Canada’s Next Top Model Season 2 Episode 4 Recap

I haven’t seen this week’s episode of Canada’s Next Top Model yet so hope you enjoy this official recap until I put up one of my own:

The girls arrive back home and come across a goodbye note from the departed Steff. She wishes all of the girls luck but goes one step further and puts in her vote for Sinead as the Girl Most Likely to Become Canada’s Next Top Model. Before the rest have time to dwell on that, they discover Jay Mail is awaiting their attention.

As always, Jay is all riddle me this with his information on this week’s challenge… "Finding a magic lamp and releasing a genie? Well, that’s okay. Being the genie? That’s fabulous!" The girls, as always, are stumped but it doesn’t take Cori long to come up with the reasonable assumption that they will be acting as Jeanne Beker for a day. I’m also going out a limb and guessing that the lights in the living room at Chez Fabulous are near blinding because once again one of the finalists (last week it was Rebecca, this week it’s Mo) has on a massive pair of sunglasses.

The girls start prepping for their beauty sleep, as Gina discusses that being in the bottom three since the beginning of the show is making her think that she’s not supposed to be a part of this competition. She doesn’t sound like she’s looking for reassurance, but it would’ve been nice for one of the other finalists to give her a bit of encouragement. Tia and Sinead take the initiative to work on the confidence of their runway walks, using the pointers from Miss Jay and another finalists’ pair of heels. Even if you’ve never experienced trying to get a good night’s sleep while your friends strut up and down a hardwood floor in stilettos, I think it’s safe to assume it’s like trying to sleep through a parade complete with off-key marching bands and uncoordinated baton twirlers.

None of the girls are bright-eyed and bushy tailed come the morning. Rebecca is understandably pissed that not only could she not sleep because of the noise but that the racket was caused by her shoes – which Tia borrowed without asking. Ohhhh…more shoe drama! Nice. Shoes aside, we also find out that Rebecca is having a hard time trying to stomach the rather strong personality that is Tia. Most girls might respond to that and try to tone it down but in Tia’s case? I’m fairly sure Tia was away the day they taught everyone "how to buy a clue" in school…so no change in attitude is imminent.

The girls head to the CHUM TV Building, where they meet up with… Jeanne Beker. Score one for Cori! She points out that whoever is successful in becoming Canada’s Next Top Model will be required to deal with the media in a sophisticated and articulate way. The media loves a pretty face, but they are more interested in someone who has something to say…or so everyone but Paris Hilton would like you to believe. To prepare the finalists for their media futures, Jeanne is going to sit down with each girl and have a mock one-on-one interview to demonstrate who they might encounter. Gina is first up and is met with Interview Lesson #1 – The Impatient Interviewer. Gina tries her best and definitely keeps her cool but can’t get out anything that would satisfy this type of interviewer. Jeanne tells all the girls the importance of painting a specific picture with your words, because you won’t get much time to make an impression. Cori meets Interview Lesson #2 – The Distracted Interviewer and, like Gina, manages to do a decent job of getting out some interesting comments although laughing at your interviewer is, in any environment, a no-no. Rebecca is the lucky girl who gets to learn Interview Lesson #3 – The Technically Concerned Interviewer. She gamely tries to concentrate on getting out some interesting information, but finds Jeanne’s futzing with camera angles and audio questions really distracting. Sinead meets with Interview Lesson #4 – The Ill-Prepared Interviewer – and does a good job of correcting information without sounding condescending or angry. Tia, perhaps aptly, encounters Interview Lesson #5 – The Pushy Interviewer – and discovers that talking a lot isn’t always a plus, but manages to handle herself pretty well in light of the rudeness she’s encountering. The rest of the finalists are sitting around watching each girl’s interviews, gaining knowledge from each lesson…except for Tara, who is using this opportunity to catch up on her beauty sleep. When it comes to her interview, she encounters the Grateful Interviewer and sails through it by just being herself, which as Jeanne points out, is sometimes the best approach. Tia chooses this point to completely lose interest in the proceedings and starts doodling in her notebook, which draws Jeanne’s attention…in a negative way. Jeanne exposits to the camera that Tia definitely has her work cut out for her if she doesn’t try and curb her ADD tendencies. She can see how it is grating on the other contestants and points out how that will translate to people around her in the fashion world as well.

