Project Runway Recap: SOS in NYC!

Five designers remain -- and a couple of them you actually like! That Mondo kid for example. He dresses like a toddler who's auditioning for the Happy Hands Preschool performance of Cabaret. And then April! She's a saucy, monotone chica we'd want to have mimosas with. Faboo! Then there are the others. Ahem! Let's break down this week's NY-loving episode and try to cope with its climactic idiocy.

Immediately after the last elimination, Heidi surprises the remaining five designers and tells them to enjoy themselves, sit in a hotel room together and chat over champagne. What a dream vacation this is. Oh, Gretchen! Pass the bubbly and share more of your non-jokes about being better than us! Michael C., hit us with some self-victimization! Let's have a toast! Clank! Oh, Mondo, I can hardly hear your self-satisfied whines over all of this fun. Let's get naked.

The good times end fast. Soon the designers are assembled on an NYC rooftop and staring off at Tim and his unidentified friend for the next prompt.

"Designers, I'm pleased to welcome Mayor Bloomberg!" Tim cries.

Oh, that's who that is, the other designers think. He was at the Macy's Parade underneath the Spongebob float behind Tinsley Mortimer, I think.

Bloomberg unleashes the challenge: Design something inspired by New York. Right, because we haven't seen that challenge in seasons one, two, five, and probably most others. Oh well. Mondo, Gretchen, Michael C., Andy, April, and Gretchen end up in different corners of the city, snapping pictures of famous landmarks for the challenge. Gretchen ventures to the Lower East Side where people understand her, Michael C. is the least original human being on the planet and picks the Statue of Liberty, April and Mondo choose the Brooklyn bridge, and Andy loves "the lines" in Central Park, so he tries there. I hope Andy knows there are lines around him at all times. His dream of a line-filled world is a reality and he should know it.

But enough of this tired exercise in "inspiration." Let's get deep and parse Gretchen's selfless, intellectual musings.

"Michael C. reminds me of what I was like five years ago," she says. "I replicated a lot of the things that I liked because it was the only way I could learn."

Ordinarily I might applaud such an observation, but the way Gretchen phrases it, you know she's thinking, "I haven't said anything 'mean' here. I stayed diplomatic. I'm still a good person." You might've noticed the phrase, "I'm still a good person" sums up much of Gretchen's stank entitlement. It's on her family's coat of arms. Her ancestors fought for that condescension and she keeps it in a locket over her heart.

But wait, here's more Gretchen wisdom (Grisdom):

"Andy likes to stay on this side of slutty [with his designs]," she says, now motioning at the skimpy black number he's created. "She looks like someone you'd pay big bucks to spank you."

Oh, ahehehehahaha, Gretchen, you're right. He makes prostitute clothes. And you make clothes for urbane, library-loving women who wear fancy long boots. I see what you're getting at here: You think you're better than Andy. Right. Ahem: Very good guess, but no. Andy's clothes are exciting, and yours are tan. There's really not much to say about it.

Eventually (after an interminable sequence of Garnier Fructis product placement) the final designs hit the runway to the delight of quail-coiffed guest judge Cristian Siriano, who proves himself an astute commentator straight away. Let's break down the five designs and decide (more importantly) who said the funniest things about each of them.

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