Fat is the New Black: The Surprising Finale to ANTM

From 14 girls to 3: Whitney, Fatima and Anya.

While I would like to brag that I knew exactly where last night's season finale was headed, when the episode started I was like, it is so obvs that Anya is the only real contender.

What I was not taking into account is that reality and America's Next Top Model have always had a tenuous relationship at best and never, ever, in the history of the show has anyone with actual model looks (with the exception of Caridee) ever won.

The first challenge of the episode is a Cover Girl commercial and print ad shoot that will appear in Walmarts! And Times Square! (which for those of you who have not been to NYC recently is like a big outdoor Walmart with lots of flashing lights.)

Saleisha (last season's winner) arrives to remind us how doggy Fatima is while Anya breaks down in tears in the make-up chair. With her increasingly adorable Zoolander accent she sighs, "Modelling is my passion. My desire." (Water is the essence of life...)

The girls all provide painfully stilted performances for their commercials, while everyone's print ad looks pretty hot.

At judging panel, Tyra says Anya's commercial is a "train wreck but in pieces, it's the best commercial."

Again, I was screaming out, "Just give the $100,000 modelling contract and Seventeen Magazine cover to Anya!" Little did I know...

Now, I was certain the final two would be Fatima and Anya. But, to be fair to myself, I didn't know the Seventeen cover shoot would include a July 4 Independence Day theme, replete with giant American flag. If I had known this, I would have known that the Ethiopian Muslim who wants to be an advocate for victims of clitoris-removal would not be heading to the final two.

Yes, Fatima is kissed off, in order for All-American blond Whitney and Aryan Anya to run off gleefully to their final photo challenge (see above).

The fashion show runway-off between the two finalists is easier than any we've seen in previous seasons (think Chinese stilts, 5km long Thai boardwalks, water-submerged runways). The girls are told they are to walk in a Versace fashion show.

Except that when we get there, it is pretty clear that this is just an ANTM runway show that has simply borrowed Versace dresses. I mean, Mr. Jay is the show director, the ANTM make-up folks are doing the make-up, and the judging panel gets to walk down the runway like royalty before the show begins (oh, and there is an audience of like, 30 people who look like they thought there was going to be free booze at the event.)

Anya sort of flakes out on the runway, looking more tired than ethereal, and Whitney clomps the planks like a Clydesdale in bubble gum pink.

At panel I thought the judges were simply going through the motions to make it look like Whitney has a chance. Since day one, with her thousand "she has a pretty face" comments, it has been pretty clear that Paulina is totally disgusted by Whitney's 'massive' size 10 frame. But Paulina wasn't called out by the tabloids earlier this year for looking dumpy in a one-piece (remember the candid Tyra shot which revealed, gasp, that she had woman-thighs?)

In fact, I should have been more in tune with what Tyra's agenda on her talk show has been all year (girl power, real-sized women and talking about sex in a way that puts you off wanting to have it). Modelling? Who cares?

Despite a strong effort by Nigel (who notes, Anya is "an educated model" hehehe) Whitney is the next ANTM winner who will slide off into oblivion until she is called back into action next season as a visiting guru on what it's like to be an unemployed model.

Because while Anya may have been high fashion, Whitney is Walmart and in the end, that's as good as this show gets.

Next Season: Tyra breaks more modelling boundaries by insisting a midget can look as good in cut-off jean shorts as Kate Moss.