Project Runway Junior: S1 E10 "Finale Part 2"

10 episodes, 13 weeks, one winner. And with that, Project Runway Junior crowns 14 year old Maya as it's first winner. There's a poetry to the fact the she show's youngest contestant becomes its first champion. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't ecstatic over this news, or that I was all that surprised by it; I've been calling for a Maya victory for months now, but there's still something magical about it. Maya had the skill, the vision, and, towards the end of the competition, the confidence to make for a solid choice of victor. Which isn't to take anything away from the others finalists who all truly deserved to have made it to this point in the competition. But Maya stated running away with this thing when she started earning multiple wins towards the end of the competition.

In truth, I was worried about the quality of the finale episode after watching last week's entry. Not that a lot of the family stuff wasn't interesting and compelling to watch. There's something innately special about seeing young LGBT kids (namely Zachary at the expense of making too bold an assumption) being loved and supported by their families. I don't know if anyone else is watching this season of American Crime, if you aren't you should be because it's been seriously amazing, but it's been a bit full of less than positive reactions to young people coming out as gay or questioning. On the one hand, it's a bit silly to think that this is still a problem in 2016, but on the other hand, it is a reality some people have to face, and it's sometimes hard to watch as a result. But that's not been the case on PRJR, and that's great.

But with that being said, the quality of the designs we saw in the workroom and on the runway simply wasn't up to snuff last time around. On top of that, there was an exceptional amount of work still to be done before the contestants would even be ready to show at NYFW. Even while watching this episode, I was struggling to remember a time when just this must scrambling and finishing was needed to get a complete collection to show. And that's with ten looks being shown, never mind the fact that these kids only had six. But they pulled it out, and I guess that's all that matter.

From the start, it was clear that Maya had the least amount of work to do to get her collection ready. She's worried about the judges' comments that maybe she should go a little harder on the yellow and add some more color to her collection, but by the time Tim is visiting later in the episode, he's assuring her that she needn't worry about that so much. It shows just how good she is at this stage of things.

Meanwhile, everyone else is scrambling to fix existing pieces and just create whole new pieces from scratch. To help them along with that, they're given an extra $250 each and a trip to Mood. This benefits the other designers much more than it does Maya who grabs some bright yellow fabric she'll end up not using. Samantha latches on to Christian's comment about needing more color, and seems to latch even more firmly onto the idea that that color should be red. She's got tunnel vision towards finding the right red fabric, and I couldn't help but to wonder if the exclusion of finding another color that could work just as well wouldn't be to the detriment of her collection. Meanwhile, Peytie and Zachary are each scraping looks and making drastic changes to other looks, so they're more in the market for fabric selection.

Back in the workroom, the only story worth really focusing on is the mountain of work ahead of Samantha. At multiple times, she checks in and lists off the sheer number of pieces she still has to complete. At one point in time, I think it was shorts, a dress, pants, and multiple crop tops in the red fabric she's only just acquired. And she's got to do all that in two days with model fittings and meeting with Tim at some point. I won't lie, I doubted she'd get it all done. I thought for sure that at multiple points in the collection she'd have no choice but to lessen her ambition and choose easier and quicker pieces to throw together.

Not to be out done, Zachary also has a number of pieces to finish and no idea how he'll go about accomplishing his task. Peytie's making changes, but other than scraping her orange and gold look for something totally new, her edits seem small and almost superficial. Maya is on a perfect pace until the model fitting when she finds that all of her models have exceptionally long midriffs and none of her shirts fit. The model fitting arrives on the last day before NYFW, so she spends all of her first day thinking she doesn't have much to do and then is hit with the reality that she's just as busy as the others by the time the second day comes around. It's a panic inducing moment, but to her credit, she keeps an even head and just moves forward with what she has to do.

By the time we're ready for the show, most everything is done and somehow they've all pulled it out. I maintain that some part of this is due to the fact that they seem to thrive under the pressure of the competition. When they go home and have time on their hands, they produce substandard work. When they're in the workroom with Tim looking over their shoulders and the other designers to hold them accountable for what they're doing, they seem to surge with energy. There's a lot of talk in this episode about how these kids represent just how strong the future of fashion is, and on the whole, I agree with that. But in the micro, I can't help but to wonder. These kids are talented as shit, but if this seeming lackadaisical attitude towards work you have to do when you have the relaxed time to do it is something that persists, should we maybe bee a bit more concerned? At the very least, their talent more than speaks for itself out on the runway.

