We're down to four stylists, kids. And one of those is Brig. And I'm coming down with a cold, which is sure to make me extra-excited for her work this week! Today, the models are already waiting for them when they file in to the salon, and there is something big covered in a black shroud. Janine's work goes up on the Allure Wall of Fame, and away we go. Today's guest judge is celebrity stylist Mark Townsend. After introducing him, he pulls the shroud off and there's a crazy contraption Camila calls a board, though it's more like bookshelves connected with piping, but "board" is easier to write so let's go with that. On the board there four different tools (sponge rollers, curling iron, flat iron, crimping iron), four techniques (finger waves, bangs, mullet(!), braids) and four inspirations (rainbow, Paris, ocean, disco ball). Everyone is going to have to use one of each of the elements, and after choosing scissor boxes to determine picking order, they line up. Jon's all excited to be up first until Camila tells them they will be picking one of each thing for the person to their left. As Janine is on Brig's left, she looks like she wants to murder Camila. Jon picks the sponge rollers, finger waves and Paris for Brig (and tries to claim he picked something she'd want, rather than doing what he did for strategy) who looks decidedly less excited now about the challenge than she did when it was first announced. Brig picks the mullet, the rainbow and the crimping iron. Brig gives the most hate-filled, manic interview telling Janine to try to keep smiling -- she's seriously so consumed with hating her and Matthew it's disturbing. Just try doing good work, honey. Janine picks the flat iron, braids and the ocean for Matthew, because she knows he'd want them, which leaves Jon with the curling iron, bangs and a disco ball. They'll be judged on how they incorporate all three elements, and helping judge is the Editor-in-Chief of Allure, Linda Wells. I think Matthew just peed a little, he's so excited. She warns everyone to use good taste, so Brig might be at a disadvantage with this one.
They get to work, Matthew is going to work a ton of mermaid extensions into his beachy, flat-ironed braids. If the hair is wavy, is that really using the flat iron? Jon wants to do an afro, and Brig wants to cut all of her model's hair off, but her model needs to be seriously talked into it and looks about as excited as Janine for all this. Janine then meets her model, who has an awesomely horrified look about a crimped, rainbow mullet, but both seem to have good enough attitudes about it. Janine seems determined just to prove Brig wrong and tells us how she's dyeing extensions in rainbow gradations. Brig's poor model looks both heartbroken and terrified to have her thick hair cut to a little longer than shoulder-length.
Linda and Mark come around, and when Linda expresses doubt at Jon's afro idea, he interviews that he's never second-guessed himself and won't now. Seriously, Linda, afros can be fun! (Though I'm not sure about one with bangs.) Matthew explains his idea of pulling a French braid across his model's face and his description involves a lot of growling. Brig, meanwhile, is working away, but when asked how she's going to use the sponge rollers, admits she doesn't know yet. As someone with long, thick hair like this model, I would be LIVID hearing that she's winging this after convincing me to cut a good 8 inches off of my hair. Janine's hair looks awesome all pulled up and then teased and crazy with the crimped, colored pieces, but the judges point out there isn't a mullet style there, so she decides to go add in more length in back rather than cut some off the top. With ten minutes left, Brig's hairdo is still wet. Oh, the rage I feel on her model's behalf is burning in my belly.
Janine is up first for judging, and her client's hair looks awesomely punk, but the judges ding her for having the "sprouty" (Linda's word) part on top and not having enough weight in back to simulate a mullet properly. Mark thinks the party is on top, rather than in back where everyone knows it should be. [Best judge comment ever. - Zach] Matthew is up , and Mark loves how the extensions blend with her hair. I think the French braid makes it look a little like a helmet, and Linda agrees that it is awkward while the rest looks good. Jon took his client's hair and did an awesome job curling it up to the shape of an afro, but leaving the curls fairly defined, and then sweeping her thick bangs to the side. Mark loves it all except how heavy the bangs are across the girl's face. Finally, we get Brig and her poor model, who is trying not to cry. Mark says that finger waves and Paris make the perfect combo, but she didn't actually do enough waves; when he adds that Brig didn't have to cut and instead could have just pinned her model's hair, I think the poor model is going to pass out. Linda also hates the color of her roots, and Brig actually says she doesn't see the problem -- honestly, even for Brig, at this point the pig-headedness is kind of stunning. She just has desperation radiating off of her in little cartoon waves, along with a strong undercurrent of anger, as they talk about her shoddy work. After all that, they decide that Jon won the challenge, and rightly so, and he gets a spite-filled high-five from Brig, right in front of Janine's face.
