"Watch Your Breathing" 

Yes, yes. I know. All you “LEAVE KEITH ALONE” people and your needs. Look, I tried. And I think I even somewhat succeeded, as you’ll see if you keep reading. Because in the first episode I thought, OK, not an unattractive man... and then, later, But I hate his clothes. 

And then came the revelation of the Rat Tail. I defy anyone to tell me that that moment didn’t scorch us all inside. And then came more clothes I didn’t like. And I moved from casual interest to gentle -- GENTLE -- chiding to a moment of actual disdain to indifference. But now, see, the show is effing with me somehow because, and I guess it’s all in the editing, I feel sorry for him. You can see that his nerves are frayed and his confidence is shaken and that, given enough time, he might be able to make a dress that’s both interestingly raggedy, the way he likes, and that also fits his model better than a bath towel from Dollar Tree. You can see that he’s lost in a confusional haze and can’t decide whether to follow his inner shredded-issue-of-Elle-in-a-puddle muse or to tailor the balls off of something and shoehorn the model into it. I get his somewhat dipshitty agony. I have feelings. 

But the show doesn’t. The show has decided that it hates Keith way more than I’d ever consider mustering the energy to spend equivalently, and now it’s out for blood. He gets not one flattering camera angle, no shirtless moments, and every word out of his mouth is petulant or enraged or whiny. And that is the beauty of reality television. They can make even a reasonable person seem like a tool and vice versa. Remember last season when Rami was mean to Sweet Pea? I do. Because, really, how dare he? Turns out that Rami wasn’t really much of a dick after all. Just bossy. And for all we know Ricky only cried once and they just showed it to you again and again, adding ugly hat effects with a computer. They can do anything with computers. Did you see Jumanji? None of those animals were real. 

Another thing about editing: It twists time and space. Evidence: The Elle-stablishing shot of the latest issue on newsstands is back in Mary-Kate Town. What happened to Jessica Alba? That lady just had twins or something, give her a little camera time. Help us help her forget she ever (allegedly) heard the expression “Mend It Like Beckham.” And then we learn that Kenley thinks of departed Daniel as her “best friend” from the show. The one she bad-mouthed and laughed at openly on the runway. That best friend. And who knows the truth? Only the parties involved and the people who log all the footage. 

Cut to Keith. On interview-cam he talks about being overwhelmed and not being happy about having been in the bottom two of the last challenge and how he wants “to change the way the way the world dresses.” Rat tails for everyone! 

Cut to the runway. Heidi emerges in a tiny little black, blue, and white striped dress. She’s the hottest soccer referee/minimum-wage Foot Locker employee in the world right now, so you can add that to her list of accomplishments. Then she brings out the winning and losing designers’ models who last week didn’t actually model anything but who’re going to get their heads sliced off right now anyway. In fact, two of them are going home for all their not-modeling efforts. And by home I mean those little four-girls-on-two-bunk-beds-in-one-room apartments that agencies set these ladies up in. I know all about this now thanks to model pal Elyse, whose comments on this very special episode full of model intrigue are coming soon. 

Then Heidi asks them if they are ready for their next challenge. I always love this moment because her eyes flash, all robot-revenge, and you can tell she’s like, “Hmm, 10 left. Then nine. And that won’t be perfect symmetry as I stand and look at them slumping in their little folding chairs, and that will never do. So, then eight. But then it’s so good to watch them crawl away in tears and shame, so it must become seven. But now asymmetrical chairs again! One more must go! SIX!” And on and on until vacation time. She gives the designers an address and tells them to go to the rooftop. “And that’s all I’m gonna say,” she smirks, adding, with an undercurrent of oh-yeah-and-fuck-off, “And time is ticking, so get going.”

Germans love for stuff to be clocky and precise. I went to Munich once and those trains really do run on perfect time. And they have workers scrubbing every inch of the place round the clock. You could eat off the subway floor. 

But yeah, the challenge. Blayne immediately jumps to conclusions and thinks they’re designing for a “superstar” and that this will necessitate something called “exclusive rooftop style.” To Blayne, this is “kinda scary.” It just makes me think of Spider-Man. It makes Korto think of Mariah Carey. What if the challenge is to make a Spider-Man costume for Mariah Carey? I heard Cher is going to be Catwoman in the new Batman movie, and that makes less sense than what I just posited, so even though I just invented a challenge in my mind, it could still be true. Anything in the world could be true. There could even really be something called “exclusive rooftop style.” They go to a parking garage. Maybe they're all going to design outfits inspired by the new Saturn! Oh, shit, I was kidding, but THEY ACTUALLY ARE! 

Tim Gunn meets them on the roof. He’s standing next to a wee little Scottish gay in a flowered-up shirt. This guy has a job title that is, literally, “lead color designer for Saturn.” I now imagine him in a room inventing colors and then silly names for them based on urban legends (“I call these two ‘Lemonjello’ and ‘Oranjello’”), and he just does that all day long in between three-hour-long, shopping-intensive lunch breaks. I’ve just decided that’s what he does, and it makes my own job -- which is to watch lots of TV -- seem like scrubbing the Munich subway. Then he tells the designers they have to use car parts to make their outfits. 

Now, normally I hate product-placement challenges. Last season’s Hershey lameness springs to mind. But I like this one. I don’t care if it’s rubbing the sponsor’s name in my face for an hour. It makes me think of my favorite car movie, Crash. The good David Cronenberg one about people who have a car-accident sex fetish, not the shitty one about how, by the way, in case you didn’t know, it’s not nice to be racist. In the good David Cronenberg one there’s also fashion going on. In the scene where Holly Hunter defends her mourning attire (her husband has recently died in a car accident and it has secretly turned her on a little) she says, “I’ll wear a fucking kimono if I want to.” That’s a good line. Netflix-queue that one. You won’t regret it. 

Terri claims not to own the necessary blowtorch required to complete this challenge, but I think she’s making that up. If she’s not making it up, then I’m going to ignore that she said it, because I like to think of Terri as being ready for anything. Down for whatever. Need a car built? Yes, she has the blowtorches and the lug wrenches and the wiper blades right there in her Mary Poppins-ish purse. And she’ll sing you every Funkadelic song ever recorded while she builds it.