The Runway:

Maya: WOW! Talk about a WOW factor and putting on a show. My jaw was on the floor. I think the first and fourth looks stand out the most as they aren’t in keeping with the traditional white and structured on top, black and flowy on bottom cut that she’s got throughout the collection. I love that for cohesion, but I do think I would have liked to see one look that was the inverse of it: black and structured on top, white and flowy on bottom. But with that being said, I think this collection showcases who she is, and details her theme and vision perfectly, and I love it. 

Samantha: This collection is odd to me. It starts off ridiculously strong, and then starts to fall apart with the fourth look--which I don't hate outright, but I certainly don't think it fits in with the collection at all. The same girl isn't wearing this dress as the one wearing the significantly better one before it. The fifth look isn’t bad, but it doesn’t stand out enough to rebound from the let down that the fourth look was, and I don’t find her final look to be as strong as what came before it. I think the red works wonders to break up the color palette and make it all pop more. And I think her styling is the best we'll see. That third look she sent down is 100% what I’ve been looking for from her all season long, and she whipped it out at just the right time. But I think she put her looks in the wrong order. If she had just reversed it and went from back to front, it would have been a much better show. 

Zachary: In a contrast to Samantha’s collection, I do think that Zachary’s elevates as things go on. I find his first looks to be pretty but a little simple and not really eye popping. But the more you go on, the more that changes. Until you hit the third look which is nothing if not interesting, the fourth look which is beautiful, and the fifth look which is the best of the collection (maybe of all the collections) and the one thing that truly took my breath away. But back to the third look for a minute; this is where you see the problem with the eye glasses addition thing. On everyone before this girl, the glasses were either so natural that they didn’t stand out at all, as with Maya’s collection, or the most perfect addition to the collection, as with Samantha’s. On Zachary’s girl, they feel horribly discordant and out of place and, thusly, were too noticeable. He either needed to choose different frames, or put them on a different model. As a whole, I don’t think his collection was as strong as it could have been, but the standout pieces really do stand out in all the best ways. 

Peytie: I think the very best thing you can say about Peytie’s collection is that it’s 100% her. She and Samantha both have voices that are totally unique and particular to themselves. I don’t love this because it doesn’t fit my personal aesthetic, but I’m so very happy it exists. I do love the choice to cut up the pieces of leather her sister drew on to make the fringe; that was a smart way to make those two pieces pop while still being cohesive. I like the beaded pieces more here than I did on the last runway. I also think she chose the right piece to end on, and her fifth piece was amazing as well.

In the post runway interviews, which if I'm being honest have always been one of my favorite aspects of the finale since they seem to have such an easy time finding someone to remark on how much they favored each collection, I think it's Jaxson that says the decision is really between Maya and Samantha, and I couldn't agree with him more. Peytie and Zachary make a nice showing from themselves, but the truth is that neither of their collections are as strong as Maya and Samantha's ended up being. 

The section of the episode that was the judges and contestants chatting pales in comparison to the judge's deliberation. They talk about each collection in depth and you can see just how tough of a decision this is going to be. Hannah's redundant points about how much younger Zachary's collection ended up being annoy me. But to be honest, I find Hannah to be the most useless judge in this one. She doesn't like Maya's capes, she says this is the first time she's seen stuff from Samantha that she'd actually wear, and isn't a big fan of Peytie's aesthetic. Clearly, Hannah has very particular tastes and can't see beyond them. In the same way Heidi's constantly judging pieces by whether she'd wear them or not annoys me, Hannah's remarks annoy me here. 

Everyone else seems to get at the heart of the issues. The debates about Samantha's versatility and Maya's lack of actual yellow are fairly interesting. Pointing out that we've seen that jacket from Samantha ten times this season is what I'd been waiting for them to say all season long. It's fine since it's a nice coat and she clearly has a very specific point of view with it, but seriously, you have to have more in your arsenal than that. I'm less in agreement about the general lack of yellow in Maya's collection and feeling like her insistence on her theme of "Warrior woman in yellow flowers" somehow detracts from what the collection is, but I can at least understand what they're saying. 

