"True Beauty" Recap

It's the return of the bait-and-switch reality show! You THINK you're here to marry a millionaire, but you're really here to meet a broke-ass, inadequately-background-checked schlub in hopes our cameras catch you being a slutty gold-digger! You THINK you're here to compete for the title of "the most beautiful person in America," but you're really here to undergo some vague tests of your ethics and character while the producers prompt you to talk about how hot you think you are as much as possible!

Lame. I know. But it's produced by Tyra Banks and Ashton Kutcher, which means I totally watched it. I mean, the camp factor should be through the roof! And maybe there will be crying! And people getting Punk'd!

First of all, neither Tyra nor Ashton are actually on the show, which is a shame, kind of. Tyra would make a way better host/judge than blandy-bland Vanessa Minnillo, and I found the "tests" they put contestants through to be pretty lame on the Punk'd scale. (A waiter spills drinks on them. They go to a fakey pseudo-sciencey bullshit "doctor" who measures beauty via a scientific formula, then leave them in a room with everyone elses' "charts" to see who peeks, and then acted like this was some kind of awful breach of HIPAA, or something. Oh, and who will hold the door open for the lowly production assistant carrying a lot of coffee? DUN DUN DUUUUUN.)

No, like all low-rent reality shows, this one is gonna succeed or fail based on how good of a job the casting people did. So let's have a look:

First up there's Laura, a swimsuit model, who announces that she likes to command attention. This means she will get the least amount of camera time in the first episode of anyone, save for a scene where she admits she doesn't know how to wash dishes by hand. She is very pretty, but wears a fucking gingham-and-denim high-waisted Daisy Duke outfit with a matching fucking bow later on, and is now dead to me.

Next is Billy. He owns a vitamin store and is a Chippendale dancer. He has very creepy eyes that everyone compliments constantly even though they are creepy. He is also 31, which is old. OLD. OLD OLD OLD. BLAH BLAH OLD. Shut up, show.

Then there's Monique, who is a "natural beauty." This means she has short hair. She has a degree in biology but is a "club dancer." Moving on.

Joel. Joel develops software and works out. Mostly he works out. He calls out one of the girls for being a total fucking bitch (SPOILER!) later on, though, and it's awesome, because she is indeed a total fucking bitch (SHOCKING SPOILER!).

Julia is a pageant queen from Texas who blinks and smiles and nods earnestly a lot, like that extra in all the group shots in Office Space. The other girls think she's fake because "no one is that nice." I CALL PLANT.

Ray is "cocky" and thinks women like "cocky." I think maybe he looked up "confident" in a really bad thesaurus and was led astray at some point in his life.

Ashley talks about how much her clothes are worth, from her entire wardrobe ($100,000) to the clothing she brought with her to the show ($30,000) to the dress she's wearing at any given moment ($1,500). So basically...ugh.

Then there's CJ, who is a barista. But he's a barista with feeeeeelings that he writes as free-form poety in his joooooooouuuurnal. He has feelings, you see, because he used to be FAT. He gets into some fakey drama with judge Cheryl Tiegs because he thinks the whole "beauty as a quantifiable formula" thing is bullshit, which...it is, even on the show, but Cheryl is shocked -- SHOCKED -- that he would be so rude to call them on it. Cheryl actually seems pretty shocked by everything the contestants do, but that could just be her permanent expression these days, you know?

CJ's feeeeeeeelings are so powerful, by the way, that he makes Chelsea cry, even though she claims the last time she cried was over a year ago at her grandmother's funeral. Chelsea also claims that she used to be fat too, and then immediately goes all high school mean girl on everybody else in the house. Joel calls her out for being a total fucking bitch, she makes a hilarious face that I'm still laughing at when she tries to come up with a super-biting comeback, but since she only communicates through passive-aggressive back-stabbing, she has absolutely nothing to say in the face of such directness except for a "Well, like, whatever" and a petulant arm crossing. She goes on and on about how gorgeous she is and...honey pie, I don't really see it. Rode hard and put away wet, you know? Maybe take a gallon of eye makeup remover and a vat of hot oil treatments and call me in the morning when you REMOTELY resemble the Photoshopped-to-hell promo photo at the top of this post. Chelsea genuinely seems like a terrible person, which makes for excellent TV, and she rightly ends up in the bottom two with...

Hadiyyah-Lah. That is not pronounced at all like it's spelled, if that helps. I honestly think it might be MISSING some vowels. Hadiyyiyiyah-Lah announces that she is perfect, sobs when the "doctor" tell her she's not because her cheekbones aren't symmetrical or something, swears that she "doesn't care!" while sobbing and sobbing, and repeatedly assures everybody that she KNOWS she's beautiful, all the time completely melting down because it was suggested that she is not the most beautiful being on the planet, but maybe more like the seventh most beautiful, ohmigod!

The bottom two are given one last secret test to redeem themselves -- the aforementioned production assistant with coffee set-up. Chelsea gets impatient while watching the guy fumble with the door and finally opens it for him and lets him go in first. This supposedly means her heart is not three sizes too small, I guess. Hadiyyyyyah-Lalahlah also opens the door, but pushes past him and (maybe, possibly, editing makes it hard to tell) lets the door close on him. This seals her doom. Chelsea is told she is safe but kept in the dark about the show's true agenda, while Hadiwhatever-Lah is shown footage of what an awful person she is. Awkward!

She tries very hard to defend herself as NOT being an awful person...while basically behaving like an awful person who finally throws a peace sign and an "I'm out" and huffs off, shaking her precious little hot ass and flipping her hair while my husband and I were both like, "Bitch, you better hope your name isn't super Google-able 'cause you're never living this down OH WAIT NEVER MIND."

Then two janitor types come and pull Hadiiiiyah-Yah's portrait off the wall and toss it in a dumpster. The end. It's...not a good show, and I hate myself a little for admitting that I'll watch it again. But that's okay, because Chelsea makes me feel like a really wonderful person, inside and out.