Makeup Today, Megaselling Licensed Action Figures Tomorrow?

Spotlight Challenge Pre-Announcement

As teased at the end of the last episode, something big and huge and shocking and unprecedented is coming...and here it is! You know how all the shows like this -- your Projects Runway, your Tops Chef -- set giant challenges at the end that require eliminated contestants to come back and help and pretend not to be bitter about having been cut? Well, this season they're doing that on Face Off, except the challenge is so big that all of the eliminated contestants are coming back! Emily The Walking Raw Nerve is thrilled to see her former cohorts marching out onto the stage, and she stops giggling and shaking long enough to ask if she can go hug people. Apparently not. Face Off is stricter and colder than a Danish nun!

Anyway, Emily will soon get to touch at least five returnees BECAUSE the finalists take turns choosing the members of what will be their finale challenge teams, even though they still don't know what the challenge is other than that each team will be creating four characters. While my esteemed colleague/spouse Dave complains that ending on a challenge that will require the finalists to do so much delegation of their work may not be the best way to evaluate their skills one last time, the finalists pick. The only reason to watch is if you want a refresher on which early eliminees' names go with which faces. MAN some of these people have been gone a while!

Videochatting With Loved Ones

People's parents (Emily) or significant others (Darla, Logan) miss their contestants and are proud of them. It's extremely predictable and rote, with the exception of Logan's wife Sarah, who notices him tearing up and asks, "Are you leaking?" Cute.

Spotlight Challenge Announcement For Real This Time

The contestants and their team members/losers roll into the lab on Day 1 to find a red carpet and velvet ropes set up, and McKenzie waiting for them. Finally, the learn the focus of the season's last challenge: with franchises like Star Wars, The Avengers, and Guardians Of The Galaxy dominating the film industry, it's up to the facetestants to design the characters of the future. Specifically, they'll each choose a number that corresponds to a genre. Then they'll run to a board of magnetic poetry, basically, and choose up to ten words, out of which each team will come up with a title for their movie. And then they'll create the four characters who'll serve as the film's protagonists.

Emily chooses first, and the genre under the number 2 is "Post-Apocalyptic." Sure. Then Logan picks, and number 3 is "Sci-Fi." Sooooooo, a larger bucket into which Emily's could easily fall? Weird. Darla ends up with 1, which genre is "Fantasy." I really don't get why Emily's was so specific when the other two were so broad.

Anyway, after a scramble at the wall, we have our titles. Darla's creating characters for The Spirits Of Eden; Emily's is Paradise Reckoning (yeesh); and Logan does a bit where he only throws up "The" before admitting that his real title is The Fortress, which I spend a good couple of hours thinking is that weird Robin Wright movie from last year where she sells her likeness for CGI. (But that's The Congress, you're welcome.)

"These are truly some unique titles," McKenzie lies. And maybe the designers would have thought about it more if they'd known there's another level to the competition: there's going to be a "VIP after-hours experience" at Universal Studios at the end of the challenge's last day, where members of the public (nerds) will get to check out their creations and vote on their favourite set. McKenzie says she'll be sharing those results with the judges before they make their decision, but it doesn't sound like the public vote has any actual bearing on the outcome, which is as it should be; as we all know, the public is dumb.

Design Phase

Here's where we first see that Logan has assembled Team Sausage Party.

The idea behind their characters is that they're all animals who were the subjects of scientific testing, so they have adaptations and/or disfigurements that inform their characters. The sketches are very Guardians Of The Galaxy-looking...

...although maybe I just think that because they're freak/mutants in matching jumpsuits.

Darla's very excited about her idea to make her characters representatives of the four elements -- earth, air, fire, and water -- particularly Earth, which is going to be a worm wrapped around a tree trunk, but like, a worm with a beautiful face.

Emily's concept is a post-apocalyptic take on The Wizard Of Oz, which I think Syfy has already done four or five times, but why not a sixth?

The reason to watch this episode is Laura's arrival and check-in with Team Darla, because she could not be more opposed to the earth spirit idea. "Attractive female face on top of a worm body?" she repeats dubiously. I feel like the real issue is less the worm than the question of how the model's going to move around in a tree trunk without looking like a kid in a sixth-grade play. Anyway, in a TH, Darla complains about Laura's input coming at this point in the day, since she thought they'd nailed down their concept already. In the lab, she tries to make her case for the gorgeous worm by saying Laura's always telling them to show the judges something they've never seen before, and Laura snorts, "That's definitely something they've never seen before." Laura's total failure even to pretend to mask her revulsion is hilarious -- and, for this jerk, extremely relatable.

