Project Runway: Gunn and Heid
September 3, 2015 11:45 PM - Season 14, Episode 5 - Subscribe

The designers start out with paintball guns and grudges in a group challenge that's gender-split and quickly goes downhill. Kelly Osbourne is the guest judge.

Blake picks Swapnil and Candice doesn't pick Ashley. Things don't get better. (Or if you watch Project Runway for the drama, time to get settled in and get some popcorn going!)
posted by dorothyisunderwood (18 comments total)
 
I really wanted the four white girls to be voted out together, but I wondered if this wasn't a bit staged. Either way it made me a bit ill.
posted by cairnoflore at 12:10 AM on September 4, 2015


I'm really hoping it was staging but then the final judging scene on the runway couldn't have been cut much and that was flat out harsh - they went "Let's stick together", and turned on Ashley viciously. None of them took responsibility for not being team players - especially Amanda! It was always someone else's fault that she wasn't doing well, never any shred of possibility that maybe she hadn't done her best or was unpleasant or was difficult... So glad Amanda got booted.

Interesting that there were no shots of the judges' deliberations at all. They didn't show any discussions about the decisions, only the judges' reactions to the pieces on the catwalk which were hilarious - eyerolling and grimaces to the max. But they couldn't show any of the actual discussion, I presume because they talked frankly about the race, gender and body issues that led to the nasty infighting in the groups.

Blake irritates me, but I think he may possibly be a Machiavellian genius farm boy. That, or he is the fashion equivalent of Kenneth Parcell.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:26 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Every season I say "I'm done with this show" and every season I come back.

Blake's constant "I'm a dumb farm boy, tee-hee" schtick is super-annoying, but not as annoying as the fact that he finds it and himself totally adorable.

Laurie was the only dang adult on the mess that was the girls' team. I'm giving Ashley a pass for this week because it bites to be in that situation, but she needs to work through it, not let herself get caught up in her feelings. (I speak from experience here!) She could have used that emotional energy on creating a better skirt.

I am sure the mean girl clique learned nothing from this episode, except to not say stuff when Laurie is around.

How they could look over at the boys+Merline's collection and not see it was a billion times better in every possible way is baffling. The boys worked together to lift everyone up, to highlight everyone's best skills, and to have commonly-agreed upon patterns. People who didn't work well together got along great, and they had a strong plan.

Right now, I'm guessing the final 3 is Edmond, Swapnil, and Ashley, but I wouldn't be surprised to see an all-dude Final 3.
posted by julen at 5:24 AM on September 4, 2015


Did Mood cut back on how much they were willing to sponsor or something. Why have they only visited the fabric store once this season?
posted by drezdn at 6:54 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


The boys+Merline wisely decided to limit their color palette to blue and then they doubled down by painting a darker accent in the same color. As soon as the other team started flinging every fricking color paintball onto their cloth resulting in that washed out pastel mess, I knew they were doomed. They weren't a cohesive group but they could've salvaged something until then.

I was surprised at the Candace edit, after all she and Ashley won a couple weeks ago and they were made to look like the perfect team. She's beginning to get the Gretchen edit now. My guess is she knew she should've picked Ashley right away but she didn't and then no one else did so she felt guilty and you know how you resent someone who makes you feel guilty? Since she took on the role of team leader, it colored the whole group experience. No one else stepped up with a vision. It's sad because they had ALL THIS TIME, which we beg for, and produced such shitty work.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:18 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


This episode felt super scripted to me. A paintball challenge and Ashley just happens to be really good at paintball? Essentially the movie Mean Girls to the point where Blake actually mentions it? I dunno; this had the stink of producer interference all over it.
posted by wittgenstein at 4:33 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Where were you when the world stopped turning
On that September day?
Ashley and Candace are no longer friends
And one of them almost went away.
Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that purple
Or Tim Gunn's paintballin' tie?
Did you shout out for Laurie, hate the editors' story,
Or did you just sit down and cry?
posted by phunniemee at 7:10 PM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


There is no point in me favoriting answers in this thread because I agree with everything everybody has said. Ashley should have have quit moping about being picked last, Candice needed to step back during the construction days and to step up and take responsibility for the mess on the runway, as she took the lead position. All of the rest of the girls should have realized that they needed to make a collection and that required planning and co-operation, not doing their own thing. Good on Laurie for speaking up about the state of affairs in the workroom. And if they used all the white fabric making ugly pastel pastiches, where did the white fabric for the top come from?

But beyond all that, the paintball thing had me talking back to the TV. It made absolutely no sense. I've never played, but isn't the whole point that once you're hit, you're out (or at least hit in a "fatal" location)? They kept getting hit, and kept coming. And if your whole goal is to guard your fabrics from an unarmed team, shouldn't you take up position in front of the fabric barrel and surround it? And if you really wanted to screw the opposing team over, wouldn't you start shooting the fabric in order to ruin it once the other team managed to get their hands on it? Okay, I understand that the true purpose was to create paint-spattered jumpsuits, but that was the stupidest way to go about doing it that TV executives could conceive of--at least until next season. Every week it just gets worse and worse.
posted by sardonyx at 10:59 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yayyyy Laurie, her stock just went up like 5000 points in my book. Also the first time all season the *akes have been remotely likeable.

