Easy, Breezy, Beautiful Power Rankings

Well, I guess I picked the wrong week to finally believe in Tahlia. In the dreaded Cover Girl Challenge, only one contestant got a really positive criticism, and the rest went from kinda shitty to terrible. I'm back in Chicago for a week and thus watched this DVR'd with my mom this morning, and we were both shocked to see Tahlia leave over Allison, given how Allison keeps getting criticized for the same thing and how much Tyra seemed to lurv Tahlia, but here we are. Parting words to Tahlia from a man with a gigantic bow-tie: "You looked like when Moses was parting the Red Sea, you were on the other side fishing. That's how old you looked." THE POWER IS ON!



Ranking This Week (Ranking Last Week). Model Name (rankings in the last 4 episodes), bold for bottom 2, italics for winner of the reward challenge), [average ranking overall]

1 (1). Teyona - (8, 2, 2, 3) [3.16]
Second week in a row in which a weakness of Teyona has seemingly been exposed, with this week focused on her seeming inability to keep her eyes and mouth open all the way at the same time, but she's still somewhere towards the top when it all shakes out. Combo of Tyra thinking your face is interesting and thinking you're talented = priceless.

2 (4). Celia - (5, 7, 8, 1) [4.66]
One week in the doghouse for outing Tahlia's emotional frailty (which obviously was quite dick of her, but whatevs), and now look what's up. Tyra still had something negative to say about Celia's commercial, of course, but who else was she going to pick? Celia was by far the most charismatic, stylish, solid model today, and despite (or maybe with the help of) her not-quite-human face, she looks like a really strong contender.

3 (2). Fo - (4, 8, 1, 4) [5.00]
She may not be as natural of a model as Natalie, but Fo actually has a personality and a fairly distinctive look, so I'm going to keep her up here. She didn't do that well here, but no one really did.

4 (6). Natalie - (9, 4, 6, 2) [5.50]
I guess she's our villain for the season? Natalie did the best of all the models that didn't do well (so everyone except Celia) today, and while that's good enough for now, I wonder whether she doesn't lack that extra push to go over the top when necessary. Has anyone this cold and empty-seeming ever won Top Model?

5 (5). Allison - (10, 3, 5, 7) [4.83]
She's over Aminat only because Doll Eyes, while not possessing much in the way of (modeling) talent or creativity, has the potential to pull off an absolutely stunning picture at any moment. She did terrible this week though, and could also be gone any week now. Maybe when your eyes dominate that much of your face it limits the amount of expressions you can perform? Science?

6 (7). Aminat - (2, 6, 4, 6) [6.16]
Yaaaaaaawn.

7 (8). London - (7, 5, 7, 5) [5.50]
While Ceila hammed it up with Clay Aiken and then was wonderfully natural for the Cover Girl spot (which, you know, makes sense), poor London did a great, natural job with Clay and then proceeded to do something which made me think of Bobby Hill's Old Jewish Man impression for the commercial (I know that's a stretch, but I think it fits like a glove compared to Tyra's odd street hustler routine). Speaking of Bobby Hill (I'm sorry), poor London was subject to our first Weight Issues of the season, which were pretty creatively presented with her not being able to fit into her prize jeans (surprised they didn't work it into the Thanksgiving Dinner). :( Obviously, she's still gorgeous, but the gain from the beginning of the season is visible. This doesn't usually end well.

See ya next week. For now, let's meditate on the always amazing megapost of Tyra animated GIF's by the mighty Rich at fourfour. Holler.