Hair Battle Spectacular: Hands Tied, Camera Ready

It’s the second week of Hair Battle Spectacular and we find the contestants sitting around in their downtown LA loft, ruminating about the results of the last episode’s Glam Slam competition.

When Nostradamus asks the group who they think should go next, J9 takes the opportunity to prove she’d like to be thought of as the real deal, let’s-divide-this-game-by-gender-lines, woman of the group. “I think a guy needs to go. You all think your sh*t doesn’t stink. You’re all so cocky.”

J9 admits it; her sh*t does stink.

Atomic doesn’t miss a beat and shoots back, “Personally I wouldn’t have been mad if you left.”

Back at ya, J9! love, Atomic

Oh no he dit’nt! But J9 doesn’t give a hoot. She looks into the camera and gives us a resassuring, let-me-keep-it-real-for-you breakdown. This quote took me about two hours to transcribe though because I was so distracted trying to figure out what sort of pink silk melted-looking tulip with chiffon leaves J9 had affixed to the side of her head:

“I think Atomic tries to get to everyone. He’s very good at cracking people. But he can’t crack me. I don’t do crack” and then she breaks into a giant, toothy, I’m-so-proud-of-my-play-on-words smile.”

Oh J9! It has been hard to go a week without witnessing your oh-so-clever wordplay!

Then we’re back in the workroom for the next Check Up From the Neck Up, waiting for Eva. Maybe Brooke Burke will come back this week?

Nope, it’s Eva Marcille again and this time she’s got a new hair style…and color? It’s shaped sort of like Kate Gosselin’s old hair used to be, except she’s missing that long Gosselin-esque bang in front. And it’s got about 10 pounds of hair product in it.

The first time Kate Gosselin has ever been a hair inspiration.

Derek J is back too—because Eva explains she needs Derek’s “help” explaining the challenge—really? You can’t remember the two lines Derek recites to the stylists?—and he’s in sequins and heels again. Which is a major relief, because we can only handle so much change from week-to-week.

This week’s challenge? Create a fantasy hair piece that incorporates the classic ponytail. Derek tells the stylists that they are going to be able to choose from the “lovely” hatboxes on the table that will have all the tools they’ll need to create their fantasy hairstyles. But be careful you don’t think too big and wild, he warns them with a little know-it-all “hmph,” because “some of y’all over think things and don’t get done.” Is that a slam at Blondie? She gives a look like “oh hell no” but no one’s paying attention because they’re all secretly wondering why Eva pulled a brown sheet off of her bed and is trying to pass it off as a dress. Is Brooke Burke even watching this blasphemy?

Okay, that’s definitely a brown bed sheet. Who has brown sheets anyhow?

The stylists then choose their boxes, and we feel a bit slighted as viewers because J9, who usually never passes up on making a joke a tenth grader would find funny, doesn’t say anything about how one goes about picking boxes. Perhaps she’s still exhausted from making the joke about Bronx’s hairy box the week before.

We do learn that Mz H20 is so pissed Blondie took the purple box because purple is Mz H20’s favorite color. Unfortunately for HBS, because it airs after the drink-slinging, spit-swapping, did-you-just-disrespect-my-momma bonkers hour of TV that is Bad Girls Club, it makes some of the drama on this show seem a bit trivial and painfully contrived.

Nostradamus chooses the rainbow box because he’s a “bright cheerful person” okay…“he’s an honest person..” because honest people like rainbows??… “and because he’s gay and he doesn’t think he has an issue with grabbing a box with rainbows.” Nostradamus likes to remind us he’s gay almost as much as Dimples likes to remind us she did Katy Perry’s hair, and almost as much as everyone likes to repeat that the ultimate prize is $100,000, like they can’t believe it either. We get it, guys.

Per Nostradamus, honest people love rainbows (?!?)

The winner of this challenge, Eva explains, wins the Hand Down card, which they can give to another stylist when they are preparing for the Grand Slam and that stylist will have to work for an hour with their hands down their own pants tied behind their back.

Even holding the Hand Down card makes Eva feel sad.

