[These articles were originally written around 2014-15 for a separate
outlet whose redesign has resulted in several of my pieces being lost.
I'm republishing a number of my favourites on this blog for posterity. This particular review was chosen in honour of the never-ending pleasure of being rude about Maroon 5. Definitely not just so I had an excuse to go searching for images of Lily Aldridge and Behati Prinsloo.]
It’s a hard life being a television critic. Sometimes you just have to sit down, steel yourself, and watch a full hour of the world’s hottest models prance about in miniscule bikinis on gorgeous tropical beaches for review, because, well, it’s your job. No, don’t feel the need to send letters of thanks. These are the sacrifices we make; extensive rewinding, pausing and all.
So, the Swim Special. In a gripping narrative, the Angels turn up in Puerto Rico to shoot photos for the Victoria Secret swimsuit catalogue, with the dramatic stakes terrifyingly high as each model competes to claim the much sought-after cover. Lily Aldridge, owner of a body so celestial you’d expect planets to revolve around it, is up first, proving herself a master of understatement by describing the shoot as ‘epic’ and ‘legendary’. Truly, hers is a task Heracles would wilt to face, having to overcome crippling vertigo by climbing a small ladder onto a moderately sized boulder.
So, the Swim Special. In a gripping narrative, the Angels turn up in Puerto Rico to shoot photos for the Victoria Secret swimsuit catalogue, with the dramatic stakes terrifyingly high as each model competes to claim the much sought-after cover. Lily Aldridge, owner of a body so celestial you’d expect planets to revolve around it, is up first, proving herself a master of understatement by describing the shoot as ‘epic’ and ‘legendary’. Truly, hers is a task Heracles would wilt to face, having to overcome crippling vertigo by climbing a small ladder onto a moderately sized boulder.
Brave Lily is for this applauded by the crew with the joy traditionally reserved for a returning war hero. Meanwhile, the eternally chipper Behati Prinsloo is derping about in town, pretending to take photographs before meeting up with her Puerto Rican chum, Joan Smalls, to try out some local dancing. Compelling stuff indeed, but not exactly showing the kind of dedication required to bag a prestigious *cough* cover.
Having recovered from her traumatic experience on the boulder, Lily Aldridge heads off to do an underwater shoot with Alessandra Ambrosio. Alessandra has done these before, but Lily hasn’t and, once again, is utterly terrified. However, in a stunning twist, bad weather forces them to head back to land, where Lily gets to roll around in the surf instead. Triumphant music emphasizes the scale of her success.
Having recovered from her traumatic experience on the boulder, Lily Aldridge heads off to do an underwater shoot with Alessandra Ambrosio. Alessandra has done these before, but Lily hasn’t and, once again, is utterly terrified. However, in a stunning twist, bad weather forces them to head back to land, where Lily gets to roll around in the surf instead. Triumphant music emphasizes the scale of her success.
Next, we check in with Candice Swanepoel, who has dominated the swimsuit catalogue cover for the past few years. Photographer Russell James, barely able to hide his smugness at having a much better job than you, describes her shoot as ‘illegal’. No-one’s entirely sure what this means, but fortunately there are no arrests. However, just as everyone’s settling in, villains Maroon 5 turn up and their devastating show of corporate rock mediocrity kills all known boners dead.
The Angels recover from this disaster with meditation and yoga, achieving zen enlightenment courtesy of VS’ line in overpriced exercise gear. Adriana Lima and Joan Smalls then muck about with a pony for a bit, before the girls head into town for a night of celebration with Colombian crooner, Juanes. Unlike Maroon 5, he actually has an audience, who dance the night away amid domino-playing natives. With everyone else presumably ferociously hung over, Jasmine Tookes turns up briefly as a distraction before promptly disappearing again.
Having recovered from their night of drink, drugs and dominos, the final four – Prinsloo, Aldridge, Swanepoel and Ambrosio, decked out in Top Gun sunglasses – engage in a decisive volleyball competition. TO THE DEATH. Or maybe not. Anyway, there’s disappointingly little match action and most of the drama is relayed through the camera focusing at length on the scoreboard, which may set a new standard for streamlined sports coverage.
Underdogs Behati and Lily beat the odds to emerge victorious, followed by much celebration and spooning. Or maybe I dreamt that last part. Anyway, Lily’s victory speech to the other girls couldn’t be any more patronising if she tried (“You’re great sports and you look beautiful.”) and she chest-bumps Behati, which almost made me go blind. Alessandra says she’ll look back on all this one day as ‘an incredible time in her life’, which seems a bit pessimistic. Little does she know but there’s to be no happy ending: Maroon 5 return and the Angels dance with contractually obligated enthusiasm to their bland warblings. Amusingly, no-one else bothered to show up. Adam Levine gets a kiss from his wife, Behati, and it’s all very disheartening.
Overall, a downbeat ending sours an otherwise nerve-janglingly dramatic television event that doesn’t quite come together as whole, but hardly matters since most of its target audience will probably have watched it in periods of no more than four minutes at a time anyway. Also, I think Lily Aldridge owns my soul now.
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