Runway Jury: The Loser

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THIS IS THE FIRST epic episode of the sixth season, and it sure took them long enough.

I have nothing nice to say about the ho-hum challenges, the slipshod cycling in and out of judges and the blatant producer manipulation among the wins and losses, and blame Bunim-Murray for everything wrong with this season.

But at least a challenge that's genuinely challenging begins forcing the designers to be creative, to aim high and fail spectacularly, and to be humungous bitches about it.

And isn't that why we tune in?

So the claws are coming out — as are the insecurities.

Johnny Drama claims that landing in the bottom three feels like being punched in the stomach, while Irina straightforwardly believes Althea's outfit did not deserve to win, because her outfit wasn't good enough.

Nicolas isn't nervous, but he should be.

Ah, delusion — it's nice to have you back.

FIELD TRIP!
"This challenge will definitely be tough, but the answers will be in black and white," says Heidi. Please involve newspapers, please involve newspapers.

"Since we're in L.A.," says Logan, my thoughts instantly go to like old Hollywood black-and-white movies." And he's the straight one. Uh-huh.

It does involve newspapers — the Los Angeles Times, to be exact. Althea, who must have been studying under the tutelage of Professor Whitfield, notes that, "We are at a huge building, which is where they make all the newspapers." I can't wait until they go to the zoo to see where they make the animals.

They meet Booth Moore, "the celebrated fashion critic of the Los Angeles Times," Tim calls her. Eh, she's no Cathy Horyn. The challenge is somewhat awkwardly explained. Tim says that much of fashion is derived from the headlines — okaaay — and Booth weighs in with the real dope: You are to create looks from actual, physical newspapers. Let's hope for a headline with the words, "Nuts Only."

FASHION, THY NAME IS DIGNITY
They dash toward the papers and start stockpiling the news like it's going out of style — which it is (Boo-yah! Multilevel jokes, I has them.) It's ridiculous; how much paper do you need to cover one 90-pound female? Or as Irina puts it, "Everybody is going insane grabbing stacks and stacks of paper. I'm like, what are you doing? You're dressing a human, not an elephant."

Tim, who is a real professor, walks us through the history of paper clothing. I hope he got tips from Dr. Whitfield.

They are allowed to dye it and to structure it with muslin, so long as the muslin doesn't show. Nicolas knows nothing about newspaper and is much less cocky than he was this morning. Doesn't take much to bring the little snip down, does it? Behold, the mighty press!

They all bitch about how chatty Shirin is in the workroom. They bitch in the interview room, that is, while in the workroom, the camera cuts to various shots of them looking appalled, disgusted and pissed. While lamenting her immaturity, no one has the balls to say, "Hey, Shirin, your talking is distracting. Can you hold on to the chatter until we get through this? Thanks."

MYSTERY SEWING MACHINE THEATER
Ooh, things are picking up.

The Tim-through is devastating. He gives great advice; Johnny actually wads up his dress and hooks it trashward — where it misses. Ha! And then it gets better. He sad-sacks to the collected designers whilst hanging out in some horrific space fully upholstered in orange that the steamer destroyed his dress and blah blah ruined and blah poor me, and Nicolas, who hates Johnny for reasons not fully explained, snits that they didn't even have a steamer in the workroom that day — which, whatever — but it turns out Johnny was lying. As Shirin says, "Basically, Johnny tore up his first dress just because Tim Gunn came and said it was pretty bad."

Even Johnny hates what he's done. So he starts doing the crossword puzzle. Then he tells his melancholy tale again; only the culprit is not the steamer in the workroom with the lead pipe, but the iron in the conservatory with the candlestick. ("and the iron started to sputter ... " He sounds just like Ralphie when he lies to his mom about shooting his eye out with his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle on Christmas morning. Even Logan sees through it.)

AND STAY TUNED ...
Finally, the interstitial shows L.A. as I remember her — wreathed in greenish, post-apocalyptic smog.

The models come in for fittings and are kind of stoked at the avant-gardeness of it all. Johnny mutters that he doesn't want to go home over an "arts-and-crafts project." That boy is edging up on Christopher Straub for the winner of the Don't Know Much About Fashion gold medal.