In the end, Zachary goes and is quickly followed by Peytie, leaving the only real top two based on the collections. And Maya gets the well deserved victory. As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of talk about how bright the future of fashion is based on these kids, but more importantly, I think the future of PR JR might be equally weird. This first season showcased more talent than I think anyone could have expected from the show. It showed that teenagers are mentally and physically capable of handling the stress that tends to come with this show. And it created the very best group of judges and hosts that it could. Keeping Tim Gunn on as mentor proved to be the best decision and I think will be the quintessential aspect of the show's success going forward. I think you can either take Hannah Davis or leave her, but there's something special about the combination of Kelly, Christian, and Aya that I think the other PR spinoffs simply haven't been able to tap into. If they can manage to find another group of young designers this talented and with this much personality, I don't see why this can't be the first of many seasons for Project Runway Junior.

Loose Threads:

--Tim says bye to Swatch when they leave Mood, but we don't get a shot of everyone's favorite fashion pup. Either way, at this point each mention of Swatch is a gift. 

--During the runway, the camera seemed to keep cutting to two really cute guys in the audience. One seemed to be there with Sonjia (maybe her boyfriend?) and the other was sitting next to Sean (maybe his boyfriend?) Either way, I didn't recognize them, but I couldn't help but to wonder if the camera person didn't have something of a crush on them. 

--Thanks for sitting through my blathering about this show all season to those of you that did. It turned out to be a lot more fun than I anticipated. I'll admit to low expectations heading in to this season since I've never been able to get more than an episode into a PR spinoff without wanting to shoot myself, but this turned out to be great. I won't be covering PR All Stars, so baring someone else wanting to tackle that, I'll see you all back here later this year for another season of Project Runway.

Project Runway Junior: S1 E7 "#OOTD"

I complained last week that PR JR chose the wrong episode to air after a hiatus. I stand by that observation more than ever after this week's episode. Because this week epitomizes what I think is brilliant about this show while also serving to raise the stakes even higher. It's those stakes, honestly high already, that have been the main selling point for PR JR thus far. I've mentioned multiple times before that the biggest difference between this show and it's adult predecessor is the manner in which everything feels heightened. We can feel more astutely for these kids than we tend to for the more jaded and cynical adults on the other show. Someone goes home here each week, and each week there are tears both by the person going home and by those they're leaving behind. This is because this competition just seems to matter more and to carry so much more weight than the other one.

This week, the kids meet Tim and Aya at Mood to get ready for the Seventeen Magazine challenge. They're tasked with going out into the streets of New York and talk to people whose outfit inspires them to create their own editorial look fit for a spread in Seventeen Magazine. Obviously, the winning look will be featured in the magazine at some point. The hard part, of course, is getting jaded New Yorkers to talk to you. There was something fun about seeing the kids run around the streets trying, failing, and succeeding at talking to people. It was also a lot of fun to listen to their line of questioning to people they talked to. Finding out what factors were considered in the making of the decision on what to wear, and drawing inspiration from that was really fun to watch.

Samantha and Maya show themselves as best prepared to handle that aspect of the challenge. The edit shows each of them finding someone who's look inspires them and who is willing to talk to them almost right off. For Samantha, it's this manual laborer who's wearing stained and well worn cargo pants. The pants are clearly utilitarian in nature with pockets all over them, but Samantha sees beauty in them, and I can't blame her. Maya talks to a couple women in multi-layered looks, each of whom is heading to work. She quickly decides on a kind of new style look dedicated to someone who works in a non-traditional kind of office.

Jaxson, with his adorable nerdish outlook and mannerisms, doesn't fare too well. He finds women with styles he's interested in, but the edit focuses on how many people ignore him and walk right by before he finally finds someone who will agree to stop and hear him out. When he does finally find someone, he's impressed by the sleeves of her jacket, but he doesn't seem to have the same kind of fire and passion as the others do.

Back at Mood, Jaxson picks a faux fur and a loud yellow neoprene fabric. When Tim sees the two of them together, he urges Jaxson to get a supplemental plain white fabric just to be on the safe side. Meanwhile, Zachary has this idea to use necktie fabric to make his top, and it's something that sounds bold and interesting.

The workroom goes about as you'd expect. Some of them know what they're doing and get right to work, a few people scratch looks and start all over. Jaxson sees that his fur simply doesn't want to cooperate with his ideas and is thanking the gods that Tim convinced him to get the other fabric.

Tim comes in and is concerned for Jaxson's ideas, Peytie's pants, Zach's entire look, and how mature Zachary's look is for what is meant to be the Seventeen Magazine challenge. He's not wrong about that, but that's also too bad because I thought Zachary's look on the dressform was truly breathtaking. After seeing just how much Peytie and Jaxson are struggling with their fabric selection, Tim decides to open up Mini Mood for 15 minutes for anyone who wants it. They're the only two that do, but it's still a great decision that's made in the interest of ensuring these kids get to find their best selves in all of this instead of simply focusing on the competition of it all. PR JR is about so much more than the competition.

