Hair Battle Spectacular Recap: I’m a Beautician, Not a Magician

Episode six of the season and just two left until we figure out which one of these fantasy hair stylists gets to walk away with $100,000 and some of their pride!

This episode starts in the salon!—gasp! Not the stylists’ loft, per usual, and all the stylists note how things are finally more serious now that it’s down to the final five.

“This is the easiest game of musical chairs ever!”

QueenB asks who wants to go up against each other in this week’s Grand Slam and J9, who looks like she just crawled out of the crypt, says that she’d like to battle Bossa Nova.

Wakey, wakey, Ms J9!

QueenB has her serious face on and notes that she hasn’t gone up against Nostradamus—Nostradamus shakes and jiggles like the very idea of it gives him a rare smiling seizure—but then QueenB cockily adds that she might want to save that battle until the Top Three. Boo yah! The Queen’s got confidence!

Eva strolls in a pantsuit with parts of both of her boobs out, and Derek strolls in in a pantsuit with both of his boobs covered up.

Eva’s all “whoops! they didn’t tell me you’d be wearing a jumpsuit too!”

Eva calls in the models for the Check Up from The Neck Up Challenge and tells the stylists that they will have to create a hairstyle based on a fantastical creature and a prop from that creature’s world. The options are a “werewolf, “mermaid,” “sphinx,” “sprite,” and a “griffin”—noted here all in quotation marks because they are kind of bargain basement renditions of these mythical creatures so a bit tricky to identify.

Where The Wild Things Aren’t

Eva tells the stylists that the prize for the challenge is immunity and everyone’s jazzed because that means the winner will be in the final four. Even QueenB wants it, though she basically says that she’s confident enough in her ability to sail to the finals without some lame immunity pass. The stylists pick their models: Blondie gets the sprite, Nostradamus grabs the griffin, QueenB takes the mermaid, J9 takes the sphinx and Bossa Nova is left with the werewolf. J9 is excited to throw us for a loop when she chooses the sphinx, saying that we all think she’s going to choose the werewolf because she’s such a dark person, but that she wanted to throw a wild card. Bossa Nova’s “bummed” he got the werewolf because he considers werewolves warriors and that totally goes against his tired ideology of “peace and love.” Bossa Nova! You’re not on “Hair Orgy Spectacular” or “Hair Daisy Chain Spectacular!” Get your fight on, girl!

“Where’d my model go??”

Blondie’s hard at work making a magical mushroom and J9’s working at sewing something into her sphinx model’s head. She tells her model “I’m just sewing” and the model says “okay” which I think is the first time a model on this show has ever been allowed to say anything. They’re always mute or miserable, but this model probably realizes that if she doesn’t pipe up and stay on J9’s good side, she might wind up with one of J9’s little top hats on her head or with her hair dyed fire engine red.

J9 refused to do her own hair because she wanted to focus all of her energy on her model’s hair…or something like that…

J9 tells us that she has a lot of ideas for the sphinx because she has a lot of inspiration from lions but she’s not going to tell us why BECAUSE IT’S A LITTLE PERSONAL. Yes, the reason she knows so much about lions is personal…so what the hell could that mean? She was a lion whisperer? No shame in that…She lived with lions like Mowgli lived with the wolves? Okay, slight embarrassment if that’s the case maybe. Maybe she dated a lion? Had a no-strings attached scenario with a lion? What could be so personal about lions? But then she clarifies for us “Sphinxes are lions with boobs and who doesn’t like a lion with boobs?” UM.

??

!!

?!?!?!?!

ANYONE?

“You look just like this lion with boobs I once dated…”

Bossa Nova is making things complicated for his piece and putting a Viking warrior’s helmet on his werewolf. J9’s having a good laugh at what Bossa Nova’s doing, and if J9, who is pretty nutty and out there when it comes to interpreting a challenge, doesn’t get what you’re doing, then you are sc-sc-sc-screwed.

Derek J strolls in, puts her hands up and yells “stop the clock” and gets the stylists to come together.

“Pay attention to me!…I mean, stop the clock!”

DJ tells the stylists that he hasn’t been impressed with their work in the last two Check Ups so if he’s not happy this week and they don’t turn it out, he’s going to send someone home.

Look of horror or look of orgasmic pleasure? Do tell us, Nostradamus..