Atomic’s not worried about this potential predicament, but J9 swears that if she wins she’s going to give the card to Atomic because he’s arrogant. It’s on people! Our first major forced rivalry! Thank you, producers!

The stylists unpack their boxes to see what they’ve gotten and can use during the two hours they have been given to make their creations.

Apparently someone went to the Dollar Store to get the items for these boxes because they really wanted to terrify the stylists and save the cash to actually buy a dress for Eva Marcille for the Grand Slam.

GQ has a thin looking bolt of plaid fabric. Mz H20 has balloons and expresses concern because she has never put balloons in a hair piece. Nostradamus has blue hair, a rainbow slinky, and an amber shower mat.

Because apparently honest people love shower mats too.

QueenB’s box has “pink Barbie heaven.” Blondie has purple hair and bubble wrap but vows not to freak out this time. Camoflauge has pastel colors and what he thinks are origami “dragonflies,” which are actually origami cranes.

Origami dragonflies?! Just what I always wanted.

Dimples isn’t worried about what she has been given to work with because she’s “already done Katy Perry’s hair” and now she’s destined to win this competition. Dimples also decides to remind us she did Katy Perry’s hair again, just in case we blacked out during the entire premiere of HBS and missed all the times she told us the same thing during that episode.

J9 has red white and blue items, stars and jeans in her box, and she tells us she’s going to make an “American dirty hippie with a ponytail” and flashes us her J9 grin before adding that she’s making “genius” moves and wonders that maybe some day Obama might wear the hair she is creating. Not even kidding. Because Barry O could really rock that look at the next State of the Union Address, right? QueenB laughs like “is this bitch for real?”

Eva finally gives a one minute warning and looks cranky. Then she proves that she knows how to count down from five and look mad at the same time and tells them time is up.

“Wouldn’t this look so fierce on Obama?”

J9’s hair is pretty hideous. Definitely not something that looks like the POTUS would wear. But Derek thinks wrapping the structural cone in denim was a “smart” move on J9’s part, which isn’t quite “genius” the way J9 described it but she seems really happy with herself.

Bossa Nova tried to make a “sunflower” which looks like a neon urine cloud, with little green bows and has sunflower seeds in it. Derek J gives him a “nuh-uh B Nova” evaluation and says he feels like they saw the same thing on Bossa’s Glam Slam entry last week – that Demi Moore in Ghost – inspired cloud cage thing.

Bossa Nova’s urine cloud.

QueenB describes her pink piece. Derek J’s unimpressed. QueenB no longer seems proud and instead has a look on her face like she just had an accident in the corner of the work room.

Camoflauge describes his pink and purple beehive-inspired cylinder that he explains he covered in origami dragonflies. Apparently Eva and Derek J don’t know the difference between a dragonfly and a crane either.< Sigh.> Derek J says it’s an improvement from Camo’s piece that was in the Glam Slam last episode—that heinous Jay-Z-inspired trainwreck that the model who looked like Tilda Swinton was wearing—but Derek’s still not thrilled.

Nostradmus is next and he’s smiling a lot. Eva’s suspicious but finally looks happy when she asks him “why are you smiling?” as if she’s speaking to a four-year-old. I can tell you why I was smiling, Eva. I was smiling because I thought Derek J was going to tear into Nostra’s work because to me, it looked like a trash heap that’s keeping his model’s jaw attached to her head.

Nostradamus’ blue hair log. I mean…

But Nostradamus is really happy with his piece and says he was inspired by an alien. The model looks like she can’t believe it when Derek J says he actually really loves the blue hair log that’s Slinky-ed to her head.

Dimples is so excited to show her piece to Derek and Eva and explains how she worked with black mesh, packing peanuts, and silver hair. Derek J limbos under her creation and gives Ms Dimples an assessment that probably cost her her next potential Katy Perry gig.

Pretty sure Derek J wasn’t trying to actually smell Dimples’ piece.

Mz H20 thought there could be a “par-tay” going on when she found the balloons and sequins in her box but Derek J doesn’t seem to want an invite to Mz H2O’s party and thinks it looks too circus-y.

