jrlr

I can picture Helen but cannot remember what the Helen fiasco was. Can someone tell me what happened?

Perfect! Who wouldn't want to look like a Pre-Raphealite dream? Actually, this would have been a great idea for Swap to use with his model, who - with a little, okay a LOT of help - could be made to resemble one of those romantic portraits.

I never follow the contestant's careers after PR, but I know that Michael Costello is considered some kind of big deal around here (I live in Palm Springs where he's from). He's always featured at Fashion Week here, but I have never had any interest in attending it, so idea if that's a big deal or not in the real fashion world. Swapnil, a puzzle to me. I know early on I posted that i thought he wasn't smoking tobacco, and he's seemed high to me off and on throughout the season. Swapnil's model was a complete bitch; if someone told me they could make me over into a bombshell I might be nervous, but I'd go with it just for the chance for a REAL makeover! They could have combined her cover-up demands with a bombshell look. I thought his first look for her was a good start to what might have been a really good piece - and it fit her demands, too - but she pouted and stomped her feet and he just abandoned that look and went on to make 2 more outfits. Poor judgment on his part, lousy attitude on hers. Candace and Ashley: time's up. Candace should be designing for Trashy Lingerie and Ashley should stop crying - it's gone way beyond tolerable. Edmond - huh? Those two pieces just didn't go with each other on any level. Kelly - love her personality and attitude, not so much her clothes. I thought the overalls were a decent effort to do what her client requested, but since I HATE overalls, the whole thing was a big meh. Merline - had she listened to her model to begin with she would have had the time to make that outfit look a hell of a lot better.

Actually, that could also describe Alison until the affair.

Cherry (Allison's MIL) said two completely different things last season IIRC. Before she found out about the affair she told Allison that it was Allison and Cole's strength that kept the family strong after Gabriel died. After she learned about the affair she accused Allison of contributing to Gabriel's death by not taking him to the hospital (because Allison was a nurse and thought she knew more than she did). No way Allison is supposed to ever have been a danger to kids. First of all Helen can get anything she wants from her parents financially - she's going to inherit their entire estate anyway. Second, Helen's mother is a complete control freak and would probably grudgingly pay for Noah to have a place suitable for the little princes and princesses to stay. Specially since said spoiled brats would possibly tell grandma all about Noah and his girlfriend, which would be more ammunition for granny and her spitefulness - not that some of the spitefulness isn't utterly deserved by the seemingly unredeemable Noah.

Rosilyn Russell looked great in them. Of course that was a few centuries ago. I've gotten less and less interested as this season has droned on, and I'm not sure I even think any of these designers have any major potential. I absolutely HATED what Swapnil made this week - stretchy (or not stretchy) leopard skin fabric needs to take a nap for a few decades, and that bubbly white thing over it, ugh! I thought Edward's look cheap and I'm sick of his criss-cross straps on everything he makes. Merline's was a mess, but at least she tried to do something different. Ashley's outfit, okay, cute jacket, but that hideous fabric on the skirt and top! Candace, a sailor top and a skirt that enlarges the hips? Kelly, glad to see she has her own point of view but that fabric had that strobe-like stroke-inducing quality. Laurie, oh well - liked her but her designs were mediocre. I suggested a few episodes back that Swapnil is smoking something other than tobacco, and I'm sticking to my guns. Maybe he'll share with Candace so she can shut up for awhile- I wonder what her original coloring was and why she's wearing Kabuki makeup. .

I freaking WISH they would send the designers to Mood and give them a challenge in which they use real materials and make something a real human woman (or at least a couture runway model) might wear. I'm so sick of the gimmicky crap we're seeing, I almost screamed when I saw they are doing some costume nonsense again. I really hated what Edmond made this week, almost as much as what Candace made (aren't we ever getting past that lame goth-bondage thing?). I think Candace is a one-trick pony and irritating as hell. I liked Kelly's and Ashley's looks, but neither of them seemed particularly original to me. Am I the only one who thinks Swapnil might be smoking something other than tobacco? His eyes looked pretty red towards the end of the episode and he does some goofy giggly kind of stuff in the workroom. Could just be fatigue, I guess.