The stylists are in a tizzy and race back to their stations after Ms Thing strolls back out of the salon, only to return a bit later to tell them they have ten minutes left. Blondie races to go grab some orange hair and runs back to her station and slips and falls to the ground, sort of slowly. It’s not one of those very gratifying slips or major wipe-outs, so don’t worry, you didn’t miss Blondie really eating it. I’d tell you if you had missed out on something that hilarious.

Eva and Derek J re-enter the salon to judge the Check Up from the Neck Up and Derek J finds QueenB’s mermaid hair to be pretty on point, but her crowning piece, the hair prop she made for her model to hold: a conch shell with treasure in it, is “adorable.”

“Don’t I have the purdiest lil’ conch in this whole salon? Other than Nostradamus of course..”

Over at Blondie’s station, Derek J finds Blondie’s piece “adorable” too. He’s not thrilled he can see a little Styrofoam but other than that it makes him happy. The prop Blondie made is a flower and she put glitter in it, which she refers to as “Fairy dust,” which apparently really makes Derek J and Eva quite amused. Wow, to think that all one needed to do to make these two emotional roller coasters happy was to call some glitter “fairy dust”….

Blondie and her model have mushrooms on the brain…hmmm

When they roll over to Nostradamus’ griffin, Nostradamus explains his work and that his model is holding gold and an egg in each of her hands. Derek J pretends he’s mad and serious, but, in case you’ve missed it before, Derek J’s acting makes Eva Marcille look like the next Meryl Streep. Derek J spots a bit of chicken wire in the place on the piece where it looks like two birds were fighting to the death, but overall expresses happiness with Nostradamus’ work.

Why is Derek J yelling at me? Why is Eva flashing her boobs at me?

Bossa Nova is up next and trying to explain his werewolf, and why his model is holding what looks like a grey loaf of bread wrapped in a chain….oh, it’s a weapon so she can fight? And why she’s wearing a warrior helmet that has one horn that looks like grey dog penis (don’t pretend you haven’t seen one before.) Derek J likes the technique but identifies a disconnect between the werewolf and warrior’s helmet. Whoops. Sorry Bossa Nova, thought you’d throw a grey dog d*ck on your model’s head and distract Derek J like that? Try again.

One grey, chained loaf of bread and one grey dog penis hat, please.

J9 is up last and Derek J asks her how she feels about her “Phinx.” Wait, wasn’t she supposed to be working on a “Sphinx?” Derek J doesn’t seem too excited about J9’s piece, or her attempt at her pyramid and it lands her in the bottom with Bossa Nova.

Derek J then reminds the stylists that he had threatened to eliminate someone if he wasn’t happy and, says he doesn’t like to lie so the person he will be eliminating is is “neither of you.” SIIIIIKKKKEEE! He got you! (Sighh….. this one and his attempts at acting! Seriously!) Derek J explains he’s letting them slide because he was pleased they used great technique in their work.

Derek J then declares that Nostradamus is the winner and Nostradamus jumps and spins and smiles and cheers and Blondie masks her disappointment with a smile that really says “WTF?”

You can fly, you can fly, you can flyyyyyy, Nostradamus!

Nostradamus tells us he deserves to be in the top four because he’s the only one who “really wants that 100,000 dollars.” I don’t know if the desire to get the money is reason enough Nostradamus should win, but if we are basing how much he deserves that money on how many times he has mentioned his lust for it since the first episode aired this season, then yes, Nostradamus name checks that prize money, without fail, almost every episode and thus would deserve it.

For the Glam Slam, Eva tells the stylists they are going to create a hair design based on a magic trick, and Curtis Adams, a touring illusionist, is going to be one of the judges. Okay kids, this could be good, or this could be totally totally bad. Adams then does this weird trick where he sets a tissue paper rose on fire and turns it into a real rose. Nostradamus is so impressed—“oh my gosh”–he murmurs and doubles over with delight when the tricks is done but Blondie looks like she just wants Derek J to walk back in the room and say he was kidding about declaring Nostradamus the winner and granting him immunity. Sorry, lady.

Eva directs the stylists to the table where five magic tricks are, and the stylists are told they need to incorporate the trick into their fantasy hairstyle. “I thought tricks were for kids, but apparently they’re for hairdressers too,” J9 says. WITTY WOMAN ALERT!

Blondie chooses the appearing flowers, Nostradamus grabs the linking rings, QueenB snags the color changing silks, J9 wants the levitating rope, and Bossa Nova is then stuck with never ending paper, which even sounds stupid.