It's an absolute delight when Brig is called the loser, but instead of taking it graciously she starts spouting off about how she's happy with her work (and claims her stone-faced model is happy, which is an obvious crock of shit) and even when Camila calls her on it, Brig continues to insist that she's awesome. Linda points out that they don't hire back belligerent hairstylists at Allure but Brig insists she does this for herself and she's pleased, and Janine starts mumbling to her client and is called on by Camila to share her thoughts with the group. Brig smirks and Janine says that Brig's giggling and attitude cheapen the competition and show she doesn't care, which makes her angry, and she wants Brig to shut up and work. Brig, lunatic that she is, snottily apologizes for not being as good as Janine but says she just does her work, and Janine rolls her eyes heavenward as she points out that isn't what she said. You can't argue with a self-righteous martyr, Janine, just let it go. Brig prattles on and Janine tries to cut her off and point out that despite what she says, she's not professional at all; she finally gets so emotional that she fights back angry tears as she admits that Brian should be there rather than her and that it pisses her off. HEAR, HEAR. The judges all look so embarrassed to be witnessing all of this. Brig is so fucking delusional that in an interview she says she thinks Janine is getting nervous, though I think every other person on earth who saw this challenge knows that Janine isn't getting nervous about someone who couldn't do Paris-inspired finger waves and who brought a miserable model with wet, boring hair to be judged.
They get to the apartment and Brig claims she doesn't want to look at Janine or Matthew, and then proceeds to sit in the same room and ostentatiously drink her water while staring over their shoulders. Matthew congratulates Janine on remaining a lady during her tirade and she is glad to hear that and that he doesn't think less of her, and then Jon comes over with three glasses of wine and they toast his victory, but Janine is clearly high on her own outburst and proceeds to tell Jon how his style could have been better. Oh for the love, I hate all these people right now. But while Jon thinks Janine is full of crap, he's an adult and so he sticks around, defends his work, and then they begin to re-hash Brig's little episode with the judges. Brig, having finally retreated to her bedroom, says this is just like high school, though I would argue that many high-schoolers are more mature than this -- case in point, she puts on a giant Minnie-Mouse polka-dot hair bow to go with her pajamas and then claims to be busy thinking up her winning hairstyle. Nothing says maturity like a bow larger than your face -- and by the way, honey, you don't know yet what the challenge even is. I guess the producers got what they wanted keeping the far less talented stylist around for the drama, here, but I wish it was at least fun drama to watch.
In this week's tiny apartment segment, Janine and Matthew act annoying and clique-y and dance, while Brig seethes some more and Jon contemplates ripping out his fingernails -- his words, not mine -- instead of watching the two do their self-congratulatory dance of mutual awesomeness. And... scene.
It's a new morning, and the four bitter stylists head into a studio set up for an editorial photo shoot. Brig tells us that since Janine called her out in front of Linda Wells yesterday, today she needs to show how serious she is about being there. She's got her head so far up her own backside that she doesn't realize that all of her talking back about her crappy work probably made a bigger impression than Janine's outburst. Jon is nervous because he knows he freaks out on set during photo shoots and hopes he doesn't do so during today's challenge, which is to update and modernize iconic movie hairstyles. First is Gwyneth Paltrow's long, wavy hairdo from Shakespeare in Love -- wait, we're calling that iconic? I call it fine but ridiculously overhyped, much like the movie itself. is Dolly Parton's bouffant from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (awesome, but Matthew points out that it could go very wrong), then Audrey Hepburn's updo from Charade, and finally Bo Derek's braids from 10. Personally, I think these really move up from questionable to legitimate on the icon-o-meter. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Dolly and would love nothing more than spending a day getting my hair and nails done up as big as hairspray and acrylic could allow, but it would never have occurred to me to call this style from this movie "iconic." Jon gets first pick and chooses Audrey Hepburn. The others pick scissor boxes to determine order and wind up with a very self-satisfied Janine picking Gwyneth Paltrow, Brig picking Bo Derek and Matthew winding up with the one he was dreading: Dolly. They will be judged on the look in the photo, how well the style reflected and modernized the look, and how well they work with the photographer on set.
