Recap, Model Behavior, ep6

Yeah, this is waaay late. Sorry. My Tivo didn’t record right and I had to get the episode from iTunes and then I had to go out of town and blah. Anyway, here it is.

In this episode: Annie continues to inspire homicidal feelings in the viewing audience, Kelly and Brenda almost have a like-the-old-days fight, there’s way too much boring parents time, Navid shows back up from wherever he’s been, and Pillface graduates to the big leagues THANK GOD. Full recap behind the cut…

So the “responsible people” at the school call in Pillface and Pillface’s mom to talk about Pillface’s possible use of illicit substances. I have to say, Rob Estes and the rest of the supposed authority figures at the school do not fill me with confidence. Back in the day, you could really count on Mrs. Teasley. She knew what was up and was not afraid of tough love. These buffoons, on the other hand, clearly have no idea what they’re doing in their own lives, much less any ability to guide the lives of others. Mama Pillface easily brushes off uncertain principal, unshaven teacher (shouldn’t teachers really shave??), spaced out Kelly the guidance counselor, and even Brenda. Pillface even gets in a zinger, saying she under no circumstances wants to end up like Brenda in the future.

In the school hallways, Annie and Ty run into each other (while random passerby compliment them both on their roles in the play, unlike regular schools where they would be taunted and shoved into lockers) and she blows him off emphatically, scrunching up her nose REAL HARD to show she’s serious. Also in the halls, Naomi is walking around in some kind of sailor outfit and her bad crunchy hair is back. She tells Ethan that if her parents had sex they must be in love because sex equals love, right? She clearly understands sex and love about as she does fashion and hairstyling, which is to say NOT AT ALL.

Mama photographer gets a job photographing a fashion show. Which her boss, who is C U T E cute, describes as his “biggest job of the year” and “tough work.” I giggle while Lori Laughlin demonstrates her acting skills are roughly equivalent to Shenae’s. Which is to say again, NOT AT ALL.

Navid! My man! Where have you been since the pilot? Thought you got cut out of the show entirely! But no, he’s tagging along with Dixon and Silver who have turned into the cutesy “they’re in a bubble” couple of annoyingness. He feels awkward and uses the phrase “third wheel” which really bothers me because 3 wheels make things stable, 5th wheel would be an extra and useless wheel. Anyway, despite use of that phrase, I’m glad to see Navid back on the scene.

And then Dylan calls Brenda’s cell phone while she’s standing in the hallway talking to Kelly and Teacher, who still hasn’t shaved, and Dylan wants to talk to Kelly but why did he call Brenda’s cell phone? And this would all be infinitely more interesting if Dylan were now or ever going to be on the show.

CREDITS.

Due to a plot contrivance, Annie and Dixon are going to accompany Mama to the fashion show so they can write a career paper on her. Teacher forces Annie to take Pillface along and then they have a fight about which one of them gets to be mad at the other one, and I have to say, I hate her face, but Annie didn’t really do anything wrong.

Kelly blows Teacher off because she can’t date right now because of Dylan and he wants to wait for her and she says no and I don’t care. Then unshaven Teacher acts his apparent age by bitchily asking Kelly why Dylan called Brenda instead, like “if you won’t date me I’ll be an asshole to you instead.” Smooth, Teacher.

At the photo studio, we apparently are preparing for the fashion show by taking odd pictures of non-models in non-fashion clothes, while they get into non-fashion poses. This is the least fashion-y thing I’ve ever seen and yes I am including Naomi’s white satin shorts outfit. Some skeezy man is there trying to get Silver to be a model. Mama’s boss is still cute. More of him, please. Less of all these other people.

Naomi does more scheming about how to get her mom and dad back together and she should really focus that scheming energy on whoever did that to her hair because GOD it is ugly. She finally changes clothes to go to dinner with daddy and girlfriend at the Marina Club and pulls her hair back into a bun and it looks FANTASTIC. She’s so hit and miss. She gets all schemey and successfully makes girlfriend mad and then we are supposed to believe that Naomi would eat carbs. AS IF.

BEST PART OF THE SHOW: Kelly and Brenda at Kelly’s house. Brenda is awfully cute with kids. She tells Kelly that she’s going to take Teacher to the fashion show and Kelly gets all bitchy and says she guesses that “old habits die hard.” WHAT?!?!?!? As I recall, Ms. Taylor, YOU were the one who stole Brenda’s one true love from her just because you were bored for the summer. Brenda never took any men from you, unless you’re trying to say that Dylan was always yours and Brenda took him away by getting with him when she first came to town. Which is retarded, because you were dating Steve then and, as I recall, sleeping with pretty much anything that moved. SO YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE OLD HABITS, KELLY. I can’t believe Brenda didn’t punch her in the face, but Brenda is apparently all mature and grown up now and totally takes the high road and realizes this is about Kelly being scared about Dyland blah blah. Brenda apparently totally told Dylan to get back with Kelly, which is awfully good of her and not much like the Bren I remember. Brenda leaves and deletes Dylan’s phone number from her phone all dramatically, like, you realize he can call you whether or not you have him in your address book, right?