QueenB pairs the Glam Slam competitors up, and says that “because there is only one head bitch in this competition, is me, verse Blondie.” Okay, I don’t know if I would have phrased it as ineloquently as that but I do appreciate those fighting words. And I know the viewers love to pick on QueenB’s lisp but let me tell you, as one lisper to another, girl, I love that lisp and I so get off on delivering some smack talk in a lisp. Sometimes, when talking sh*t, my lisp kicks in overdrive and I call guys a “thon of a bitch” or a “pack of lying mother**ckerth.” Yeah they might not be as scared as they could be but I think it allows me to seem tough but still a little sweet and cute.

J9 also gets her wish when Bossa Nova gets paired up against her and then the stylists head to the magic show to learn how to do each of their tricks.

Wait, why are we watching a magic show in a porno theater?

Everyone seems relatively okay, except J9 who complains she is lost, and a “beautician, not a magician.”

Back at the loft, drinking coffee, the fivesome are chatting and J9 is explaining she still doesn’t have any idea how she’s going to get her magic on. QueenB tells us in an aside that she thinks some people in the top five are weaker competitors and that she and Nostradamus are strong but that the other two girls, meaning, not her and Nostradamus, need to “step it up more.” Bam, QueenB’s talking some game this week!

Headed back into the salon, the stylists get to work. Blondie explains she has never used chicken wire before and is going to make it up as she goes, to show she has a range. Blondie’s trying to explain what she’s ultimately going to make her hair piece do, but she’s laughing like she can’t believe she’s actually going to pull it off either.

Bossa Nova is going to make a braid coming out of the sun…alrriiiight….and Blondie’s still struggling to figure out how to make her chicken wire fit on the head. J9 tells her she needs to have a foundation—duh Blondie, even I can realize that—and Bossa Nova gives Blondie a tip—but QueenB, Nostradamus and then J9 freak out and tell him to shut up and stop helping Blondie. “If you don’t know how to do a foundation by now, then maybe you shouldn’t be here,” Nostradamus suggests a little cattily.

“Am I turning you on yet, Bossa Nova?”

The wardrobe and makeup stylists come in, and per usual, the wardrobe stylist Nola has a look on her face the entire time like “what the hell are these people talking about,” and Julie, the make-up stylist always looks like she’s halfway between a smile and tears.

All three women are like “what the eff is he talking about??”

But the hair stylists are having a tough time making magic happen in the salon. Nostradamus decides to redo most of his piece after J9 deems the color of his creation to be “eh” and Blondie’s struggling to get paper unglued from her hair flowers.

Sorta reminds me of the time I dropped our wedding bands into that homeless guy’s pubes…

It’s not looking good for Blondie, but for any of the stylists waiting to get a peek of her butt, it’s looking reallllllllly good.

QueenB says she’s ready to put Blondie in the “Hair Don’ts”…”where she belongs.” QueenB says her foundation is strong so she isn’t worried about it falling over, “not like someone else she knows,” talking about Blondie. Then the camera crew catches Blondie’s mannequin head falling over with her fantasy hair piece on it and booyah! It’s a slam dunk insult for QueenB! Wowee, when did this bitch get so sassy? I’m loving it.

And it’s time for the Glam Slam! Eva’s got her boobs covered up now because it appears she’s got her dress on backwards.

“Yeah it’s backwards…so what??”

Once in the middle of the ring, she introduces the judges, Derek J, Taylor Jacobson, and Curtis Adams, who looks like he can’t believe that his agent actually wasn’t lying to him when he said he booked him on a fantasy hair show.

The first two stylists up are J9 and Bossa Nova. J9’s magician/genie hybrid hair is actually pretty good, despite all she had been saying about how confused and lost she was.. There is a definite turban look to it, and the model asks J9, in a weepy voice, to levitate the rope in her hair piece. J9 also manages to levitate the entire hair piece, which basically means she just pulls it off her model’s head, intact. Kind of impressive, though the judges look less than entertained.

Ta da! <crickets…>

Bossa Nova’s model looks like she just came in from Dr. Seuss’ Whoville, and because Bossa Nova’s playing the role of a mime, we watch him pull scarves out of his mouth and then a colored braid out of his model’s out-of-this-world blue and yellow weave.

The princess of Whoville and her mime boyfriend…oh wait, it’s Bossa Nova and his model. Oops.

Even without the sassy verbal description of his piece, Bossa Nova’s work presentation seems to impress the judges and he gets the first “yes” vote from Curtis. Well, I thought the judges were impressed until Taylor starts to speak and tells Bossa Nova she doesn’t like his ensemble and that his color combo is tacky. Derek J votes last, and though he seems torn between both pieces, he ultimately likes the consistency of J9’s more, making her the first “Hair Do” of the Glam Slam.