The girls move straight onto Challenge #2…where the interviewee becomes the interviewer. Dina Pugliese, Co-Host of "Star! Daily" and "BreakfastTelevision", lets the girls in on the rules and then sends them off to individually interview "Degrassi: The Next Generation" star, Adamo Ruggiero. Each girl has been given the same set of ten questions that they MUST ask, and while there is room to keep the tone of the interview interesting and entertaining, there is no room for additions or ad-libbing when it comes to content. Tia’s worried she’ll end up forgetting his name and looking like "a big bag of douche" – say what you want but the girl can turn a phrase. Tara is up first and can’t even get through the first couple of seconds without mispronouncing his name. Dina says her number one issue with Tara’s style is the monotonous tone of her questions – there’s no way to engage your subject or audience if you sound bored yourself. Rebecca is up next and has a much more natural style but makes the mistake of admitting she doesn’t know much about Degrassi. Adamo is less than impressed. Cori knows a lot about Degrassi, which in this case is a bad thing. She is completely star struck and then a disappointed fan because Adamo is a complete jerk. Dina called it the most painful interview to watch of the day. Sinead thinks she crashed and burned but when we see her segment, she continues to handle each challenge with grace and recovers very well from some awkward moments, doing her best to plow through and keep the interviewee comfortable and engaged. Tia’s next and lets her fidgeting become the focus of the interview. When it starts to get really bad, she mentions that she suffers from dyslexia which leads to an awkward moment. Dina, while sympathizing, thinks that Tia needs to show a little more confidence and stop using her dyslexia as a crutch. Mo comes out of the gates swinging, determined to win the challenge as she says she’s too competitive not to have won anything yet. She starts off a little shaky but manages to engage Adamo and finishes really well, getting glowing reviews from Dina. Gina is last to sit in the hot seat and tries hard but finishes way off the mark, making the mistake of empathizing with Adamo and treating him as an equal. Dina points out it is always necessary to remember your place when working with talent. The girls are brought back to meet with both Dina and Adamo, where he reveals that he was told to act as difficult as possible in order to really challenge the girls. Cori looks super relieved and clearly makes a mental note to renew her membership card to the Degrassi fan club. Dina announces that Sinead is, deservedly, the winner of this week’s challenge – this time the girls don’t seem quite as enthusiastic as they were when she won her shopping spree. Sinead seems genuinely surprised since she thought she had done a horrible job. What does Sinead win? She gets the chance to be a real "FashionTelevision" correspondent at Toronto Fashion Week for one event that evening AND gets a 37" flat screen to watch herself on when she returns. The questions they gave the girls were clearly supposed to give them a taste of what a difficult interview would be like, and considering the difficulty level of this particular challenge, each girl did a pretty decent job.

The girls return to Chez Fabulous, where Sinead’s TV is waiting for her, reminding the other girls of how hard they have to work to make it to the front of the pack. Mo is down on herself as she takes to her bed crying that her best just doesn’t look like it’s good enough. The rest of the girls commiserate on how humiliating their interviews were and talk about how well Sinead is doing. They all want to be annoyed by her overachieving ways, but it’s hard because they all like her so much.

The lady in question is busy reporting on location with Glen Baxter, a familiar "FashionTelevisionChannel" personality. She gets the opportunity to interview the two designers of the show she attended. She is very well prepared and really confident in her questions. The two designers are impressed as is Glen. Another job well done by Sinead!

Back at Chez Fabulous, Tia is making being a hater look equally as effortless. She complains to Mo that Sinead clearly doesn’t want to win so there’s no reason for her to keep winning challenges. Tia, you might want to clear the room because I’m pretty sure you’re projecting here. As soon as Sinead gets back, Tia seizes the opportunity to give her a swift kick on the butt, but uses the excuse that she was trying to draw Sinead’s attention to her waiting prize.

The girls wake up to a new day full of opportunities and are greeted by another piece of Jay Mail. Some girls are slower to start than others, but everyone gets downstairs in time to hear Jay say "Alright, ladies, you’re half way to the top but don’t get cocky and hit cruise control because you could get blown out of the competition." All the girls’ assume they will be doing something extreme but no one can guess exactly what. They are taken to Landmark Aviation where they meet up with Nolé and learn they will be doing their photo shoot with L.A. photographer, Mike Rosenthal. The props? A two million dollar helicopter, a 2008 Cadillac AND a male model. The theme this time? Supermodel glamour. If they want to lead the life of a supermodel, they have to project that life of glamour in this shoot.

