We absolutely adore Project Runway’s torturous insistence on throwing kinks into the machinery just when the designers are about to die from creative exhaustion. Starting to despise one another? Even better: It ups the tears-and-snippy-comments-per-square-inch ratio.

But hello, if you are a finalist and you don’t expect last-minute anguish, you don’t come prepared with three ideas crib-noted on your hand just for emergencies, and you don’t automatically assume that when it’s bad, it’s going to get worse - Grow up! Watch more TV!

Wednesday’s was the first of Project Runway’s two-part finale with finalists Jerell (who won last week’s evening gown challenge), Leanne, Korto and Kenley (that’s her design below left). Part two of the finale airs next Wednesday night). The show followed a structure now familiar to obsessive fans: Tim Gunn flies around the country visiting each of the finalists’ home studios to see their collections in progress, swoons over some, scowls over others, meets everyone’s families in only the kindest way, and then drives off in a strategically product-placed Saturn into the sunset.

Then the designers all show up in New York, where we see their collections, find out who listened to Tim and who didn’t, and watch everyone get teary over the fact that This Is New York Fashion Week, and they have dreamed of it their entire lives.

For the first time this season, the designers’ final collections had to include a wedding dress. (Just like real designers!) The last-minute challenge: Design a bridesmaid dress to accompany the wedding gown, and do it for $150 by midnight. Surprise! This is how we will get from four designers down to three, as long as Kenley doesn’t kill Korto first.

Judges Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia swoon for Leanne’s sculptured wedding dress and pale blue bridesmaid dress, praise and berate Kenley’s short, feather-covered gown (above left), call Korto’s wildly ruched gown (pictured at the top) “overworked,” and throw out adjectives like “messy,” “garish” and “hog wild” about  Jerell’s dresses. We expected this earlier, actually, when Jerell did not take Tim’s advice! (Fool! Watch more TV! )

In the end, that’s the way it goes, with Jerell getting auf’d and an all-femme finale in the wings for next week.