Project Runway, Season 8: Meltdowns and Crocodile Tears

Pictured: One (1) Cold-Hearted Bitch

Ladies and... Ladies, last night's episode of Project Runway was delicious. Delectable. Momentously fulfilling. Seriously, I could sustain off of that for months.

"I don't know why you allowed Gretchen to manipulate, control, and bully you." You go, Ms. Gunn.

"*snivel snivel* I *snivel* do NOT think *snivel* I'm manipulative!" Oh please, bitch, get real. I love how she just denied being manipulative, but totally avoided the topic of Controlling and Bullying.

Let's break it down, bitches!

First of all, I think we all knew how this was going to go down when the teams were chosen. I can understand Michael C's thought process, "I'll choose Gretchen first because, according to the judges, she's the strongest designer here." Which is true. She's won two challenges and proven that she has a strong point of view. The problem, though, is that Gretchen is also the person who is most obsessed with playing this game as well as she can. She has a clear goal in mind: Fashion Week, and she will do anything and everything possible to make it to fashion week: manipulation, controlling, bullying, and a new trick she showed last night: tears. From there on out, everything just got worst. Gretchen picked Ivy because she knew she could easily control Ivy, Ivy picked Andy because, as far as she had seen, Andy had the strongest skill set of the remaining designers, and Andy picked A.J. because, between A.J. and Peach, Andy perceived A.J. to be the lesser of two evils. Logically, it all makes sense. Woops! Seems like I missed Christopher in there somewhere. That wasn't intentional, but the fact that I missed him says something about his contribution to this team and the show. The biggest problem with this team, however, is that instead of picking people strategically (with the exception of Gretchen's pick), they picked people based on their skills. So team "Cluster Luxe" (as I like to refer to them), was left with the people with the largest egos, and team "Military and Lace" (which sounds more like the title of an adult film I would purchase than a fashion line), was left with all the "underdogs."

Military and Lace

First of all, terrible name.

Seriously, terrible name. You could have named yourself "The Young Boy Rapers" and it would have been better.

I don't have a lot to say about the Child Rapers Anonymous. I'd rather spend the bulk of my wrath spewing hatred towards Cluster Luxe. NAMBLA here did a fantastic job, and Casanova and Peach took huge strides forward in their taste and styling, but in my opinion, the wrong person won. In my opinion, Michael D. should have won.

Were this team forced to name a team leader, I think it would have been Michael D. He seemed to have the strongest voice in the planning process and have the heaviest hand in helping the other designers with their looks. The editing was skewed heavily against him (and much stronger towards Casanova and his diva moments), but he still managed to have the funniest line of the episode, "They have an item called a 'Grandpa sweater.' What the f***?" Hilarious.

He also made a beautiful garment which really personified their collection.

But congrats, Casanova, you took strides forward in design. Except for this:

Casanova, please do us all a favor and burn the nipple sweater. It was distracting and unattractive.

Team Cluster Luxe

Okay, lets start off by talking about what this show is supposed to be about: the fashion.

I'm having trouble finding photos of the finished garments on the runway, but you can see them here: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/project-runway/season-8/rate-the-runway/episode-5#id=1

Here's the way to tell the teams apart: pick out all the garments that look items from Bea Arthur's estate sale. That's team Cluster Luxe! If you were to look up "Matronly" in the Fashion Dictionary, every one of these looks would be next to the definition. Seriously. This was beyond retro. This was retro old-lady. The good news is that the designers seem to have stopped designing for "Designing Women." The bad news is that they've begun designing for "Golden Girls."

Now let's get to the fun part:

"Look at this group. I'm totally going to dominate! Let me distract you with my spirit fingers while I quietly urinate on every group member to mark my territory."

"Shut the fuck up, Michael, the grown-ups are talking."

"...I swear to God, if you question my superiority one more time, I'm going open-fist, elbow deep."

"Got to remember for tomorrow: Wake up at 4 AM to practice crying for the runway."

"Guys, we totally worked SO well together, don't you think? There's no way we could lose. That is, unless the judges have eyes."

And we finally see what all the Gretchen build-up was for. Let me just say that I love the new hour and a half format. I love it specifically because my favorite part of this entire episode was the last 30 minutes. I could watch it over and over again. Tim's smack-down alone was worth 8 seasons of loyalty. In one sentence, Tim made every designer in the room shit their pants. Bravo! "I don't know why you allowed Gretchen to manipulate, control, and bully you." I wish I could just listen to it over and over again. In fact, I wish it were my ringtone. That should be the new tagline for the show.

Gretchen is an evil genius. She was plotting from the very beginning to survive another day. You'll notice the only two designers on their team to make entire outfits, A.J. and Ivy, were the two designers who were least successful and caught the majority of the judges rage. The four designers who made multiple garments, led by Gretchen, largely avoided the judges criticism. That was pure plotting on Gretchen's part. She manipulated the two weakest designers (at least the two you could be eliminated) into the two most vulnerable positions. She said herself that she knew the collection was crap, so she figured out a way that she would be safe, regardless.

And don't even get me started on those crocodile tears. I haven't seen this kind of manipulation on Project Runway since Wendy Pepper. At the same time, in comparing Gretchen to Wendy, I would have to side with Wendy. Sure Wendy was a manipulative bitch, but Wendy knew she was a manipulative bitch and celebrated the fact. I believe Gretchen honestly believes she is good person, or is an world-class actress. This woman turns my stomach.

The fact of the matter is that Gretchen is a sociopath. She will do whatever it takes to forward her own agenda without consideration of the people around her. Her change of tone on the runway was truly disturbing.

And poor Michael C. I've changed my tune since my last post. I hope Michael C. succeeds on the show, if only to be a constant thorn in Gretchen's side. It was disgusting how the entire team, after they agreed to not gang up on one another, ganged up on Michael C. And it was all lead by Gretchen.

However, now the tone has changed. Tim has brought Gretchen's manipulation to the surface for all to see. I am very interested in how things will proceed from here. First of all, I would expect Gretchen to become a pariah on the show. It seemed like prior to this challenge, Ivy was Gretchen's only true ally, and it feels like Ivy may now realize how destructive Gretchen is.

I would predict that Gretchen will either burn out in the next episode or two, or will become resilient with her outcast status and persevere to the finale (al la Wendy Pepper). I'm really hoping for the former, but I would guess it will probably be the latter. Only time will tell!

Anyway, this was the best episode of Project Runway for quite a few seasons. I hope the producers can keep up the drama from here!