After a commercial, we return to Laura still sketching alternative concepts for the earth spirit; finally, she and Darla seem to settle on an "earth goddess with vines." If Emily thinks it's been done, she's polite enough not to say so on camera.

The rest of Days 1 and 2 are the usual -- Darla doesn't want to get too literal with her flame effects on her fire spirit; Emily's creating fake glass using a silicone compound that requires a lot of math to mix up -- so fast-forward to the point on Day 3 when Gregory is trying to show off his armadillo costume construction to Logan, who patiently listens before breaking his heart for him: "I like your innovation, but I'm absolutely serious when I say this type of stuff does not matter." This dressing-down goes on long enough to have a commercial break in the middle, after which Logan tells Gregory that his motto has been "No time for hot glue; only enough time for tape," though he's generous enough not to add a TH to the effect of 'And if Gregory had stayed in the competition longer than five minutes he might have learned these strategies too.' He does say, in his TH, that he thinks Gregory gets it, and then the editor cuts back to Gregory in the lab, telling Logan, "You can pull it just as tight around her as you want, but it's going to be comfortable because there's padding all the way around." Logan: "...'Kay." Yep, Gregory's right on top of that, Rose.

Application Day

Some people are confident! Others are nervous! Some costume pieces have to be tweaked or scrapped at the last second! TENSION!!!

Reveal Stages, PLURAL?!

But sparingly. This is the only point in the episode where you see the characters in the context of the film story: they're actually on miniature sets with props and stuff.

Emily's set dressing overwhelms her characters a little, but one spectator comments that it has a Mad Max feel, so the post-apocalyptic concept definitely reads, even to a layperson.

Similarly, Darla's is clearly a fantasy world, with characters -- particularly her wind spirit faun, which is straight out of mythology -- that are archetypally otherworldly.

And that trompe l'oeil spaceship hallway behind Logan's only underscores the Guardians Of The Galaxy-ness of it for me.

It's also fun to see the artists justly proud of their work as they describe their ideas and the underlying story to the VIPs who are checking them out. We also see all three judges do their Closer Look at the park; both Westmores and all three judges -- even Anthony, remember him?! -- checking out the final products. It feels much more interactive and informal than the performances we've seen in other seasons, which I prefer.

Reveal Stage

It's the finals, so you really only need to watch this if you want to see wall-to-wall compliments about everything.

Logan's up first: Ve praises the paint job on the skunk character, and Neville congratulates Logan for creating characters that actors will be excited to play.

Emily is also praised for her paint job. Ve calls out the very effective skinlike effect Emily achieved on her leather-patched Dorothy character. Neville likes that the characters feel "associated from a creative standpoint." And Glenn reiterates his admiration for Emily's artificial glass on her Shard character, who's supposed to look like he crashed through a windshield.

Last up is Darla. Her faun character -- a wind spirit -- is played by that one real ham of a model who also played Darla's doll a couple of weeks ago.

And she really could have dialed it back because the judges are already gaga for the look of this character and the thought that went into it -- the shape of her horns, the look of her body piece. When Darla says that the character is a head-to-toe wind instrument, Glenn geeks out: "That makes it even better!" "I got the chills!" Ve agrees. I can't help noticing that nothing at all is said about Darla's merman water spirit, perhaps because there aren't a lot of compliments to give on a character who looks so derpy compared to the rest.

Winner

And the winner is...Darla!

Logan's bummed, but he's happy for Darla; Emily's proud of everything she accomplished. If you were expecting someone to say Darla's win is bullshit and that they wish they could set her on fire...well, you should probably be watching Project Runway. "And of course, that means a huge congratulations are in order to Laura as well -- you are the first-ever repeat champion of Face Off!" adds McKenzie. That seems like overstating things a bit? Like to the degree where I wonder if Darla even hears what sounds like a declaration that Laura is her Face Off running mate? Laura gave her some advice and a couple of sketches; I don't think I saw her pulling any molds apart. But sure, good for Laura as well.

Verdict

You can't come this far and then not watch the finale! Plus, merman aside, all three finalists really did come up with some pretty cool-looking characters, and the Universal Studios event is a great setting for unveiling the best of the season for real members of the public. Plus, if Laura and Darla are essentially co-winners, then if you consider that Darla got the idea of trying special effects makeup by watching Face Off, then in a sense isn't this a win for ALL us fans? Oh my God, you guys! WE WON!

Just kidding, Darla. Well done and well deserved, and a fine capper for the season.