Given all these factors, the suspense feels falsely pumped-up from the first few minutes of last night's finale. As the show begins, Sensitive Mommy Tyra has her soft "make me cry" makeup on. She sits, Indian-style, facing each girl and asks her what her deepest, darkest secrets and insecurities are, perhaps so Mean Judge Tyra might throw them in her face later. But the girls are on to Tyra. They saw how she chewed out Tiffany, just for being a human being! So, like a robot, Kahlen reports that she just wants to win, real bad. Naima says this cutthroat, shallow competition has made her even happier with herself than she was before. Hurray! Even Tyra isn't buying that. (Naima is easily the most full-of-crap contestant this show has ever seen. I keep expecting her to shout "Respeito!" out of nowhere.) Finally, Keenyah says she really likes to eat. At least she's being honest. Tyra tells her she'd better eat less, because only Tyra gets to have an ass as big as Tyra's and still be as fierce and as famous as Tyra.

Next, the girls shoot a commercial, which is all about promoting Cover Girl Makeup. Naima talks in this soft-spoken, pretentious voice like she's got a mouth full of bubble gum. Keenyah thinks she's hot shit, but it's clear she isn't. Kahlen fumbles all her lines, which makes her seem sympathetic, but sort of wilted nonetheless.

The judges confer. Keenyah is eliminated. No one cares all that much, except for Keenyah. "I'm gonna take all the judges' advice, as if I'm still gonna be the winner at the end of the day," says Keenyah, and we have to agree: Denial is probably the best coping strategy available to an arrogant overeater who wants to be a fashion model. But then, she adds, "Nothing's gonna hold me back - unless I get fatter," and out of the blue, it's hard not to wish she weren't leaving.

Next comes the big fashion show. Kahlen says nice things about Naima, but Naima is focused on sounding focused - or "concentrated" as she would call it. She says she wants to put her past as a party girl behind her. Snore! Who doesn't? Let's hear back from you once you've snorted high-grade cocaine off some male model's rock-hard abs backstage at the Dolce and Gabbana show.

The fashion show goes pretty well, which is also sort of disappointing somehow. Both girls can walk the walk. Unfortunately, neither has much to say, so the run-up to the final judging session is dull. The judges are left to make their decision, and they seem pretty split, but it's obvious who they'll choose. That's part of what makes the show worse now than it was during the first season: Naima has a much more memorable look, which is far better for promoting the show in the future. Plus, she's been an obvious favorite among the show's viewers from the first week.

So Naima's is the face that appears on the screen. Naima screams happily, and it might just be the least infectious scream of joy ever.

Oblivious as ever to the deep insignificance and anticlimactic blahness hanging over the room, Tyra waxes philosophic: "You guys have proved that models aren't shells, that they're true people with feelings and emotions and pasts and insecurities." You can almost hear the bugles blaring in the distance. Yes, you girls truly have done a great service to models everywhere. Now, everyone will know that models are not merely shells, they're real humans, filled with empty, unoriginal thoughts and big, useless brains!

The girls are, of course, more than happy to take Tyra's cue and overstate the importance of it all. "I feel like modeling is kind of my way of expressing my emotions," Kahlen tells us. Um, OK. Gotcha. And what happens when you reach the ripe old age of 23? You turn to the bottle?

Naima is even worse. Gushing, through tears, she tells the camera: "It's taken so much to get here. It's taken so much!" OK, Scarlett O'Hara. We all partied when we were younger, and it was never as dramatic as fainting and falling down the stairs at Tara -- even when we fainted and fell down the stairs.

Then, as if we haven't grasped quite yet that Naima is now a product (see also: shell) and not a human being, Tyra gives us a handy jingle that we can use to sum up our emotions about her whenever we spot her peddling body wash on the pages of some mediocre women's magazine:

"Uniquely versatile, undeniably edgy," Tyra breathes in her best spokesmodel voice. "Naima: The spunky Detroit girl embodies a true Cover Girl!"

Spunky? Spunky?! "Spunky" is about the least edgy word in the entire dictionary. Are we talking supermodel here, or are we talking "Blossom"?

Thus, as the U2-alike exit music plays, we find ourselves wondering how a spectacle that once seemed so spirited and unpredictable could suddenly feel all awkward and stale. Bloated egos? A new casting director? A false sense among the producers that the show would be good no matter what?

So here's my tough-love "talk to me" moment for Tyra Banks: You take some responsibility for yourself, and fix it! Be quiet, Tyra! Stop it! I have never in my life yelled at a supermodel like this! I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you! How dare you! You had the best reality show on television, and you screwed it up! Learn something from this! Do you hear me? This is no joke! This time next year, I'd better be watching beautiful, neurotic misfits bungee-jumping into a Piranha-filled river ...

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