1-3: It's a bird, but it ain't paradise

I'm gonna tell you up front: this episode of Charm School didn't entertain me to the level I have come to expect from a Flavor of Love-related show. I'd probably feel quite differently if I found fat people funny, but as I'm kinda one myself, the humor of backfat was pretty much lost on me.

For once, I'm going to agree with Larissa: this episode ain't all that. (I will not, however, threaten to kick its ass if it or any of its friends look at me the wrong way.)

The day begins with Monique calling the girls down to the great hall and instructing them to "dress to impress." Oh, sweet cupless corsets, I shudder to think what that might involve with this crew. Schatar ponders whether to wear "evening couture" or "business couture."

Let's see... camo pants, bellydancing sash, a strong showing by the Pepto-Bismol end of the spectrum. Yeah, that suitcase is lousy with couture!

Saaphyri, meanwhile, is having some wardrobe malfunctions of the self-administered variety. Girl, I say this as the owner of a set of giant gazongas myself: if your nipple is showing, the garment, by definition, does not fit. Go up a size or look into these things called "shirts."

I love the casual "oh, this again" way she wrangles a wayward boob.

Downstairs, the girls are greeted by Dean Mikki and introduced to celebrity stylist Timothy Snell.

Mikki seems like a very nice, smart woman, but if she ever needs dentures, I hope she'll order them a size smaller.

Mikki and Timothy start talking about developing a personal style. They note that Becky has a very distinctive style and praise her for it.

Really? I mean, I like her and all, but ... style?

Then they lose all credibility with me (and probably most of the viewing audience) when they praise Schatar's style. No, I'm being absolutely serious here. They praise Schatar's style. On purpose! Among other supposed reasons for this utterly improbable accolade are the fact that her skirts are always the same length. You know what isn't the same length, though?

Her hooters. One is up and in, one is down and out. "That's a big-titty-girl no no!" asserts Darra, and she's quite right.

The other girls echo Darra's assessment of the hoot situation and my general WTF? about Schatar's being praised in the first place.

Mikki and Timothy, their standing now shot to hell with me, talk a bit about couture and how it's fashion taken to the extreme. Most of the girls seem to be thinking, 'What the hell does this have to do with me and my personal style?' and they're quite right.

Wait a minute, when did Becky get hot?

Ah, there's the goony girl I know.

Courtney expresses her unfamiliarity with couture in what is becoming her signature style of speaking.

Jeez, tone it down, Snuffy Smith. How is it that she's lived mostly in L.A. since Flavor of Love, but her North Carolina accent has somehow increased dramatically? (And didn't the same thing happen with Britney Spears? Is there some weird zone where Beverly Hills somehow becomes the Appalachians?)

The challenge for this episode will be for the girls to divide up into two teams of five to design a couture look. Each team will consist of two designers, a hair stylist, a makeup artist and a model. Since there are 11 girls, someone will be judging both teams. This... makes no damn sense. How on earth is designing a dress going to help these wonky-boobed fools determine and improve their personal style? Wait. Crap, I'm doing it again: assuming this show is actually supposed to help the people on it. Sorry.

Mikki tells the girls that the judge and the members of the winning team will all be safe from elimination, and that they have one hour to determine who does what. All hell suddenly breaks loose, as everyone starts arguing about who should and shouldn't be judge, the most highly coveted position as it's the only guaranteed safe one.

What, like you're surprised? While the other girls are squabbling, Saaphyri starts asking individual girls to be on her team.

She starts by asking Leilene to be her model (an excellent position for Leilene, since she's beautiful and it doesn't involve too many potential crying activities). She also asks Schatar to be a designer, both because Schatar probably makes a lot of her own clothing (it's so ugly, it could only be custom) and because Schatar has demonstrated she'll do anything to win.

And just as I'm marveling at Saaphyri's intelligence and straight-up strategery, she also picks Larissa and Shay. Larissa does hair for a living, so I guess that makes sense, but I'm not really sure what Shay brings to any endeavor besides a sneer. I'd be a huge fan of Saaphyri's if she wasn't so tight with Larissa and Shay; the fact that she likes them so much makes me wonder what antisocial tendencies she has to value them as friends.

After Saaphyri has cherrypicked her team, the other girls realize their team has pretty much been chosen for them, so now all that remains is to pick a judge.