My first thought was that some producer leaned on Candice about how Amanda was bottom two twice, don't you feel baaaad for her, you should try to help her out, etc., and then turned around and twisted the knife when talking to Ashley, like, wow, she didn't pick you even though you won together, do you think that means something?
posted by en forme de poire at 12:04 AM on September 5, 2015


Although Tom and Lorenzo speculate that Laurie was actually the one stirring the whole pot with that sotto voce conversation, so she could pre-emptively get Ashley on her side and throw the rest of them under the bus. Dunno if I buy it (particularly since as they admit, Ashley's garment was far from the worst, so I don't know why they would have picked her otherwise...), but an interesting theory!

Also, the men's collection came out kind of like the Jazz Cup does the 1950s, which I thought was pretty fun.
posted by en forme de poire at 12:34 AM on September 5, 2015


I've spent way too much time thinking about this--at least 15 minutes--and once it was apparent that the women's team was going down (after they screwed up their fabric), they knew someone was going to be auf'd, so why not pick the actual talent threat that stood in their mediocre way? This was aside from Ashley feeling othered for being picked last but the camera editing deftly intertwined the two stories. Were all Ashley's suggestions shot down? Or were the scenes cut to look that way? Dammit, don't make me rewatch this episode.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:50 AM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


The women were at a disadvantage, what with how their jumpsuits looked after the game. Instead of blotches of vibrant color, it was all washed out, pastel pinks and purples. What can you do when you have to work with a color scheme Barbie would turn her nose up at?

Not that I'm saying that excuses them, or that they didn't have plenty of opportunity to reshape the colors they had to work with... But the jumpsuit fabric really did start out ugly and washed out.
posted by meese at 6:50 AM on September 5, 2015


Have these ladies never watched Project Runway? On a team challenge all you have to do is pick one stupid obvious theme and do it. Blue! 50s! go!

Didn't you just want an interview where Ashley just looked into the camera and said "oh my god, these bitches!" and then turned out something amazing?! Then on the runway she could just gesture at the rest of them and say "I didn't choose this team." SHRUG!

Even though she didn't exactly pull that off, I still believe she is that person!
posted by palegirl at 1:59 PM on September 5, 2015


Even though she didn't exactly pull that off, I still believe she is that person!

I am a fat woman... And, as a fat woman, living in a society who constantly tries to tell me what it means to be a fat woman, I'm reluctant to try to guess what being a fat woman means for some other fat woman, but... I think it is very important, in understanding how this episode went down, that she is a large woman in an environment that is aimed at extremely thin women, and every other woman in her group is either thin or average weight.

I, like you, believe she is that person. I, like you, really wanted her to find the strength to write them all off and be her amazing self despite their awfulness. But, I think, there was a whole lot of subtext in this episode about body image and how women are judged based on their weight. I mean, I think. Again: I don't know actually know what she thought or felt during that time. I'm only guessing, based on how I would have thought and felt.
posted by meese at 2:38 PM on September 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


dorothyisunderwood: But they couldn't show any of the actual discussion, I presume because they talked frankly about the race, gender and body issues that led to the nasty infighting in the groups.

Do we really think this is the case? I agree that there was incredible subtext throughout this ep regarding these topics and that they should have been talked about. But were they really discussed by the judges?

I also think:
a. Candace wasn't just trying to build up Amanda, she def picked her because they were friends.
b. It actually would have been good strategy to try to eliminate Ashley because she is strong competition - but no one overtly said that, making it look even more like a race/size/girl clique issue.
c. Though I'm sure she is genuinely nice (without having to bring race into it), I don't think it was a coincidence that Laurie told Ashley about the throwing under the bus thing. Like, WOC to WOC, heads up, these white girls are not as sweet as they try to come off.

This whole thing was super uncomfortable. Painful to watch.
posted by bobobox at 5:38 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I hate Lindsey. And I cannot get the vision of her as Taylor Swift with Acute Severe Bitchface out of my head. Great bangs, though. Those are some Zooey Doeschenal level bangs; I would not recognize her without them.

Goodbye and good riddance Amanda. Nobody is buying it when you cry that you weren't the worst one when you've been in the bottom for weeks on end. It looked like nobody but her Girl Squad rose to hug her goodbye at the end. Everybody else was probably just, meh.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:17 PM on September 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Heck yeah that was uncomfortable. This show makes me uncomfortable most of the time these days, but like some of you I just keep watching.

The right person was sent home at least. But I did like Candace and Kelly and now I do not, though I am willing to re-evaluate next episode.

Blake's surprising sort-of-defense of Ashley raised his stock out of the gutter, but just.

I hope Swapnil wins soon. It must be frustrating to be second repeatedly.
posted by Glinn at 7:21 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


But I did like Candace and Kelly and now I do not, though I am willing to re-evaluate next episode.

I thought it was ...interesting? that Laurie called out (in her private convo with Ashley) that Amanda and Lindsey and Candice were scheming together, but nothing was said about Kelly on either side, so I am kind of curious where she ended up in the whole situation.
posted by psoas at 11:22 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


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