Welcome to the penultimate episode, dear readers! And then there were... oh yes, still four, since no one was eliminated last week. We start off in the loft, rather than the salon, when a note is pushed under their front door, which tells them that for the Short Cut challenge they will be styling a "VIP client" at a mansion in the hills. Well then. Brig decides that this calls for her giant red hair bow with the white polka dots, all the better to match her blue metallic genie pants and gold lamé jacket. They are whisked off in a limo to said mansion, where they meet Camila. Matthew was the winner last week, he is going up on the Allure Wall of Fame, and away we go. Camila reveals that she herself is the client today, and of course everyone cheers. She'll be the sole judge, but she's got Orlando there to consult with her. He says that Camila's pet peeve is to always have her hairline be smooth. Each stylist will have 45 minutes to consult with her and make her a look for a night out -- I guess making sure that she has a smooth hairline. That was a bit of a non-sequitor.
They choose scissor boxes, and for once Brig is first. Camila shows her the dress -- it's short and sleeveless, with a black skirt and white bodice. Brig wants to pull her hair up with a bunch of hairpins sticking out, but Camila clearly doesn't like the idea because she likes her hair to be simple. As Brig works, she explains that if she wins she'll invest the winnings into the salon she already owns, and then the conversation turns to how more than a few of the others have had problems with her -- Brig just says she's there to compete, not to defend herself. No, just to make a complete pest of herself, instead. Orlando comes up and he's worried about how she's doing with her time, while Camila is worried about if she's going to get it smooth. We don't really get a good look at the finished product, but Brig says she's unhappy with it. Janine is up and Camila asks her about Brig, so Janine says that Brig is mean and unprofessional, and when Camila asks Janine admits she is not impressed with her work. Weirdly, Brig is outside playing with a Barbie now, though honestly I'm not sure why I'm surprised by anything she does/wears/says at this point. Orlando comes over and Janine says she wants to do Camila's hair down, but Orlando and Camila's worry is if it will hold up for an entire evening. Janine admits she underestimated how difficult Camila's hair is to style, and she runs out of time while trying to come up with a final style, like possibly pulling a piece back from her face. Matthew then tries his hand, and wants to go classic. As he works on straightening her hair she asks him questions about his husband, and about the competition, in which he admits that some competitors coughBrigcough have turned out to be stronger than he expected. He interviews that he hated being asked questions when he was trying to work, and he also gets bristly when she questions his technique. He winds up also doing bun at the crown of her head, and admits afterward he could have used five more minutes. Finally, Jon comes in for his turn; he also wants to do a classic updo. He tells the story of how he started his salon: he moved from Manhattan to Nashville after a "huge thing" happened to two of his friends, which could have just as easily happened to him but made him decide to leave the big city. I'm guessing drugs. He interviews that he's nervous but he seems the most at ease of all the stylists while he and Camila are talking -- that is, until he gets her with the curling iron and earns a stern warning. As happened to those before him, he also runs out of time. Hey! Tubey is on my screen and just told me that you can get recaps of this show on Television Without Pity! Why didn't someone tell me about this before??
It's time to review everyone's work and I'm sorry, but before we go on I can't not comment once more on Brig's outfit. She also has a red sash around her waist, and she looks like Minnie Mouse and the genie from Aladdin had a love child who grew up backstage in a Vegas nightclub. Now that that is out of my system, on to her work. She pulled Camila's hair all up on the crown of her head and then pinned it all back in pieces to form a bun, which Camila feels isn't age-appropriate for a mother. Camila loves Janine's hairdo -- down, with one section pulled back over one ear with some netting, but she says that Janine made a mistake drying it too fast and that it will never stay smooth for a whole evening like that. Matthew did the age-appropriate version of Brig's hairdo -- it's a large, smooth bun at the crown of her head, and there's a visible side part. Her only critique is a bump in the hair at the base of her neck. Finally she tells Jon that the French-twist-type style he did was the right shape at the beginning but poorly executed... whatever that might mean. For the billionth time this season, Matthew is pronounced the winner and Brig seethes.
Instead of a tiny apartment segment, we get a tiny gorgeous pool deck segment at the house, obviously while Matthew was taking his turn in the challenge. Jon and Brig wind up playing with yo-yos while Janine reads a book and glares at them. Wow, that was even more pointless than usual this week.
The day, the stylists file in to the salon for the elimination challenge and are greeted by Camila and Orlando. This challenge is about defining their signature style, and the guest judge for the week is Oribe; when she announces him, the four remaining stylists all nearly fall over with awe and glee. I already love his deep tan and very white teeth. He advises them about finding something they love, and adding that flavor to everything they do. For the challenge they have to create a portfolio of three looks that define their signature style -- two of those looks will be on a model, and the third will be on themselves. To explain why that is important, Orlando tells them that their appearance and persona are all part of their brand. Matthew gets to choose his models first, and picks one brunette and one blonde. The others choose scissor boxes and Brig gets first pick for the second time this house -- one can only hope that's the last of her luck. And by "one" I mean "me". Models chosen, they get two and a half hours.
