The Fashion Show, Season Two, The Ultimatum, Premiere!

Isaac Mizrahi: "OK, people, here's the ultimatum: watch this show or I will make another appearance on Gossip Girl!"

Well, I definitely don't want to watch another episode of Gossip Girl, but I will say that Isaac was better on that show than Tim Gunn.

Isaac: "I like you. You can stay."

Thank you.

Isaac: "Anyway, welcome to the show! We had to change some things because we found out there was this other fashion competition show over on Lifetime Television and it sounded really similar to ours. Yeah, they totally ripped us off! Shocking, right? It's just like that time I invented Eskimo clothes and then the idea was totally stolen by all these people living up near the North Pole!"

You mean Eskimos?

Isaac: "Yeah, my idea for Eskimo clothes was stolen by the Eskimos! I couldn't believe it! So I had to redesign my entire collection! And that's exactly what I had to do to this show. I've made everything 25% better. The first supersized episode is 25% longer, the prize is 25% bigger than that other fashion show, and my co-host is 25% taller than last season!

Iman: "Oh, honey, 25% better doesn't even begin to describe me. I AM fashion! I started modeling for Charles Worth in 1858 and I've worked with every fashion designer since then."

Wow. You look fantastic!

Iman: "Yes, I know. And buy my new perfume! It's called Steel Vagina! It stinks so good!"

You've got to love her.

Let's meet the designtestants:

Jeffrey mixes men's and women's clothing.

Cindy got into fashion because her mother made her wear ugly dresses.

Calvin says he turns into a bitch at 3:00. Gee, and here it is only 2:30.

Cesar is getting back into the business.

Dominique is 21 and seems constantly amazed by this fact.

Rolando tries to blend in.

Francine thinks she has a really good chance of winning.

Tamara grew up in the projects.

Eduardo's work is up here and the other designers' work is down here.

Mike has been to a fashion show before, so watch out.

David enjoys pretending to be playful.

Golnessa wants to be famous.

Now, for the question on everyone's mind: Which designer will immediately have to tell us he's heterosexual?

David: "Oh, that's me!"

Interesting. That would not have been my first guess. I thought it would be Mike.

David: "Yeah, people often think I'm gay, but after I tell them several hundred times that I'm straight, they eventually say, 'Fine, whatever, can you please shut up about it already?'"

The season starts with a surprise fashion show, which is a refreshing idea:

Isaac: "BAM! We give you fashion 25% sooner than other shows!"

Most of the clothes are not terribly exciting. I kind of like Jeffrey's weird unisex hippie outfit. And David's weird outfit also intrigues me:

David: "I work really hard to appear quirky and childish. So my idea is to make clothes that would be worn by indigenous space people who are influenced by space colonization but they adapt the clothes to look like the 1980s because it takes a long time for our television shows to get there. Kind of like Canada."

James-Paul Ancheta: "That idea sounds very familiar!"

So, the only problem with this first fashion show is that there didn't seem to be any point to it. There was no audience, the judges didn't see it, and there were no consequences. The designers were able to see the work of their competitors and we, the viewers, were introduced to their work. But I was still disappointed that it wasn't part of the competition. Maybe the judges could have picked their two favorites and those two designers could have selected their teammates?

After the runway, Iman comes out and does her thing:

Iman: "I am a god! Worship me!"

We pray to the immortal and all-powerful Iman, goddess of fashion. Then we listen to her divine wisdom:

Iman: "Designers do not work alone. Dior, Chanel, Cavalli - they all worked together to make one collection."

No, I don't think that's right.

Iman: "DO NOT QUESTION IMAN!"

Sorry. So the designers are split into two fashion houses, where they will create cohesive collections every week:

Calvin: "Here go hell come stay now."

You can say that again.

The designers go to the workroom and name their fashion houses:

The blue team picks the name House of Nami, which is Iman spelled backward. It's a perfectly nice-sounding name, but it's not very meaningful. Iman means "faith," so their name is "faith" backward? The opposite of faith? Maybe not the best message.