Gina is up first. Nolé says that Gina is more than "street fine"; she is a gorgeous girl. Beautiful she may be, but the nerves are getting her down because she knows how important this shoot is for her…it’s make or break time. She has trouble getting into it but by the last six frames, she hits the mark. Mo’s confidence level is clearly back up because she struts onstage like she owns the place, impressing Nolé from the get go. She says she’s using Naomi Campbell as her inspiration and before I can have a chance to even think it, Nolé tells everyone to get all cell phones out of reach. Everyone’s secret (or not so secret) wish comes true as Sinead stalls in front of the camera. She’s having a hard time focusing and she’s coming across looking stiff and unnatural. Nolé is shocked by the difference he sees in her and suspects that Sinead is sabotaging herself to keep the other girls from taking their dislike of her success to new heights. Tia is up next and continues her run of being unfocussed and fidgety, leading Nolé to wonder if she even knows what glamour is! Tara is next and has a hard time projecting power while keeping her poses restrained…but in the end, Nolé is full of compliments for her pictures. Rebecca knows she needs to bring it to this shoot if she’s going to remain a contender. Mike says she needs to work on making her poses look more natural and comfortable but that overall, she takes better shots when she doesn’t over think it. Nolé agrees and says she takes direction very well. Despite some issues, Rebecca gives them a ton of different poses to work with. Like Rebecca and Gina, Cori is nervous about this shoot because she knows how important it is, especially after crashing in the interview challenge. Mike gives her some constructive criticism about using her assets to her advantage but instead of using it and growing, she completely deflates leading Nolé and Mike to think she is just too fragile to work with and get good results. They may be right as she goes off set to cry. Tia, for once using her vocal skills to benefit, tries to pump up Cori’s confidence by pointing out that her pictures have been beautiful and she has no need to worry.

They return home in time to find another piece of Jay Mail. Not surprisingly, Jay announces that tomorrow is Judgment Day and only six of the girls will be continuing on (everyone say it with me) in hopes of becoming Canada’s Next Top Model. Also waiting for the girls is a ranked list from Jay of how each girl did on their "Star! Daily" interview. From best to worst, they are: Sinead, Mo, Gina, Tia, Rebecca, Tara and Cori. The girls decide to watch them, but Cori doesn’t participate because she can’t handle watching it. She’s not the only one who’s upset as tensions in the house have reached a boiling point. Tia and Mo cannot find a civil word to say to each other whether it’s about laundry or accidentally bumping into each other. Sinead makes the mistake of trying to keep the peace and gets into a small fight with Mo. The pressure of doing well is clearly getting to Sinead as she breaks down after leaving the room, causing Tia to come flying in to face-off with Mo. She does it under the guise of being Sinead’s friend but it seems more like she was just waiting for a good excuse to let it all out. Sinead is not in the mood to commiserate with Tia when she comes back in to complain about Mo, and is left wondering if it’s worth her time to try to be nice to anybody.

Tara, Rebecca and Gina largely stay out of the encroaching emotional storm and act as bystanders while the other girls go for the jugular. Meow! Before things can deteriorate to a truly animalistic level, the doorbell rings announcing the arrival of some special guests…the men’s hockey team they skated with in Episode 3. Uh oh…adding seven guys to an already hormonally-charged environment? This cannot end well. At first, the girls are just excited to interact with people not consumed by the competition, but it quickly deteriorates into a broken social scene. The guys decide they want to have their own "walk off" competition and borrow the girls’ heels to do their own runway struts as the girls cheer them on. Gradually everyone seems to lose a piece of clothing until almost all 14 people have ended up in their bikinis or underwear in the hot tub. Alcohol clearly becomes a serious factor at this point, and underage and sober Cori and Sinead, can only look on and enjoy their fellow contestants floundering about in slightly drunken and questionable stupors. Tia says that she didn’t do anything she’s ashamed off. Cut to Tia peeing against a tree and then licking some substance of the counter. Classy.