HEY, DID YOU KNOW THERE'S A NEW MOVIE CALLED "FAME'? LET LIFETIME TELL YOU ABOUT IT! Shut up, Lifetime.

The Models of the Runway promos are approaching "Hell's Kitchen" levels of hyperbole. "This week, one model goes too far," the announcer in-a-worlds.. A model looks into the camera and says, "I wish she'd just stop." Stop? Yawn. Call me when the bitch pours beer on your weave.

LET'S START THE SHOW
The judges are Tommy Hilfiger, Marie Claire senior editor Zoe Glassner and Eva Longoria Parker. So, that means that both Michael Kors and Nina Garcia are over this gig.

Logan: Cute and but not well-fitted strapless dress that makes the black and white newsprint look like a fabric pattern and is trimmed in small blue pleats. He does an asymmetrical thing I like, for once — an extra ruffle of fabric on the right collarbone echoed by the same business over the left thigh. We're going to have to give them a pass for perfect fit this week, I think. Even over muslin, it's just paper.

Nicolas' "experimental" and "daring" design is neither; nor is it punk rock, as he claims. It's dyed stripes in colors of dried blood and dark yellow, horizontal across the bodice and vertical, in overlapping tiers, on the skirt. I lived through punk rock, Nicolas, and we were accused of a lot of things, but smearing our clothing with dried blood wasn't one of them.

Christopher smirks as his ballgown struts down the runway, and I have to say, the model is working it. The long skirt is made up of feathers" of shredded newsprint; the top, unfortunately, looks and fits like a papier-mâché bustier in two shades of gray. (There's a limerick in there somewhere.) It is ambitious; it also displays its material rather too blatantly. There's no, "What a pretty dress; it's paper?!" More like, "Wow, you sure did a lot with that paper."

Ra'mon made separates, and they look like fabric and even kind of move like it. The dying is neato — bluey-red-gray on top and greeny-yellow-gray on bottom, but the skirt is so short and simple and the top so, well, simple, the effect is very H&M. It's paper and looks like clothing, so yay, but it's not clothing a sophisticated woman would wear.

Epperson, he is a secret weirdo. Leaving aside his set-to with Qristyal (damn! I never wanted to have to oh-so-carefully peck out the weird spelling of her name again) two episodes ago, I kind of love him. This crazy thing is a kimono-style top with attenuated but super-wide sleeves over a bi-level, bell-shaped skirt. The proportions are fabulous, the simplicity of the lines play beautifully against the audacious contrast of volumes. The bright yellow bag she's toting around is a big fail, though.

Johnny still hates his dress. Everyone hates his dress. My cats hate his dress. So short, so ugly, such an unflattering neckline. I wonder if he'll be aufed? It is a mystery.

HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE ARE THERE?
Gordana can pin-tuck like nobody's business. The worked-over halter and two-layered miniskirt are dyed autumnal shades and the costume achieves the same chic as Epperson's by employing opposite effects — its flirty, girlish shape plays down the heavily worked and fancily dyed fabric.

Restraint is not a friend of Professor Whitfield's. But the good doctor can sew. She's made a floor-length sleeveless gown in deep red that's tiered and ruffled and flounced and flamenco-ed within an inch of its ink, leaving a flirty little strip of hey-that's-just-newspaper across the bust. Brava, Einstein. You may pick up your Nobel Prize for Fabulousness.

Can we pull it back here a minute? What is with the Pierrot cones? Shirin, who I thought would know better, has made a stupid diamond-shaped skirt out of those origami-type triangle thingies that we came to know and love/be bored/baffled by from Leanne's work (and win) last season. But Leanne worked in very soft fabrics, and this just looks like insane clownwear. At least it's black and white and not dyed. The trouble with this technique is, it's ugly and unwearable, but not even avant-garde, since it's so done.

Irina likes to make coats. See Irina make coats. Coats, coats, coats. A trenchcoat in undyed newsprint with big patch pockets and festive, extravagant shirring on the collar and sleeves that looks like Persian lamb. Even the belt looks as if it would hold up in the washing machine. "I was breathless," she says. Girl, me too.

