Less than an hour to show time, Melissa is backstage telling the models to get "their boobies up and their lipstick on." This woman is obsessed with boobies tonight. Which is irksome, because I hate typing that ridiculous word. Melissa is also whining that Annie has turned on her, but she's going to work her butt off. She wishes that she'd get some praise. Even a little pat on the head would do. Annie claims Melissa doesn't get that this competition is about money. Valid. Zoom in on Clint counting the wad of cash from his investors and Herschel's investors. They are combining their donations to buy a cheap piece and then letting the rest go to the highest bidder. This could be genius or backfire on them, not sure which. But it doesn't seem right that people donated bunches of cash and don't even get a sparkly bauble in return. IMHO.

Auction time. Annie's worried that people won't show up, but she scans the audience and some of her pals are there... including Scott Ian from Anthrax. Interesting, I wonder if he's trying to make a play to get on a future installment of this show (if there is such a thing). Brande's sugar daddy is also there, ready to bid up to a billion bucks if need be. Annie's their auctioneer and basically guilts people into bidding more. It works. She gets on her knees and begs, puts models on people laps, starts bidding wars. It's kind of a genius strategy. I'm pretty impressed.

Joan, Herschel and Clint are arguing about starting bids, they aren't thinking big like Annie from the get-go. He heads out and opens the bidding on their first item. Crickets. Why didn't they let Joan do this auction? The poor model's hand is practically shaking. Joan's going to kill herself backstage, and they move on to the next item. Not a great start.

Back from commercials, where I watched the preview of Chuck and Sarah in a bed making out about eight times before I was able to convince myself to return to the dull world of Clint Black. Piers is basically laughing at KOTU's incompetence. Joan asks Natalie if they should go out and help. Isn't Joan in charge here? It's a bad sign when one of BRANDE'S donors gives Clint a pity bid. Things get worse when Clint starts making fun of The Donald. Natalie sends out their go-to piece early, the one that they've pooled their cash on to get people excited to bid. Clint flubs up by reading the wrong description. Joan jumps out and corrects him and then starts making jokes. They do well, with their preset bid. The next model out is wearing a bra and underwear for some reason. Joan jumps in, grabs Herschel's mic and tells the audience that the girl is bulimic, so they shouldn't feel bad about themselves. This helps, but we don't get to see the final amounts from either team.