Brow Beat

June Thomas is out of the office today, so Torie Bosch is filling in for this week's Project Runway recap.

Is it almost time for Bryant Park yet? Everyone seems to be running low on fresh material this week. The bad-tempered designers are accusing one another of swiping ideas, and the challenge itself is to "create a new look based on your best look." That's "best look" as defined by the judges, and a dreary collection of garments it is. There's not a single vibrant outfit, as each is gray, black, or brown. Surprisingly, no contestants quibbled with what the judges determined to be their best work of the season. I expected more whining.

Althea's high-waisted black pants, which bloused out before hugging the calf, gave her the win. Logan's attempt to complement his silver-and-black gown from Episode 1 resulted in something from a bad sci-fi movie, and he was booted.

Stats
Number of times Tim Gunn said, "Make it work!" : Nada! Though we did get a clipped "Use your time exceedingly well." Maybe he's testing new catch phrases.

Number of crying contestants: None! Carol Hannah spent much of the episode looking on the verge of bursting into tears at any moment, but perhaps her eyes were just irritated by mounds of liner and eye shadow.

Was Logan shown sans shirt? Nope! The PR gang didn't even give us a chance to say goodbye to the pecs. 

The Contestants

Each voices some variant of the phrases "The pressure is on" and "It would be awful to make it this far and be sent home," which is a bit of a head-scratcher. Hasn't the pressure always been on? In the early episodes, doesn't everyone say how terrible it would be to get auf 'd before showing what they can do?

Our designers can barely stand the sight of one another at this point. Althea and Logan bicker about whether her pants look like the jodhpurs that got Malvin canned. (They do , a little .) Irina asks of Christopher's look, "Why is one dress throwing up the other?" Althea accuses Logan, without actually saying it to his face, of copying the zipper collar she created for the Christina Aguilera challenge. During a meal break, she and Irina engage in a low-voiced hate-chat about how much they loathe Logan while shoving food in their mouths, but Althea apparently realizes later that she overreacted. In a talking-head, the fury seems to have passed: "I was a little annoyed, but I personally like how I used it better anyway, so. ..." Later, Irina complains that Althea stole her idea for a voluminous sweater and refuses to help Gordana locate a hook-and-eye.

It's clear Gordana is going to be at the bottom from the moment pictures from her childhood in the former Yugoslavia are flashed on the screen. Those forays into the designers' personal lives are a clear indicator that someone's struggling. Touching back story = weakness.

The Judges
The game of musical chairs continues. Michael Kors is nowhere to be seen, but Nina is in town and cranky as ever. Sitting in for Kors is Season 2's Nick Verreos, whose orange face I'm happy to see again. And as guest judge we have actress Kerry Washington. Her critiques are thoughtful and on point, but she can't match Nick, who's been practicing his zingers. Gordana's black skirt and gray blazer , he says, would look right on "an office worker in Warsaw, Poland." Yikes.

In a heated exchange, Nina and Heidi disagree on Irina's luscious brown outfit, with a brocade dress and oversize cardigan. Nina thinks the dress is too tight, making it look a bit cheap; Heidi would beg to differ. While the exchange was perfectly polite, their faces were chilling. Perhaps the tension was merely an expression of how fed up they were with the crabby designers: Althea and Irina made veiled, passive-aggressive references to the Great Collar and Sweater Idea Theft of '09, and Logan committed the fatal error of admitting, before being asked a single question, that his look was "on the brink of costume." Have you learned nothing, Logan? Don't feed the judges their lines!

The Results
Garment of the week: Irina's. I'm a sucker for that warm brown, and the too-snug brocade dress was pretty. Plus, the other five looks were drab, ugly, or both. The fatigue from sleep deprivation, total isolation, and constant demand to come up with new ideas-and the awful challenge of revisiting old looks-is showing on all of them.

Should Althea have won? No, those pants were dreadful. While the judges praised Carol Hannah's little black dress as something "we all could wear," perhaps a dozen people in the world could sport Althea's look without appearing foolish.

Should Logan have been eliminated? While his look wasn't quite as "innovative and out there" as he claimed, Gordana should have gotten the boot for her "sad, drab, and dated" creation, as Heidi said.

Bold prediction for who'll be auf'd next: Gordana. She seems to have given up-just let her go home.

Previous Project Runway Recaps: Week 1 , Week 3 , Week 4 , Week 5 , Week 6 , Week 7 , Week 8 , Week 9 , Week 10

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