The back half of every season for Face Off is always the show's finest. As the contestant pool continues to get whittled down, the finest talent remains and the makeups get insanely better as we barrel toward the finale and last night's episode of the show was no exception. We saw some complex work to say the least as our intrepid artists brought to life a "Freak Show".

But before all of that, there was of course a foundation challenge that went down, granting one person immunity for the night. This challenge was to take a model and make them up like a traditional Amazonian warrior, forcing the contestants to find a way to make their models look earthy and scary and as an added bonus, Oscar Winning Makeup Artist Robin Matthews came in to judge their work. In the end Meg did a fine job when it came to realism but Scott won the challenge with his wonderful idea to use clay as mud, giving his model one amazing look.  

Then came the spotlight challenge, and it was time to create a real life Freak from the freak shows of yesteryear. Each contestant was given a unique character to work with and turned loose. Scott, with his immunity in place once again went super ambitious, building a full head appliance and throwing a chest and arm appliance into it at the same time because hey, he had time and he's that good. In fact, I'm calling it now, he will either win the competition or finish in the top two. But let's not get too ahead of ourselves, for while Scott soared, Evan went Kevon on us and decided to go for a wild and crazy concept for his moon girl. 

It was rough to say the least, so rough in fact it put him in the bottom looks for the night because Moon Girl simply didn't work and he knew it as well. But more on that in a moment because when it came to top looks this go round, something I can't ever remember seeing happen on the show, happened...there was only one top look and one instant winner, Ben. Now Ben was on the verge of being sent home last week so this is truly his redemption to say the least because the judges, especially Glenn, LOVED his take on the Human Peacock. It was a fine makeup but I still have questions as to whether or not Ben can handle the pressure, time will tell.  

But, sliding back to bottom looks, Evan was joined on the stage by Meg. Her attempt to make a man be "inside out" turned out to be nothing more than...as Glenn put it "Party City S---" and well, I have to agree. Her idea was fantastic, the execution just wasn't there and that's been the story of Meg for a long time on this show. One minute she is brilliant, the next, lacking and tonight that inconsistency sent her home and I fully agree with it. The show gets extremely difficult past this point and while she is clearly talented, she isn't ready. Either way, only six remain and next week we head into The Expanse...until then.

Oh what a long and painful wait it has been for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to return to our television screens. After all, despite a stellar season two finale we were left with so many questions and unresolved issues. How was the world going to react once the Inhumans began to appear all over the planet? What happened to Agent Simmons and more importantly...how the heck was Phil going to function without a hand?

Thankfully the wait is over as last night brought us the season three premiere of the show and "Laws of Nature" wasted no time in getting us right back into the Marvel mix. Our first burning question was answered quickly as we met Joey, a man who takes his fish oil regularly and finds himself going through the Inhuman change process and damn near blows up his city after the transition. Thankfully S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives to extract him, but not before dealing with a mystery organization that is trying to get their hands on the same man.  It leads of course to a healthy investigation by Coulson, with his new robot hand I might add, to discover who this team really is. 

At first of course it seems as though these mystery folks are foe but in the end they are both working toward the same cause, because as it turns out, some of the Inhumans Coulson and the gang have been trying to save have gone missing and the new guys, led by the mysterious Rosalind Price, are finding the poor souls dead. She thinks Coulson's crew has been doing the killing, and vice versa for Coulson but in the end we discover, when Daisy and Mack go to enlist Lincoln's help with Joey's transition to Inhuman status, they meet a big and powerful Inhuman monster that turns out to be Lash from the comic world, and he has come for Lincoln.  

In the end, the battle is just another in a line of crazy incidents in the MCU, enough that President Ellis (William Sadler cameo!) announces that Rosalind's new organization, dubbed the Advanced Threat Containment Unit (A.T.C.U.) will handle these isolated matters going forward to quell the public's growing concerns over these issues. It seems like for the time being, all the messes are as wrapped up as they can be, but we did forget the matter of Agent Simmons. Fitz as it turns out went super bold and traveled alone to the middle east to find a scroll that explains what the Monolith is and how to deal with it and risks life and limb in the process to get Jemma back. We also discover he loves her, which it's nice to finally hear that said aloud. 