Wait a second, did Larissa almost say something nice about someone? It was qualified, and worded as a criticism of everyone else, so I guess that explains why the world didn't crack open like a jawbreaker when she kinda-sorta paid somebody a compliment.

Now that the teams are picked, the "leftovers" team needs to decide who's going to do what. Jennifer bristles at the notion of them being leftovers, saying that they're merely the more softspoken women there. Ehhhh... not as long as you have "Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch" Brooke on your team, but I kinda see what she means.

As they strategize in the hallway, Team B hits on the idea of having Darra be the model. Now, you'd think that Cristal would be the obvious choice, but she feels like she's been taken to task for talking about her modeling career, so she's not going to fall into any trap by modeling. But her thinking on this is flawed: she's looking at this in terms of not wanting to get eliminated as an individual vs. wanting to do what she does best to help her team win. She's focused on not losing as opposed to winning, on not steering into the wall rather than steering out of the spin. She's really kinda doomed. I'm really kinda thinking about this too much.

Darra does her walk, and it's really quite nice, but looking at what a great job she's done picking clothes that flatter her body, I can't help but think her talents are wasted as a model. I'd have Cristal be the model, Darra be one of the designers, Becky do makeup based on the incredible job she can obviously do with her own face, Brooke do hair and Jennifer do as little as possible.

Which she winds up doing anyway. Instead, they have Darra model, Becky and Jen design, Cristal do makeup and Brooke do hair. I am reminded of what one of my old supervisors would occasionally boom out jokingly when discussing upper management: "Formula for failure!" I'm yelling that right now. Which might explain why my officemate is looking at me kinda funny.

As Team Leilene starts planning their look, their model weighs in on what she'd most like to wear.

I love that she used the word "subtle" to describe a dress that announces to the world that you are wearing no underwear of any kind. I'm not sure what she'd consider "overtly sexy," but I worry that a speculum and a miner's helmet might be involved.

Meanwhile, on Team Darra...

Oh... dear. Oh, no. This is -- just -- no. The thing about being a big girl is that all your clothes have to fit you damn near perfectly. That means a lot of tailoring, a lot of fitted shirts, a lot of structured seams. You simply cannot do free-flowing garments. (And honestly, giving them up for cheese fries is a pretty fair trade in my book.)

Schatar sneaks outside to get a peek at the other team's creation and comes back to tell the other girls that they need to see what Darra's wearing. Saaphyri and Larissa take one look and burst out laughing. Cue the fat jokes. Lovely.

I'm actually going to give them the benefit of the doubt here, because that awful dress is gathered around Darra's body like a corn husk, and they've created some footwear for her made of dried flowers so she's a bit crunchy. (It's nonstop awful, that look of theirs.)

But then the fact that they keep on laughing at Darra for being big and laugh about it to Cristal, calling Darra "Mother Earth" (??) is just pure assholity on parade. This is what keeps me from liking Saaphyri: she's smart and a born leader, but she's kind of an asshole too. And anybody who looks like Antonio Fargas with Gwen Stefani's old hair (or like the Grinch, Larissa) really should think twice before laughing too hard at someone else's appearance.

I'm not sure what Team Leilene is thinking in terms of ... well, anything, really. They're using this orange and white giraffe-print fabric and doing strange things to Leilene's face.

But over on Team Darra, it's just so much worse.

I've got to hand it to Darra: girl is brave. Not only for that lopsided-boob shot above, but for her good-humored laughter at being taped up "like a ham sandwich" for the fashion show.

Speaking of which... "The grand hall was transformed into Paris during Fashion Week," Mo'Nique tells us.

Not with that carpet, it wasn't.

Leilene comes out first, and I finally see what her team was getting at. It's pretty good, but... that dress pattern looks damn familiar. (I feel like I could pick out the underside of Leilene's left boob from a police lineup now, and frankly, that's not a good feeling.)

But this feels far, far worse.

I cringed throughout this walk of shame, especially at the full-screen shot of back fat. My God. That poor woman. I almost started tearing up for her.

What -- what were they thinking with the feathers??! Oh, not that there's anything right with this outfit, but those feathers are some of the worst --- gaaaaah! -- I'm incoherent with confusion and horror over what has been done to a really quite attractive woman.

Mo seems to share my sentiments.

Both teams are called to the runway, and it's so very obvious who won, but there has to be some discussion first. Timothy asks Jennifer what the philosophy behind the dress was. This is her response.