The stylists bring the models back to the salon and start working as Orlando oversees everything. Brig plans to make braids going up instead of down on half of her model's head, and then wants to make her hair really big in back. Janine wants to add some feather braids to help sweep the front of her hair back. Matthew's main goal is doing something that doesn't look like a wig. Jon's model doesn't want her hair cut, even though her style is a bob, so he's fairly sure he's screwed. He colors his model's hair to be dark and then shoos Orlando away when he tries to watch what is going on. Orlando moves on to Brig and expresses doubt that strong braids combined with soft curls will be the right look, but she seems committed to it. Janine explains her look and gets a little defensive in her interview that she knows the braids she's doing will be loved or hated, but probably not in between, and also gets defensive when Orlando doesn't like her comment about this being "playtime" and reminds her that an Allure shoot is about as opposite from "playtime" as one can get. Matthew plans to do curls in a big square shape, and both Orlando and I question if he's modernizing the look enough; he admits that Orlando's doubt made him second-guess himself. As Jon works, he realizes his color isn't as rich as he'd like, so he goes back to color her hair again with only 50 minutes left. Brig is worried about the number of braids she put right around her model's face, while Janine is stressing about her own braids falling down and not making the defined shape she wanted. Color! Pin! Sweat! Swear! Tease! Swear some more! And with that, it's time.
Janine's model is up first at the shoot, and the very first thing the photographer does is have her take out the braids because he thinks they look like horns. He has her then twist the little braids that are left together and pull them back, which he seems to like. Brig is up , and the first thing she tells us is that this hair doesn't represent her talent, which is quite the far cry from all her earlier bravado -- could she be preparing herself to actually take criticism from the judges? She's pulled all of the hair back from her model's face in cornrows, which are then pulled together in a kind of ponytail with another braid coming across like a headband, and then the hair comes up and out in curls. The photographer immediately has her take the braid out which is holding everything up and Linda comments that the braids work and the rest does not. As a last resort when she realizes that the hair is a hot mess, Brig throws her model's head over and pours her water bottle over it, so that the model's hair is much more "I just sauntered out of the ocean to seduce you in my gold lamé swimsuit." Matthew is up and Jonathan whispers a question to Camila about whether this is Dolly or Daisy Duke. She's got big, sexy hair in giant curls, and Matthew is then instructed by the photographer to make it even bigger, which he's able to do no problem, as he's from Colorado, where "the higher the hair, the closer to God." I like this a lot, I just don't know if they are going to think it's modern enough. Finally, Jon comes on with his girl and she looks fabulous, though the hair looks almost exactly as it does from the photo. He's done it up in a twist in back and honestly, that's what I thought Audrey's hairdo was in the original photo, so I think it looks quite accurate if maybe not different enough. The photog wants him to break up the bangs, but Jon can't do it because her hair has been left too long. Poor Jon is again sweating and swearing it up like before. Once he gets her hair out, though, it looks good and the longer pieces of her bangs seem to modernize the style more.
The four of them then gather in front of the judges, and Camila reminds us about the challenge and introduces our regular judges and guest judge Linda Wells. I guess Mark didn't make the cut to do this challenge, too. Jon is up first, and he admits he's so nervous he might puke. His second coloring paid off, as Kim and Linda love the result, but Linda clearly thinks it's not modernized enough, even though Camila thinks like I did that the longer bang helped update the look. Jon admits to having a meltdown on set and Jonathan ominously nods and noted that he saw that. He's like a caricature of an evil movie character with one eyebrow arched and Jon crapping himself in front of him, which I kind of love. Matthew is up , and Jonathan adores it while Kim thinks it doesn't look artificial enough, but Linda thinks the texture is great and realistic, which was hard to pull off when using Dolly as inspiration. I think it's a compliment, but the show's soundtrack does a deflating-balloon kind of noise so maybe it wasn't? That was weird. They then look at Janine's style, and everyone likes it. They all agree that the original hairdo she came out with was almost more old-fashioned than the one in the movie, but once she fixed it, it looked great with all of the little braids pulling the hair back on either side from her face. Jonathan compliments her being able to handle the photographer really giving her a hard time, and Jon realizes this is as much a dig at his falling apart as a compliment to Janine. Finally, we get to Brig, who immediately says that she's not happy with her work, trying to lessen the coming blow. Linda admits that her first hairdo was a mess and Brig totally agrees that she lost control of the hairdo, with a lot of nodding and grimacing. Jonathan does tell her that while she didn't really modernize anything, her photo works, and I grudgingly have to admit that's true -- the photo is awesome. Camila finishes up by saying the water bottle saved her, and on that note dismisses everyone so that the judges can deliberate.