None the less he discovers that the scroll only contains a single word, "death" in Hebrew and well...Coulson tells him this means it is time to say goodbye to Jemma and nothing else can be done. Fitz of course goes into a rage, bringing on the feels as he kicks and punches the monolith in the hopes of goading it into doing something to him as well and we finally discover that Jemma is actually on another world, running and hiding from some...thing, chasing her.  So yeah...what a loaded and awesome episode and I loved every single second of it. I mean there was so much amazing to be found here. 

For one, this episode sure did manage to name drop every single major event in the MCU in the last year or so, consistently referring to the events of Age of Ultron and even briefly making mention of Ant-Man as well. All with good reason, this season already has a new feel to it, one that oozes fear and distrust because it's clear now the public is growing weary of constant surprise alien attacks and crazed robots trying to destroy the world. It's all part of the buildup to Civil War no doubt and it's a plot line I expect to build in intensity as the crazy Inhumans storyline continues to grow. Either way, I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with this season premiere of the show, it keeps getting better every year and kudos to Marvel for dropping in that epic William Sadler cameo. Either way, only a week to catch our breath since next week it looks like Ward and possibly Hydra...make their return. Until then. 

Well, that happened. Last night we saw the season 5 premiere of Once Upon a Time, and it really left me thinking….what? Honestly, I really am not sure how I feel about this new season. I do like that they show Emma struggling with the Darkness, like she literally is seeing Rumple talking to her. On the scale of alright to crazy, I have to admit that it was beyond fun to see Emma struggle to keep it together. Rumple was in control, but he also welcomed the Darkness from the very start, while Emma is trying to fight against it as best she can. That’s not really working out well for her, but you know, sometimes these things can’t be avoided.

The magicalness of the series hasn’t worn off. After all, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice seems to be an answer for just about anything. Even if he is weak and possibly dying...this wand sounds like a bad idea though, especially when we find out what has to be done to get it to work. Again, I like Regina’s evil sister, I do, but I’m a little tired of Zelena’s overall….existence. Yes, she’s bad, sad back story, and now pregnant with a baby by her sister's true love. Cool, that’s great. Except there isn’t any change or growth. She’s always bad, and kind of just the scape goat, I feel. Regina on the other hand seems to be holding true. Perhaps a little too good, which isn’t a bad thing. And Gold could die at any given moment in time. The rose Belle now has is a cute nod to her story line, admittedly, and made me squee.

How, what about the addition of Merida? Hopefully she isn’t as short lived as our Frozen counterparts were. She seems to be done well, but that doesn’t mean anything by just one episode. Merida is ever strong, if not more wise, and still kind hearted. I do like her for now, even if she still trusts Emma after having her heart ripped out by the new Dark one, and shoved back in a moment later. Of course, we also have the added tale of King Arthur. Is it finally time we get to see Merlin? The Sword and the Stone has a huge over lay alongside our new story arch…which, is kind of cool since the missing part of Excalibur is the Dark Ones Dagger. What happened to the legendary blade to split it? Why is the dagger evil? Is there a way to banish the Darkness forever?

If anything, the beginning of this season showed that there is a balance between light and dark that shouldn’t be upset. I almost wonder if we’re getting a Kingdom Hearts flare to this season. Which, isn’t unwanted, and might even be fun! Either way, I hope whatever happens is fun. While we had a time skip at the very end of the episode showing an evil Emma, I’m curious to see the overlapping of past and present this season. Though, it might be nice to just have a gradual buildup of sequential events, rather than the constant back and forth. But, that’s not how OUAT does it, and that’s cool too.

Boy, after last week's powerhouse Gaunlet, I felt exhausted tuning into this week's Face Off simply because last week was about as intense as a competition can get and I actually wondered how the show would manage to top itself this week. Turns out they were able to top the Gaunlet in amazing fashion, by bringing forth "Judgment Day".

Granted one can say that Judgment Day happens every week on this show in the last ten minutes, but this episode took it a little further, allowing the remaining eight contestants to team up in groups of four to design makeups that gave life to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Pestilence, Famine and Death) and holy crap...some of the best makeups I've ever seen on the show showed up last night.  

In fact there were two of note that truly blew me away, Jordan's and Evan's. Jordan had War, and the picture at the end of this article is the result of his work and well, as you can see the damn thing is utterly terrifying and he did it in impressive fashion. Jordan took the time to design his entire make up to be set up at last looks, pre fabricating everything and pre painting what he could and seriously, for putting everything together and even pulling off some painting at the last minute he managed to put together one of the most terrifying makeups I've seen on this show in a long time. 