Matthew says that he's already established his brand, which is "natural", because he's both naturally good at hair and has a natural sense of style. He might want to come up with something that describes the actual style and not how he feels about himself for his sales pitch. But he finally tells the model he likes long hair and wants to keep it wavy and loose. Brig wants to go strong and avant-garde. Jon considers his style "rock and roll but beautiful" and his main challenge is that one of his models has thinning hair -- but he chose her specifically because he deals with that a lot and wants to show that he can still make a beautiful style, which is pretty cool. Janine says she loves "international influence" in her hair and it sounds like she's definitely going quirky and strange. Brig is flinging around some fuzzy four-foot-long extensions and says she's going to do crazy hair that you couldn't wear out on the street. Please tell me why you'd want something that no one could wear to be your signature style? Is your Simi Valley salon -- remember, you've repeatedly claimed what a cow town it is -- catering to women about to walk the runway at Paris Fashion Week? No? Well then. Matthew is darkening up the roots on his brunette -- he remembered the root debacles of weeks past -- and wants to make her dark and mysterious, while he's taking his blonde really, really light.
Orlando comes in to check everyone out and overall, he's worried because no one seems as far as they should be with just an hour left. Brig appears to not even have started on one of her models, while the other has something sticking out of her head like a unicorn horn and Brig is wrapping garishly highlighted, frizzy fake hair around it. Jon is focusing on his strengths, which are cutting and coloring. Orlando makes it over to Brig, and her one model looks like an aging Marge Simpson who stopped using blue hair dye. He looks appropriately horrified and tries to give her some constructive advice about making sure it looks like a hairdo and not like something just affixed to the girl's head.
Everyone is furiously styling away and freaking out at the lack of time, as usual. Janine is also trying to do her own hair, though she's really not happy about it and claims to hate doing it. For someone who clearly puts a lot of thought into her own outfits and general look, I don't entirely believe that -- and while her style isn't my own, I think she always looks great and quirky (as opposed to Brig's psychotically quirky looks) and should just embrace that and not get so self-conscious now that she has to take a picture. Curl! Trim! Spray! Tease! And, time.
The judges are all there for the photo shoot, and first up is Jon. He takes his own picture first, and looks just like himself in a purple shirt and tie. His fine-haired model is up first, and Oribe tells the others he was impressed that Jon chose the girl with the fine hair, while Kim says that in a competition, he'd never do that. He gave her a bob-like cut with bangs, and then teases some of it out so it's flippy and full-looking. He colored his other model's hair to a deep auburn, and it's long and straight with a sideswept bang. Fortunately for him, he didn't seem to freak out on set the way he has in all the other photo shoots. Since this is a shoot for their own portfolios, each of the stylists also gets to pick out which shots they want to use rather than the judges picking the shots for them.
Janine is up , and in her own shoot she pulls her hair over one shoulder; it's cute, fine, bland, whatever. Her first model is up and Janine gave her thick straight bangs, and then curled her hair up into an afro. I think it looks cool, but the judges comment on it being shaped too much like a bubble, so we'll see. Her model looks great -- she cut her hair about shoulder length on one side, going around to long on the other side, and colored the ends of her hair purple which is punky but not crazy since her hair is already very dark. The model herself is really cute and takes a ton of different shots, but Janine worries that she's going to outshine her first model too much.
Then Matthew is up, he takes his own picture and then brings up his blonde model first. He curled all of her hair and then brushed it out -- it's soft but the curls are still defined enough that it's not a frizzy mess. It's also huge, but awesomely so, and the judges comment on how he clearly knows how to handle that style. He then gets an extra kick when they turn on a wind machine. When his model is up Camila warns him he's got less than five minutes left, and there's slightly ominous music so we know that maybe this is a problem. This model has long thick bangs, and then her dark hair is just in long, smooth waves. His problem is that he's not sure the pictures are really going to do a good job showing his style.
Finally, we get to see Brig's masterpieces -- Jonathan can't hide his grin as the crazy walks up. She takes her own picture first: wavy, orange-yellow bob, white hair bow that's actually not as large as her head today, red lipstick. Interestingly, she seems to think that the wild card is going to be her own picture; she seems to not notice that the judges are trying not to laugh while they gape at her models. The Simpson-esque hairdo has now been accessorized with zip ties around the hair every few inches, though she takes out the one at the base of the structure to pull the hair down to the girl's forehead, so that it covers some of her hairline. That's what she took from Orlando's warning to not make it look like something just sitting on her model's head, huh? Her model just... I don't even know how to explain this, but it doesn't look done. It's the same, two-toned frizzy fake hair, and it looks like she separated all the hair into about five sections and pinned each one up loosely. Honestly, it looks like she's got a dead animal lying across her head. Lady Gaga would wear either of these, for sure. She says that it was unlike anyone else's work today, which is very true, and while I think they are nuts and not what one would want to advertise to get regular clients into their salon, it's all certainly very Brig.
