Face Off Kids Around With Some Imaginary Friends

I'm sorry, dear reader, that this post is a day late. About an hour after I watched this episode, my body had such a violent reaction to the losing design that it generated a kidney stone. Several IV doses of ER dilaudid had this lightweight in a twilight sleep for basically the whole day Wednesday AND the actual kidney stone hasn't even made its appearance except in the CAT scan. RUDE. Anyway: here's this now!

Spotlight Challenge Announcement

McKenzie meets the facetestants at Pasadena's Brookside Park to tell them that none of the hacks in Hollywood (I'm paraphrasing) can compare to the "innocent originality and raw imagination of a child. And to put that assertion to the test, this week's challenge will require the designers each to pair up with an actual kid and collaborate on an imaginary friend character they will bring to life.

And here they are!

I guess Kelly passed the "overreact gigantically to any announcement" torch to Emily in an offscreen ceremony because she goes fucking nuts when she hears they're going to be working with children, even though it takes a very talented artist with a sharp editor's mind to turn the kind of nonsense the average kid coughs up into anything like Axe Cop. And yet, when McKenzie says that each kid gets to pick the artist he or she wants to work with and they go tearing across the playground to grab them by the legs...

...even I, with my black, black heart, can't help being charmed.

Design Phase

Logan's partnered with Alexandra, and he really wants to make a monster. Alexandra: "My imaginary friend is a mermaid!"

"Never had the colour pink in my airbrush, but when a little girl asks you to do a mermaid, you do a mermaid." Yeah you do!

"Lance has a long list of everything he wants in a monster," says Adam, "but I know I can't make everything." HMMMMM, IF ONLY SOME OF YOUR COLLEAGUES WERE THAT WISE. Like, for example, Ben, who says, "Blayne has the biggest imagination ever, and wants everything on this creature." Okay. You know he's not judging, though, right? "I have to kind of remind him that I've got to put a person in this thing."

Julian's kid, Andrew, has a rattail.

I hope someone on set to make sure the kids weren't overworked was a mandatory reporter and called CPS on his parents for that tonsorial abuse. Just before everyone gets up to leave the park, Julian tells us he's glad that Andrew's concept -- a b-boy zombie -- is just his style...which is why it's funny that the second Laura arrives, she looks at Julian's sketch and tells us, "I'm instantly worried."

Laura explains to Julian the dummy that this is a kid challenge; he can't make a realistic-looking zombie. I guess after half the artists heard "superhero" and made "supervillain," Julian figures the challenge brief is just a rough guideline; what he says is that he doesn't want to disappoint Andrew. Is it that, or is it that you want to do something you already know how to do?

Elsewhere, Ben is getting lots of attention from Anthony because he's...all that's left of Anthony's team. His concept already seems way too involved: the extra heads are going to be attached to his model's arms, and he's going to build a costume that will have his model walking on his knees because Blayne didn't want his guy to have legs. Blayne had ALSO said he wanted his character to fly, which I guess Ben talked him out of.

Michael Westmore pops in and doesn't have much to say, other than to tell Logan not to do so much coral reef on his mermaid's face so she'll stay pretty, and to tell Ben to pay extra attention to his model's eyeballs. When he gets to Julian, we see a new sketch that shows Julian's tried to cute-ify his character a little, off Laura's advice.

Closer but still creepy! Michael and Laura agree that Julian needs to give the character a good smile to make it whimsical.

You can start fast-forwarding here; Logan scraps his original ugly mermaid tail and starts fresh with a new design; Emily gets so lonely for her family that she starts weeping, and when she goes outside to collect herself, Laura follows, nicely telling her, "If it wasn't a challenge, it wouldn't be amazing when you accomplish it." At this point, my esteemed colleague/spouse Dave complains that there's always one person on a reality show who can't keep his or her head together, and it's true...but at least Emily has the excuse of being eighteen. She's still a baby! She might still live at home!