Peytie grabs everything she can get her hands on in an effort to find something better for her pants, while Jaxson looks specifically for something that will go well with his yellow fabric. They both leave Mini Mood feeling confident in their selections.

The Runway:

Maya: Love love love this! It moves, it’s classy, but also urban and unconventional. I think it captured exactly what she was going for, and I find it wonderfully editorial. I haven’t looked at a Seventeen magazine in…oh….ever. But my gut says this is more Marie Claire than Seventeen. I’m willing to be wrong though, because I love it.

Zachary: I think he figured this out wonderfully well. The openness of the top and the peak at the sport’s bra underneath is youthful and sexy to me, but still sophisticated. And I find the skirt to be intelligent and innovative in a way that I come to expect from him. His first look was great, but it wasn’t young enough, and somehow he figured out how to lose the aged elements of it without losing himself. I love it. 

Jaxson: I do not dislike this. I would say, like we said about Maya’s look last week, that it’s fine. I find it simple and a bit easy, though I do see a bit of innovation in the shape and construction of the jacket. I want to see the dress without the jacket on. And I think that the colors aren’t a match made in heaven, but I do think they go together better than Jaxson feels as though they do. At least I don’t think they clash. But yeah, I think it’s a little too simple and muted for this stage of the competition. 

Peytie: I didn’t hate the pants until the model turned around and I saw how wrinkled and bunched up they were. Yikes. It is totally just a fabric fail on these because the cut and design of them really is nice. It’s a better look with a better fabric choice for the pants. I like the top. 

Zach: I don’t care for this and I’m not 100% sure why. The colors work, the outfit is simple enough, but there’s something about it that I just don’t care for. Something about the cut of it says Sailor Costume to me, and I’m not sure what. Either way, not my fav. 

Samantha: OK this is the first look from Samantha in a long time that I’ve been head over heels for. She had a plan and she executed it perfectly. It’s smart and edgy, and it’s totally her without having to create yet another oversized coat. I can see her inspiration, but she wasn’t trapped or too beholden to that inspiration, so she still created something all her own. I respect this a lot.

Maya and Samantha are in the top while Jaxson and Zach are in the bottom. The judges are pretty split on both Peytie and Zachary, making the two of them safe in my mind. Aya points out that Jaxson tends to have a lot of ideas, but rarely does he execute them well. His dress is plain, and no one really seems to think it goes well with his dress. Hannah goes so far as to say that he appears to have dressed two different girls, and Christian says his girl looks like she might have gotten dressed in the dark. 

With Zach, they simply don't seem to think he maximized his potential with this challenge. They can't seem to place who his girl is or where she's going. And when Christian questions whether or not he thinks this is his best work, Zach seems to crumple and admits that it's not and apologizes for it. It's a moment made all the more touching when you remember that he's the guy who was dancing with his model on the runway in just the last challenge. Zach admits that he thought too much about trying to make the look young and lost himself in the process. Aya points out that his looks already have a youthfulness to them and all he needed to do was put his best self forward in the looks. 

On the other side of things,  both Maya and Samantha are praised for how well thought out their looks are. Maya's story about women going to work resonates with the judges a lot, while Samantha's ability to feminize cargo shorts is universally appreciated. Christian does, however, echo my sentiments towards Samantha when he says that he wants to see something like a dress from her so as to know that she can do more as well. At least she didn't do another oversized-coat this time around, but he still wants to know that she can do more too. 

It's the result that makes this episode such a standout moment in the season. The judges' closer looks and deliberation makes it clear that the winner is between Samantha and Maya and the choice of who's going home is between Jaxson and Zach. So when it's announced that both Maya and Samantha are getting the win, I think it should have been obvious that both Jaxson and Zach were going home. And yet somehow, I was still surprised by it. It's not the way these things ever really tend to happen. And given how hard it is each time they have to say good bye to someone, you never expect them to compound the issue by sending two people home when they don't have to. 

