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ANTM Recap: André Leon Talley Won’t Stop Until He Gets Enough Poised Toes

To say this week’s feuding was all-star-worthy is true in two ways: It was loud and sassy, yes, but also calculated, and branded even. Clearly Lisa wanted to prove her worth as a timeless (if not ageless) Top Model drama queen, and picked a shouting, screaming partner in Bianca. They shot inane barbs back and forth throughout the episode, but neither came off as badly as Shannon, who managed to be nasty all by herself. ANTM is consistently a celebration of mean girls who own their characters, and no one likes snark half-cloaked by tears and false platitudes.

La Toya’s airy-fairy attitude goes a long way towards dampening any fun snark at panel too. André Leon Talley is really the only judge to bring any criticism at all — he wasn’t feeling high-fashion energy from, of all places, the toes as posed in a few shots. And he clearly finds Lisa crass and crazy in all the wrong ways: He hated her “fifties housewife got high off the fumes from her cleaning products” attire (she should have looked at the woman in the mirror before leaving the model mansion, for sure), doesn’t vibe with her attitude, and found her picture in such poor taste that he almost choked. You’d think all this negativity would ensure her ousting this week, but no. The judges left the callout order entirely up to La Toya as a further tribute to Michael by proxy, and because she was clearly unable to remember any of the girls’ names, she decides not to eliminate anyone at all. (Although Lisa and poor, tearful, wanting-this-competition-too-much Angelea were in the bottom two.) Michael would have apparently been proud of the love they all gave; they rocked his world even, so there — good thing he didn’t see the footage of all the fighting back at the house then.

ANTM Recap: André Leon Talley Won’t Stop Until He Gets Enough Poised Toes