It’s Wednesday, which means another episode of Oxygen’s The Face airs tonight. Our intern, Samantha Borek, recapped last week’s episode to keep you up to speed!
When we flipped on The Face last week, the traumatic end of episode two still wasn’t over. Not that Nakisha’s elimination was at all surprising because we all know Khadisha’s the favorite, but Naomi Campbell left the elimination room to tear into Lydia Hearst and Anne V. The two mentors were accused of using women of color in the name of strategy, but they quickly put on their most surprised faces, and denied the allegations.
Ever since the impromptu runway at Bryant Park, the girls have needed to work on their walks, so their mentors sent them to the School of Hard Knocks, supermodel style. Their first challenge was to navigate a runway in platform heels, latex skirts, corsets, and head pieces by Eric Javits. Get the whips and chains! Tyson Beckford made an appearance to judge the girls on the holy trinity—poise, posture, and pose. Oh, and did we mention Nigel Barker put a set of steps in the middle of the runway? We thought Khadisha and the oh-so-experienced Kira would nail this challenge, but both girls let the runway dominate them instead of the other way around. Are you still moping about last week, Kira? We almost want the over confident Russian bombshell back.
Alana—wow, we never thought we’d get to mention her—shocked her mentor. Even though she was a little shaky, she didn’t look down at the runway, and Naomi admired that. Tiana from Team Anne V dazzled everyone with her walk. The ones with the pixie cuts always steal our hearts. Her runway attitude and bubbly personality won Tyson over, too, so Team Anne V received the mystery advantage for the next campaign.
Now, if that gauntlet of a challenge didn’t teach the girls a thing or two about a runway walk, the campaign for Pamella Roland was sure going to. Fashion buyers and bloggers sat at her table (no, seriously, the runway is a fully set table) to get down to business, and maybe see a couple models cry. Since Tiana won the challenge, Team Anne V got to choose their cocktail dresses and gowns first, and then Team Lydia. Team Naomi was left up the creek with heavy gowns. In training, Naomi strongly coached her girls, which means she was “picking on” them, according to Kira. Really, we’re starting to feel bad. Anne gave her girls a practical “kick and step” trick, and Lydia preferred a softer “just be yourself!” approach.
While there was no dinner for Pamella’s fab feasters, there sure was a show. Amanda from Team Lydia was working the runway, and was even channeling Marilyn Monroe, but it was not winning over Pamella. Ray was stunning in a floor-length green gown, her “lean with it, rock with it” approach to a runway walk made her look a little expectant. Team Anne was working the runway in the cocktail dresses. We were drooling at Tiana’s dark feminine Twiggy look. When it came to the red carpet chic, Sharon couldn’t wipe the grimace off her face. Nothing sells clothes like a clenched jaw. At the end of the show, though, we all got to bear witness to Afiya (Team Naomi) taking out the entire table with the sweep of her royal purple a-line dress. It brought Naomi to tears. We had to hand it to her, though, she didn’t stumble one time. After much deliberation, Pamella chose Team Anne as the winners of Pamella Roland handbags and dresses from the line. Safe from elimination and energy consumption (thanks for the green speech Anne!), Team Anne could finally rest on some laurels.
The reign of Team Naomi was over—thinking about it, it’s crazy, as Alana’s subtitles would say—and so Anne V had to choose from Naomi and Lydia’s nominees (Kira and Ray) for elimination. In the elimination room, Ray finally gave a rousing speech about how she had so much more to give to the competition, and Kira blamed the mentors. Anne had enough of the hand-holding and made her decision to cut Kira. Despite Naomi’s coaching, Kira broke down and begged for her life—in the competition, of course!—and Naomi burst into the elimination room when she heard all the commotion. See, we told you Naomi didn’t hate you, Kira!
Don’t feel too sorry for Kira, lovelies. She’s got a ton of previous experience, that femme fatale look that drew us to her in the first place, and a pep talk from Naomi. Whatever happened to that son she mentioned in the first episode? I guess we’ll never know now that there’s three down and nine to go.