I thought at first that it might be a ploy to get Tim to save one of them, but then I thought about how horribly awkward it might be for Tim to go into the greenroom and tell one of these two that he was using his save on him while the other went home. And if there's one thing PR JR has excelled at, it's not putting these kids in horribly awkward situations. So indeed both Jaxson and Zach go home. And it's a strange choice when you think about it. Maya and Samantha both winning makes sense, they both deserved it. But Zach won the previous challenge while Zach saw his second consecutive challenge in the bottom. But on the other hand, in the face of Samantha, Maya and Zachary, do I think Zach had what it takes to win it all? Of course not. So in that sense, how upset can I be that Zach got sent home maybe one week earlier than he otherwise might have? The results of this episode are shocking, but I don't know that I disagree with them. There's a kind of cruel efficiency here, but one thing is for sure, the emotions of the good byes were well earned and strongly felt all around. And then there were four. 

Loose Threads:

--Hannah mentions in this episode that they'd two challenges away from choosing who will be in the finale. I think, if my math is right, that that should have meant they were planning on having 4 people show at NYFW. But I'm wondering if this seemingly unplanned double elimination means they'll just have three kids in the finale? Though that also could have been the plan all along, so who knows. 

--I like Peytie, and I especially enjoyed her critique this episode when the judges acknowledged that her aesthetic seems to have matured over the course of the competition. But with the consistent strength of Zachary and Maya, and Samantha's recent resurgence, it's hard for me to imagine she'll make it past this up coming week. 

--I've got to say, I'm very curious to see what the finale on this show looks like. I can't imagine they're going to send these kids home to make collections. But I wouldn't be surprised if they stuck around and maybe gave them a few days to make a collection. I'm guessing not a full ten looks, but who knows. 

--Kelly about Zachary's look: “You looked at the modern day business man and turned that into a chic beautiful woman.” I'm surprised the judges still didn't think this look was young enough. I guess some part of that is that they didn't see the first look he'd created; because with that in mind, I can't see how anyone would think this look was too old. 

Project Runway Junior: S1 E5 "Race to the Red Carpet"

Did I promise to stop comparing PR JR to its predecessor? I lied. Or well, at least in this instance I won't be comparing the two shows on a functional level but in more of an intangible way. You see, last season of PR found us questioning the overall talent level of the contestants chosen to be on the show. Each runway left us struggling to pick out a solid top three looks and hoping for multiple eliminations. On PR JR, however, I have to say the opposite is more true: it's hard to honestly pick three bottom looks from week to week. Last episode had Jaxson, Jesse and Victoria in the bottom, and even though I didn't think Victoria's look encompassed the challenge, I did like it. So judging based on one's personal aesthetic appreciation leaves us with two bottom looks, and that's pretty standard for these first five episodes. So what are some of the effects of having a solid group of talent on a season of PR? Well for starters you can trust the contestants to be able to pull out stellar looks in next to no time flat.

This week's episode sees the contestants being greeted by actors from Finding Neverland. If that sounds familiar to you, it's probably because PR did the same thing back in its eighth episode of last season. Though, unlike the adults, we don't get to see the kids spending anytime watching the show, so for all we know they weren't granted the full on special treatment of their adult counterparts. The challenge is to work in teams of two to create a look worthy of the red carpet on a Broadway premiere. Each team will produce one look and they only have five hours to do it.

It seems a bit overwhelming, but with two people working on just one aspect of a look a piece, five hours seems like a life time. But when you throw a third helper into the mix and when that third helper is a past PR contestant, things look a lot more manageable. And so we welcome Samantha Black to work with Zach and Samantha; Amanda Valentine to work with Zachary and Matt; Fabio Costa for Maya and Peytie, and Sonjia Williams for Bridget and Jaxson. The kid's seemingly genuine excitement when they see their helpers is one thing that makes this episode so much fun. You watch these kids on the show and get the strict impression that they understand that they're a part of something bigger than just themselves and they're knowledgable about what's come before them.

Tim makes it clear that the alumni are only here to basically be seamstresses and won't be helping with any of the design process. There's no trip to Mood this episode, but Mini Mood is available for them to select from. Everyone gets to work and seems to move smoothly. Everyone except Bridget and Jaxson as the case may be who don't work together very well combining their respective aesthetics. But the two of them also don't have the worst kind of toxic chemistry that we've seen in pairs in the past. But their poor communication and lack of compromise lead to them having the worst Tim critique.

