America’s Next Top Model recap: Welcome to Bali!

Finally after what seems like weeks, the models are finally off to Bali! Things are a bit uneven with only 3 girls competing against 5 boys, but Renee is still feeling pretty confident that she will take over the competition.

Once they arrive in the beautiful Bali, they settle in at their new digs before it is time to get down to business. While everyone is chilling, Chris is still dealing with his inferiority complex and insisting he belongs in the competition.  We all know he’s not going to win.  Kid just needs to accept it.

The next day the models have an underwater swimsuit runway challenge.  Don is a pretty nervous about being stuck in the little air mask without being control his air intake, but he isn’t the only one freaking out.  Nina also is worried about the air thing because she had some sort of health problem in the past.  Unfortunately, Nina isn’t approved by the medics to do the challenge like everyone else so she’s pretty bummed, but at least she has an excuse. Don just completely freaks out and bails once he gets underwater.  Not a good look, Don, but they let him and Nina do some sort of snorkel photoshoot instead.

After everyone has their turn, Renee holds true to her earlier prediction and is named the winner of the challenge.  Poor Don has the lowest score, but Nina, Marvin, and Corey are only one point ahead of him so it won’t be too difficult for him to catch up, in theory.

At the photoshoot, the models are taking pictures with different native endangered animals like chimpanzees, parrots, and snakes.  Nina appears to do pretty awfully in her shoot, so things aren’t looking so great for her, but she is almost more focused on the fact that her former buddy Chris doesn’t seem to care about her problems.  She should just focus on the support of Corey and leave Chris in the dust.  He isn’t worth her time.  It seemed like the parrots and the snake proved difficult for the models, but the chimpanzee was cooperative and the jaguar cub was semi-workable (Renee had issues, but that was more on her than the adorable kitten).

At panel, the judges don’t really agree on the quality of any of the photos. One loves a photo while the others hate it and vice versa.  It isn’t until they see Jordyn’s photo that they all agree that it is only a mediocre shot.  I’ve never seen since disagreement among the judges in my many years of watching ANTM, and it was really up in the air as to who would be going home.  However, it was completely shocking that NINA, who cried and cried about possibly going home, ended up getting best photo.  I guess all that worry was for nothing.  The bottom comes down to Marvin and Don, who both had low challenge scores and mixed photo scores.  But in a bit of an upset, Marvin’s score is higher and Don is sent home.

Next week there are elephants and more tears, so I think Bali is going to be good for this show.  Definitely good.