Next up is Blondie vs. QueenB and thankfully, this week, Blondie isn’t firing off an angry or smack-talk filled letter to QueenB, like she normally would when facing off in the Glam Slam.

Blondie is trying for Miss Congeniality this week!

Blondie’s all smiles and cutesy rhymes, and after she gets the flowers to pop up in the middle of her piece successfully, it’s QueenB’s turn. QueenB’s model strolls out, looking like she’s wearing a black version of the same style she has done two other weeks at the Glam Slam. When QueenB mounts a little stepladder to “do her magic trick,” the audience moans and shouts, likely because there’s little trickery and instead just some mildly awkward changing of the braids.

Graceful!

Wait, did I miss something? QueenB also has some weird, defeatist energy in this Glam Slam. Gone is the happy, confident gal of past competitions, and the sassy, I’m-gonna-whoop-Blondie woman isn’t here either.

Curtis gives both ladies a pretty nice evaluation, though he does say that QueenB’s trick is sloppy and votes for Blondie. Taylor likes Blondie’s model’s outfit, her aesthetic, and is happy to see a softer side of Blondie, but is ultimately impressed by QueenB. Derek J tells Blondie she did a great job, though he says her braids could have been tighter, and tells QueenB that she too did a great job, but that they’ve seen it already.

Well have you ever sat for an extended period of time in a backwards gown? You’d like upset like Eva does too!

When Blondie is declared a “Hair Do” by Derek J, it’s a bit of a mindf**k. This makes the first time in six weeks that QueenB has been a “Hair Don’t” and she’s being unseated by the girl who cried in the very first competition and had nothing to present? What? Oh how the mighty have fallen! QueenB confesses to us that her trick didn’t work the way she thought it would and I feel a little bit badly when she has to go join Bossa Nova—dressed as a mime—in the “Hair Don’t” box.

Finally, it’s Nostradamus’ turn, and he’s suuuuper duuuper excited because he has immunity. His model walks down the runway doing the robot (?!?) with a traumatized look on her face and gets to the center of the ring where Nostradamus does a sort of goofy, old-fashioned-y, avert-your-eyes sort of dance.

“If you like it then you shoulda put a ring or four on it…” hmmm not quite as catchy.

“Nostradamus, how do you feel about this hair design?” Derek J asks him.

“It makes me want to groove,” responds the little cheese ball.

“Well, you really shouldn’t like it…” Derek J says….”you should love this hair piece!” Oh Derek J! SIIIIIKKKKEEE! Again! Someone appears to really enjoy toying with Nostradamus’ mind. Even Taylor gushes about it. Curtis says that not only did Nostradamus have the toughest trick, but his presentation was the best as well. Damn. Poor QueenB has her big fall from grace this week but Nostradamus remains in the top.

Nostradamus is declared the winner of the Glam Slam and we’re treated to more howling, jumping and the cabbage patch.

He can fly, he can fly, he can flyyyyyyy! Part II.

The two “Hair Don’ts”—QueenB and Bossa Nova—are brought out next and Derek J says it’s QueenB’s lack of originality vs. Bossa Nova’s lack of cohesion. And ultimately a teary-eyed QueenB is sent home. WHAT???

Terrified of clowns, QueenB couldn’t even keep her eyes open next to Bossa Nova’s mime.

Okay, this gal was in the “Hair Dos” six weeks in a row and so yeah maybe it was a dumb idea to go against Blondie, who sometimes nails it, and sometimes misses it, and maybe it wasn’t the best idea to choose the color changing scarves but sending her home?? That seems a bit ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Bossa Nova taking off his top hat and offering Queen B the little cut-out red heart he had concealed inside it after she was declared the loser. Really committed to that mime act, eh Bossa Nova? Derek J reminds QueenB that she is “fabilis” but in need of some reinvention.

Prompted by the producers, QueenB tells us that the judges didn’t necessarily make a mistake and that it was their opinion. “As far as Blondie goes,” she says, “I don’t really care any more. I don’t want to talk about it ever again.” Woah, someone’s a little bitter! But ultimately I feel bad for the B as she’s still dabbing tears from her eyes at the end of the show. Poor lisping thing. Bet she didn’t see that elimination coming!

All in all, not the most thrilling episode of the season by any means, but definitely a serious twist no one really could have seen coming.