But, the winner turned out to be Evan. His fine work with a different kind of death (pictured above) put him over the top and it was all the little things that made this makeup work as he slowly put it together. It wasn't as scary as Jordan's per se but the other worldly look he created, combined with some lovely sculpting technique won the judges over and I do think it was well deserved. But this week, I do want to take a little time and talk about who was sent home in depth, because I vehemently disagree with it.

This week it came down to Kevon and Ben and well, Kevon and his wild and crazy take on Pestilence was far too abstract for the judges and in a stunner he was sent home. I say this was a stunner because Ben put together an absolute mess. Nothing worked, the ideas were everywhere and he gets to stay. That decision simply did not make sense to me and I'm not sure what the judges saw in his work to keep him on the show. I'm assuming it was his past work and progress thus far but this isn't the first time Ben has been lost in a concept. I really do think the wrong guy went home, but alas, nothing I can do about it. Either way, we will see if Ben rebounds from his scrape with elimination when Circus makeups come to town next week. Until then.

I have to say, Face Off is really managing to impress me this year. Every single week it feels like the show is finding a way to reinvent itself and bring us something new and exciting and last night's episode turned out to be their most engaging of the season yet. Because this week, we were introduced to "The Gauntlet' and it was absolutely magnificent. 

Yes, for the first time ever on the show, the contestants were subjected to their most difficult rapid fire challenge yet. They were to work individually on three stages of makeups, each one ranking them from 1-9 and at the end of the night the lowest scoring contestant would be sent home. Their first stage for the Gauntlet was to put together an exposure makeup, where Nora won round one by creating a hyper realistic frostbite makeup while Kevon lost for a rough paint job, something that scared the living daylights out of him.  

Their second Gauntlet challenge was to complete a character. They were given models that were already in costume and already had appliances attached to their faces and it was the expectation to put together a paint job that reflected the costume and the look of the appliance. It turns out the scare of being in last place was enough to really motivate Kevon in an amazing way because as it turns out he won the second stage outright while Evan lost this challenge. Throughout the Gauntlet all the contestants were power ranked with a total score I might add, and this big swing win heading into the final challenge gave Kevon the top spot and left Stevie and Evan nervous as they tied for last. 

But the third and final stage of the Gauntlet was the most ambitious I've seen on the show yet, because for the first time the contestants were given three models to work with. The goal here was to create three total makeups for the models, but only make one the real focus or the "hero" makeup as they call it. Once again this just goes to show how Face Off gives its contestants real work experience since this is a common thing in the business, heck just ask Greg Nicotero since they do this on The Walking Dead quite often.  Either way, it led to some impressive work from a few of the contestants but the one that stood out for this challenge was Nora with her Legend inspired goblins. In fact it was so solid a makeup that stage three was awarded to Nora. But of course, the final power rankings waited for the contestants and the question was who would go home. 

Nora as it turns out won the outright Gauntlet challenge with that amazing final work, but the person who slid into elimination was Jasmine and this was well deserved. Her mistakes in the first and third stage of the contest finally exposed her weaknesses as an artist and I think this was overdue. She's skirted with elimination before and her lack of experience finally caught up with her.  In the end however, the best way to sum this episode up is wow. I was completely transfixed with this intense challenge and I cannot wait to see what other surprises are in store for us this season. Until next time. 

The Crystal Gems are always going to save the day, and as a  whole, this cartoon is perhaps one of the best I have seen in a while. We've talked before on this show and even eluded to characters and what makes them great. Today, I'm here to expand on that. Even if you're not a fan of Steven Universe, it's a show worth at least looking at. The character designs alone are different from most cartoons, mostly how the women are drawn. In comic books and comic style animations, we see women to be strong, curvy, and definitely a particular hourglass figure. In other shows, like Totally Spies, and even Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, women are drawn in specific ways. Let's face it, women have curves, yes, but we're all not size 2's with tiny waists and large chests. We come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, heights, and so on. I'm not dogging on those who are a size 2 with large chests and tiny waists, I'm simply saying that we all have to embrace our body shapes as they are, and not what we think they should be.

