Does anyone else get the feeling the producers are *really* the ones picking the winners and losers?

On this week's episode of Project Runway, the designers had a dream challenge. Design a look that compliments diamond jewellery collectively worth over $30 million. Wowza! They've certainly amped up their sponsorship this year! How funny was it to see the designers faces when they saw the security guards on the runway? They reasonably assumed that the men were their models and maybe they were designing uniforms...until they saw the real guns.

It reminded me of the Philip Treacy challenge in which they had to make outfits to show off outrageous hats. Like that challenge, I expected a lot of simple, slinky dresses walking down the runway, showing off but not distracting from all the sparkles.

But the reaction I was most excited to see was of course Timothy's. We know two things about Timothy so far: One, he claims to be all about "sustainable eco-conscious wear." And two, he has no idea what that means. Again he did not disappoint.

There are a lot of very good reasons to be uncomfortable with diamonds. Remember Blood Diamond? What about the fact that they represent a socioeconomic divide between the haves and have-nots? What about the fact that we mine the earth just to get rocks that take millions of years to form and mostly just use them for decoration? But no. Timothy didn't think of any of that.

His objection? "We have to pick the prettiest diamond. And that's very superficial."

Oh. My. God.

His campaign of cluelessness continued when the designers got to Mood. He gleefully and self-righteously made a production of going through the "garbage" but then changed that to the "remnants" and then just picked fabric that had been dropped off by another design house (Zac Posen apparently!). So I'm not sure how much "upcycling" that really is. Tim tried to direct him to the organics section, but he wasn't interested. He seemed to think that if the fabric was "pre-owned" it was more eco-friendly than if it was not, regardless of what kind of fabric it was. But as Mila Hermanovski points out, half of Mood is "pre-owned." Design houses drop fabrics off ALL THE TIME, so you'll find things there that say "Marc Jacobs," "Vera Wang," etc. But still he managed to find the ugliest blue velvet (sorry Zac) and pair it with what looked like lining material. It was odious.

Oh and he used makeup on his model. Because it's easy to change your convictions on a dime when you're making them up as you go.

But Timothy's wasn't the only ugly, ill-fitting dress on the runway. Jeremy's looked like a dirty feather duster. Karen's looked like it was made by a twelve-year old. Helen's sad brown dress made the model look like she had no chest (that poor model! she was Timothy's shoeless, product-less model last week). And Alexander's, though well made, looked like a Golden Girl Gone Wild.

With all these candidates for last place, how the heck did Kahindo go home? Her dress was (mostly) finished, (mostly) well-made, and maybe a little boring. In other words it was middle-of-the-road, safe. IT WAS THE VERY DEFINITION OF SAFE. Why wasn't it, in fact, safe from elimination?

I suspect it was Kahindo rather than her dress that got eliminated. Sandro and Timothy make good TV and I think it'll be a long time before we see the end of them, at least if the producers have anything to say about it (which of course they do...besides Heidi IS one of the producers). And Helen had a full-blown panic attack on camera so I wasn't surprised they decided to keep her. I personally would have loved to see more of Kahindo and I was disappointed to see her go, especially when she didn't have the worst dress (or even the most boring, I think).

As for the winner, Kate? I don't want to talk about it. I'm just trying to ignore her so she'll go away. So far it's not working.