Will no one else make a damn sleeve? No, apparently. Althea's strapless, knee-length cocktail gown does have a lot of complicated layering of paper strips that makes it look almost like an animal print, which is cool. But with no straps or sleeves, it suffers from that stiff-bodice syndrome so many of these designs have — the sashaying model's shoulders go one way while the material goes the other.

Louise — oh, ew. You know what's yummy? Those chocolate-meringue curls some restaurants paste all over the outside of a buffet tiramisu. So crunchy and sweet. Not that I would want them forming a collarpiece than ran from my neck to the top of my bust, but hey, Louise and I broke up an episode ago. I don't even know who she is anymore. Hate the Minnie Mouse styling on the model; hate the short A-line skirt with inverted pleats. I do like the fact that she knows it's not her best effort.

HEIDI'S PLASTICS RULE THE SCHOOL
Althea is asked to explain her design. "I saw this image of a building, and I thought ..." Whoa, whoa — slow down there, missy. Which building would that be? What building would that be? Is it in Los Angeles? No? Where, oh, where is a building with Art Deco rectangles of shape and shade that could possibly inspire such a design? And does it look at all ... familiar? The judges love it, just as the loved Jay's season one Chrysler Building dress.

Gordana describes her intent — a conventional look in unconventional fabric — but Heidi calls it boring for being wearable and real-looking. Really? Then you'll be wearing Nicolas' dried-blood-and-invalid's-pee dress to your next cocktail party? Because it's unwearable and not real-looking.

"Johnny!" Heidi says with a bright smile. Ooh, this is gonna hurt. "What's goin' on here?" He tells his stupid sputter-steaming lie to the judges' faces, after he was caught on camera crumpling it up and throwing it away after the Tim-through, and then pops up with, "I'm not trying to make excuses." Ahahaha! Comedy gold.

And he can't shut up. "If I may say," oh dear, "the other dress was really hardcore. It had that, like, Dior." Nicolas openly guffaws at this and shakes his horrible hair. "It was not a Dior," he drawls. "It was a red mess." True, but not your place to say it. He tattles about what Tim said ("It looked like the birds were attacking the dress") and Johnny says, "Thanks. Throw me right under the bus." With hand gestures. It's sort of like bowling, apparently.

"Nicolas!" Heidi says with another bright smile. Yeah, Nicolas; explain your garment, Miss Dior. He tells his East Village story. Hilfiger has the grace to be gobsmacked. "I think … that doesn't look ... like ... the punk thing." Zoe calls it a cockroach. "Which is also very New York, right?" Heidi busts up with cruel laughter. This drama is so delicious I want to put it over ice cream.

They love Johnny's suit-of-armor top and feathery skirt, so okay. I don't think he's as great as the judges seem to, week after week.. There's a balance between wearability and innovation that he misses, as does Frau Doktor Whitfield (although I find her designs flat-out prettier) and that Irina locates with precision when she's on. "If you squint your eyes, it looks like feathers," says Eva. Good luck finding that party.

OH, THE SUSPENSE
Althea's in. Christopher is in. Gordana is in. Irina gets her richly deserved win and is very sweet about it. It's down to Nicolas and Johnny — way to craft a catfight/showdown episode. Aaaand ... see the title of this entry.

Once Tim Gunn dismisses Johnny to clean up his space — fiddling with his cuffs all the while so as to avoid hugging the pink-Polo-shirted tub of crack cocaine and self-pity and lies — he turns to the assembled designers and says the following:

"I am incredulous at that utterly preposterous spewing of fiction that Johnny did on the runway. It was ree-diculous." Nicolas, of course, steps in like the superhero of truth he thinks he is. Shut up Nicolas. Speaking of superheroes, you wouldn't like Tim Gunn when he's angry. You'd LOVE him.

Great episode. Welcome back, show. And call me, Louise. Just to talk.

Next week: "It's time to see what Los Angeles is known for," says Heidi. Those yummy coconuts with straws in them you can buy by the side of the road? Jacaranda trees in bloom? Boob jobs? Bankruptcy? Sig-alerts? Earthquakes, fires, mudslides? Join them — and us — for all the drama with none of the calories, and in the meantime, please weigh in below.

Photos courtesy Lifetime