AND THEN WE ARE AT THE FASHION SHOW (yes, I’m skipping the Naomi/Ethan makeout scene, because it was gross). Again, the clothes are awful, the models are not at all model-like, and nothing looks remotely like it would in an actual fashion show. (Hint to producers: watch Gossip Girl! They can accurately reproduce a New York Fashion Week show.) Mama is frantically taking photos. Navid gets hit on by models who like hot Persian men. They are stupid, and also NOT MODELS.  Annie gets asked to audition for a crappy horror film, the kind of role that Paris Hilton gets with her supreme acting talents, and because she is a good girl from Kansas, makes sure Pillface gets an audition too. Naomi schemes more and Ethan is bored with it, as is the viewing audience. Pillface admires Mama and seems to prefer her to her own mother, like KELLY DID WITH BRENDA’S MOTHER AT THE FASHION SHOW. Stop recycling!! Pillface tells Annie what actually happened at the Roosevelt and you can tell Shenae knows that her character is supposed to be mad because she stomps her feet and makes awful faces.

Silver is looking great in a silver strapless dress and is saying my lines, complaining about objectifying women and how many children and families could be fed with the money going to this. Despite her concern for the poor, though, she does not remove her silver booties and silver leather jacket to sell them to give money to the poor. (She should, though. Too much silver. Wait, is she named Silver or something? I forget.) She also keeps her studded fingerless motorcycle gloves, which is too bad because I would totally buy and wear those.

Brenda and Teacher show up, and Brenda apparently had time to change, which is weird. She tells Teacher that he’s better off without Kelly, which is a glint of the Bren I know and love. Less high road! More meddling! They then ask Annie if Pillface is on drugs, and Pillface overhears and gets all mad, thinking Annie was assigned to watch and narc on her. This is not the kind of meddling I had in mind, Brenda. She says she’s thinking of visiting Brandon and his family and I madly start running through everyone Brandon ever dated to figure out who I’d most like him to be with.

Naomi’s parent trap scheme unsurprisingly fails and dad yells at her and Ethan just stands there. Enough of this storyline.

Then skeezy man comes to hit on Silver some more and claims to have discovered both Rebecca Romijn and Heidi Klum. Um, NO. Rebecca started modeling in 1990. Heidi won a contest on a German talk show. At least make up vaguely plausible lies, sir! But Silver totally goes for it until he asks her to discuss it with him in his jacuzzi and getting all up in her business. He’s gross. Dixon breaks in, skeezy man gets mad, Mama says “this is my son,” skeeze-face says “really? Who’s the baby daddy?” and I say “OOOOOOOOOOOOOH” and then Dixon punches skeeze-man. Scuffle ensues, skeezy fires cute photograher.

Then, Dixon is cheering Silver up? Don’t get it. Doesn’t he need consolation, Mr. I Have to Be Perfect Cause I’m Black? She’s the one who was pursued by Mr. Skeezy because she was so cute and attractive and potential-modelly. Somehow they work through it and smooch.

Then Ty shows up for a totally stupid scene in which he says he got a text from Pillface, AS IF, and then Annie apologizes for believing Pillface, which is stupid, shouldn’t Ty be assuring her that nothing happened? Why is Annie at fault? Why am I defending her? I hate this scene. They decide to be friends, which makes NO FUCKING SENSE, because she’s not ready for sex so I guess that means they can’t date at all because it’s silly to even assume that he would date her if she weren’t going to fuck him? Didn’t she like him before? I DON’T GET IT. He walks off because apparently after a scheming person messes up your relationship, it takes only like 1 minute to work through it all. What’s the point of having Pillface mess things up if it doesn’t result in drama? ARGH.

Then they neatly wrap up the Dixon punching issue by having cute photographer say he’s better off without the job and Mama is too good a photographer to fire. Which, I thought this was the biggest job of the year, which implies that this job is important and that skeeze-man is an important person and might, like, tell other people not to use cute photographer. But apparently these pedantic business considerations are blown away in the face of Mama’s stunning artistic talents, which is also patently unbelievable.

Then Naomi and Ethan break up in another really weird scene in which Naomi, who is all sad and insecure and thinks that the sex between her and Ethan means they’re in love and believes herself to be in love with him, actually suggests that they break up. Um. Ethan clearly wanted to break up, but having Naomi suggest and initiate it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE and also totally lets Ethan off the hook to go after Annie, which is supposed to be a central drama to the show, no? So why eliminate all those barriers in such a convenient fashion? I don’t understand what this show is trying to do.

Kelly is going to Wyoming to visit Dylan because he won’t come on the show. DAMNIT.

And finally, in the sole promising scene of this entire episode (ok, Navid aside), Pillface is standing on a corner, waiting for her dealer, and ends up getting a baggie of coke instead of her usual pill order. “Welcome to the big leagues” says dealerman, and I CAN ONLY HOPE.