America's Next Top Model Cycle 20 - The Finale

The finale of America's Next Top Model Cycle 20 was on Friday.

To be honest, I wasn't all that excited to watch it. There has always been talk of the show being rigged and, over the years, there have been cycles that felt rigged- either for the winner or just to keep up the drama. This was one of those seasons.

The final three found out last week that one of them would be eliminated before the fashion show. As I predicted, Cory was the eliminated contestant... despite the fact that his picture was infinitely better than Marvin's. Of course, he still had to walk in the show with the other two as part of the fashion video. The other contestants and Laura James, the cycle 19 winner, also walked in the show.

The video was kind of cheesy. Jourdan has the love of a good man, Marvin, but is lured into the dark and abusive underbelly of modeling by Cory. She becomes famous but miserable and wants to break free, but Cory has such a hold on her. She has to choose between good and evil- Marvin and Cory. The story ends there on the video and picks back up on the runway where Jourdan obviously picks good over evil.

The fashion show pretty much highlighted the issue with the girls vs. guys show. While the guys walked in some fancy suits, they didn't have ridiculous head pieces, high heels that are hard to walk in, or dresses that were long and heavy. Jourdan had a much harder job in the fashion show because the role of women in the modeling world is different than the role of men. Of course it was much easier for Marvin to not make a mistake... a fact that he gleefully pointed out when Jourdan stumbled, once again highlighting the fact that he's a jerk.

I predicted that Marvin would win the show. Really, everything pointed to it. The inclusion of guys and fact that he had made it to the finale at all suggested that he would be the winner. He was also the only one that successfully managed to hook up in the house, making him a good draw for the audience. However, they surprised me. In probably one of her only good moments, Kelly argued on the side of ability over personality. In the end, Jourdan was chosen as America's Next Top Model.

I'm relatively happy with the outcome. While I wanted Cory to win, I was fine with Jourdan. I didn't necessarily like her all the time and got annoyed by them constantly playing the clip about her ex-husband, but she did have the better pictures. It very slightly redeemed the show for me, but I still don't know if I'll watch next time.