Steven Universe, while just a simple kid's cartoon proves that other types of bodies exist in the world of women, Pearl is tall, flat chested, and lanky, but she is elegant and strong. Plus, I mean, her nose isn't tiny. Is she ashamed of her lack of curves and tiny nose? No! Gem's choose their physical forms. Pearl purposefully chose to look like that. And you know what? She looks good. Pearl is a strong woman that doesn't need to look perfect, she chose her perfect form. Along the same lines, so did Amethyst. In fact, we have an episode dedicated to Amethyst picking her form. She tries for bigger, stronger, and buffer, and so on. Eventually, our little spitfire chooses to be short, and really curvy. Unlike her fellow Gems, Amethyst is short and rather not stick thin. She doesn't have to be. Amethyst proves that a girl can have a larger chest and hips, and maybe not that tiny flat tummy, but she still kicks butt.

That leads me to Garnet, of which I will not go into her defused forms. Garnet may be a fusion, but she is tall, has big hips and a big chest. She's also got some really awesome style. Perhaps that is what I like best about this show, it's not about being a cookie cutter form of women heroes, its about breaking social norms. I may be reading too much into that, but hear me out for a moment. You have three strong women protagonists that don't fit the idea shape of what we are used to seeing women portrayed as in cartoons. Look at Rose, she was a large woman, in every sense of the word, and she was not only a great leader, but a loving, attractive woman. Her size is even commented on in the show, having a side character sneer at her sheer size and that someone loves one big woman when they could instead love several little ones. On that note, good for you Greg, you love Rose as she is!

Later in the series we see Lapis who somewhat fits the normal build, Jasper who is big and muscular, and Paradot, who....just really annoys me. Beyond that we see Stevonnie, the fusion of Steven and Connie, who is a tall, curvy, woman, but relatively taller than the normal teenager. And to contrast, we have Sadie, who is short....very short. That's what makes this show so great, you have women of all shapes and sizes portrayed as accurate representations, instead of ideal concepts. You even have women of all colors on the show. Amethyst is purple for crying out loud! I wont even touch on Jasper.  While the show is fictional, it is a really good one. Especially for kids to watch and see that people are, well, people shaped!

It's funny when you take a moment and think about just how far back special effects makeup in some form or fashion have existed in our world. There's always been a need to change someone's appearance in film and theater and because of that...the need goes back way further than we give it credit. 

Especially when you consider the fact there was a time in theater where women were not allowed to act on the stage. So as it turns out, last night's episode of Face Off felt it was time to pay homage to that interesting piece of theater history with what definitely looked like one of the toughest challenges I've seen yet this season in "All That Glitters".

The episode gets that title because well...it was time to make men shine and sparkle with another full hour focus challenge wherein our intrepid artists were tasked with turning male models into female characters that just happened to be from a play from Sir William Shakespeare. I mentioned a moment ago this seemed like one of the toughest tasks that these guys and gals have ever been given and I stand by it because some of them succeeded and some of them failed and some of the makeups were simply meh because wow...it turns out it is really difficult to turn a man into a woman with a little foam latex in believable fashion. 

In fact really the only two contestants to really pull it off just happened to be the two in top looks, Stevie and Meg. Their makeups managed to capture everything the judges wanted and well, Meg's makeup completely and utterly blew every one else's work out of the water. At last she finally realized her potential as a makeup artist and pulled off the best look of the night and the win with her work. But the group needs to watch out for Stevie. She can paint, she can sculpt and she can make some incredible makeups come to life. I think she's the dark horse this season, the one who could win it all and catch her competition off guard. 

As for the bottom looks, at first I really thought Jasmine was going home by doing only a simple beauty makeup sans prosthetic since hers tore at the last second, but her work ended up being an authentic piece of history if you will and she remained safe. It turns out the worst of the worst came from Ricky. His makeup did nothing to transform his model and man...he totally botched the basics of the appliance. I mean it was bad. It was rubbery and wrinkly and well...it was enough to send him home. Either way, it looks like the show is ramping up the tough challenges, because coming up next week is another tough one...a gauntlet of special makeup effects. Until next time. 

With the growing popularity of Zombies and the culture that surrounds them, I had to take a moment and find just how far our love of the dead has gone. It turns out that we have a pretty boundless love for walking corpses and here are some amazing ways you can add the living dead to yours, or someone else's everyday life.

Now, breakfast is easily the tastiest time of the day, with so many various options out there, mostly cereal. I will have cereal for literally any time of day, Breakfast, sure, dinner, why not? Random snack in the middle of the day, okay! I take my cerealing very seriously, and that is why this Zombie bowl from ThinkGeek is the perfect addition. For under $15 this very Zombie head bowl can be yours, or a friends! After all, we here at Girls of Geek are all about sharing and giving gifts to our fellow geeks. On the other hand, I am extremely selfish and would probably buy and keep this for myself. If you are looking for more Zombie dishes, there are also some mugs, which at this point I might want to invest in more cupboard space...think of a whole kitchen covered in Zombie dishes and cookware!