The colors they chose were all wrong and it's a bit ridiculous that they didn't see that sooner. Meanwhile, Peytie and Maya aren't faring much better with their interesting idea failing to come to life due (I think) to the limited kinds of fabric they have access to. Both cases see the previous PR contestants swooping in to offer the kind of help and guidance that they're there for. Bridget has a meltdown when they go back to pick out new fabric (with only three hours left in the day one might add), and Sonjia takes her by the hand and just calms her down. Her words aren't exceptionally gentle, but it's exactly the kind of firm hand and weathered experience that Bridget needed to get passed her emotional moment. And for Peytie and Maya, once they decide to ditch their white see through skirt and start looking at the ornate black fabric they have, Fabio suggests they use the reverse side of it for the skirt and that gives Maya the idea to go with a solid black but more flowing material when the time comes.

The Runway:

Zachary and Matt: I wish it was in a color other than red and I wish they had a bustier model to fill it out more. It seems like there's a lot going on here, but it could truthfully be great on a model of different proportions. The cut outs are sexy, and the movement is eye catching.

Samantha and Zach: OK. Good, not great. I don’t think they avoided having the jumpsuit be boring the way Tim said they needed to. The cape is a wow, and I even like the boxiness of the shoulders, and I love the print. But I think something needed to be different about the jumpsuit which feels swallowed up by the cape. 

Maya and Peytie: This I love. It’s bold and makes quite a statement. Going with the flowing fabric for the skirt was exactly the right way to go. I wish the detailing on the top was more photographable as I couldn’t make it out from the walk on the runway, but up close this is great. The openness on the front to show off those shorts is really killer. 

Bridget and Jaxson: The fit is great, the faux leather is really great and catches the eye exceptionally well. I like the color a lot too. It’s something that I think looks muted, but would really turn heads on a red carpet. All the right amount of sexy too. 

So with four looks on the runway, you'd expect a top and bottom two looks, but the judges seem to like everything except Zachary and Matt's look. Admittedly, they like Samantha and Zach's outfit a lot more than I did, but I can at least understand what drove them to their compliments. Oddly enough, Zachary and Matt's look is touted as being too ambitious. So it seems like this is one moment when too many ideas is going to bite someone in the ass, and that's mostly because there isn't really a boring or bad look on the runway. Everything, at least according to the judges, is so good that we're left with the unenviable task of punishing someone for trying too hard. 

There's no secret in the deliberation that one of the two of them has to go home. Matt's been in the bottom before. Indeed, just a couple episodes ago he was spared from going home in favor of not sending anyone home and having a double elimination to follow. So the fact that he's down here again suggests he's the most logical choice to be sent packing. But then there's Christian's (somewhat harsh) points about Zachary being the one who's actually let them down since the expectations on what he's capable of achieving are so high. Matt is clearly something of a favorite, though the jury's still out on whether or not his designs have earned him such a position, so it seemed very possible that Zachary could be going home here. 

But in the end, the judges do the smart thing and send Matt on his way. Peytie and Maya both share a much deserved win, incidentally. Matt's send off seems to be the saddest one yet as Hannah and Kelly both tear up a bit and Hannah tells him he was a favorite of hers and she was the one who fought to keep him around so hard the last time. I know I said before that sending these kids home each week would be very difficult for a long list of reasons, and I don't want to contradict that at all, but I'm thinking the fact that everyone here is so talented plays a contributing factor as well. If the judges couldn't see fit to place two pairs in the bottom and deliberate over the fate of four contestants instead of just two, then how can they hope to make this easy going forward? These kids seem to be getting stronger as the competition goes on, and everyone left has a world of potential within them. The high level of talent here means we should get harder and more satisfying challenges, but that the decision on who to say goodbye to will get harder and harder. 

Loose Threads:

--Peytie won the last immunity with the previous challenge. Knowing about that before this episode would have been nice, but beyond that eliminating immunity at the top eight seems a bit early, doesn't it?

--It's hard for me to believe that this is Maya's first win of the season, but there you have it. At this point, she's easily my favorite designer. (Jaxson is my favorite person, but that's another matter all together.) 

--Matt's the second person to go home and acknowledge that he's sad to leave the other contestants because he got closer to them quicker than he has anyone else from back home. Again I say this show stands to be really important. 

--Which only seven contestants left, who do you think deserves to make it to the top four? My money is on Maya, Zachary, Zach and Samantha. I think Jaxson isn't long for this world, sadly, and while I like Peytie and recognize she's the only one with double wins, I also think it would be easier for her to slip up one week and miss the cut given her particular aesthetic. Samantha has slipped from my good graces, but the judges still seem to love her, and she does have the most unique voice. I could be tempted to replace Zach with Bridget, but I'm wondering if we don't end up with an even split between the girls and the boys.