TVSquad

(S08E10) I'm a big fan of reality shows. I'm not so big a fan the recap that every reality show insists on airing mid-season, despite getting to see some behind the scenes footage.

The way I see it, if the clips weren't good enough to make it into a regular episode, why would I care to see them now?

I guess the recaps cater to those who can't get enough information on the series or to those that need to catch up on some of the action that they may have missed out on. I'm afraid I just don't fit into either category.

That being said, I was happy to get to relive the near fight between Wholahay and the model formerly known as the Antichrist.

Being a boxing fan, I'm pretty excited about the Mayweather vs De La Hoya fight coming up early next month, but if I was given the opportunity to watch the two moms duke it out on pay-per-view instead, I'd hop on it quicker than you can say "illegitimate child".

All in all, it's been a pretty entertaining season and the recap let us see a lot of the highlights, although it failed to really touch on anything new.

All of the models have undergone a pretty large transformation since the beginning of the season, but the one who has come the furthest has to be Natasha.

I had her pegged all wrong from the beginning. I thought she was going to be naive, mouthy, and annoying and that she'd hold some sense of entitlement because she is the only foreign model in the competition.

I was dead on with the naivety thing, but I was way off with the other assumptions. I actually find her to be very endearing and out of everyone, she is the most willing to put herself out there and really envelope the characters she's asked to portray.

The best example of this was when she had to play the thuggish ruggish gangster. Her representation of the character was spot on, all the more amazing when you realize that relatively speaking, she hasn't even been in the country that long.

I also give her props for enduring a third degree burn on her ear and having a tooth pulled sans medicine without so much as a hint of either event coming out as an excuse in the regular episodes.

While this is more a product of the editing, had the ear burn or the dental nightmare happened to someone like Brittany or Renee, there is no doubt in my mind that they'd be making excuses left and right about how the trauma was affecting their performance.

Knowing what I know now, I'd probably pick Natasha to come out victorious this cycle. I'm not changing my pick, but in hindsight, she'd have been a better choice.

That's not to take anything away from Dionne, Renee, Brittany, or Jaslene. They have all done a great job in their own ways this season, and I completely agree with the judges for these five being the last remaining contestants.

I actually had to go back and read some of my other recaps to try and remember who some of the girls were that got kicked off. There were quite a few unmemorable models this season.

I give this episode a 4. It wasn't bad or anything, there just wasn't a great deal of information here that we haven't already seen in the past. Hence the term "recap".

Can't wait until next week so we can dive back into this thing head first.