At this point (and from what I can remember), this episode is the funnest of this season/cycle. It felt like every several minutes I was busting a gut, and from a wide number of sources, too.
The biggest culprit was Ebony. Doing her cold reading at the elimination: "Wa-" [looks at script] "-ter."
Next gutbuster was Giselle lazing on the couch during the big house cleaning. She decides to get up, and, "Ow!" She looks at her thumb, then the back of her hand, then her wrist, as though she was determined to have a phantom injury delay her from work but hadn't settled on the location of the affliction. Oh and nearly forgot, during the acting exercises, Ms. 15 Years of Dance tripped all over herself. HYSTERICS.
Adrianne poking Elyse's synthetic endowment! As if fixated! I shall call her Pokey. (And one funny bit, though at her expense, was the "Pyah-shun" debacle, during which Poor Man's Steven Soderbergh described Adrianne's performance as "consistent.")
Tyra, during the elimination, was the loosest I'd ever seen her. Not only did she (finally) start explaining the strengths and weaknesses of each girl, but she was improvising as though she were auditioning for Last Comic Standing. Her pageant pisstakes! Her dead-on impression of Adrianne!! I can't recall if she was ever as off the cuff and relaxed, Cycle 1 or 2.
To a more serious topic: Robin, in responding to the arrival of Ebony's girlfriend, prefaced her remarks by calling homosexuality "offensive" but then trying to sound more tolerant and accepting by saying that, indeed, she wasn't judging anybody. I'll let you, dear reader, tease out the contradiction in this moment.
ELYSE'S FIELDS
How cool is she, she read Black Elk Speaks! It's a great book, and I wrote a paper on it in college. Of course, Elyse had to show me up and read it in seventh grade.
That booty danceoff? Elyse wasn't going to participate, no, she's INDIE (rhythmically challenged white kids vs. hip hop).
I'll end this post on the meta: Elyse said on a couple occasions that she wanted to witness the coming Giselle/Ebony blowup, which cuts to one of the appeals of reality tv -- to be in the thick of a heated exchange without actually being in the midst of the negative intensity. Voyeurism doesn't have to be sexual, but seeing the meltdown of human relationships (albeit in a heavily regulated medium) is one of those carwreck experiences -- vivid destruction without the watcher risking anything.
