Two Heads (And Species) Are Better Than One

Spotlight Challenge Announcement

We open in a gigantic stadium that McKenzie is about to inform this bunch of nerds in the cast (and in the show's audience) is L.A. Memorial Coliseum. One of the female facetestants -- sorry, I don't know their voices yet -- says she hopes it's not a football challenge, and since I lived in Los Angeles for over two years and only recognized this arena because I'd been in it for the L.A. Festival Of Books, I agree. Fortunately for us all, even though this episode is airing just days before the Super Bowl, it is only vaguely sports-related. As we all know because we watch the show, Ve has worked on the Hunger Games movies, which is why she's here to introduce a challenge in which the facetestants will be teaming up to create plant/animal hybrid predators, like the ones in those films. Glenn is also there to stand around awkwardly looking like he's just lost a lot of weight but has maybe gotten a little too ambitious in buying his new clothing size and now has to suck in super-hard.

The facetestants have been pre-sorted into teams of two to collaborate on this challenge; each team chooses a pre-matched animal/plant pair to design their predator, so it all shakes out thus:

• Kelly & Daniel / scorpion & delphinium
• Ben & Darla / ram & cactus
• Emily & Regina / hyena & shampoo ginger
• Julian & Adam / bat & sugarbush protea
• Logan & Anthony Jr. / warthog & American pitcher plant
• Stephanie & Alan / thorny dragon & cockscomb
• Rob & Jamie / piranha & blue thistle

Before everyone's loosed to sketch, McKenzie asks Ve, who's worked on the Hunger Games movies, for her advice. She mentions the "mutts" from the first movie, and that they weren't cute or funny -- they were terrifying, and the facetestants' creations should be, too. Glenn, to justify his presence, adds that he doesn't want to see "someone with a flower around their head"; he wants the plant to be integrated with the look of the animal.

Oh! And! There's a surprise! For those who haven't watched any "this season on Face Off" segment! Ve's buddy Josh Hutcherson -- a huge geek for the show, according to Ve, who knows him from working with him on the Hunger Games movies -- will be a judge at the Reveal Stage.

Design Phase

This is pretty much the usual. All the teammates seem to get along and collaborate well, from what we see. I had also thought this might be where we'd find out more about the specific poisonous properties of the chosen plants and predatory skills of the animals, but that does not occur.

Sculpting Phase

As the facetestants pour into the lab to start work, the champions (remember them?) show up for the first time. Most of this is standard stuff -- teams divide up cowl/face duties and remind us of what's at stake (like Kelly, who is determined not to end up on the bottom again) -- until we get to Emily and Regina. They've been working separately for a while when Emily looks over at Regina's cowl and sees that it has very little relation to the face that Emily's been sculpting. As their respective team coaches stand their uselessly, Emily and Regina tightly bicker about how they should proceed now, with Emily whining to Regina, "I need a direction to go and I'll follow it." Is Regina the captain of their team? Also, does this strife presage problems down the road?!

Michael Visits

After the first two episodes featured way too much input from way too many people, it feels like producers have now figured out how much to include. If that's the case, I 100% approve of showing us more of Michael's and less of the coaches', because I really only feel like I learn anything about process from the former. As he moves around the room, he's pretty positive in general -- tweaking the nostrils on Adam and Julian's; advising Ben and Darla on how to keep their ram looking uncanny once human eyes are involved; telling Rob and Jamie their piranha interpretation is too literal. He also has a lot of concerns about matching up Emily's face with Regina's cowl (he seems to me to hate the latter more), and they're like, WE KNOW.

Molding Phase

Race advises Anthony Jr. on how to make his face less friendly, which Anthony Jr. desperately needs because that shit looks like a luck dragon.

Emily tells us that she and Regina consulted the night before and decided on (a) a new look for the face, which (b) Regina will now be doing, while Emily does the cowl. This seems like a smart way forward, but Emily has so much vocal fry that even as she's telling us this, she sounds like she's about to burst into tears any second. Meanwhile, Kelly's freaking out about getting her cowl molded in time -- yes, again -- while Daniel tries to calm her down; and Ben and Darla also run out of time to clean out their mold properly, so that they're not sure their foam piece will even be usable. OH MY GOD, WILL IT BE?!

Application Phase

Ben and Darla's foam piece is fine; it just has extra foam bits he has to clean up. Elsewhere, Stephanie and Alan's is a mess that he's going to have to spend most of the day fixing up. Whoops, spoke too soon: Ben and Darla's cowl is way too big for their model. As everyone buzzes around, the coaches seem like they're standing at a prescribed distance as they give hands-off advice...except Laura, who gets in on Stephanie and Alan's design with a brush, which makes me wonder whether there are restrictions on how much input the coaches are allowed to give.

In terms of who appears to be in the most trouble: Stephanie's worried about her paint job, but Regina and Emily are really in the weeds, worrying about lightening their paint job for the Reveal Stage and attaching all the fake hair Emily made out of hemp. This hair business again? Change the record, Emily.

Reveal Stage

After an intro in which the very affable Josh Hutcherson effuses about the show in a way that does legitimately make him come off like a nerd for the show (prompted by McKenzie, he's also very complimentary of working with Ve), it's time to get a look at all these monsters. They're all pretty cool, though my watching companion Dave notes that Julian and Adam's seems like the only one so far that looks like a true hybrid.

When Adam expresses concern about the paint job, I say, "Don't worry, Adam: Emily and Regina are going to be in the bottom, so you're fine." I mean, look at this thing!

The other worst-looking one to me is Rob and Jamie's derpy piranha.

And while Jamie's voice-over has her sounding confident, her face at the side of the stage betrays her.

Judging

SHOWS WHAT I KNOW: the judges are happy with what they see...until they get to Adam and Julian's, which they say isn't scary enough and has too blotchy a paint job. More shocking still, they LOVE Regina and Emily's! Guys, I don't know: it must look much cooler in person than it did on TV, because that looks like craft work to me; the hemp hair in particular looks like fake moss you put in the bottom of a plant pot, according to Dave (and he's right). But okay! Glenn is also pissed that Alan and Stephanie did exactly what he'd told everyone not to, and that their sculpt is too soft.

After Kelly and Daniel, Logan and Anthony Jr., and Rob and Jamie are all sent away safe, it's time for critiques, though it's already clear from the reaction during the inspection which looks are top and which are bottom. Julian and Adam learn that theirs looks "like a psychedelic artichoke with a bat face on it" (Ve); Stephanie and Alan's too-yellow paint job makes theirs look like "a kid's candy pop" (Ve again). But of Ben and Darla's, Neville says, "This is my favourite makeup I've seen on Face Off." Gosh! It's pretty cool, but maybe Neville has that thing I have where once a season of a reality season ends, all the highs and lows completely fall out of my memory.

Winner And Loser

Ben and Darla win, duh, with Ben the super-winner for the work he did on the cowl.

Stephanie and Alan's look is the bottom of the bottom...

...and Alan gets bounced, but with a very positive farewell from Glenn, who says that none of the looks in this episode was bad, per se. In my opinion he is wrong -- EMILY AND REGINA -- but it turns out I don't get to vote.

Verdict

When there's no real train wreck -- or, at least, none that the designers get scolded for, EMILY AND REGINA, it's hard to find anything to lock in on. That said, it's almost worth tuning in just to see Josh Hutcherson's dorky excitement about being on the show.