America's Next Top Model - Cycle 20 Episode 3 - Recap - The Girl Who Gets Married Again
America's Next Top Model - Cycle 20 Episode 3 - Recap - The Girl Who Gets Married Again
Here we are! Week two of America's Next Top Model cycle 20 on The CW! The guys (!) and girls of this cycle compete this episode in a vertical catwalk (because Tyra Banks is crazy and loves to torture models) and an "alternative wedding" themed shoot (because I guess part of the time the challenges have to be normal). Friendships are formed, flirting begins to flower, and two contestants have their time on the show cut short!
Tonight we got to meet some of the contestants more in-depth as they had their lead-up talking head segments before the challenges. A lot of them had a fear of heights. Don has some PTSD and anxiety from being brutally attacked some years prior, so he was especially nervous about the walk, but he seemed to do fine. Nina goes first and (of course) does a bad job. Chris S. does okay, but then Kanani and Phil stumble all over. Cory nails it, as does Renee. A bunch of the other girls and guys fall over on their butts. Bianca and Mike lose, Marvin and Renee win!
Back at the house, the team learns about the next challenge: a marriage photoshoot! Keeping with the marriage theme (and the co-ed cycle's inherent sexual tension), the clever editors play up some romance between contestants. While everyone is flirting and saying who they'd marry, Cory is pure sass, saying he'd marry none of these people. He is the best. We love Cory, yes. Marvin keep layin' on the charm so thick that it isn't charming at all. He keeps trying way too hard to get sexy with Bianca, but Bianca/Mike are the makeout couple this week, sooo... (as a sidenote, Mike is 27 and Bianca is 18, ew ew ew ew ew)
Jeremy and Jourdan are the first couple up, doing a nudist wedding. They get a middling judgement from Tyra, Rob, and Kelly. I thought they were kinda bad. Jeremy has very little personality, and Jourdan didn't seem to know what to do at all.
Mike and Alexandra do a shotgun wedding, complete with fake pregnant belly and (for some reason) a bunch of other kids. I mean is it really a shotgun wedding when you've already got three kids?? Anyway. Alexandra gets praise for her photos, Mike gets a stern rebuke for his walk earlier and for his boring photos.
Kanani and Jiana lesbian wedding. Jiana gets more praise than Kanani, but the judges like them both overall. Cory and Chlea have a biker wedding, splitting the judges pretty evenly between "great!" and "ehh".
Chris H. and Don, gay wedding. Every judge loves these two a lot! I also think they did a bang-up job here, really selling the normalcy of the relationship and not letting it devolve into gross stereotyping.
The weirdest one is an... objectophilia (?) wedding with Phil and... a television. No, I don't know either. He gets no praise, but I can't blame him. His partner was an actual television.
Nina, Marvin, and Bianca do a polygamist wedding. Both ladies get garbage scores from the judges, but Marvin gets nearly perfect scores! Renee and Chris S. do a class warfare sort of wedding, where she's a rich debutante and he's a street thug. I didn't get it, but the extras seemed to have fun with it, so I guess that's something.
After the shoot, more Big Brother style cohabitation tension. Mike gets druuuuunk on wine. Nina is a weird alien, and I am in love with her. Et cetera, et cetera. Marvin keeps doing his obnoxious flirty thing. It hasn't been long enough for the drama to develop naturally, so it's all sort of weirdly manufactured. Understandable!
In the Shame Room of Ultimate Judgement (not actually the name of it), Tyra reminds our models what is at stake here: A cover shoot for Nylon magazine, a NEXT Models contract, and $100k ad campaign with Guess! Marvin gets the week's highscore (hooray!) and I agree, and my friend Cassie who watches the show with me also thinks Marvin is adorable. He is! He's kinda creepy with the ladies, but he's got such a good tragic backstory and a genuine nervous smile! The bottom three are Chris S., Mike, and Bianca. The first people sent home are... Chris S. and Bianca! Wow! This is unfortunate, because the sexual tension generated by the Bianca/Mike/Marvin courtship was so interesting! Oh well. The judges didn't like her photos! I'm certainly okay with it. If Cory and Nina ever get cut, I'm going to be despondent. Inconsolable, even. They're my favorites this cycle, for sure. Check back here next week for another recap to see if they make it through, and click on this video below to watch a preview for this episode!