The Fashion Show Express Lane Recaplet: Here Go Hell Back (from vacation)

Hello, and happy New Year’s, jackanapes. Shall we pick up kind of where we left off – or where we would’ve left off if I hadn’t had a massive case of the pre-Christmas nutters and skipped recapping the last episode? With what looked like an eventful Fashion Show, and Dominique haz-ing a sad over the loss of straight boy David? Ok then. Let’s get this done so I can make it to the gym this morning. To the Express Lane!

1. We open on an unsettled household at the Chez Designer apartments, or wherever it is that they’re staying that I haven’t been bothered to learn the name of. Dominique wakes up in David’s bed, alone, having snuck in to have a night of crying about David being gone. Oh girl. In another apartment, Calvin is angry at Dominique and Cesar for selling him out during the last runway show. “That bitch gonna payback,” he says, and I’m not 100% sure if he’s talking about himself delivering payback or the others receiving it. Such is the mystery of Calvin. He also tells us his competitors “have no human in them at all.”

I wish this show didn't air right after the premier of V, because that statement was just way too evocative of green skin and alien skeletons and everything last night.

2. The designers head out to 172 Norfolk Street, the Angel Orensanz Foundation, using product placement vehicles I haven’t learned the name of and a GPS system I don’t notice the name of. They’re greeted by Iman and one of her 7,000 child slaves. She keeps them as a multiuse resource around the house – the lucky ones fetch things for her and fasten her jewelry, the second tier weave delicate fabrics with their tiny fingers, and if they prove themselves untrainable and insubordinate, she drinks their blood to maintain her own flawless complexion.

Anyway, this one has been unchained from his work station for the day and kitted out like a tiny waiter. Iman tells them that the Angell Orensanz Foundation is a prime wedding location, and as such, they’ll be working in pairs to create wedding looks. They’re assigned teams by picking rings out of a bag that the child totes around with him. Calvin pulls first and tells the child “I’m not going to bite you.” The child knows better, having already seen things in the Iman household that no one of his tender years should ever have to see.

Once they’ve all drawn, the teams are Calvin and Cindy, Jeffery and Dominique, and Eduardo and Cesar. Cindy, of course, is unthrilled to be working with Calvin. Iman dismisses the child with a cold “thank you, Tommy,” and he slinks out, relieved. He doesn’t know if he’s done well enough to be promoted to fastening and fetching, but at least Iman won’t be taking his blood, and weird old Calvin didn’t bite him.

3. The wedding couples walk in, and there’s your other curve ball (if you didn’t read the Comcast description, which the designers couldn’t possibly have, poor things). They’re working with same sex couples. Everyone gets lesbians except team Calvin/Cindy, who get gays. Cindy is freaked out by the prospect of making menswear, while Calvin is just pissed to have been given fat gays. The designers meet with their couples and learn the wedding themes. Cesar and Eduardo’s brides are having an afternoon cocktail wedding, while Jeffery and Dominiques want a beach themed one. Calvin and Cindy’s grooms mumble things about “traditional Korean” and “The Matrix.” Calvin then throws the first of many fits about his client’s desire for a traditional Korean gown.

4. They work. Nothing notable happens except Calvin spending the entire period making size-ist and racist comments and cackling to himself disturbingly.

5. The designers share some thoughts on same-sex marriage. We learn that Cindy has a problem with gay marriage because she comes from a Catholic family. Lady, so do I. Don’t let that hold you back – you’re a grown up. You’re old enough to have lived your way past that excuse for bigotry. Cesar talks about losing his partner to colon cancer, and how because they didn’t have any sort of legal status, he felt pushed to the side as soon as his partner got ill. And we learn that Jeffery is a virgin. A gay virgin who wants 8 kids, apparently. Live that dream, Jeffery. You keep being you.

6. Calvin finishes his non-Korean non-traditional outfit and says of his client “if he comes, is not what he want, I poo his hair out.”

Yes, I'm aware that that's probably Calvin speak for PULL his hair out, but poo is so much more evocative.

7. The clients arrive for the fitting. The lesbians are all thrilled. Dominique meeps about how she wishes David was there. Girl, please. Cindy’s groom is excited about the potential of his outfit. Calvin says the grooms are well matched to each other “like two panda.” Then he throws another fit. Paul, the Korean groom, tells us – with a neck roll NeNe from Atlanta would be proud of – that Calvin has no taste and no class.

8. Day of the show. Cindy has made her groom’s jacket too tight. Calvin undergoes a radical shift in personality and tries to act like a teammate and fix it for her.

9. The show begins. Jeffery has made a cute little blue shorts suit that looks a lot like what David was wearing in his bio picture. Maybe he misses David too (but at least he has the sense not to go on and on and on about it). Dominique has made a very basic white linen dress with a wrinkled, uneven hem. Cesar’s outfit needs a longer jacket and smaller bowtie – the idea is cute, but the proportions are all sorts of off. Eduardo has made a very classic mustard coloured ‘50’s cocktail dress. I realize Eduardo and Cesar’s brides are wearing matching red shoes, and I die of the cute. That’s awesome. Finally, Cindy’s groom is wearing a shitty looking black outfit that’s somewhere between a suit and a track suit, as it appears to be made in that plasticky material they make cheap, crinkly track suits out of. And Calvin’s is wearing generic Asian look #7, like he’s a host at the Ichi Ban Steakhouse off the freeway or something.

10. Somewhere in the episode, Cindy decided she’s ok with same sex marriage. Good for you, Cindy.

11. Their guest judges this episode were Rachel Zoe and Johnny Weir. Isaac opens the critique by telling them that he’s thrilled they “went against type” by using “thin lesbians and bigger homosexuals.” It is a weird, weird comment, both because it implies the designers had some sort of choice in the couples, and because it is just so socially tone-deaf. It is made even weirder by the fact that when he says it, the couples are all standing at the end of the runway. AWKWARD.

12. Johnny Weir loves Dominique and Jeffery’s outfits, but Isaac calls them out for being something you could buy in a store. Then the idiot squad praises Calvin for being “honest” with his client. “Honest,” in this case, is code for “a complete spoiled obstructionist racist sizeist bitch who should be shot in the face so that no other human being ever has to interact with him again, ever.” Fortunately, the groom is there to explain what a nightmare he was to work with. They rightly savage Cindy for her horrible outfit. Rachel Zoe loves Cesar’s jacket, but they don’t care for the pattern in the pants and think the bowtie is too large and clownish. She and Johnny Weir both love Eduardo’s dress, but Isaac calls it “bridal party” rather than bridal. Fair point.

13. The top 2 are Eduardo and Dominique, with Dominique winning and getting an extra $500 if she makes it to the finale. Jeffery, Eduardo and Cesar are allowed to stay.

14. Calvin and Cindy are told “don’t move,” with Calvin being chastised for acting like a bridezilla and Cindy for making a look that was unflattering and poorly designed. Cindy is out, of course, because we have to be subjected to Calvin and his antics as long as possible. Weirdly, Iman comforts her, telling her to stay on course because she has what it takes to make it. So that's nice. It's always nice to have Iman on your side.

Just ask little Tommy, who is now living like a relative king among her child slaves. He has his own, younger children to fasten and fetch things for him; he wears robes of the delicate fabric they weave with their tiny fingers, and Iman tells him that some day, if he's quite good, she'll let him drink some of their blood so that he can retain his perfect complexion.