Is Top Carl on yet?

You'd think the penultimate episode of Top Design would be more exciting, more suspenseful, more... interesting. But no. The three remaining designers do almost exactly what you'd expect them to do in pretty much the way you'd expect them to do it. The ending isn't even unexpected so much as it is disappointing.

Even Kelly's outfit isn't excitingly bad (although I do wonder why Margaret Russell decided to make a dress out of a sauna suit). Foo.

I'm not quite sure why they picked this particular challenge for this stage of the game. Do you really want to determine your top two folks by how well they take "inspiration" from a magazine cover? Well... I guess in a designer's day-to-day workings, they probably do get clients who hand them a photo and say, "I want it to look like this but different." (As a half-assed graphic designer, I used to get that all the time from product managers. Made me want to throttle them.)

But it doesn't seem like a challenge designed to spark creativity or innovation. The three semi-finalists have to choose a cover of ELLE Decor that they feel most closely captures their style and create a room using that cover for inspiration. So, basically: find something that reminds you of you and then make something kind of like that. Yawn.

See, now is when I truly miss Goil. I'd love to see what he might have come up with to inject some life and spark into this challenge. I also would have configured the challenge differently: I'd ask them to choose a cover for another designer that they thought was the exact opposite of that designer's style, and then have that be the inspiration for that designer's room. (I should try to forge a new career as a reality show consultant or something. I'm sure nobody else on earth has an opinion on how challenges should be designed.)

Andrea chooses this shot of somebody's living room. She says that the room is perfect and that she couldn't imagine how to do anything better than that. Once again, I wonder if maybe my profound ignorance of design is rearing its head, 'cause the room looks all right to me, but nothing special. Certainly not perfect. The best thing about it is those two windows and the light they let in.

And as Andrea goes about designing her inspiration room, I'm struck once again by her aggressively neutral palette. She starts out painting the room a "happy gray" (?) but then decides that it's too bland, so she ramps it up to... taupe. We hear several times about how Andrea's an architect, and it occurs to me that most of the colors she picks, especially for paint, are the colors of building materials: cinderblock gray, lumber taupe, concrete off-white. Not even a festive Tyvek yellow.

Some nutty part of my mind asks, "Ya think she might be color-blind?" No, I don't think she is; it would be too much of a professional handicap. But I think she chooses to avoid bright colors and large expanses of color deliberately, and honestly, I think that's just as much of a handicap to a designer. That avoidance is expressed in her own wardrobe, and I start to get a sense of the frustration people felt toward me when I was a high-school goth. "You'd look so pretty in color; why won't you try something in green or blue or even pink?" That was them talking to me, and now it's me talking to Andrea. Seriously: make a friend of color; it'll love you back all your life. (On its own terms, though, like a housecat.)

Someone who has taken the love of color to an unhealthy extreme is, of course, Carisa. There's something almost ... promiscuous about her use of color. I'm a little queasy about applying that word to a female contestant, but good God, has she ever met a bright color she didn't like? I guess I haven't seen her use purple yet, but I think she was frightened off it by the judges' criticisms of Michael's fondness for grape.

Carisa does, I think, the most literal interpretation of her cover, putting a fireplace along the back wall and doing a faux-rock surface on that wall as well. (I find it interesting that nobody mentally rotated their cover and put, say, the fireplace along a side wall.) The faux-rock wall is largely the creation of Carl the Carpenter, and you can tell that he's reached his limit with Carisa. The two of them openly squabble at each other, and while Carl is now giving almost as good as he's getting, I'm sure it hasn't been easy working with Carisa.

In one classic moment, Todd comes to visit Carisa's pod. She's giving some passive-aggressive explanation about something and then Carl (rather passively-aggressively) adds, "Well, nobody listens to what I say." And Todd responds, "Oh, but they should listen to what you say, because you're a great carpenter and you're really knowledgable!" See, Todd Oldham is a being of pure love, so he's not even going to get caught up in their silliness. He's just going to build up everybody's self-esteem and spread joy wherever and however he can. Carisa, of course, makes a face for the camera.

