Shear Genius Episode 5: Hair of the Dog!

Posted by Eric3000

Tabatha: "The episode is called hair of the dog? Son of a bitch! I told you we were going to have to give haircuts to dogs! I just knew it! What further indignities will I have to endure?"

Relax! I just made up that title. You won't really have to give a haircut to a dog ... this week.

The real title of this week's episode is "Freak to Greek." the geniuses have to take a bunch of long-haired weirdos and make them look like shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Tyson: "The spice! The spice!"

We'll get to that later, Tyson. The quickfire challenge will take place at Shorty's Barber Shop on Fairfax in West Hollywood:

Jaclyn Smith: "The gayest barbershop in Los Angeles!"

OK, so she actually said, "hippest." I like Shorty's; I used to get my hair cut there all the time and it's fun and cheap. But I had no idea it was the hippest place in town.

Jaclyn tells the geniuses that no one will be going home today. This is a little misleading to the home viewer, who is presumably watching this entire episode in about an hour [this sentence sponsored by Lenscrafters] and therefore watches the entire episode on the same day. So I thought this meant nobody was being eliminated during this episode. But the second challenge actually takes place the following day and someone will be eliminated. Yes, I confuse easily.

The guest judge for this challenge is a stylist so famous he only has one name! Ooh! Don't you wish you only had one name? It's Christophe!

Anthony: "Christophe?! Oh, my god, I couldn't believe it was him! I don't know what my mouth was doing!"

Do we really need to guess?

The clients arrive:

Tabatha: "Oh damn, I was right; they are dogs! And holy shit, they're the biggest, ugliest dogs I've ever seen! ... Oh, sorry, they're just really hairy guys."

Where does Bravo find so many people in such desperate need of a haircut? Anyway, the geniuses go about making these guys presentable. They all do a pretty good job. All the guys look much better than when they came in. There are a couple of stand-outs:

Boogie gave a guy what I think he called an "updated Caesar." I think that comes with croutons and Parmesan cheese. And guess what? HE USED SCISSORS! Obviously he knows how to use them. So why couldn't he have used them last week on that woman's hair? Other Eric thinks this guy's new look makes him look like a member of a boy band and he's right. But he still looks pretty good.

Tabatha gave a very cool long cut to a kid who had stepped right out of a production of "Jesus Christ Super Star." Tabatha wins!

Tabatha is going a little overboard on her hatred of Tyson:

Tabatha: "Killing him would be too good for him. I want him to live long enough so I can make him suffer!"

Seriously, don't you think that's a bit much?

Tabatha: "Fine! If you feel that strongly about it, I'll just kill him now and put him out of his misery! You're such a pussy!"

Tyson flat-irons his client's hair:

Tyson: "Fuck I'm good; just ask me!"

Tabatha: "That's FIGJAM for short."

Tyson: "Oh, thanks Tabatha; that will save me a lot of time."

Tabatha: "No problem. I'll have a button made up for you."

Back at the apartment the geniuses find a box. Tabatha, also known as the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, explains to the other geniuses that it is a pain box which she will use with the gom jabbar to determine which one of them is the Kwisatch Haderach:

Tabatha: "If you withdraw your hand from the box you die."

Tyson: "You Bene Gesserit witch!"

Rene says something about Ewoks. I don't know what he's talking about:

Other Eric: "I think he said 'eras.' I think the stylists have to create looks from different eras."

Oh, that makes more sense. The Reverend Mother - I mean Tabatha - takes 80s punk rock, and she gives Danna the 1940s, Boogie Medieval, Anthony the 1960s, Ben the 1920s, Daisy Victorian, and she gives Tyson what she thinks is the most challenging for him: Elizabethan.

Tyson: "Ha! She knows I'm the Kwisatch Haderach! And she's scared as hell of me!"

OK, that's an odd assortment of styles. Four styles from the 20th century and then three styles picked randomly from the past thousand years? I don't get it. Why not pick seven decades from the 20th century or pick a greater variety of historical styles? I also wish the instructions had been more clear; were they supposed to create modern versions of historical styles, styles simply inspired by historical looks, or historically accurate re-creations? And really long eras like Victorian, Elizabethan, and Medieval obviously had many completely different styles depending on the specific time period, geographic region, or person's class. So were they supposed to pick the most obvious example or something more interesting? Well, whatever; it's still a pretty fun challenge.

The geniuses get a couple of minutes to do research on something called "The Internet." I looked this up and apparently it is an enormous database of hairstyles. No, seriously, they did not get enough time for research. That was just silly. Why not give them all laptops for an hour? Better yet, give them access to some books on historical costume. I was really surprised at how little information I found on the web about Elizabethan hairstyles, for instance. I learned more by looking at costume and art history books.

So, in the studio Danna sees that her photograph is up on the wall of fame because she won last week:

Boogie: "Ooh, girl, that's the kiss of death! Everyone up there was sent home in the next challenge."

Well, that's just crazy! It must be a coincidence; it couldn't possibly happen again!

Everyone is thrilled that Tyson is going to be gone because he got a challenge he can't possibly handle:

Tyson: "I swallowed a cup of pure spice essence last night and erased the barriers of time and space. In my vision I was visited by Queen Elizabeth and now I know exactly what to do for this challenge. The Queen was wearing a pastel colored hat that matched her suit and she was followed by two Corgis and she told me that her son Charles was driving her insane with that stupid horsey Camilla person."

There's something wrong with that vision but I can't quite put my finger on it.

So, Tabatha's Mohawk is technically very good but it's kind of obvious.

Boogie's Medieval look is pretty good. It's just a bunch of braiding but I think it has a Medieval feel to it.

Anthony's 1960s look was very disappointing. He got a pretty easy era and he just went with the most boring look possible. The judges think a big bump at the top of the head was what was missing. That's exactly it. He could have gone with a short bob, too. He had so many options. He's safe, though.

Ben's 1920s look was fine in the front but the back looked horrible.

Danna's creation looks sort of 1940s but it was just so ugly. It didn't really make a difference, though:

Jaclyn Smith: "Danna, your picture is on the wall of fame so we have to send you home this week."

Boogie: "The Doctor is always right about these things."

Daisy's Victorian look was perfect. Obviously it's only one of many possible Victorian looks. It was late Victorian, maybe 1880s. I think they gave her the correct dress to go with this look because it would have looked wrong with a big 1860's hoop skirt. It was similar to her Vanessa Williams red carpet look. I thought it was perfect and she should have won this challenge.

But Tyson uses the Voice to convince the judges that his look is historically accurate, even though it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of work, it was really beautiful, and it certainly gave a vague impression of a court hairstyle from "a long time ago." But it was really closer to the 18th century than the 16th. For starters, I haven't found any evidence that women powdered their hair during the Elizabethan era. They dyed their hair and wore wigs, but I don't think they powdered them. I know this may be a small point but I found it strange that the judges, who I hope had done a little prep work for this challenge, said how perfect the powdered hair was; how it made them think of Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth." I don't think it resembled anything Queen Elizabeth ever wore. A typical style for her was red hair with lots of finger curls around the face and frizzy hair piled on the sides in a heart shape with lots of jewelry stuck in it. The look Tyson did was closer to a Georgian style, in my opinion. Again, I'm not surprised that it didn't look perfectly Elizabethan, given the lack of time for research; I was just surprised that the judges thought it was historically accurate.

Tyson wins! He kills the Reverend Mother and rides a worm off into the sunset of Arrakis. Yay; this means Tyson will be going home next week!

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