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Well, shut my mouth. Just a week after my one millionth plea for the judges on Project Runway to give Vincent the heave-ho so he can finally find a more appropriate venue for his ongoing self-realization (I'm thinking maybe a permanent spot on Dr. Phil), the guy goes and ruins my argument by (a) winning a challenge, (b) designing a pretty dress, and (c) acting normal.

What a blog wrecker of an episode this was. I look forward to hauling my nasty-bastard A-game out of cold storage next week, but what am I supposed to do after last night's show _ make fun of how people's sisters look? Make nasty remarks about somebody's mother? What kind of person would even consider doing something like that? (Hint: Jeffrey.)

The latest installment of summer's best reality show swiped a shrewd move from the Survivor playbook: Just when the contestants are beginning to seem a little less than bearable, bring in a bunch of family members and let the tears and revelations start flowing. But the arrival of six mothers and two sisters did more than warm up the episode; it allowed for a canny commentary on the artifice that usually defines this show, as well as an editorial swipe at the fact that most designers never give a second thought to women with large butts, wide hips, short waists, neck rolls, big boobs, and other actual human features. This week, they were forced to do just that. To paraphrase the philosopher Mo'Nique, it was time to hate on the skinny bitches and design for everyone else.

Before we get to how the players met that challenge, let us count the great tidbits of information that were imparted to us.

Fourth best tidbit: Michael Kors has a mother. And they have matching tans.

Third best tidbit: Laura is pregnant with her sixth child (old news over the Internet back fence, but fresh info to viewers, and apparently to her own mother). This announcement allowed the expectant mom to utter the greatest line about parenthood since the glory days of Roseanne: ''Five, six, seven _ it doesn't make that big of a difference. I'll just throw it on the pile with the other ones.'' ''It.'' How sweet that she's already picked out a name!

Second best tidbit: Jeffrey used to be an alcoholic suicidal junkie living on the street. (Not sure which street, but it was near a tattoo parlor.) Some of you have noted that I've been very hard on Jeffrey, so let me at least say that he has what appears to be a very nice mother who probably had to log a lot of playground time having to gently ''explain'' Jeffrey to the other mothers. I really wanted to give him the best-revelation prize, but he'll have to settle for runner-up status and a $20,000 scholarship, because the tiara goes to...

Kayne! Why? Because Kayne lost 110 pounds. That's right _ he lost an entire supermodel, plus a second supermodel's leg and head. And in the land of Project Runway, anyone can be a reformed substance abuser, but it takes a big man to admit you were...a big man.

Bravo, Mr. Former Huskypants. In consideration of your accomplishment, I'm going to forgive you for putting Michael's elegant mother in a pair of wrinkly old Bermuda shorts that looked like an 18-hour girdle after a football game. And while I'm handing out absolution, Laura, I guess you're off the hook for that trap-door diaper-front high skirt you stuck on Jeff's mom. As for the best dresses, other than Vincent's simple, sharp black silhouette for Uli's mother, Uli, with her great eye for fabrics, came through with a snazzy, breeze-blown chiffon that Kayne's mom worked like she owned the place.

That left Jeffrey, Angela, and Robert in the bottom three, and Robert, after weeks of underperformance, was sadly but deservedly sent home for putting Vincent's sister in exactly the kind of outfit that women who don't look like Barbie dolls get stuck wearing when they don't know what else to put on _ a big wet sigh of a black dress with a vast swollen-ankle-colored top that was the visual manifestation of a howl of defeat. [Read Jessica Shaw's interview with Robert]. Robert's departure allowed the only fair ending to the bad-behavior contest between Jeffrey and Angela: a draw. Jeffrey, you insulted Angela's mom. You said you didn't ''appreciate'' her standing next to you. And you referred to her as a ''crazy bitch.'' To sum up: Have fun in hell. And Angela, you urged your grouchy mother to trash-talk Jeffrey's blobular dress on the runway to sabotage him. Remember: All the rosettes and bubble skirts in the world will not hide a conniving heart.

What a delight, however, that the two evildoers will fight it out again next week. And now, in the tradition of the Macy's Accessory Wall, the L'Oral Paris Makeup Room, and the TRESemm whatever, let me end with my own product placement: Project Runway fans, trust me: You will not want to miss the next cover of Entertainment Weekly.

What did you think? Weren't you shocked that Jeffrey cried when Robert left? Putting aside the fact that we love Michael, do women really want to wear reversible dresses any more than men want to wear reversible pants? And when Vincent said, ''Uli's mom has this European air about her,'' do you think it occurred to him that she is, in fact, European?