Speaking of people who should probably be a bit embarrassed – Rebecca locks lips ON CAMERA with one of their hockey guests, which is probably going to cause some issues with her boyfriend back home. That fuels the gossip mongers for the rest of the night…and I’m sure well into the coming weeks. Rebecca, although saying to the camera that she doesn’t feel that badly, seems to be pretty angry with herself once she starts to sober up pointing out that if her BOYFRIEND did that, she’d be devastated. And the award for understatement of the episode goes to…

The morning arrives and is greeted by…no one. All of the girls are still asleep…some on the floor, some on the couch, some at the top of the stairs. Gina looks to be one of the first to rise and says what everyone is thinking; facing the judging panel tired, hung over and less than confident is going to make for a very interesting day.

Jay greets the girls and lets them know that it’s time to see how well they used their new knowledge of the media. First up is Rebecca and her best shot is gorgeous. Jay loves the angles of her body and the expression on her face. He thinks the pose she’s in shortens her arm in a negative way but agrees with Jeanne that the entire picture is telling a story. Jay says it’s like she’s gotten caught doing something bad but she’s not embarrassed – clearly another case of life imitating art. Paul says it is an excellent example of the photographer and model really gelling. Tia’s picture doesn’t get much of a reaction from the judges. Dina (the guest judge for the week) loves the pose but thinks her face is expressionless, which the rest agree with. Gina is called forward and before they can even see her picture, she starts rolling her eyes in anticipation of the bad comments to follow. The picture itself isn’t horrible, she looks lovely but the judges all agree that there is no confidence in the shot. Dina sums it up by telling her that she brought them soft and pretty and she should’ve been bringing sophisticated and sexy. Mo continues to improve from week to week, and the judges love her shot. It’s strong, confident and sexy. The judges move on and congratulate Sinead for her challenge win, but the girls behind her seem less than enthusiastic. The judges, for a change, are not very impressed with her best shot and she brings up Nolé’s suspicion that she was sabotaging herself. While she denies it, the judges think it probably played a factor because she wants so much to be liked by everyone. They advise that she try to be more comfortable and proud of her success and not let the other girls attitudes get in her way. After all, Yasmin wisely points out, they are all trying just as hard to get where she is and if she lets it go, she might lose her place at the top. Tara’s picture sharply divides the judges – with half thinking she looks dynamic and the other half thinking she’s boring and stiff. The next picture manages to unite the judges again as they all think that, although beautiful, Cori’s lack of confidence really interferes with the glamorous message the photo should be sending. Nolé (and the judges) think that she just isn’t growing as a model and she isn’t taking their advice.

None of the girls look at all confident as the judges’ break for their deliberations. As always, the judges have something positive and negative to say about all the girls but spend more time talking about their individual personalities and motivations for wanting to be where they are. Paul points out that they need to stop being "Canada’s Next Top Psychological Panel" and make their decision based on fashion points only, but Jay points out that it is ALL part of the business.

Once the girls are brought back, Jay makes sure they know the judges are finding it really hard to cut anyone because they see great potential in the remaining finalists…but someone has to go. Mo’s earlier fears of not being good enough are allayed as her picture is declared the best of the shoot. Next is Rebecca followed by Tara. Then, despite a less-than-stellar picture, Sinead is next to breathe a sigh of relief. Tia’s name is called next and for the first time, she seems somewhat subdued and a little shell-shocked by all that has gone on this week. That brings us to the final two – Cori and Gina. According to Jay, it came down to lack of confidence versus lack of passion …and this week, it’s not enough to be confident. You have to really bring your passion for the business across in each and every shoot and while Gina did that this week, it wasn’t enough to keep her in the competition. Cori goes to collect her picture but not before Jay instills a little wisdom of his own. He tells her that although she may feel like she’s at the bottom of the competition; the fact is that she is still IN the competition and she needs to act like it…no more tears, just confidence. Gina doesn’t seem overly surprised considering she has never risen from the bottom of the group but clearly, that doesn’t really make it any easier to leave. She hugs Jay and lets him know how valuable the whole experience has been for her and then takes the time to say goodbye to all the girls.

As she packs up her belongings (and all those shoes), Gina indicates that she wasn’t surprised by the outcome and that she thinks the judges made the right decision. She believes that all of the girls who remain in the competition have more potential and more to give in terms of modelling. She’ll miss the experience and she’ll miss the people, but she won’t ever forget what she’s learned. A graceful and articulate exit for a gorgeous girl.

So while Gina leaves in search of new possibilities and opportunities, six girls remain in competition to see who will be crowned Canada’s Next Top Model…stay tuned as things are sure to get interesting!

Source Tags: top model, canada’s next top model, ms jay, recap, tv