Design Star: Ding Dong The Witch Is Gone

Nina's gone and everyone is happy.
Most of all......ME!!!
I loathed her.
And Stacey speaks for the designers, the viewers, the world at large, when she says, “This is probably the best outcome of any elimination to date. She’s gone. Like, do you know what a relief that is?”
I do.
But we have no time to party because the designtestants are off to Trump Tower to meet Donald Trump Jr and Mini-Me. Junior will be helping to judge this week, which means we'll be hearing the word Trump about a gazillion times during the episode. In fact, Vern announces that he's changing his name to Vernald Trump Jr.
I kid. Or.....................do I?THE CHALLENGE
Each team--the same from last week: Blue is Michael, Alex, Emily and Casey, while Red is Tom, Courtland and Stacey--will design a model apartment in the brand spanking new salute to Trumpdom, the The Trump Plaza Trump Residences in Trump City, New TrumpJersey. Trump Junior reminds us that Trump is all about luxury, but that their designs should also reflect, um, Jersey City?
Okaaaaaaaaaay?!!??
And each designer will have to choose a New York City souvenir package and, as Vernald Trump Jr. explains, physically incorporate their souvenir package into the room. Yes, souvenirs scream luxury, especially because, in this case they are:
Casey's Architectural package which includes a mini-Empire State--which oddly enough is as tall as Vernald. Stacey picks the NYC Taxicab souvenir, while Alex goes for the obvious Big Apple bag. Tom, pissed at not getting architecture, grabs the Statue of Liberty--also bigger than Vernald--and Courtland grabs the Disney-fied Times Square gift bag. Emily gets Subway, and I don't mean the sandwiches; the actual subway, which reeks of luxury--reeks being the obvious word. Michael ends up with the Broadway Bag because he is a showtune queen and a flaming homosexual.
'Nuff said.
The designtestants ready their passports for the trip to Jersey and are soon whisked across the river to a foreign country where they inspect their Trump apartments in the Trump building called Trump.

THE RED TEAM

Tom suggests painting the bathroom blue because, to him, that says Wall Street; I would opt for Hundred-Dollar-Bill-Green if I was gonna go Wall Street,m but maybe that's why I'm not on the show. Tom says blue is elegant and spa-like.
Sidenote: why does everything have to be "spa-like"? Last week Nina wanted a spa-like firehouse and this week Tom goes spa-like. I think this might mean that spa-like also means Your show has been cancelled.
In the living room Courtland wants high-backed elegant chairs and Tom and Stacey want low and modern furniture. Stacey and Tom want drapes and Courtland wants bare windows to accentuate the views.
Uttering Reality Show Go-To Line #1157, Courtland says: My voice isn't being heard. But then he calls the 2-to-1 vote a democracy and shuts up. Not good Courtland; you're far too manly man to say nothing. He's quickly becoming the Odd Manly Man Out.
The Democracy goes shopping and falls in love with every stick of furniture they buy, but Courtland predicts a surprising lack of accessories, and remembers that both Donald Junior and Vernald Junior played up the Trump habit of Attention-To-Trump-Detail-In-Trump-Apartments-In-Trump-Buildings-In-Trump-Cities, but again, Courtland says nothing.
Stacey rummages through her souvenir bag and pulls out a ceramic taxi. She says she wants to smash it into a million pieces and make a mosaic tray out of it. Courtland starts laughing and announces that the cab is Vern-sized and wouldn't make a very large tray. His giggling will become a Design Star staple, I think.
Stacey says something about cutting it in half, and I think, Yes!! Bookends!!! But then the Democracy is woefully lacking in the "Books As Accessories" department. And Courtland mutters something about "making" accessories, and again I think, Homemade? Luxury? I mean, my Mom once made a valance for the kitchen windows out of old aprons but it didn't scream luxury. I wonder if it isn't best for Courtland to just be quiet?
Fat chance because Courtland is being given the snark edit this week, giggling all manly-man like at Tom and Stacey.
Speaking of Stacey, and, well, my Mom's apron-turned-valance, she wants to make window treatments out of painter's drop-cloths. Drop-cloths? Curtains? Elegant? Luxury? Trump? I beg Stacey to hop into her tiny taxicab, head to the nearest airport and go home.
Tom is stuck in the loo with Blueberry Blue on the walls, and he decides that a windowless, tiny bathroom needs a Blueberry Blue ceiling as well. Then he decides to paint the trim and the doors Blueberry Blue, too. Courtland begs to differ but is afraid to voice his opinion lest Tom topcoat him in blueberry.
In the bedroom, Courtland is waltzing the headboard around the room and Stacey is wondering how to make it appear higher. I mean, if you put the box spring and mattress on the bed the headboard will appear smaller and less elegant. So, in order to create a Trump worthy bed, Stacey convinces the mute third of her team to leave off the box spring and just use the mattress. Yup, when I think elegant high-end Trumpish living, I think mattress on the floor. Or, is it when i think crack den that I think mattress on the floor?
Courtland says nothing, though he giggles again like a Mean Girl to camera and then goes to work on his souvenir project, which consists of Stacey putting on lipstick, smearing it on the Time Square mug, and then leaving a note that says: Thanks for the view! XOXO! This, I think, is Times Square prostitute speak for Thanks for the f**k! That'll be $500.00! F.U.F.U.