Sometimes there's something a little two-headed-calf about her, y'know? Just something not quite right. (Like, say, Brooke's terrifying eyelids.)

I think Darra understands that the criticisms are meant for her team rather than for her, but it's still damn hard to hear people say that, essentially, she had no business being on that runway. Watching her feathers flop when she tries to blink away the tears adds another dimension to the pathos.

Courtney is declared to be the sole adjudicant of the challenge, and she's as polite and diplomatic as possible, but there's just no getting around the fact that Team Leilene has mopped the floor with Team Darra.

Yes, good job, Leilene. No tears for you tonight.

Dean Keith wonders why Cristal didn't volunteer to model, pointing out that now would've been the right time to literally walk the walk. He also says that he felt the use of Darra as a model was pretty manipulative, as it was clearly intended to charm the full-figured Mo. Mo herself agrees, and says that if they were going to use Darra, the team had to make her look ... "Fierce," someone from Team Leilene contributes. "I don't need any help," Mo slaps them down. Are there any gracious winners in this damn house?!

Probably not. Nor are there too many resigned probable losers. Cristal decides to plead her case with Mo after the runway challenge. Yeah, 'cause that worked so well for Thela.

She tells Mo that the dress was Becky and Jennifer's design and that she just went along with it. Now, the first part of that sentence is technically true; Becky and Jennifer were the designated designers. But Cristal made herself team captain early on and dictated the design pretty strongly. On the other hand, Becky went along with it and Jen was on a nonstop smoke break, so there should be some accountability there -- dammit, dammit, dammit, I'm thinking again! Mojo, bring Mommy some more scotch and don't get fur in the glass this time!

So after Cristal talks to Mo...

She talks to Brooke...

Who talks to Jennifer...

Who confronts Cristal about it in front of Darra...

Who tells Becky and Shay about it, which means now the whole damn house knows. What I love about this is that Darra prefaces her snitching with "Now, y'all know I don't like to gossip..." Any time someone says that, pull up a chair, because they are about to dish some dirt (and remind yourself not to tell them anything terribly personal, ever).

So it's no surprise to see who gets called on the carpet.

Dean Mikki notes that Jennifer hasn't progressed much this week, and hasn't really applied herself to any of the challenges.

Not content to leave something spoken with diplomacy, Dean Keith cements his position as the "Simon" of the group by telling Jennifer, "To me, you're the most pathetic."

Inside the mind of Mo: "Damn!"

Becky puts up a pretty good defense, saying that she bought into Cristal's schpiel, but that she should have stood up for herself and her own ideas. Mo actually sends Becky back to the main group, meaning that she won't be eliminated. Jennifer pouts to the camera, wondering what Becky has that she doesn't.

An upper lip, maybe?

Mo asks Jennifer why she should be kept there, and Jen basically talks about all the other crap other people have done.

Oh, yeah, she's outta there. And I'm not really sorry to see her go. So far, the show has done a great job of cutting the deadweight.

Next week's episode looks to be a lot livelier. How can you go wrong with ill-advised moments like this?

Brooke should own stock in Valtrex.

Oh, do shut up, Larissa.

Comments

[Mindi]

Wait - isn't Brooke dating Mr. Boston???? I'm so confused by that girl spreading her lips (and god knows what else, don't really want to dwell on it) for every man she meets....

Although, to be fair, I've only seen footage of her kissing Flav and Mr. Boston, and now this random tool - so perhaps I'm being led astray by a media spin. I hope so.

[Jessica Smith]

You and your website are incredible.

[SJ]

Your blog makes me laugh uncontrollably while I'm at my desk and I really appreciate that(although it breaks up the silence and disturbs my coworkers). I agree that Becky looks really pretty when she has her mouth closed. It's amazing, she really has a Dr.Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing going on.

[LurkerNan]

True about Becky. In some shots she's goofy looking, and in others she's kinda sexy. I keep thinking some subtle plastic surgery might reduce the former and increase the latter, but I'm at a loss to figure out just what procedures that would be...

Still, excellent recap as always, GNC!

[safemeds]

I like the courage black women have, I could see many photos in here and I can sat that all of them are incredible, I like to see those black women getting into troubles.

[ethical selling]

I see a lot of pretty well-maintained teeth and great smiles. Some though, obviously need a trip to the dentist as soon as possible.