The Face Off Finale Is Out Of This World! (...There Are Aliens.)

This week, I happen to be in Canada, hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law and nieces while my parents, who live in Pakistan, are also back home for a visit. And everyone in the house, from my near-retirement-age parents to my five-year-old niece, has been sucked into Face Off (though Niece Liv, when she gets to watch the season finale, is going to be mad; she was rooting for Tyler).

In some ways, the finale captured what's best about the show, as my esteemed colleague Dave and I discussed a few weeks back. The contestants -- the right three, by the way -- get a challenge they can all get good and geeked about: creating two alien races, the only guidelines for which are that (a) they're from the same part of the galaxy, and (b) they're rivals. The contestants also get to show off what great collaborators they are when the last six eliminated artists return to help them finish their looks. Yes, this is something they also do on Project Runway when the last designers get "surprised" with the news that they must add one more look to their collections, but the Face Offers definitely seem a lot more enthusiastic and a lot less bitchy about it -- and since they've been helping each other all season as a matter of course, working together for this final challenge is as refreshingly drama-free as we've come to expect from this show.

Buuuuuuut, it is a finale, which I guess is why someone thought the episode should incorporate a big, showy spectacle -- namely, that the contestants' final Spotlight Challenge would take place on stage at a theatre, with an audience, and that the aliens would be part of a dance performance set to music by DJ Rusko. (My dad: "WHO?" Me: "Gee, Dad, are you really saying you, a fifty-nine-year-old university registrar who lives in Karachi, has never heard of this club DJ?" Dad: "Quiet, you.") I mean, I get it: the ultimate test for a complex makeup effect is putting it through the stress of a live dance performance. But this component means that the makeup must be applied not on the usual models -- who, for all the shit I privately give their over-emoting when I watch at home, actually do try to act like the characters they're embodying -- but on dancers, whose bodies are very expressive but who looked either terrified or silly when all they had to do was stand there. (George's guy, in particular, was obviously instructed to snarl, but ended up looking more like he was doing that bit where you dry out your upper lip and tuck it inside like a goober.) And good lord, the dance just seemed to go on and on and on.

But! Even though I might have been bored by the dancing (which, by the way, was also really poorly directed), the sweet, dorky excitement of the contestants every time the camera cut back to them made me feel like a churl. They are so psyched to be doing this that their joy is really infectious, and that has remained one of my favourite things about the show. Among the three finalists, I don't think I ever heard anyone bitch about the limited time allotted or get snippy or snotty about someone else's design. They're just artists living their dream and thrilled to meet their heroes, and that made ME feel thrilled for them.

Honestly, all three of the finalists were so strong that I would have been happy to see any of them win, but I can't quibble with a guy who was (justly) on top as much as Rashaad was taking home the prize. I may not have cried, like Ve did, but I was touched by his having to take a knee and enjoy the moment. This was my first season of Face Off, so I'll have to wait for Season 7 to find out whether this close-knit group of goofy, cheerful dorks are the exception or the rule...and fortunately, I'll only have to wait until July.