THE BLUE TEAM

Michael and Casey play "straight couple" as they enter the apartment and Michael plants a most awkward kiss on Casey--I think it was his first boy-girl kiss, after years of boy-pillow kisses and months of boy-boy kisses. But then the two divas mind-sync and squeal about crown.................moldings.
Emily gasps because she doesn't think Michael, who last week nailed his hand to a piece of furniture should be building anything, and also thinks Casey is far out of her element.
Which is evidenced by Casey cutting the molding wrong, and starting again, and then installing it upside down. Michael and Alex could barely stop eating long enough to make fum of the woman on the ladder nailing molding upside down against the wall.
While Casey battles the moldings and Michael tries again to build a piece of furniture--I hope the paramedics are on standby--Alex works on his souvenir project. He is playing the No one thinks much of me because I'm the youngest card--Reality Show Go-To Line # 834--while he turns the souvenir bag into a pillow and then smashes the apples and glues the chards to the pillow. Yeah, nothing says luxury like slicing my face open when I take a nap on the sofa. But, luckily, there is a Trump Plaza Hospital nearby, with Dr. Trump standing by in the Trump surgical wing.
Casey's art piece is little more than a canvas spray painted with an outline of her Empire State Building souvenir, while Michael makes a lamp out of 2x4's and a Broadway sign. The lights of the Great White Way have never been more proud.
Emily's brilliant solution to using her souvenir item as art, is to cut words off her Subway Map t-shirt and create a piece of art that we never see finished and don't see in the room.

THE WALKTHROUGH

Junior, Vernald Junior, Some-Horrific-Designer-Who-Slept-With-An-HGTV-Exec-And-Got-Her-Own-Show, and Candice Olson take their apartment tours.
In the Blue apartment, Junior likes the "idea" of the molding, but not the sloppy paint job and the choppy cuts. Candice loves the texture and the metallics and that Horrific Designer says something, but I forget. They giggle a bit at Alex's pillow and then move on to........
SHRIEKS!!!
The Red apartment is doomed from the get go. It is pronounced barren and lifeless. Sparse and artless. The bed is a catastrophe and the blue bathroom is dubbed the man-cave, and not in a good way. Junior calls it a college dorm room attempt at design, but not the college dorm rooms at the Ivy League schools he attended. Words like lame are uttered; words like sad and deflated. Words like Heads will roll!
The Blue team gets the win, and Alex's giggle-inducing-cut-producing pillow earns him the victory. Seriously. Alex's.Pillow.Wins.

Junior then snark-eyes the Red team and tells them that his men are dismantling the room as he speaks. And he doesn't mean simply carting away the furniture and repainting the entire space. He is literally having the apartment cut out of the building, dropped to the curb and set on fire.
The Red Team must do the Host Show.

Stacey begins to weep, again, and says she doesn't care where there shoot her from, all she wants is a cigarette and a blindfold. Tom acts like he's all that, even when entering the Blue Cave Of Death. Courtland takes the smug smartass approach and host chats a comedy segment about their space.
THE JUDGING
Courtland shows up at the judging driving a bus and sets his sights on Tom, saying Tom stayed in the bathroom all day. When Tom is asked about his loo duties....hee hee.....doody.....he starts to answer but Vernald Junior, obviously high on his Trump meds, snaps, "Let's see it."
And the pictures speak a thousand words and every single one of them is hideous.
Then Courtland plays the age-old No one would listen to me card, and Vernald snaps at him that design is not done by committee and if you can't be heard then scream louder, and not to the cameraman and not in giggles and quit trying to be cute and charming and do some effin' design.

Then Stacey is lead before the judges and takes the hit for the bed and for the drapes and for the Taxi-Under-Glass-Dumbass-Two-Second art piece she, um, for lack of a better word, created.
Stacey grades herself a 60 per cent, and I think she's being generous. I'd give her a zero for design and a 90 for histrionics, but then this isn't Overacting Star, is it?
And without so much as a Show us your host shot Stacey is shown the door.
But it ain't over until the tiny man in the booster seat is finished, and Vernald Trump Jr. announces that Donald Trump Junior was so Trump appalled at their Trump apartment in the Trump building that he wants a Double Trump Elimination.
And now they show the host presentations.
Tom's is brusque and lacking charm, although I keep thinking how much like Jon Hamm he looks and how much I like Jon Hamm....and then there are Tom's dimples to consider. I imagine laying in bed at night with Tom and filling his dimples with salsa and having some chips....but that's just me.
Courtland offers up an apology before his presentation even airs, which irks Vernald. His shot is pissy and moany, and snarky. He's laughing. The judges are not.
So, who goes?
Snarky voiceless Courtland who arrived at judging on the Crosstown Tom.
Or true manly man Tom who I just know makes a killer martini?
Vern likes Courtland's ease and his hosting, and says Tom needs to look at the camera instead of looking for an escape route. The Horrific judge glares and says something, I forget, and Candice says she likes Tom.

But, in the end, Vernald Trumps all and Tom is shown the door. His Goodbye Piece is quite nice and he admits it was his time to go.
Courtland is warned that this is his last warning because he's consistently a bottom--and yes, that's exactly how I meant it. He does some kind of jig toward the judges and the literally skips from the room.
Such a man's man.
If you get my meaning.