The green team wants a name based on the fact that there are six members of the team. Calvin rightly points out that the name won't make much sense once designers start being eliminated. The rest of his team tells him he just needs to have iman (faith) that none of them will ever be eliminated. They finally settle on the name House of the River Styx.

Mike talks about Iman's journey from a tribal way of life to living in the modern world:

Mike: "She went from living in a shack, hunting lions for food, and making necklaces out of shrunken human heads to living in the modern Western world."

Iman: "What the hell are you talking about? I had a privileged life growing up in the city. My father was the Somali ambassador to Saudi Arabia, dumb-ass."

The teams get to work. Mike thinks he's a visionary for making a noose dress. Calvin's dress can be used for cleaning your house. Eduardo doesn't have the budget for feathers so he's making his own feathers except he doesn't know how to make feathers so Cesar is making them. Golnessa and Cindy knew each other before coming on the show. Francine is freaking out about making her stupid ruffles and Calvin is helping her and Francine is just complaining about it. Then they prepare for the fashion show.

Calvin and Francine get into a huge fight right before the show:

Francine: "Excuse me? Don't even give me that attitude!"

Calvin: "J'accuse! J'accuse!"

Francine: "You can't even speak French very well!"

As usual, I have no idea what that fight was about.

House of the River Styx has a cool show with the models draped in fabric and revealed one by one:

Tamara - horrible yellow dress that's way too tight and has way too much going on.

Jeffrey - cute dress with a print jacket but the model forgot to take off the jacket on the runway, so the judges don't see the dress.

Cindy - great purple jumpsuit with a weird back.

Francine - awful little dress with crap stuck on to the front.

Golnessa - beautiful navy dress with stupid crap stuck on the shoulder.

Calvin - long yellow dress that actually isn't hideous from the front but is really tacky from the back.

House of Nami just has graphics on the screen behind the runway and sends down an (almost) all-white collection:

Mike - changed his noose dress so it just has the heavy braids stuck on the back.

David - it's nice but the jacket was flaring out like wings as the model went down the runway.

Dominique - fantastic little dress, fitted with a waistband in front and loose and flowing in the back. This was my favorite piece but maybe it was a little young for Iman.

Eduardo - kind of a silly cocktail dress. It does not look inspired by Iman. I'm not impressed.

Rolando - weird mini-skirt/floor-length gown. I don't like it, but it looks like the kind of mess Iman or Heidi Klum would actually wear.

Cesar - print gown with crap stuck on the shoulder. I'm just not a big fan of this type of dress, but it's well done, and again, it looks like something Iman would actually wear.

The judges are Iman, Isaac, Laura Brown from Harper's Bazaar, and guest judge Rachel Roy, looking stunning in a gorgeous yellow dress (and ugly orange shoes!).

House of Nami wins! Good call. Isaac says the designs looked like they came from one designer but I thought the only thing they had in common was that they were white. Then Isaac mentions Eduardo's Grecian drapery and I realize he must have seen a completely different show than I did. Cesar wins.

House of the River Styx is the losing team. Francine and Calvin are the bottom two:

Francine - I feel like her dress would have been praised on Project Runway and possibly won the cover of Marie Claire. So I am very pleased to hear the judges say how cheap it looks. Laura Brown, who I now love, says she hates just having crap stuck on to the front of a dress. Bless you, Laura! I've been railing against that for years!

Calvin rambles about passing wind and screwing his dress and then argues with Iman about tomatoes:

Iman: "DO NOT ARGUE WITH IMAN ABOUT TOMATOES!"

Calvin: "No no no no no No no, NO no no no no no no no NO!"

Isaac: "I'm sorry, Calvin, but the correct answer is Yes."

Isaac says Calvin's dress looks inexpensive but Iman disagrees and says it looks cheap.

We don't get to witness the judges deliberate, for some reason. Francine is out. She thinks her dress wasn't considered high fashion because she didn't have ENOUGH crap hanging off of it. Yikes! Iman delivers the show's new tagline:

Iman: "This new tagline is 25% better than the previous one. Ready? OK. Here it is: This is The Fashion Show and you are out of fashion."

You're right; that is exactly 25% better.