Another less-than-exciting episode of "Top Model," but a marked improvement over last week's snoozefest. The show began with Tyra giving an impromptu teach/challenge in which the girls had to find their "signature poses." Tyra's examples of a signature pose underscore just how nonexistent that concept is -- Giselle's pose features her back, and Tyra's features her...eyes? Doesn't every pose somehow feature the eyes in modeling? Anyway, some of the poses made sense, like McKey accentuating her lovely gooselike neck, while many others were pretty damned stupid. Lauren Brie, from landlocked Charlottesville, Virginia (shot out to C'ville!), was told to pose like a surfer. Asian Sheena was instructed to pose as though doing ethnic dance, barely skirting the fine line of offensiveness. And Marjorie worked her self-styled "Hunchback of Notre Dame" look. Seriously. I can't make this up.

And the even nuttier thing is, she won the challenge. I mean, she did well, undoubtedly. But I have a hard time rooting for Marj after last week's spazz-a-thon. Although this week went a long way toward redeeming her.

Because she also kicked ass in her photo shoot, an extremely labored concept in which the girls had to pose as various awards show faux pas. So Joslyn was the starlet who's wearing the same gown as another actress, Samantha was the girl who couldn't read the cue cards, and Annaleigh was the bitchy fashion correspondent. Almost all the shots were pretty, but these are hard concepts to execute in a static image, and much of it looked really fake and posey.

Especially caught in that trap were Elina, as the winner who can't stop crying; Lauren Brie as the girl who trips while going up the stairs; and Sheena as the girl who gets her dressed stepped on (oh, how they STRETCHED that concept...). Jay tried to break Elina during her shoot, hammering away that she needs to let go of this control they're always talking about with her, but her photo still lacked any real emotion (although she looked totally gorgeous; I'll be stunned if this chick doesn't make Top 2). Sheena did absolutely nothing with the concept, just putting a stank look on her face and glancing behind her, continuing her thoroughly underwhelming performance streak. And LB looked fantastic, but was stiff in her posing, leading to a photo in which it looked like she was flying to the podium. But consider: if more awards shows had flying actresses, wouldn't you be watching?

In the end, Elina got a surprisingly early callout (Marjorie got first, for her actress who can't get out of the gown to pee shot), while Sheena and LB landed in the Bottom 2. And ultimately Sheena lived to scrape by another week based on the strength of her "personality," while LB was called out for essentially being devoid of soul.

And I have to call bullshit here. I have nothing against Sheena. She's pretty, although sometimes she kind of looks like a Disney cartoon. But there is a difference between having a personality and being a caricature, and Sheena is the latter. Her whole "Heeeeey! Booboo!" hot mama thing is so disingenuous as to be grating. And also, her photos have been consistently middle-of-the-road. Lauren Brie on the other hand has had at least three AMAZING photos (just check out the swimsuit, ladder, and eyes-above-the-water shots), and none of the others were really bad. Just not as good as the rest of her work, which was, let's face it, blowing the competition away.

So she got Mollie Sue'd, referring to the high-fashion redhead from Cycle 6 who was cut for basically being a cool human being instead of a loud stereotype. And like Mollie Sue, I suspect Lauren Brie will have some success in the real modeling world after this show is done. I mean, that girl's pictures are unbelievable...

Next week: CATFIGHT! Bring it on, bitches! Y'all are getting too complacent.