It's time for judging, and Camila tells them that the winner will receive an advantage in the final challenge week. After introducing the judges, she calls Matthew up first. He says that he wanted to do good and evil with his two pictures -- dark and striking with the brunette (and her hair looks crazy smooth and shiny in the picture) and then bright and fun with his blonde. He thinks that his own picture makes him look like a nice person -- I think he looks smug, and Kim thinks he looks like a real estate agent. He says that these photos say "healthy, approachable, shiny hair" but Kim brushes that off since everyone wants healthy, shiny hair. Despite what they said during the shoot, Kim and Jonathan seem to think he lost some of the curl when he brushed out his model's hair and floundered a bit. Matthew looks like he's going to cry when Jonathan says he thinks the brunette's bangs are too long, but he's saved when Oribe says that he thinks both the girls look sexy and beautiful.
Brig is up and tells them that her philosophy is "normal is boring." She used synthetic hair to use an already-rough texture to make shapes. She has a funny half-smile going in her own photo. Oribe compliments her imagination and thinks she should go for it even more. Kim thinks that the hair is totally her, and Camila says that this time she finally saw Brig. Jonathan is the one dissenting voice, as he's not sure it's very technical.
Jon is up . His photo actually looks like him, a little cocky but not unapproachable, and his models both look regular-girl good. He gave a bunch of extensions to his fine-haired model, and her hair looks great all flipped out -- you can't tell how thin it was when he started at all. His other model I personally would have liked to see a bit redder and not quite as auburn, but that's just personal preference since I love flaming-red, Kimberly-on-Melrose Place hair. Oribe loves his shorter 'do but thinks he didn't do enough with his redhead, which I get -- it lacks some oomph. Kim is worried that you can still see some of his dark-haired model's scalp, but they had to really zoom in for me to notice that. Jonathan loves that Jon loves and stands by his work.
Finally they look at Janine's work. I didn't notice that on her model's asymmetrical hairdo, it's actually super short above her one ear, but it's still really punky and fun. Kim thinks that hairdo is totally Janine but doesn't see it in the other. In her own picture, she's got her arms crossed and her head cocked to one side with a smile -- it's sweet, but there's no real strength at all and it doesn't feel like someone who is in command of her work. Jonathan thinks both the afro hairdo and Janine's own hairdo don't really portray her best. Janine herself admits she struggles with being in front of the camera and says that she's working on it little by little.
With that, the four are dismissed and the judges deliberate. They talk about Matthew first and Kim points out that his blonde's hair is so light that her forehead blends in to her hairline, and now it's all Oribe can see too. Camila thinks the blonde and his own picture work but the brunette doesn't quite fit in. Jonathan then comments that with his attitude that he is the best, he should have done better in this challenge. When they discuss Brig, Jonathan says he likes the photos but thinks it's not really great hair. Everyone agrees, though, that it's totally Brig. Oribe loves Jon's brunette hairdo but didn't like the redhead's look and so couldn't get what Jon's signature is supposed to be. Kim thinks that Jon's picture doesn't match those of his models, and Camila thinks they just look average. Finally, everyone agrees that Janine's picture of herself is horrible and doesn't show who she is at all, and Jonathan doesn't like the afro haircut. But come on, does anyone really think Janine is going home at this point? Hands? No? Anyone? I didn't think so.
When they bring the stylists back in, she calls Matthew and... Brig forward first. Good lord, these are the top two. Brig is complimented on her hair making a statement and showing who she really is, while Matthew is complimented for showing beautiful hair. But, while it was beautiful, it wasn't shear genius, and Brig is announced as the winner. I'm out of things to say. Show, you have beaten me. Jon and Janine are then called forward as the bottom two. Camila tells Jon that the styles he presented were average, while they tell Janine that her three styles didn't work together while the shape of her afro wasn't right. Even so, she is still in while Jon is out -- I'm bummed, but I will admit that his hairdos in this challenge were the most boring of the four. That's ALL I'm giving to Brig, here. Also, as I mentioned above, I don't think there was any chance Janine wasn't going to the final unless she accidentally shaved a stripe into someone's head or burned a model's ear off. She's severely shaken, though, and Jon has to call after her that it's totally okay. He is awesome about his dismissal and points out that he made it to the top four out of thousands who auditioned and can go home and keep making his mom proud. Aw. After he leaves, Camila points out that Janine and Matthew have struggled the last few weeks after being great all season, while Brig has done the opposite and come on strong recently, and that it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Janine still looks like someone just shot her puppy. Seriously, Janine, I'm no Brig fan either but just go do way better hair than she does and get over it. Criminy.
Remember everyone: Hair is important! And Jon, you're one of the few on this show who I would totally let do my hair. On to the finale, folks!