With Brittany finally gone…am I the only one who wonders if the (ANTM) world could be a quieter place without Renee??

Natasha started off this episode by weirding out her roommates (once again) while talking to her husband.  With the cell phone resting on her bed, she for some reason kept rubbing her face—or more precisely, her nose—all over it.  If I hadn’t known that she was talking on a phone, I would have thought she was snorting lines.  She knew the girls were making comments about her, but simply equated it to jealousy.  Yes - they’re jealous because they don’t get snotty phone calls from you as well.

The next day, the ladies made a trip into the Australian wilderness and met with an aboriginal leader and some young girls.  The girls performed a ‘story-telling’ dance for the models.  (Some people—like Dionne—would not have considered it a ‘dance’ because it lacked a lot of movement..but it was more about the gesturing).  For their challenge, the ladies had to create their own dance—something that would define themselves and their history.  Their performance would be judged by a rep from Seventeen magazine.
With only 15 minutes to create a garment and paint their bodies, the girls were ready to go.  That is, everyone but Dionne.  Dionne was fairly set against doing anything.  She couldn’t find a reason why her story had anything to do with modeling.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t agree with her…but I didn’t put myself in that position.
Renee started off by revealing her abusive upbringing. She drew red lines on her legs to demonstrate her pain and talked about her strong sisters and mother.  She didn’t really do much dancing but made up for it with her powerful story.  Jaslene’s tale was not as emotionally in-depth—she talked about ‘being misled’ in her life and ‘following her dreams’—but she deserved points for colorful use of paint.  And despite her stubborness, Dionne actually managed to eke out a short story as well.  She talked about her mother’s paralysis (a result of a gunshot wound) and used the paint to help symbolize her daughter.

While the other girls chose to ignore the element of dance, Natasha at least got into the spirit of things.  She purposefully chose to speak quietly so the audience would be forced to focus on her movement and use of branches.  Needless to say, the other girls thought the whole thing was a bit weird.  Unfortunately Natasha’s efforts were wasted as Renee was chosen as the challenge winner.  The judge felt her story would most interest the readers of Seventeen.  Jaslene got to join Renee on the nice prize booty: pearl jewelry from Autore Pearls.  Having seen what the girls had won, Dionne regretted not putting more of herself out there.

Tired of all the work, Dionne set out to have some fun.  Renee and Jaslene eagerly joined her for a night out on the town, but a sick Natasha thought it was best to stay home.  The ladies were more than happy to be Natasha-free because they wanted to spend the evening making catty comments.  They not only questioned her sketchy marriage (they had yet to see a ring and/or pictures of her family) and complained that she was a total phony (apparently her stories always changed).

The next morning, the party girls and the sickie all met up with Jay for their next photo shoot.  Expanding on what they had learned in their earlier challenge, the girls were told that they’d be learning and incorporating another aboriginal dance into their pics.  Needless to say, Dionne was not pleased to hear this.

Jaslene (Red Breast Robin Dance) was up first.  She brought great intensity to her shoot and did well to keep the spirit of the movement.  Dionne (Food Gathering Dance) had great body language but struggled with her mean face once again.  Although she finally produced a semi-decent shot, she literally had to be coached by Jay throughout the whole shoot.  On the flip-side, Renee (Flight of the Butterfly) needed no coaching at all.  She knew immediately how she wanted to contort her body and delivered great asymmetry.  She was amazingly creative and gave a variety of poses.  Then there was Natasha (some bird tail dance).  Usually a fighter in her shoots, she completely gave up this time around.  She let the best of illness get to her—which we all know is a big no-no on ANTM.  Not only could Jay not get one decent shot out of her, but her weak performance was reminiscent of her disastrous first few weeks in the contest.

Back at home, the girls continued to give Natasha the cold shoulder.  But she cast the negativity aside and proved that her illness had reached Stage: Delirium.  In her confessional, she reported that she did a ‘great job’ that day.  Now I know that Natasha is the girl who can always spin a negative comment into something positive, but the girl needs to learn when bad is just bad.
At the next deliberation, the girls were first presented with surprise questions:  “Which girl do you think has the most model potential?  And who has the least?”  Every single girl except Dionne, chose themself as the girl most likely to succeed (Dionne picked Jaslene).  Then the girls seized the opportunity to attack Natasha.  They all claimed that she had the least amount of potential because of her phony personality.  Now c’mon, ladies—what does personality have to do with modeling anyway?  When it was Natasha’s turn to defend herself, she again claimed that the girls were simply envious of her.

When it came down to the actual judges’ decision, Renee came out the big double-winner of the week.  They appreciated the fact that she gave them a lot of poses to choose from.  They also felt her strong passion and drive.
The bottom two were not hard to figure out—Dionne and Natasha.  The judges felt that Dionne had improved throughout the competition, but that her ascent was slow and bumpy.  They also were not thrilled that she didn’t pick herself as the strongest competitor.  As for Natasha, they didn’t care for the illness excuse and were especially shocked to see how far she had fallen.  She had risen quickly since her rough beginning, but managed to fall further than where she had started.  The judges also had to question why she was so disliked by the the other girls.  They wondered if there was more to Natasha that they just didn’t know about.
In the end, the judges simply felt that the other girls were just jealous.  LOSER: Dionne
Even though the girls were all shocked by the outcome, Tyra was quick to point out that the decision was not based on one photo alone.  It takes more than one bad day to get someone eliminated—it takes a body of work.  And while I agree that Dionne was the weakest of the bunch, I was very sad to see her go.  She was by far the funniest and most refreshing person to be on that show in a long time…