I remember hearing once that the adolescent brain functions differently than the adult brain, in that it frequently makes the "aggression center" its first stop when processing new inputs. Supposedly, that's why the most innocuous thing said to a teenager will often be met with fury; everything is, literally, perceived as a direct threat to the adolescent. That's kind of how Carisa responds to everyone on this show: Carl's pontificating on the craftsmanship of the 19th century is perceived as a condescending lecture; the judges' useful critiques are met with a roll of the eyes that telegraphs "get off my back."

And they're absolutely right in their critiques of her: learn to edit yourself and grow the hell up. (I might have added "the hell" myself, although I like to think it was intended in the judges' minds as well.) There are definitely too many doodads in this room, and about half again as many pillows as it needs. If anything, I wish Carisa would borrow a little neutral-love from Andrea. I'm not sure I've seen a Carisa room that uses a neutral that isn't black or white. Perhaps Carisa is afraid of neutrals the way Andrea is afraid of color, worried that using gray or taupe at all would mean she's boring.

I know my armchair analysis of the contestants is getting tedious, so rest assured, I don't have the first clue what's going on in Matt's head besides "This is mine to lose, suckas." Interestingly, the cover he picks was a total bomb on the newstand, according to Margaret Russell's blog. I blame the stripe background; type has a hard time competing with that.

Matt seems to suffer the most of all the designers when he learns the budget on the room: $7500. I guess I've watched too many TLC and HGTV shows, 'cause I'm like, "$7500? You can buy real furniture for that!" But Matt is hamstrung by this amount. Once he gets out of the pricey corridors of the Pacific Design Center, Matt seems to realize that he can get some decent pieces for less than the cost of a used Ford Escort.

Matt also has to contend with a new carpenter; after Ed's injury last week, his doctor advised him to take some time off and let the thumb heal. So Matt is working with Goil's carpenter Sarah. Now, Sarah seems to be perfectly competent; she's just not the person that Matt is used to so that vibe is missing and the two of them aren't exactly in sync. (I'm somewhat ashamed to say this, but every time I see Sarah, the first thing that comes into my mind is: Why won't my hair do that?)

Between the new carpenter and Matt spending a lot of time upholstering a chaise, the room comes out looking unfinished. The rod on the back wall does look ridiculous with nothing attached to it, and that poor right wall needs something; the console by itself looks somehow lonely. And while Matt had said he wanted to focus his design around the word "dreamy" on the cover, the Rorschach art and the chaise combine to evoke the image of Sigmund Freud (or maybe just Sidney Freedman) sitting in that foremost chair asking you what your dream of showing up late for school wearing only your mother's shoes might mean.

But Matt's is the winning design. I'm not really impressed by any of these designs, so I guess he was as good a choice as any. We all knew he was going to the finals, though, right? Especially when he said that he always keeps Margaret Russell in the back of his mind. The real question here is: who's going to the finals with him, Andrea or Carisa? Andrea's neutrals tend to form a visual puddle that undermines her impressive gift for shape and structure, while Carisa's energetic colors often don't blend together, producing a shallow, plastic feel that undermines whatever coziness might be in her rooms -- plus, Carisa lacks Andrea's feel for shape.

Personally, I'd pick Andrea, hand her a Crayola paint kit (the big one with the fluorescents) and tell her to lock herself in a room with the kit until she understood it. But the judges go the other way and, improbably, select Carisa to lose to Matt in the finals. Todd seems especially sad to see Andrea go, and while she was no Goil, I thought Andrea brought a lot of maturity and fair play to the show.

So, it's on to the finals. I have no idea what the final challenge will be, but based on the previews, I think they'll have to design something with each other as the client. Which could be a chance for Carisa to try her hand at luxury and for Matt to let his inner bitch out. It's kinda too-little-too-late in terms of good TV, but it might make for some actually interesting design, and that's fine by me, until the premiere of Top Carl, anyway.

