thank you Jesus!’ once an episode instead of ‘I’m from Alaska!’

-- Claire Zulkey

(photo: The CW)