I only know Sarah Shahi from The L Word (in which she and Katherine Moenig/Lena played lovers), and she was drop dead gorgeous then, I didn't even recognize her in this episode.

Of course! If Amanda was on stage all alone, there were no other contestants and there was a criticism of her work - she'd STILL find a way to blame something or someone else because, poor Amanda, nothing is ever her fault. I'm still puzzled by Candace picking Amanda to be her Eliza Doolittle; it was either genuine but misplaced belief in Amanda or it was pure hubris, thinking she could spin gold out of straw. I'm also puzzled that not ONE of the women had the brains to stop at the beginning of that clusterf... and say, "Wait! We need to come up with a theme." When (Tim, I think) was in the workroom and each of them said what she was making,they were nearly ALL dresses - one pair of pants and no separates - although that did change before they hit the runway. How could that many supposedly competent designers completely miss the point of it being a TEAM challenge? Oh well, at least we got rid of Amanda, and good riddance to the whiny little cow!

Where is Dog?

OMG, that no-talent little bitch is a reality-show whore? Makes PERFECT sense: entitled 20-something who thinks she is so fucking adorable, smart and talented that she doesn't have to do anything in life other than push her face into a camera to be a "star"!!!! Well I have yet to see (and won't because, thank god, she's off the show) any signs of talent, brains, or adorability in that walking example of contemporary narcissism. Good job, Mom and Dad, raising a daughter who would probably not be able to hold a job at Starbucks because of her attitude. I'd love to see Amanda tossed out into the REAL world and see how she fares. And IMO, Lindsey isn't very far behind Amanda in the "Mommy and daddy told me that everyone's farts smell bad except mine, which smell like heather and sound like bells" attitude. Glad we have Edmond and Swapnil in the competition because they are the only adults (with the possible exception of Laurie) in this bunch of whining (Amanda), posing (Lindsey), crying (Ashley), cliched (Blake) BORING bunch. I'd been getting to like Candace, but she has now sunk to the bottom of the list for me. Lindsey and Kelly proved they have no spines. Joseph - or is it Jake? - is a pain in the ass. Heidi needs to get over the glittery mini-dress love-fest - sorry, Heidi, no matter how gorgeous your legs are, you're too old for that crap. Tim seems depressed (I would be too if I'd sunk to the Mary Kay and Sally Beauty new show low). Glad Merline is back on her meds, she is kind of an interesting designer and she seems sweet. Why the hell do I keep watching this show? Oh yeah, it's better than politics.

Ugh, what a bottomless piece of crap. A tweener "concept" using paintball? An awkward bit of choosing team members? The girl gang? It was all pathetically juvenile and a bit stomach-turning.. Agree with pretty much what has been said about the designers (I have to LIKE Blake now? Swapnil has the most gorgeous eyes I've ever seen and it's time for him to be at the top) and designs and thought the blue team's collection was beautiful, although I was kind of surprised that none of the judges looked at it and exclaimed, "Grace Kelly!" One more note - I think Amanda not only deserved to get sent home, but deserved to be slapped for her woe-is-me-so-cute bullshit. The woman is severely narcissistic (nothing is ever fair to poor Amanda, it's never her fault, blablabla) with a huge helping of grandiosity thrown in. Or else she's just stuck at age 15 socially and emotionally. Either way, I was very happy to see her get the high heeled boot.

Blake's dress looked like a black and blue termite - that "design" was idiotic. It was ugly, terribly made and bizarre. I would have liked either Candace or Swapnil to win. Whoever made the mini-glitter dress should have gone home for making something so boring and unoriginal.

I was prepared for a three-hankie melodrama, but a good one - not for the threadbare soap opera that this is turning into. So over the top with secrets, so many sideways glances, so much furtive scurrying around and tattling on each other and so many tiresome characters. If the nurses weren't doing the kind of work they are, they'd be a pretty vapid lot of characters. And the war, what war? Men are being blown to bits and having breakdowns but no one ever even mentions what this war is being fought about. Makes Downton (which I love despite it being lightweight) look like War and Peace.

