"Face Off" Recap: "Freak Show"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

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.

---