Episode Report Card Deborah: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Maybe He's Born With It...Maybe It's Maybelline
By Deborah | Season 1 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.06.2004
The next day in cosmetology class, Joan's busy doing her makeup again when she glances to her left, and gets a gleeful grin from Glynis. She then glances to her right, and notices Friedman sheepishly piling makeup on his own face. The boy? Does not have a future in drag, let me tell you. It's quite a hilarious sight. Joan calls the teacher -- whose name, believe it or not, is Ms. Candy -- and asks for guidance in straightening her lip line. Ms. Candy, wearing a different pink suit (one of those tweedy things that are so the rage this year that I was sick of them before they were even available as knockoffs -- and hers has a twee little ribbon around the ribcage), explains that Joan's already (inadvertently) corrected her own lipline. Joan asks what's wrong with her own lip line. Ms. Candy patronizingly explains that we all have flaws and asymmetries: "The point of cosmetics is to redirect the eye to our best features." She walks off with a satisfied smirky giggle. Joan asks her mirror quietly, "What if I don't have any best features?" It's hard to take her completely seriously; Amber Tamblyn is incredibly pretty.
Opposite her, Goth God raises his head from adding more lipliner to his already more than made-up mouth, and says, "Everyone has a best feature, Joan. I saw to that." Yeah, well, why didn't you see to it that everyone knows it, too, so we don't have to endure things like Michael Jackson, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and The Swan? Joan: "No offense, but you've broken, like, every single rule she taught us." He tells her to remember that adornment isn't who you are. Joan thinks that if he's so worried about her succumbing to that idea, he shouldn't have sent her to this "stupid makeup class." He continues applying lipliner, saying, "I sent you here to learn…to observe the effects of appearance." Joan complains Adam still doesn't see any difference in her. He asks her to look in the mirror: "What do you see?" Joan looks at herself wearily and finally admits, "Some ridiculous vain girl who can't stop thinking about shading and concealing." She adds, "This is just not who I am." Goth God: "Exactly." He gets up and leaves, as Ms. Candy looks down the hall after him and Joan calls out, "So I'm just supposed to reject all this stuff? That's the point?" Ms. Candy turns to Joan and says in the most cloying, tiresome way: "Okay, how about filling in with some lip colour?" Joan refuses. Ms. Candy, a little anxious: "Then how about a clear gloss?" Joan says she's done with powdering and primping: "All that stuff just isn't who I am." She stands up and exhorts her peers: "Don't get caught up in the surface! There is a deeper truth!" Friedman: "Dude, it's called extra credit." Joan tells him his lipliner's crooked. She leaves, with Ms. Candy calling after her: "Joan? Joan, you didn't powder." No, she decided to take one instead.