If you're a regular reader of Movieline's Project Runway recaps, you know that our examinations revolve around two tenets: 1) Tim Gunn wondering out loud if Logan had walked in off the street -- in particular a street with an Urban Outfitters; 2) Gordana Gehlhausen, the Yugoslavian-but-that's-not-a-country-anymore maiden who came a long way and through a lot of confusing pollution in order to get here. Now that she's gone, we're left with almost no reason to recap, and for that, our grief is larger than Althea's elevator shaft of hair. They also kicked off Christopher because come on.
After an introductory segment where Althea and Irina make identical statements about how "Someone in this room is cheating. I don't know if you've smelled her, but [Irina/Althea] has cheater stench. Just saying. P.U." Heidi Klum orders the five remaining designers to take the Santa Monica 3 bus to Brentwood for their new challenge. "Bring a book!" she warns. "It might take hours."
The quintet arrives at L.A.'s Getty Museum, where Tim Gunn and mayor Antonio Villaraigosa realize they both enjoy exercising, so they try talking about that for an hour and a half while the breathless designers scale the hill with their bare hands.
"Designers!" Tim exclaims. "We are at L.A's premiere museum, the Getty. I don't have time to explain what a museum is. Furthermore, Antonio refused to use the Getty monorail, and I'm winded from the chopper ride up here. What a little princess! Anyway, get inspired by a painting, make a dress of it, and try not to make it look like a gray nimbus cloud. Why wasn't that the prompt for every challenge? We could've had a real season on our hands. After you choose an inspiration, it is time to spend three hours in traffic to get to Mood. You bought the full-day bus pass, right? Tra-la-la, I can't hear you, goodbye."
Christopher mistakes a fountain in the lobby for artwork and immediately snaps 300 photographs. Carol-Hannah clicks away upon spotting a pretty bed and remembering that she has a pretty bed. Gordana lays eyes on a Monet, decides that up close it's just paint splotches, dirt streaks, and tally marks counting up the days until dad lets her leave the wood yard, and starts sketching. Irina derives inspiration from a painting of a woman kneeling in a see-through black frock, knowing this can be worked into an oversized '80s fur contraption somehow. Althea giggles more than twice.
A banal workroom session commences following another rip-roaring trip to Mood, and Tim Gunn reemerges to stop everyone from delivering confessionals about how "there's a lot of pressure this time."
Tim Gunn: "Irina, hello. Lovely to see you. Are you for real with this beaver fur? F*cking A, my dear. Looks like roadkill. But you know what? Go with it. It's L.A. In fact, thrash me and throw my remains on the mannequin. Christopher! Your existence is always an issue. Tell me about this look. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. OK, stop. Everything you describe sounds like a Candyland maypole party, and anyone with a beating heart can see this looks like a poor person's funeral. Good luck. Althea! This is a lot of look. You have a lot of work to do. Smiling isn't helping anyone. Carol-Hannah! Don't lose the elegance here! Yeah! And don't get lost in a circular room either. And as for you, Gordana... uh, Gordana? Are you... oh, no, you're crying. Go on, monologue us all."
Gordana: "The past is an ember, Tim. And it flickers. I saw it today in the judgmental eyes of the Getty staff, who stopped me from chewing the bumps on a picture frame. I see it in the judges, who have called me "Tremble Face" more times than is fair. And now I ignore them all and create a dress I am in love with. I mean this sincerely, since inanimate objects are friendly to me. I thought it first it was just a crush, but no, it's the real thing. You will see behind me I have fashioned a bouquet of spark plugs and detritus from a condemned toy factory. Love! I love this."
Tim: "Yep, it's a dress alright. To the runway!"
With the looks all completed, the designers log-roll out to their final judging, where Heidi introduces guest-judge Cynthia Rowley (score), Nina Garcia (who, at this point, is just a voice-operated Nina Garcia pinata that Bunim-Murray props up in a chair), and Cindy Crawford (I seriously applauded).
Well, the dresses were all iffy. Cindy Crawford remarks that Christopher doesn't understand that his dress is the wrong fabric, and Heidi calls it a jacked-up jean skirt. Irina's looks like the painting, but is dowdy. (Mysteriously, Irina's dowdy looks haven't been much discussed up to this point.) The judges call Carol-Hannah's a "safe perfection," which is overstating the matter so hard that Chloe Dao looks on from home and yells, "Psh, at least I used colors." Nina Garcia says that Gordana's dress is well-made, but it's not good enough to compensate for how she has no design aesthetic. I caterwaul like an infected dingo at this, because Nina hasn't seen half of Gordana's designs because she was at the store, or whatever. Althea's is called poorly constructed.
You called it, right? Althea, Irina, and Carol-Hannah are chosen to move onto Fashion Week (even though none of them is declared the winner), and Christopher and Gordana are chosen to cry about it. Christopher's auf-ing is expected, of course, but Gordana's diaphanous, layered dress deserved much more praise. In fact, it received praise, but the producers took one look at Gordana and realized she look nothing like a character from Sweet Valley High. "Time to Herzegohome-a!" cries Nina Garcia in victory.
There's nothing else to say. Fashion Week is coming, and our beloved isn't there. Tributes to Gordana can be paid in two ways: 1) Dunking one's face in an ashtray and having a childhood in it. That may seem too obvious. And 2) Talking out our feelings to our favorite inanimate object. No, Carol Hannah is not available. Sigh. What is?