Blondie gets a good grade—Derek J likes the bubble wrap scrunchie she made[?!?]—but Mz H2O’s pissed about it because in her mind, that should have been her box.

Don’t you guys just lovvve my bubble wrap scrunchie?

Top and bottom stylists are pulled out of the pack and it seems Mz H20 and QueenB are in the bottom two, even though Derek J had also told GQ that his piece was bad. Blondie and Nostradamus are in the top. There’s no way that….yup! Nostra’s determined the winner and does a little cabbage patch dance.

For the upcoming Glam Slam, Eva tells the stylists they can only use black and white in their hair pieces and must add custom eyelashes to compliment their design.

Eva then introduces the next “celebrity” guest judge and it’s the Entertainment Director of OK! Magazine, Shauna Bass. Her hair is…well…even more ordinary than entertainment reporter Kristen Eldridge’s last week. But the stylists don’t seem to judge her for it because they are so thrilled and grateful when she tells them the winner will get his or her very own shoot with OK! Magazine! It may not be Vanity Fair, but everyone cheers and claps as if Shauna had just told them Jesus would be modeling the winning creation.

oh em gee…YAY!!!

Blondie gets to pick who the battling duos are because she won last week’s Glam Slam with her Nicki Minaj-inspired hair. She wants to go up against QueenB but the Queen isn’t worried. Blondie then sets Camouflage against Dimples, GQ against Mz H20, Nostradamus against Bossa Nova and Atomic against J9.

The next day we find that Atomic, Nostradmus and Blondie discuss building an alliance while they’re back at the loft. Nostra and Atomic talk to Blondie while she’s in the pool because she seems to secretly decide she will only negotiate when she’s in a bathing suit, hoping she’ll be able to leverage her female assets when negotiating. Remembering Nostra’s gay—she missed it the first 47 times he told us—she has a look on her face that shows she means business and will just drag him under water if he doesn’t agree to band together.

“Whoopsie..one minute Nostradamus was sitting there and the next minute he was drowning!”

Back in the work room, the stylists are racing around, gluing, sewing, sticking and shaping when Derek J bursts into the room in an outfit that’s missing his trademark sequins but still really amuses Atomic. Derek J warns the stylists to keep their designs cohesive and then disappears.

Time to hand out that Hand Down card! “A game full of two-faced people!” Blondie announces to the room, when Nostradamus gives her the card. Nostra calls her out and corrects her; he wasn’t being two faced, it’s a competition, “got that?” Blondie says “okay diva” because everyone knows gays can only be divas, bitches or cute but mostly silent shopping companions when they appear on reality TV. Blondie’s shocked because she thought she and Nostra had been getting along. Blondie says “ I make you nervous!” and Nostra tells us yeah, he does want to get her out.

The “diva” hard at work.

The models come in and the stylists explain what they are planning. The make-up and wardrobe stylists come in and then talk to the stylists to see what they are planning. J9 thinks she wants to do something that looks sad because she wants to do something “Marie Antoinette inspired.” The stylists try to make a little dig at J9 but it flies right over J9’s Kool Aid red hair.

Panic erupts from Nostradamus’ area when he realizes he has put glue directly on his model’s head. Blondie’s delighted. “Is that karma I hear?” she remarks and Nostradmus thinks she’s “being a little bitch.” Because everyone knows blondes on reality TV can only be super sweet, ditzy and bubbly, or bitches, right?

The “little bitch” hard at work.

Mz H20’s putting a shoe on a head, Dimples is doing something that looks like a family of skunks fighting, and QueenB is doing something checkerboard inspired.

Derek bursts back in, proves he too knows how to count down from five and sends the stylists home to prep for the Glam Slam. When we return to the Glam Slam ring, Eva works the runway and gives a couple of hardcore poses, and whoops, appears she has forgotten she’s not on ANTM anymore. Apparently though Eva has located her comb and some shampoo, and her locks are once again re-tamed. Judge Taylor Jacobson however, still seems she hasn’t been able to find her own comb and it doesn’t look like Eva has offered hers on loan to Taylor either.

Yay! Eva has combed her hair again!

