Lost in Seattle

The current cycle of “America’s Next Top Model” is in the home stretch; the original thirteen have been pared down to six after Brooke’s long-awaited departure last night. Here’s my take on the remaining “girls.”

The biggest surprise to me has been Joanie, who I previously picked as the first to be sent home. She has turned herself around and demonstrated a strong personality. And after her grueling trip to the dentist last night in which she had four mis-aligned teeth removed, she emerged as the front-runner.

My personal favorite, Nnenna, is still, by far, the most attractive of the lot, but her ongoing saga with her jealous boyfriend is getting tedious and seems to be crushing her spirit. But, she has now twice declared that she recognizes ANTM as a tremendous opportunity that she doesn’t want to “waste” because of her boyfriend. Yikes. Maybe she’ll dump his sorry ass and will rebound before they all jet off for their surprise foreign locale next week.

Jade continues to be a piece of work and a half. She showed off her softer side last night during a surprise visit from her mother, who proceeded to demonstrate where Jade gets her crazy from by performing some weird-ass mystical energy channeling hand-waving procedure over Jade’s body. She has definitely ramped up her modeling but still doesn’t know how to contain her innate arrogance. After she attempted some fake tears at the judging last night, Tyra called her out on being phony and reminded her that the opposite of arrogant is not wounded, but humble. Bottom line, though, is that she’s too old to be Top Model.

Danielle pissed Tyra off by refusing to have the gap between her front teeth fixed. At the judging, it seemed that they just wrote her off, saying that “some other girl” would step in and fill that gap (figuratively, I’d imagine). She eventually relented and it appears that she’s going back to the dental chair next week. Her work has improved significantly and she might just find herself in the final two. It should also be noted that Danielle appeared to have stayed with Joanie and held her hand during her 12-hour tooth-extraction procedure. If the two of them end up together in the end, it’ll make for a very emotional competition.

Furonda is still struggling with the fact that she’s just not that pretty. She turned in good photo shoots, however, and the judges seem to like her OK, but they are not going gah-gah.

Sara stuck it out for yet another week and turned in some singularly lackluster performances. She’s currently next on the chopping block unless she gets her act together next week.

The big mystery now is: where will they go next week? In the past, the last five (or six) models standing have been jetted off to Tokyo, South Africa, London, Milan, and Paris. What world fashion mecca is left? I speculate it’ll be Asia, like Hong Kong or Shanghai. There’s a slight chance it’ll be Dubai. Amy’s thinking maybe somewhere in South America, like Buenos Aries or Rio.