In the salon, Matthew has a wee meltdown and Janine assures him they loved it. The two of them and Jon talk about everything while Brig pointedly sits in a chair and faces the other way like the mature lady she is.
The judges first talk about Janine, and it's the same as before -- they knock the original look and fawn over the end result. Linda seems especially to adore it. They discuss Jon, and Jonathan points out that Jon is a cutter and colorist and not cut out for this work on set, as seen by his falling apart. They do, however, give him credit for a nice style and good color. Brig is their subject, and Linda points out that she had no strategy and was saved by her lucky water bottle idea on set. They all admit that the end result was great, and Jonathan reminds everyone that that's what matters on a photo shoot. Finally they discuss Matthew -- Jonathan loves the hairdo and honestly I think has the hots for the model as well, with the number of different ways he calls it sexy. Kim thinks he did a great job but still wanted it to look more fake, but Linda thinks it was over-the-top and totally worked. Camila tells her fellow judges and us that this is going to be tough and then calls everyone back in. As has happened so often this season, Matthew and Janine are called forward as the top two while Brig and Jon paste pained smiles on their faces. I'm not denying that the two of them can get totally annoying, but they both consistently knock the challenges out of the park, so I'm much more inclined to roll with it. Camila compliments them both, waits the requisite few beats, and then announces that Matthew is the winner, which thrills him to no end, especially as Linda Wells was one of the judges.
Camila then calls up Brig and Jon and goes through Brig's crappy style and lucky save and Jon's on-set panic. Before dismissing one of them, however, Camila gives them the chance to defend their work. *cough* fillsometime *cough*. I just had a horrifying thought -- are they going to keep both of them, since they have an extra spot from Giacomo's quitting early? Camila has really laid it on thick about what a tough decision this is and how they think they reached a fair decision, and... oh, for the love of little green apples, please let this hunch be wrong. Jon is asked first who should go home between the two of them, and Matthew and Janine exchange shocked looks at the twist in this judging. He doesn't want to answer but then [after Brig tells him not to sell himself short! -- Z] says it should be Brig because she's struggled more than he has. He apologizes, while Brig tells him seriously, "I appreciate your honesty." She then does the very last thing I would have expected, and falls on her sword, saying that Jon's hair was better than hers on-set and so she should go home. Everyone gapes at what just happened and probably are having the same thoughts I am, wondering if this is a mental game of hers, or if she cracked and is taking herself out so that she doesn't fall on her face later, or even if -- and this is a longshot -- she's being sincere and has finally learned to be gracious for the first time all season. Jon hugs her, still not sure that will happen, and Jonathan gives the most awesomely stony glare to them both. With that, Camila looks at the other judges, they nod, and she tells Brig she's safe. Brig is shocked and delighted and high-tails it back to where Matthew and Janine are waiting, while Jon accepts his fate. It is, however, as I suspected: Camila admits that he's safe, too, having taken at least a year or two off of his life with the few moments she made him wait for the news. She tells them that they are both safe because, despite the problems, both their photos were fantastic, and keeps to herself that they also didn't want to cut the field to three contestants so soon just because someone quit early on. She tells everyone to step it up and reminds them that hair is important, and they all dance out of the room, shocked for different reasons. Janine gets really haughty and interviews how this is crap and she and Matthew make hairdos out of baby angel wings or some such and how unfair it is for the two of them to have such lesser competition still in the game to their shining brilliance, but does admit she's wanted Brig to go home since day one, so that might be coloring her feelings, too. And finally, any teensy iota of goodwill that Brig earned from being well-behaved during judging goes out the door when she interviews with a cackle that she's still there, bringing back the crazy eyes and the creepy manic anger. Oh, boy. Another week. Lucky us.