I'm right there with you. For a show that has had me enthralled throughout the season, it suddenly just lost all its fascination for me. Between the gun bullshit and the boredom that is teenage daughter subplots and Alison's retreat with her ding-dong abandoning mom, this episode was all over the place and really unsatisfying to me. I'm surprised that they didn't toss in a cliched trip to the coast for Noah so we can see the asshole being wined and dined by movie producers (puke). All I want to know is what the secret is that Alison and Noah are keeping about Scotty's death (that end moment of distrust between them as he's being carted off in handcuffs was really odd) and I don't see myself slogging through season 2 and/or 3 to find out. The characters are becoming less interesting to me, and that is not a good sign.

She was probably in the celebrity wing of Cedars Sinai, where I'm sure she can stay for as long as her crazy self wants to just as long as she's paying for it.

I'm really curious what the deal is with Noah's father. Until Max asked Noah if he'd spoken to him recently, I had thought that both of Noah's parents were dead. It was a very pointed exchange and it has to lead somewhere, right?

It did add yet another element to show how self-destructive Alison is, but honestly, wouldn't at least one of the brothers - or Alison - also be a drug user? All this coke being passed around - I'm sorry to say that my own life experience tells me that someone, if not all of them except Cherry would be users. And it would really make sense if Scotty was using it with Whitney, since she's probably surrounded by drugs at her post private school. But nooooo, they're just (bad at it) ranchers who are lily-white when it comes to using. I don't buy it. And why the hell wouldn't Alison, who clearly needs some crutches to keep going, be using? I still think that she stole pills from the supply room at the hospital when she went to see if she could handle getting her old job back. Someone had suggested she had just taken tissues or something, but why would you need to steal keys and sneak into a supply closet just to get kleenex?

I like Max's character, and given the level of writing here, I do expect we will see more of him and learn some of his secrets. I really don't think he is sleeping with Helen because I have a difficult time believing that Helen has ever cheated, simply because she was so devastated by Noah's affair. But I think there is a very good chance that she will sleep with Max in the future since they are so obviously fond of each other and both will be alone (I think) next season.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't gotten ANY reason to think that Max and Whitney are sleeping together.

If the future Alison - the one we see with the detective - is married to anyone, it can't be Oscar, because she says she needs to get back to the city and I don't see Oscar abandoning his big-fish-in-a-little-pond status as a successful Montauk businessman to live in the city.

That seriously made me laugh!

Alison is not uneducated, she was a pediatric nurse before Gabriel died. She's waitressing because she can't bear to be around sick young children now, and that's understandable. You have to be an R.N. to become a pediatric nurse and that can include some college and some hospital training, or a B.A. and training. Who knows? She may be as educated as Helen or Noah.

Well I waited tables back in my college days in the bronze age, too - and I did do a full body-flinch at that. I was taught from the time I was a kid never to be rude or condescending to anyone,l and I think waitressing just reinforced that for me. I don't really get Helen, although I grew up with enough privileged kids to believe her. I don't blame her a bit for hating Alison but I don't see her as particularly empathetic towards anyone. I mean she's been worried as hell about Whitney, but she doesn't seem to ever actually talk to her daughter (granted Whitney is a huge pain in the ass, but still, it's her daughter) until after the pregnancy reveal. I thought what Noah overheard her saying to Whitney about her own abortion was a sweet scene (in a show that doles out sweet scenes like they are precious gems). And Maura Tierney really nailed it in the scene with Noah - her fury was so believable and SO justified. I'd love to see an episode from Helen's POV, because I think she sensed the chemistry between Noah and Alison waaaay before she learned about the affair. At this point I despise Noah so much that I hope he did kill Scotty, gets caught and goes to prison for it. Of course, given the nature of this show, that could change - although I can't see my opinion of his character changing.

No, it makes them assholes. I've always judged people by the way they treat waitstaff and the way they tip. It doesn't matter if they are upscale snobs like Helen or scuzzy bikers, anyone who treats other people with contempt simply because of their "station" in life is a schmuck. IMO of course.