The 15th season (oh, sorry, CYCLE) of ANTM began last night! Yay! Crazed models, clawing at each others' egos! I don't have any favorites, yet, and don't even remember the gals' names so much at this point. I don't think there's a theme this year, except that they brought in a 13th "wildcard" model, named Renn -- this blown-away acid casualty sinister-looking model gal. Not sure the logic of bringing her into it, what the selection process was and why she was added outside of the usual process. No idea.
There were the usual pot-stirrers -- the "bad guy" models in there, making everybody's lives hell. I was pleased that one of the semifinalists, Hallie, a self-confessed trust fund brat from Tennessee (who's like Cybill Shepherd's niece or something) -- I was pleased that she didn't make it. The look of disbelief and hate on her face when she realized she wasn't going to be on the show was classic. Like "OMG! This can't happen to ME! I get everything I want!"
Similarly, the long-faced gal with the nose ring (pierced through the center of her nose, like a bull) and twin lip rings didn't make it, either (she had a pretty enough face, in an unremarkable kind of way, if you took the metal out of her mug) -- but she had this look of hurt and bewilderment at not getting picked. And managed the first blur-cam shot of the season as she curled up coochtastically in a corner and cried at her misfortune.
The makeovers were pretty standard -- requisite amounts of tears, shock, and over-the-top elation. Surprisingly, the rivalries and hatreds have started right out of the box -- either some of the gals are serious psychos, or they pumped in angry gas in there or something (sleep deprivation, maybe?) because some of them were already totally feeling the hate for one another almost immediately. No stew-n-brew, but just in-your-face loathing.
There's a pretty gal from Arkansas whose back story was cringe-inducing. Yes, down with Jesus. Yes, met a 22-year-old man in her church (when she was 16, I think is what I heard). Yes, they had sex (her first time -- abstinence teaching, right?) Yes, she got pregnant, and is now a mother of a one-year-old (I think she's 18, now). I missed whether she and El Creepo got married or are just shacking up, but she complained at how their church hasn't accepted them in the wake of that (naturally, following in the forgiving steps of Christ, as we all know all those evangelicals are). So, she's leaving behind her 1-year-old to try for this modeling gig -- WWJD? He'd try to become ANTM! It's an Arkansas Fairy Tale, right there.
One of the contestants, Gabrielle (remembered her name), seemed like a tough-but-smart little snarkling, who bizarrely resembles the character Matt from "Nip/Tuck." I mean, she really, really does, and it kind of freaks me out (of course, Matt's character always freaked me out, anyway -- he looked bizarre, and acted more bizarre than he looked). But they blonded her up at the makeover and it looks better on her. She seems pretty smart, but has that tough-as-nails look to her that is kinda spooky. She's from St. Louis. I can't find pix of the contestants, yet, so I'll post them when I can, and you can see how she looks like Matt.
The next episode has them nude modeling as their first challenge, so it'll be a blurfest, obviously. That always makes me chuckle -- Oh! They're NUDE! But you can't see it, because it's network television, and they're BLURRY! Really, the nudity is beside the point, anyway -- it's more fun to watch them agonize over each others' performances.