Shirts, jackets, and slippers, oh my! I found these slippers and I had to share them because, they are zombie slippers. Come on! How utterly cool are these!? Plus I can finally prove that people do go out and get stuff as awesome as this because John just happens to own a pair of these! They, of course, can be found at ThinkGeek and would make a pretty cool Christmas or Hanukkah gift, of even Birthday for the Zombie lover(s) in your life. Of course they aren't the only Zombie clothing to find on ThinkGeek, you can find shirts, and robes of all things. Surprisingly, though, HotTopic.com had a lot of Zombie apparel to be found. Not to mention my new favorite thing ever, this sticker! It's a Zombie and a T-Rex, how has this combination not been everywhere on the planet already? Taking a T-Rex and making it into a Zombie is literally the coolest thing to ever happen. Ever.

A search on that site found many an amazing shirt featuring a lot from our favorite Zombie themed show: The Walking Dead. That's right, you can find shirts bags, belts, purses, and even jewelry. Let's face it, Daryl Dixon is perhaps the most famous character of all from the show, and HotTopic knows how to give our favorite Zombie hunter some love. Most notably found on the site is their wide collection of POP! figures. I think we have been over my love of the POP! way more than we need to, so it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I found these, But, just look at Carl, he's so cute!

HoTopic isn't the only place to find POP's though, Barnes & Noble is a pretty good place to go as well as Amazon. Between the store's vast online libraries of POP! figures is also their endless book selection. If you're looking for something new to read but still want to keep with the theme of Zombies, that's not a problem. There are seemingly endless pages filled with Zombie books all over the web, and you can bet that they have been ranked and reviewed by others, so you know if you're getting a good one or not. Of course, how can I talk about Zombie books and not mention Roms, Boms, and Zoms? This Anthology features a story from our very own John and I can say from experience, it is worth the read.

Few shows in my mind were ever as iconic as Star Trek: The Next Generation. It set the bar on so many levels. It was a show that featured top notch storytelling, action and acting and most importantly...special effects makeup. Week after week we met incredible species after incredible species, magically brought to life by way of Michael Westmore's skill with foam latex and well his imagination. 

So as it turns out, last night's episode of Face Off decided it was high time to not only pay tribute to Michael's work, but the work of aliens in science fiction as a whole with an entire episode revolving around the wonder of the alien make up effect. It was a wonderful and magical episode to say the least because "Extraterrestrial Enterprise" not only featured some incredible work from our contestants but it added a few surprises along the way as well, ones that left geeks like myself and others jumping with joy. 

What made this episode so cool was the fact that everything last night revolved around these intergalactic special effects, starting with the foundation challenge where the contestants were asked to recreate the special effects of old, whipping together a hyper fast makeup that would have shown up in the classic 1960s to 1970s era of sci fi television. The results were fun to see and Evan won the day with a simple but powerful makeup that Michael Westmore said point blank was screen ready right then and there. 

Then it was revealed that the spotlight challenge would enhance their makeups further, since now they had to take their work and evolve it. Essentially they had to look at their own retro makeup and move it into the modern era and I thought this idea was absolutely genius and the results were quite breathtaking to say the least. Especially Ben and Scott's work. Ben originally just put together something pretty meh, but his final result was subtle and impressive and it just so happened to win the night as well. Oh! But I almost forgot the geeky surprises last night...because Jonathan Frakes and Michael Dorn showed up as well, with Mister Frakes offering advice from the director's perspective on makeups and Mister Dorn sat in as the guest judge. It was just a wonderful geek out moment to see these two legends pop up last night, and some of the contestants clearly felt the same way. 

But, all fun aside, there was still the matter of who didn't quite make the cut last night and well, I do disagree with the judges on this one. The good news is, Meg finally got her stuff together and didn't show up in the bottom looks but Jason, Jordan and Jasmine did and Jason was sent home for his technical mistakes and I think he deserved one more chance, especially considering how rough Jasmine's work turned out to be. She bit off way more than she could chew and I flat out liked nothing about her makeup. But, they are the experts and see more than I do, so no doubt their sending home Jason had its merits. Either way, this episode was a ton of fun, and definitely left me smiling with all its wonderful nostalgia. Until next time.