The first duo to battle it out are GQ and Mz H2O. GQ’s piece which seems a little Bride of Frankenstein-y, but Shauna Bass likes it. Taylor thinks GQ’s has too much of a Halloween costume vibe, which is kind of funny because Taylor is dressed like she’s a client sitting in a chair at the hair salon, wearing one of those smocks they put on you when they style your hair.

Shauna’s totally scared of Taylor’s hair. “What did you do to it??”

Really inspired outfit choice, T! But she votes for Mz H20’s, even though to me it looks like two crows have landed on a cloud and are staring at a shoe. Derek J also votes for Mz H20, making her the first “Hair Do” of the night, and she shouts “oh my god” like she just remembered she left a baby in the oven or something.

Bride of Frankenstein versus…

Crows on a cloud.

Next it’s Atomic versus J9 and Atomic’s annoyed his isn’t acting like Catwoman at all and whispers at her “Hissing! Hissing!” Maybe she’s not acting like Catwoman because she looks like a latex fetish model wearing half of a toilet paper mummy costume and she’s in black and white face. Yeah, who wouldn’t be confused how they are supposed to act in that outfit?

J9’s model then comes out dressed as Marie Antoinette. After J9 boasts about her creation, she flashes her giant black granny knickers at the judges, which she has affixed “J9” to in big white letters. Because nothing matches wearing a tiny black top hat on one’s head like a pair of knickers with your pseudonym on them!

CLASSY!

Derek loves J9’s look. Taylor loves J9’s too and says it’s “completely Harper’s, Vogue” and thus it becomes clear to us that Taylor must be drinking heavily before each of the Glam Slams or not speaking to the same J9 who is on stage. I mean, there’s no way. But somehow, J9 is the “Hair Do” this round.

I mean, really Atomic? You practically handed it to her.

The models for Dimples and Camouflage face off next. The judges love the eyelashes on Dimples’ model but since the show isn’t called Eyelash Spectacular and her hair looks like she ran an egg beater through it, she doesn’t win. Even though it seems there’s a little person’s ottoman on Camoflauge’s model’s head, Camo wins this round and is declared the “Hair Do.”

Egg beater hair versus ottoman head.

When Blondie’s braided squirrels’ nest faces off against QueenB’s orbiting checkerboards, the judges are divided. QueenB gets Shauna’s vote, but because Taylor thinks QueenB’s model’s dress is the “tackiest thing [she] has ever seen,” Blondie gets her vote. Derek J easily decides QueenB is the winner of this round though and QueenB is announced as the “Hair Do.”

Squirrels’ nest versus checkerboards in orbit.

The final battle pits Bossa Nova against Nostradamus. Bossa Nova tries to recite something beautiful and mysterious and though he seems like a total cheeseball—he points to his cheek to encourage his model to give him a kiss—his piece is actually really quite cool. This is how you do Alien-chic, so Nostradamus, take note.

Painfully cheesy, but “alien chic” done right.

Nostradaumus’ hair looks like a black pineapple sitting on top of an Oreo with two giant cookies and just a little bit of white cream filling.

Shauna thinks Bossa Nova’s hair is a little too “snakes on a spaceship” for her liking, but Derek J likes it. Taylor also votes for Nostradamus’ leaning pineapple cookie tower and he’s declared the final “Hair Do” of the evening.

After all the “Hair Dos” are brought back on stage, J9 is told she’s the winner and she tells the judges that she “beweaves” that the judges made the right choice. Oh J9! You’re so good at making us want to poke our eardrums out!

Make it stop, please.

When all the “Hair Don’ts” are brought back out, Bossa Nova, Blondie and Atomic are told they are all safe, and Eva tells Dimples and GQ that one of them will be going home.

“One of you will never have to deal with J9 again.”

Derek ultimately eliminates Dimples, and the audience gasps! It’s a pretty big let down when Dimples refuses give us one final mention of Katy Perry’s name, but she swears she’ll be a household hair name some day—because there are so many of those?—so we’ll undoubtedly get to hear her talk about the time she did Katy Perry’s hair some time in the future.

Next week. Eva is wearing…a tea kettle cozy as a hat? YES!