Project Runway: Blue? Balls.

Won.

After two fun, exciting challenges (newspaper and movie genre) in a row, I guess it's not all that surprising that last night's Project Runway challenge would be a little... blah. Blue. Blue for Macy's. That was the theme. Make two blue outfits to sell at Macy's for some sort of clothing line called I.N.C. Fehhhh. It wasn't even a fun celebrity guest-judge. Just some blonde lady from, well, Macy's. And it was a team challenge. Ugh.

Though they at least mitigated our "Boo, team challenges mean fewer designs" sad faces by requiring ey'body to make two looks. They had to complement each other and be sellable for the Ink (we're gonna call it that from here on out) brand and, yes, they had to be all (or mostly) blue. The blonde frizzy-haired lady from Ink was talking about the color like it was the first time anyone had ever heard of it. "You can go from very pale and soft to a bright electric blue. Also there is a dark blue that is the color of sailors and beans. When you are suffocating or sad, you turn blue. And last but not least, sometimes my husband's bal--" And then she was interrupted by a clucking Tim Gunn who asked that all of the designers get their wits together and go pitch ideas to ol' frizz over there.

If Mrs. Frizzle picked your designs, it meant that you were a winner of life and got to pick from the losers of life. I wasn't really concerned with who won or lost beyond it being very, very important to me that Nicolas didn't win. It has become my mission in life to psychically will things to happen on a TV show that was taped a year ago. Let's see if it works! And hey, it seems to be working so far, as our little crumpet-faced Prince Valiant nogoodnik was indeed in the losers circle. On top were Irina, Daryl Hannah, Chrissy Minnesota, Althea, and Ouisie. Ouisie went with Frau Nicolas, Althea probably totally pissed of Daryl Hanna by picking Logan, Chrissy Minns helped Old Man Epperson up some steps and onto his team, Irina made Gordon pick her, and then Daryl was stuck with teeny tiny Shirin. I had never noticed how short this Shirin character is until last night. She's Olsen short. Maybe even shorter.

So with Team Leaders and Team Losers in place, everyone went back to the kitchen where Padma was waiting for them and there was a Quick Fire challenge. Everyone was really confused and just sorta stirred things and rattled pots and pans around to seem busy and eventually Padma blinked a few times and said "Oh my God..." Realizing she was in completely the wrong place, she skulked, embarrassed, off into the shadows.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED: Was that peeps went back and the slow beautiful kabuki drama that is I Hate My Partner began to unfold. Well, actually, it wasn't all that dramatic. Most of the folks seemed to work pretty well together, as it turned out. Of course Nicolas screwed up his dumb Francis Buxton face and said mean things about Ouisie's dresses when she wasn't looking. Because that's what he does. Nicolas believes that by sheer occlusion--by saying so much bad about everyone else's work that no one notices his own mistakesss--he'll distract from the fact that he, in fact, blows goats at fashion making, thus winning him the competition. It's a really good strategy that's often employed by small children. I guess it could probably work for grownups with witch-faces too.

Won too, electric (blue) boogaloo.

Let alone Nicolas' general nincompoopery, Ouisie was strugglin'. She doesn't really seem to manage pressure too well. At Mood she was so scatterbrained and busy trying to make sure her Helmet Wig stayed on straight that she lost her little envelope full of cash. So she bumbled around in her little Betty Boop bits and retraced her steps and finally she found it sitting under a pizza box or being held enthusiastically by a toothless, grinning old man or something. She ran to the front of the store with it (as best as she can run), and Tim just sorta put his head in his hands and said "A Project Runway first..." For a moment I started thinking about how awesome and weird it would be if because Ouisie lost her money, she couldn't buy any fabric. So she'd have to go back to the design room and collect people's scraps and maybe have to take off her own clothes to use them in the design. A slow striptease. The saddest burlesque.

Back in the fashion mines, everyone was zipping away on their garments. Gordon and some of the other girls took some more time out of their day to talk to the camera about how good looking Logan is. And, you know what, I've sort of been unpleasantly teetering on the brink of agreeing with that sentiment and last night I just threw my hands up and gave in. Fucker's cute. And he's a talented fashion designer. He's a little ridiculous as a human being, but whatever. Swoon away. So that was kind of funny, that everyone--girls and boys--has a crush on Logan. And he probably knows it, which is less fun. I'm sincerely hoping that there will be some sort of romance showdown between Daryl Hannah and Althea for his affections. That's never happened on the PR before! And hell, it's in its sixth season and it's on goddarned Lifetime, so why not throw in the sexy kitchen sink? The network doesn't have anything to lose, really. Except the millions of dollars it spent poaching the program from Bravo. Except those millions and millions of dollars. Sigh.

So anyway, I'm stalling. Mostly because nothing terribly interesting happened during the whole design fracas. Everyone was tired. Gordon and Irina didn't really get on that well, and Tim wasn't thrilled when he saw their looks, so that seemed like a potential for disaster. "Gordon's going home," I thought to myself, watching alone. (My kitten didn't even want to watch with me.) It seemed like a perfect setup for that to happen: Give frontrunner Irina a little jolt by having her in the bottom, and while you're at it get rid of the increasingly heavy dead weight of the Gordon's Fisherman anchor. So is that what happened? You'll have to wait and see!

