Fluff and Fold

I usually fast-forward through the opening credits. This is because I feel like someone fed Laura the line "I'm fabulously glamorous!" and hearing Jeffrey say “I got mad skills” is like passing a group of 14-year-old white teenagers at the Glendale Galleria as they call each other “nigga.” And I always cringe when I hear Alison saying “I’m going to win.” Because she’s not. She’s out. But she should be in the top four.

So, welcome to the "Everyone Sits on a Couch" episode. Please, please, please let me get what I want, which is one or more super-high people—like Guadalupe from season 2—talking crazy shit. But I have a sense that we’re about to get some heavy sharing of sensitive feelings from the likes of Angela. She’ll want “closure” with Jeffrey, no doubt. I hate people and their dumb feelings.

There they are, minus the top four, sitting on couches. I can’t even remember some of these people’s names. Who’s that chick sitting next to Kayne? Was she on the show? Faces are camera-scanned while Tim and Heidi talk about how we’re going to find out the identity of the winner of the Audience Favorite contest. The winner gets a check for $10,000. Heidi says, “That’s a lot of money!” At least that’s what she hears lately from random poor people she encounters when they come to clean her pool or take away the recycling.

Heidi asks the designers how it has felt to be recognized in public since the show started airing. Bradley’s unruly hair and beard are gone, so he claims to never be recognized. But I could spot that oceanless squid anywhere because he’s always got on the same sweatshirt with the stretched-out neck.

One of the female contestants whose name I’ve already forgotten relates an experience about being yelled at by a stranger. The stranger yelled “You suck!” and ran away. I can’t remember a single thing about this contestant, so she must have sucked. I suppose I could go back to the archived recaps and find out who she was and what dopey little name I gave her. But fuggit.

“How about you, Vincent?” asks Heidi.

He responds with, “Knowing who your fans are and why they like you is a beautiful thing.” Where are these alleged fans? I want to see their faces. Then they turn to Malan, who apparently showed at Fashion Week without any help from Runway. Ha-HA! His nefarious plans are slowly taking shape. Soon he will control everything.

Heidi turns her attention to Angela. “How has been the public reaction to you since the show has been aired?”

Her answer: “Wow, um, especially after the Mom episode, I couldn’t walk through the streets of Los Angeles without getting mobbed. People giving me their sympathy. And I’ve loved every second of it.”

OK, first, LIE. No one gets mobbed in Los Angeles. I live here. I’ve seen big-deal, totally famous movie stars: in shops, on sidewalks, at restaurants, at the supermarket, everywhere. And they don’t mob you here unless you’re being like Sally Field in Soapdish and running down to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and standing on top of your own star yelling, “Hey, everybody! Lookee over here! It’s me, Tom Cruise!” It doesn’t happen. Second, “sympathy"? For what? Your awful designs? Your relentlessly autistic use of fabric flowers? Your sob-sister demeanor? And third, of course you loved every minute of it. Because you're out of your gourd.

Next, Heidi wants to know who the designers felt should have been in the top four but got kicked off anyway. Vincent decides to sing the praises of Kayne, who can’t cringe enough. Because seriously, some endorsements you just don’t want. It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer for Calphalon.

They bring out the top four: Michael, Uli, Jeffrey, and Laura. Laura and Heidi compliment each other on their mutual fetal fatness. Then blah blah blah clips showing how the top four wound up being the top four. It’s dull except for the camera cutting to Alison, who is totally doing what we do at my house every week: air-drumming slowly to the you’re-out doom-pounding. Reality show losers! They’re just like US!

Cut to Michael talking about something; I have no idea what, I’m too busy trying to check out his orthodontia. I need to warn him about those tiny rubber bands and how they will just snap inside your mouth. It hurts, Michael. Be ready for that.