Although the girls were preparing for an exciting trip to China, Lisa was having a hard time shaking off her experience at the last judge’s panel.  Seeing herself in the Bottom Two really took a toll on her; she was strong for so long, and now she was slowly dropping.  Meanwhile, Heather was also feeling a bit nervous about her situation.  Her disastrous speech during the last runway challenge sent her spiraling and close to elimination.

After their 14 hour trip to Shanghai, the ladies were greeted by Miss Jay and Jay Manuel at one of the city’s picturesque locales.  From there, the girls were transported to their new home – a penthouse suite on the 63rd floor of a hotel.  Strangely enough, the room was only equipped with five beds for the six girls.  When Saleisha (’I don’t think I’m being spoiled’) refused to share her double-bed, a slighted Heather understandably stormed off.  This action, of course, prompted Bianca to once again pick on/laugh at the emotional roommate.  Not liking to see Heather ganged up on, Chantal finally encouraged two of the models to share the large bed.

The next day, the girls arrived at a Shanghai film studio where they were given a tour by one of the ‘guides’.  While they were walking, they were interrupted by a group of martial arts actors (including their guide) who staged a fight scene around them.  For their next challenge, the ladies were going to learn a series of martial arts forms (similar to the series of poses you would see in a ballet class). The goal was for them to learn how important it was to move and use their bodies during shoots.  To win the next prize, the ladies would then have to recreate the forms they had learned – while being dangled by a wire from a crane. 

To complete the action theme, the girls were paired against each other as if they were dueling (a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) mid-air.  Chantal and Jenah were the first two up, followed by Lisa and Saleisha.  Although Heather was thrilled to try out the fun stunt, Bianca (’This may be the one time you can kick my ass’) was freaked out about the elevation.  Despite a motivational speech by Heather (I really have no idea why she even tried being nice to her), the stubborn model insisted she’d rather go shopping than hang off buildings.  Eventually the fear of elimination forced Bianca to attempt the challenge.  Unfortunately, the ‘attempt’ only lasted a few seconds; she quit shortly after takeoff.  Forced to go at it alone, Heather continued on and gracefully demonstrated her moves.  For her successful performance, she was awarded a shopping spree.  Although Heather had the opportunity to share the prize with Bianca – the girl who’d rather be shopping - she smartly went with someone else (Chantal).

(EDITOR’S NOTE:  Has anyone heard Bianca complain about heights before?  I thought Ambreal was ‘The Girl Afraid of Heights’?  Where did this all of sudden come from?  Even Lisa - the girl who didn’t like rock climbing - did it.)

For their next photo shoot, the girls were instructed to bring clothes that best described their personality.  The ladies were going to do a print ad and a commercial for Covergirl’s new Queen Collection; the clothes were needed to help capture the girls at their most ‘real’ (because ‘every woman is a queen’).

Given Heather’s history with speaking, the thought of memorizing and performing lines was a bit daunting.  Although she knew she had to step up to the challenge, she unfortunately fell flat once again.  She screwed up numerous takes and then compounded the disaster by scrunching her face after each mistake; this made it very hard for the commercial’s producers to edit around.  Even though Jay eventually fed her the script line by line, Heather still had difficulty mimicking the appropriate performance level.  Meanwhile, Lisa’s mistakes didn’t produce any funny faces; they just nearly brought her close to tears.  The more flustered she became, the more evident it became in her eyes and voice.

Although the performances overall weren’t great, the other girls did perform slightly better than Heather and Lisa.  In addition to having an endearing energy and good presences, Saleisha finished her commercial in only three takes.  Bianca displayed a winning smile but struggled with the pacing of her script.  Jenah (and her horrible teeth) looked the part, but failed to inject any personality into her performance.  Meanwhile, Chantal came off as the bubbly and pretty Girl Next Door.

At the next judge’s panel, Chantal was chosen the winner of the week.  The judges felt she needed to work on her ‘Sunnybrook Farm’ smile, but felt her commercial was sweet and adorable.  Saleisha and her ‘squinty-faced’ smiles came in second.

Not surprisingly, Heather and Lisa - once shining stars - sunk to this week’s Bottom Two.  The judges felt that Lisa was a beautiful girl with so much personality on the inside; they just weren’t sure if she know how to handle the critiquing and harsh realities of the modeling business.  As for the Heather, the judges were concerned that she wouldn’t be able to deliver without a lot of prompting or fed lines.

In the end, Tyra felt the girl with the disability still had ‘something there’ (uhh, ratings?).  LOSER:  Lisa.

(You can review last week’s episode here.)
(You can read next week’s episode here.)