America’s Next Top Model recap: Fundraising and cheer-leading

This week the girls arrive back at the house after Laura’s best photo win at panel, and the drama starts instantly since Laura picks Kristin to stay in the Tyra Suite with her instead of Leila (who had picked her to be her guest in the Suite when she won).  The girls think Leila is obsessed with Laura, but Leila insists that she isn’t even upset she didn’t get picked, she just doesn’t like that Laura is friends with Kristin, who most of the girls think is a pretty awful person.

The next morning Tyra wakes the girls up with a surprise visit to their house with Alicia Keys.  Alicia is there because the girls are going to do a charity fashion show for her foundation, which provides money and treatment to families of children who have AIDS.  At the show, the girls are in charge of their clothes and make up and everything, and Laura is the head girl running it all since she won best photo.  To warm up for the show the girls practice walking the runway to different themes based on some of Alicia’s hit songs, which really all looked the same to me.

When they get to the location, Kelly asks Laura how the planning is going, and Laura really has no answers for her.  As we saw last season, Kelly expects leaders to take charge, and Laura clearly has not done that.  Laura finally takes control with the hair and make-up, which pleases Kelly a bit, but she still scolds her for not doing it from the beginning.

The runway show goes down without much drama.  Tyra yells at Leila from her seat to move her arms, but other than that none of the girls really crash and burn, unfortunately.  Victoria, Laura, and Kiara raised the most money in the show, so they are the top three, but Kiara raised the most, so she is the winner for the second week in a row, and she chooses Nastasia to share her prize with her, which is to go on tour with Alicia Keys.

Back at the house, Leila confronts Laura about the rumor that she is obsessed with her.  Leila tells her that instead she thinks Laura is obsessed with herself.  It turns into a big dramatic session with Laura crying about it feeling like high school and feeling insecure.  Soon enough Leila is yelling and crying and it really is almost like high school, but luckily it doesn’t explode into some large, violent argument that tends to evolve from a confrontation like this.

The next day the girls are doing a cheer-leading photo shoot, and once again Rob makes an appearance, but this time he is just there to watch.  Why is he at every photo shoot? Nigel was never this involved.  Allysa is trying to get a good shot because she did the worst in the challenge, but she ends up hitting one of the guys throwing her in the air and made him bleed from the head, which ends up freaking Laura out because apparently it shows just how high up they are being thrown. She cried and looked scared, but Laura got through the shoot and did pretty well.  Leila, who has been the focus of this episode so far, unsurprisingly struggled in her shoot.  Could this week possibly come down to Laura and Leila? Oh, that would be dramatic.

At judging Leila doesn’t get a great score, and has one of the lowest scores of the week.  Kristen got great scores from Kelly and Rob and the fans, but not from Tyra, who thinks she looks like a cheerleader not a model.  Nastasia, on the other hand, impresses all of the judges, but gets a so-so response from the fans, and Yvonne’s photo pleases everyone.  Surprisingly, Laura gets pretty good scores, and she even gets in a good cry about her fear of heights.  Unfortunately that means no Laura/Leila bottom two.  Sad.

Nastasia ends up getting best photo, despite the mixed reviews from the fans, and Laura gets runner-up, even though she was scared in the shoot.  The bottom two comes down to Leila and Brittany, who had an awful facial expression in her shot that went against her ‘adorable’ image.  Brittany ends up with a score that is half a point higher than Leila’s, so she stays, while Leila joins the comeback competition.  Tyra is shocked and Bryanboy cries a little bit because she was his favorite, but there is still hope! And she has had a high fan score, so she has a good chance of making a comeback.

Next week the girls are bringing a video game to life, and Yvonne clashes with Bryanboy at the photo shoot.  Not a good move, girl; not at all.