Perhaps the best line from Eric Wilson's piece on Top Model auditions is this wish from a contestant's mother:

"I drive a city bus... It would be nice to see her plastered on the side of it."

Fashionista understands the sentiment, but would like to remind this hopeful parent that Top Model contestants have indeed been on the side of a bus, but so have sex columnists (Carrie Bradshaw), stylists (Rachel Zoe), LSD hippies (at Burning Man), and recently we saw Elmo's picture whizzing down Fifth Avenue, too.

Therefore, take heart: If Tyra doesn't see the true beauty within your child, there's always a chance with the Muppets.

Rumors swirled last week about Jael from Top Model - her slurred speech and total incoherence seemed like more than shaky nerves - really, they seemed like narcotics.

A new blog post from Oh No They Didn't seems to confirm the theory - they've got photos of Jael crashing a party, where she allegedly pops pills and tries to hide in a broom closet with a cat. In the photos, she is pictured wearing smeared eyeliner and stripping with a psyched-looking man.

We wonder if this was what Tyra meant when she told her charges last week "the fashion world is all about looking hoochie, but bringing some fashion to it."

Or, you know, it could be the drugs...

Last night’s episode of Top Model had high drama, “high fashion� (more like high school, but okay), and enough backstabs to make Caesar’s ills look like a paper cut.

Specifics: The girls got makeovers - some were good, some were beauty school dropout. Renee, the evil yet strangely wholesome teen mother, spat venom at Brittany - the only girl in the house who could actually be a model. Diane, the sex bomb “plus size� model, struggled with her insecurities. Jael, the strung out hippie, lost a friend to an overdose, then dedicated her final photo to the dead friend. And everyone posed naked in buckets of ice cream.

Confused? So were we. Fortunately, former Top Model contestant Brooke Miller is here to make some sense of it all…

Last week, Brooke Miller became our first-ever Top Model Critic, dishing the dirt on her Top Model experience and trying to peg the next winner. Now it’s time for CariDee English, last season’s Top Model champ, to give us her spin on the series.

A quick CariDee update: She’s 21, she just moved to Battery Park from Hawaii, she’s making even more Cover Girl ads, and right now, she has bronchitis.

“I’m doing voice overs for Cover Girl all day, though,� she explains, “So I’m a hot mess right now. I can look like crap.�

Alas, the newest batch of Top Model contestants have no such luxury…

You might remember Brooke Miller from last season of America’s Next Top Model – she was the perky Texas high school girl who transformed into something ravishing when her hair was dyed brown. Sadly, Brooke was booted after she failed to match Fabio's cheesiness in a photo shoot - of course, this made us like her more.

Now Brooke is a freshman at the University of Texas, majoring in broadcast journalism. What’s her first official assignment? Serving as the first-ever Top Model Critic for us!

Here’s what she said about the first episode – it aired Wednesday, though most girls we know will watch it tomorrow morning, TiVo style, on the couch...