To understand what happened on the latest installment of Project Runway, it helps to begin at the end. The very end specifically that little sentence that flashes by in the closing credits that says ''the Producers and Bravo'' give the judges ''input'' during the elimination process. Following their lead, I would like to offer my own ''input'' to the producers and Bravo after this week's outcome: Butt out. Keep your grubby ''We have to keep him because he's 'good television' '' mitts off of the judging process, and let Runway be Runway. Because I bet there isn't a contestant, an actual judge, or more than a tiny handful of viewers who seriously believe that Vincent, perennial bottom-dwelling nut bag, should still be around.

And yet, he is. This week's challenge wasn't a ''Make it beautiful'' show but a true ''Make it work'' hour in which the nine remaining contestants had to style clothes out of recyclable materials found in a Newark warehouse. (It was all very An Inconvenient Truth goes to Fashion Week.) Here's what we learned: Tim Gunn looks dapper and freshly pressed even at 5 a.m. Kayne used to Dumpster-dive as a little boy. Forced to use garbage, Angela will make exactly the same kind of Sporty Space Whore costume she makes most weeks. And one more thing: In the world of couture, looking like Minnie Mouse, whose name was rudely invoked more than once, is apparently a bad thing. As bad as looking like Frankenstein (or, as Nina Garcia pronounced it with regal disdain, Frank N. Stein).

Minnie came up when the judges were considering this week's bottom three. Alison (who at one point this week was subtitled, apparently for viewers not conversant in Blonde) complained that she was stuck with a big model without a waist, a conversation that allowed Tim Gunn to become the least Jewish person in history ever to use the word zaftig. Figuring that humiliating your model is the best revenge, Alison wrapped her in a stiff, wide hate crime of a minidress, stuck a king-size hair bow on her head that looked like something a Topsy Tail vomited up, and, for good measure, attached a bewildered-looking six-inch stalagmite to her right shoulder. The poor model walked out onto the runway looking as if she knew the bad teenagers were about to dump a bucket of pig's blood on her and ruin her prom. And when Heidi used the sentence ''She looks like a plus model'' (a word so filled with rage I'm surprised Bravo didn't bleep it), end of story. Alison went home. And, as Mr. Gunn always says with an absolutely delightful lack of conviction on his indispensable podcast, ''we'll miss her.''

That saved Kayne, a surprise tenant in the bottom three whose good judgment in saying that he knew his fourth-grade Thanksgiving-pageant, ''Look, Mommy, I'm playing a tree!'' dress was ugly did not mitigate the fact that it was, indeed, ugly. Kayne got off with a warning because of his past strong performances and open display of shrewdly calculated shame. (Oddly, Kayne also got subtitled once this week, I guess for the few Project Runway viewers who don't speak Gay.)

That left seven other conflicted, worried personalities in jeopardy all of them Vincent. True to form, he listened to the Inner Voices and designed a tubular white fire hazard that looked as if his model were the victim of a sorority hazing in which she was mummified in double-stick tape and then pelted with debris. At one point, as she shuffled along, I thought she was being pecked to death by origami birds. Even his design table was frightening; it looked like a room from Se7en. As Vincent stood there, he blinked and gaped and fussed and threw out words like ''artsy'' and ''avant-garde'' as if going through a series of fashion adjectives alphabetically would eventually save him. And something did though what it was, only ''the Producers and Bravo'' know.

This dunderheaded decision led to one of PR's only post-elimination fights ever, when in-it-to-win-it Laura leaned over (almost saw your boob; still love you) and tore into Vincent. He said something incomprehensible about Harry Winston and her nose and then smugly leaned back, ready to get kicked around for another week after all.

What else? Oh, right the winners. Is there anyone, at this point, not wowed by Michael, whose phenomenally smart and appealing three-piece gold, white, and translucent plastic combo won him his second straight challenge? He was joined in the top three by Laura, who found a way to make a Laura dress even out of garbage (although she appears to have contracted a localized case of Rosette's disease from Angela), and by the reprehensible Jeffrey, who made a dress that I guess had its virtues, especially if you've ever looked at bile and thought, ''Gee, what a nice color.'' (Michael Kors called it ''ugly-beautiful''; he was half right.) And that left three in the middle: Robert and Angela, both elated to dodge the bullet, and Uli, who seemed to aim a German-to-German laser death beam at Heidi when she missed the top three. Now that's a cage match I'd like to see.

What did you think? Is Vincent still around on merit or because of meddling? What is ''the fine line between innovation and insanity''? And doesn't the timelessly stylish Minnie Mouse deserve an apology?