Molding Phase

Ben says it's good to have Anthony's undivided attention, and again, I'd really like to know whether it's ever been established exactly how much the coaches are allowed to contribute, because by the time he leaves he is DRENCHED in sweat from his exertions. Elsewhere, Adam is still doing fabrication -- which is 80% of his design -- so he's not going to get to his head mold until Application Day. RISKY.

Application Day

Sparingly. Really, the only reason to watch this segment is to get the backstory for the train wreck that will be Ben's finished design on the reveal stage. When his model arrives, Ben still hasn't made any part of his costume, so Anthony suggests that he get his model to help: "As a coach, I can't do the work for him, so his model helps him fabricate things and I'll just be in the suit all day."

Also worrisome is Adam's first assemblage of costume and head.

The chest piece is supposed to look like Lazor's lower jaw, but the way the head and the chest piece fit together, it looks like a mask sitting on top of an elaborate chest protector. Rayce suggests building up the shoulders to give the pieces more relation to one another.

When we get to the last thirty minutes, Ben is really and truly fucked.

Anthony says he knows Ben bit off more than he could chew, but that he didn't know how to rein him in. GREAT JOB, COACH.

Reveal Stage

Everyone's on their best behaviour because of the kids, who are super-psyched to see their concepts walk out on the stage in real life.

Safe are Logan...

...and Emily...

...with the latter disappointed at the judges' inspection that they don't reach out to touch her model's skin, which Emily has painstakingly flocked to give it a velveteen texture. (The model's probably pissed too, since I imagine that's going to take forever to get off, and all for naught. (Adding insult to injury, Ve notes that this would have been the time for Emily to have done one of her big hairdos -- which she specifically didn't after Ve's critique last week -- and had the character's rabbit ears up framing it. Oh well!)

Up first among the top and bottom looks is Darla, whose partner, Jordyn, wanted a diamond face and button eyes. Since Darla couldn't make button eyes that didn't look creepy, her compromise was buttons on a lorgnette; for the face, which Jordyn wanted to be a diamond, she focused on making a diamond shape and the suggestion of translucence. Her integration of the diamond concept in both the face and in a texture on her model's chest that makes it look like diamonds are studding out of it are complimented by Glenn.

And then there's Ben.

Logan's expression when Ben's look went up KIND OF says it all.

It's so misbegotten, you guys. The judges can't find one nice thing to say about it. "I'm very disappointed," says Ve, not mincing words. In addition to the fact that the paint job is unfinished, Neville says Ben's mistake was in trying to do exactly what his kid wanted -- rather than, as all the other artists did, doing a version that was close enough to match what was requested. I mean, did you see Darla trying to make a transparent head? No, you did not. As Dave said, all the other facetestants should be donating to Blayne's college fund for his part in making all their designs look so good by comparison.

I personally thought Adam's was middling at best -- that faux fur always looks so cheap to me -- but the judges praise him for interpreting Lance's idea in a smart way. If you read between the lines, what they're saying is that Adam did what Ben TRIED to do, except successfully.

As for Julian, even cutened up, his design is no good. First of all, the monster half of the face isn't zombie; it looks like a skeleton. Ve says the paint job is bad. And the shape choices, generally, are just "odd." I would also add that making something look cute is THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD. Big eyes, soft cheeks. DONE.

Before the judges start their deliberations, the bottom artists' coaches get the chance to speak up for them. Anthony doesn't even try to defend Ben's abortion of a design, instead taking the "look at all the work he's done through the season" tack. Laura points out that Julian tried to go out of his comfort zone, and tried to incorporate notes he's gotten from the judges and the input from Andrew (and his rattail). I don't really see how he incorporated their notes, but does it even matter when Ben is clearly the loser?

Winner And Loser

Adam wins, even though his design is more fabrication than makeup. And Ben, the clear loser, is the clear loser, which means Anthony is out too. Backstage, he seems way more emotional than Ben as he says his goodbyes, and when Laura tells him she's learned a lot from him, Anthony can barely choke out a "Likewise." Was he even going to win anything if he'd stayed? Just go back to your JOB, dude.

Verdict

But keep your thumb on the FF button; when the kids aren't around, it's a pretty rote outing.