Everyone is off to Mood with their $150 budgets. The typical madness ensues. How the designers can keep from stabbing the judges each week when they accuse various looks of appearing "cheap," I don't know. It's got to be hard to come up with stuff for these challenges that doesn't LOOK cheap, but IS cheap. Nicolas says in an interview that he is in it to win it -- he has been in the bottom three and does not want to return there. Christopher says he had intended to design something made of brocade, but as brocade is $30 per yard, and he needs seven yards, he can't make it happen. There is a lot of panic math going on as everyone tries to get what they need for practically nothing.

Back in the workroom, Christopher asks Epperson what he would have chosen if he had not been forced to take Western. Epperson says he would have taken Period Piece, but that after thinking about it, "I figured out how to design something for Western as a Period Piece, because... Western really is a period." Y'all, Epperson is too smart for this show. Instead of complaining about stuff, he makes it work. Which I believe is the point, no? His concept, he says, is a beautiful lady whose husband has "gone off to war," so she has to take care of the land and become a lot tougher. Not sure which war he's thinking of, but I'm with him. It looks like he picked up a lot of denim and is making something ruffley out of it, which is cool.

Gordana says she picked the 1920s as the period she's working with, "becawze zat waz ezactly the time when the woman stahted becomeeng more emanzipated." She's awesome, but I immediately get a worried feeling about her going with the '20s. The fashions of that period were so simple, I am afraid she will get dinged for being too safe.

Meanwhile, Louise is hitting the panic button a little bit, because she's not able to find her bobbins. "Sabotaaaage," Irina says lackadaisically as she pieces her own outfit together, probably sitting on the bobbins. At the sewing machines, Nicolas announces that, yet again, he'll be doing a white outfit. We can only hope it is less Space Hooker than the last one. He tells Althea and Shirin his character's story: She is to be one of three space queens that reside on Orion's Belt. One of the queens decides she wants to be the ruler of the whole universe. "Is that your girl?" Althea asks, and Nicolas laughs yes, of course. In the dyeing area, Ra'Mon is dyeing some kind of rubbery fabric green, and whispering to himself that it is frickin' amazing. We never see this fabric again, so who knows whether or not he is right. His concept, he says, is to design for a human-alien hybrid who has come to Earth. "Green, reptilian," he says. "I think I'm on a good path with this."