There is something inherently awful about all bridesmaid dresses, but they make for amazingly good TV. And with all the contestants hating one "bride" in particular, it made for an exceptionally fraught reception.

Of course I'm talking about Michael C, who all the designers, good and bad, have decided totally sucks. It must be hard for them that the judges love him and he's won just as many challenges as the evil ogre Gretchen. God she's horrible.

Last night the challenge was to take a bridesmaid dress and reconfigure it into a new outfit that would be modeled by the woman who wore the dress in the first place. This is the "real woman" challenge, but strangely only one of the girls was "real woman" sized. Maybe producers got sick of listening to the designers bitch and found "real women" who are still pretty damn skinny. Speaking of that, here are some other

Things We Hated:

  • The Worst Part of Waking Up: Every episode of Runway starts with the designers getting ready and there was always at least one designer we were all waiting to see with his shirt off. This season, not so much. Boring.
  • "Fun and Flirty": Stop saying this! This is the new "old Hollywood glamor." And I hate, "flirty." Flirts are just teases, and if you're not going to put out, I'm not wasting my time with you.
  • Gretchen Needs Her Mommy: Why does Gretchen get a big fancy phone call home on Beyoncé's videophone? She didn't do anything to deserve it. And I hate her for handling Tim Gunn maturely this week after he dissed her last week. Don't go being reasonable Gretchen. I want to keep hating you.
  • The Judges: I was not feeling their selections this week. Are they all blind or something? Can we get Queen Tangerine some Lasik so she stops liking bad dresses?

Things We Loved:

  • Mondo: I feel like Mondo is the Jay McCarroll of this season. He's going to be in the top three a bunch of times but never win and is then going to stun us with a brilliant final collection and win the whole thing. At least I hope that is what happens.
  • "The top is good, but the bottom is hard": Christopher, I couldn't have said it better myself.
  • Public Shaming: I love that they had all the designers talk to regular people in public and hear what they think about their dresses. It's good to get an opinion other than the three same ones they get from the judges and to be able to see people really enjoying what they make. Of course Mondo won, which goes to show that the judges might have loved another dress better, but the public would have bought the fuck out of if.
  • April: I really thought she should have gotten axed the first week, but she's really gotten stronger as the weeks progress. She's a bit of a badass with her own aesthetic. She also didn't fall into the trap of listening to her "client" and making something ugly that would make her happy. I think April had one of the best ensembles of the evening, if only the judges weren't blind.
  • It's a Sabotage: I don't know if Michael C was really sabotaging Ivy, but if he did, then he's fucking brilliant. He did not come here to make friends and he clearly isn't. We always say we want to see talented people and great clothes, but give us a good blood rivalry and we can't look away!
  • Hair Improvements: Between Andy's mohawk and Hiedi's up do, it was the day for tonsorial corrections. Finally, Heidi didn't look like a band member on Jem, in a bad way.
  • Nina Garcia Fashion Director of Marie Claire Magazine Shields Her Eyes: What would Nina say? "The dress! I can't see the dress. The light is blinding me. Someone shut off the lights! Nevermind, I have index cards. Fuck you."
  • "Casanova": The way Heidi says it so smoothly and lusciously makes me so happy every time. It's like a solid stream of butter being poured out of a tiny sterling silver pot onto the tastiest lobster you have ever eaten in your whole life.

In the end, Peach went home for making something that looked like the ugliest quilt that your grandmother hung over the windows in her double wide in the winter to keep the drafts out. She definitely deserved to be in the bottom along with Michael D and Valerie, who put tit parenthesis on her dress that made her model look like a fat blank in the middle of a sentence. Like this ( ). That's disgusting.

Michael C won, for his black dress that a woman who wears a veil to a private detective's office would love. It was alright, but I wasn't that into it. I liked Mondo's Art Deco black and pink construction better. What I do love is that Michael C is the bane of all the other designer's existence. I don't understand exactly why they hate him. Is it because he's abrasive? He may not know how to sew or make patterns, like they say, but the judges really seem to love him, so he must be doing something right. Even last week when everyone said he should have gone home, the only compliment the judges gave out to the losing team were to things he made. Maybe they should figure out what he's doing right and replicate it instead of demonizing him for being wrong. Still, watching the contentious relationship between him and everyone else is really invigorating this season for me.

As for Christopher, I didn't think he deserved to be in the top at all. I thought Ivy's pleated saffron number with the white pants was gorgeous, as was Aprils short black cocktail dress with the napkin coming out of the boobs. Guess they're going to have to be stuck being bridesmaids and not brides.