No it was not what happened. There you go.

It was time for the runwayyyyyyy. There was a frenzy of blue everywhere. Althea's fetching blue ladysuit! Ouisie's ruffled blue sadnesses! Nicolas' creepily translucent, blue-vein-tinted face, haunting us! Everyone tromped up into their viewing chairs and, oh my goodness, what was that orange glow cutting through all of the cold blue light like a lighthouse in a nautical themed gay discotheque? It was Michael Kors! Ohhhh Korsy, you're back. You magnificent, crazy bastard. How we've missed you. Sorry that you couldn't bring Nina along with you, but we'll take what we can get. Korsy. Michael Kors. All lovely there. Beautiful orange man. Delight.

So with our awesomest judge firmly in place, Heidi clapped her hands and fired a pistol into the air, killing a sound guy in the booth, and the show was off and running. Irina and Gordon's garments were nice looking but pretty simple. Shirin and Daryl Hannah made one outfit that was kind of nice and another that was like, really gross with a form-fitting tunic and leggings and ew. Chrissy Minnesota and Old Man Epperson, smoking his pipe and talking about rutebegas, sent down a shirt dress that I thought was sort of chouette at first, but it had this shiny fabric that made it look plastic. It sort of looked like Barbie clothes, actually. They also did a little blue bell pepper of a thing that managed to look both babyish and matronly at the same time. Young lovers Althea and Logan made a really tight miniskirt that bunched and rode up, but their second look, a wide-legged jean and a little top, were perfect and fun in a Laura Bennet/Katherine Hepburn: Lesbian Sailor of the Seven Seas kind of way. Ouisie made ruffles. Ouisie made ruffles and no one liked it.

Loofa, Lost.

In the end, the bottoms were the risk-takers and the tops were the ones who played it safe. Hah. That, uh... yeah. Anyway! Fashion! Because the challenge was to design for a Macy's ladybrand, simple, as it turns out, was the name of the game. Irina and Gordon were tops for their simple blue work dress and their patterned summer party frock. And Daryl Hannah and Shirin scored, surprisingly (though, when considering the brand, not that surprisingly), with their tunic and leggings mess. The bottom teams were sort of expected too. Ouisie pleased no one with her Blue Fantasia on Ruffly Themes and Chrissy and Ol' Epp over there had a distinct lack of what Nina Garcia (who is missing and presumed dead, Korsy informed us last night) would call taste level. Korsy was in a grand form insulting these losahs, even though he hardly knows them now. (Which sucks. I hate that there aren't consistent judges who can get to know a designer's eye. Instead it's all random. I blame that for Ra'mon's early exit last week.) Korsy called Ouisie's ruffles a shower loofa and, snarf, Chrissy Minnesota's little bulb dress "a disco pumpkin." Ohhhh disco pumpkin! That's what they used to call Korsy in the '70s. Because pumpkins are orange!

While he was getting criticized, poor little Chrissy broke down in wee tears and sniffles and snuffles and snarffles. And I suppose I could have felt bad for him, in the reflexive way we feel bad for anyone who's crying, but... Meh. I found it funny and annoying instead. Funny because I wanted to yell at the TV "Who shoulda gone to college now, huh?????" And annoying because dude's won like two challenges and gotten lots of praise. He can't take one week of knocks without weeping like a schoolgirl? Pah. He's not cut out for this racket if that's the case. Old Man Epperson just looked befuddled and warily sipped his sarsaparilla juice, but it was OK because he was safe. Nicolas was safe too, but only because he had immunity. Heidi repeatedly made him aware of this little fact, which was wonderful, because it indicated to me that Heidi too hates the mincing blintz. She and I are so similar. She hates Nicolas, I hate Nicolas. She's from Germany, I went there once. She's married to Seal, I've just started on my illustrious career of being a lonely cat person. It's like we're twins! We should be friends.

Irina's ugly butterfly frock. Buy it now!

Sadly, Ouisie will be friends with no one. For she is going home. This makes sense. I mean, she made some good stuff in the beginning, I guess, but none of it was terribly exciting. Plus, personality wise, she was a complete wet noodle. Just nothing there but a Hair Helmet wig collection and a vague sense that if Mary Wickes could pull off that face in the '40s, Ouisie'd get a similar haircut and try it in the aughts. Sad. Goodbye, shapeless Ouisie! We hardly knew ye. Seriously, I know nothing about ye. Oh, and Irina won so she got to design a dress for Macy's that turned out ugly. It's pictured on the right.

And then there were nine! Almost half are gone. Just a few souls remain with haunted eyes, staggering around like the undead, if zombies made fashions. And somewhere down at the bottom of a steep embankment, Nina Garcia is lying trapped in the crumpled metal heap of her car. She wills herself to press on and live for another day by telling herself "Must... get... to Project Runway..." We hope they find her soon. We really hope they do. We miss her. Don't you miss her, Korsy?

Oh he's off somewhere spackling tanner onto his thick hide, humming a Disco Pumpkins song to himself. But I'm sure he does miss her. You can tell when you see him, just by looking at him. If you don't hurt your eyes first, that is. Oh Korsy!