Comments

[StinkyLulu]

I had the exact same instinct about next week's challenge. Thank you.

Thanks too for the way-smarter-than-the-show commentary. It helps me immeasurably. 'Specially when Miss Kelly doesn't bother to bring it. She seemed like she had just left poolside to get a cocktail...

And if you open that Reality Show Challenge Consulting Firm, I'd like to audition for a chance to be on your team.

[Anton]

Carissa is like Santino. I would be very shocked if she wins, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

[BronzeMan]

Great recap of the show. I was highly enticed by Margaret Russell's dress though, unlike you. She's a gorgeous, classy woman and she wore that thing like a true starlet.

I'm still rooting for Matt, because I like the underdog, and as the only straight male in the lineup, he is truly accomplishing a Jackie Robinson-style coup d'etat. But I think his room this week was awful.

I think Carisa has a decent shot at vying with Matt for the title, because she makes good on her vision and her vision is distinctive. If you read the comments on the Bravo blog site, you'll find many designers who wrote in and basically named the magazine issues that featured rooms nearly identical to the ones Matt is designing. Sure, he knows how to play to Margaret Russell, but three other judges won't necessarily be warmed up by the flattery, and in the final round he has no lukewarm, mothballish Andrea to trounce effortlessly. For the big splash at the end, I suspect Carisa's boldness may outweigh her petty immaturity, especially because it's become apparent that her bickering and yakking have succeeded, time and again, in pushing her carpenters, seamsters, and teammates to delivering pizzazz at the end (one reason that Carl, as much as he hates her, needs Carisa's irritating pushiness in order to win the title).

I am glad to see Andrea go, even though I admit her legs were a main attraction every Wednesday night. She's got some amazing walkers there, and I loved seeing her paint in high heels and a leather miniskirt. Carisa's boobs will have to be my object replacement for the last ep.

John

[Susanna]

I, for one, keep waiting for Carisa and Carl to just start making out and ripping at eachother's clothes. There's so much tension there. Does anyone else feel it? (joke) Seriously, if she gets bludgeoned in broad daylight, on the set, I would gladly stand as a character witness for him.

I think it was a producer's decision to keep Carisa there simply due to the bland brand of drama she produces. And that's it. She's not very sophisticated at all. In 5-10 years (sounds like a sentence!) she will be very streamlined, though. She's like that person who gets dressed and you tell her not to take off ONE piece of jewelry, but to take off FIVE PIECES of jewelry and THE HAT. And THE LEGWARMERS.

I found Andrea's unfair advantage of being LA-based to be extremely, well, unfair to the others. But frankly no more of a handicap than the $7500. That seemed to paralyze El Mateo even though he was a shoo-in for the final. If that poodle from the hotel challenge had come in and crapped on his daybed he still would've won. Carisa, on the other hand, seemed to embrace the $7500 and run with it. There's something to that to me. Age, of course. But her rooms never LOOK expensive.

I agree that you've got the final challenge correct. Either that or they're designing storage vessels for Kelly's pills.

As for Kelly, that dress was very unflattering. I daresay she looks better in the freaky outfits. Banana/butter yellow with squashed bodice is no good. Margaret looked like she got some fresh Botox and Juvederm and looked about 7-10 years younger. Very pretty! She looked like she was wearing the inside of a Jiffy-Pop container, though.

BronzeMan/John, thanks for objectifying the female contestants and reducing them to their respective body parts after some fairly thoughtful discourse on their design talent and the show in general. You could've just left out that whole last paragraph and some of us might have forgotten the Feeble Testosterone Journey you took us on last week post-ANTM that went from sweeping generalizations to shuddering, ridiculous myopic drivel about American women. I am actually comforted that you did write it, though. Otherwise, I might have been fooled. You know how easily we shallow, American women are fooled. Hooray, you!

[John (different)]

A week ago I made a prophetic joke on another blog that Andrea was going "to pump up the volume by using gray and brown."

I think you're right about next week's challenge.