Shear Genius: I’ve Never Seen Such a Butcher Job!

***Letter from the Editor: You guys have sent us letters asking for Shear Genius recaps, and we have found the perfect writer for you. Please welcome to newest member to the TVgasm family, J-MO!!! HOLLA!

Now that Top Chef is finished for another season, and we’re waiting for another season of Project Runway to begin, the good people at Bravo! have brought back another season of the hair-stylists edition of competitive reality TV… Shear Genius (volume two!). I personally think they could have come up with a more wacky name for it, like A-Hair-ican Idol, or So You Think You Can Style?, or Flow-Bee Madness... but at any rate, I was glued to the TV last Wednesday night as we hear Ms. Jaclyn Smith introduce us to the new season that will have 12 stylists compete in 20 challenges that will “put their abilities to the ultimate hair test!” in the hopes of winning $100,000.00 from Nexxus Hair-Care Products (ooh!)… an apprenticeship with Nexxus (ahh!)… the opportunity to style hair for an Allure photo shoot (ohh!)… and the title… of SHEAR GENIUS (murmur murmur!)…

…and we cue the title sequence with Jaclyn holding a blow-dryer in her old Kelly-Garrett-As-One-Of-Charlie’s-Angels-poses! Yay Charlie’s Angels references!

We get our first look at this season’s crop of hair-hoppers, Paulo, Nekisa, Charlie, Nicole, Daniel, Dee, Matthew, Gail, Parker, Glenn, Oshun and Meredith! Seems like most of them have suitably weird/trendy hair, except for Charlie, who is bald (apparently by choice, sorta). We are also treated to a few shots of the Shear Genius hair salon, and it definitely doesn’t look at all like the Great Clips where I get my hair cut these days (like, they don’t have any boogery sniveling brats wailing in the waiting area and attempting to dump $50 bottles of conditioner on each other). It looks very clean, and sleek, and futuristic… like a Jetsons hair salon would look.

The contestants all enter the salon clapping and cheering for absolutely no reason (maybe they’re feeling a sense of accomplishment having just walked through a door!) and Jaclyn Smith immediately blows smoke up their collective asses by saying “Wow, what a great looking group!” Now, I remember saying to Tom last season that I was amazed at how great Jaclyn herself looked… I mean, it’s obvious that she’s had some upkeep done, but it was well blended and she looked fairly natural. However, it is glaringly obvious… especially in her weirdly sculpted cheek-bones… that girlfriend is fighting Father Time tooth and nail… but the effect is somewhat more plasticine than I had hoped for…

…Charlie’s Botox…

The picture really doesn’t capture the awkwardness of her new face, she seems a little unsure of how it works, but hopefully things will loosen up a little, because I really like Jaclyn, she certainly looks a helluva lot better than another Angel we know of…

…and I’m not trying to be mean, I know Farrah has cancer (and I hope she gets better) but she looked pretty busted up way before that ever happened. I wonder if she will be a special guest this season. Hmmmmm….

Anyhow, Jaclyn welcomes the contestants (stylestants?) to their new Nexxus (yay product placement!) Shear Genius Salon… and right away stylestant Daniel drawls “The salon is aMAYzin’ and ah’ve desaghned two mah-sayilf and ahm still quaht imPRAYSSed!”…

…Daniel goes on to let us know that his “signature hayir-stahl is ‘Dallas Hayir’…. period…” Hmmm, I wasn’t even aware that there was such a thing as “Dallas Hair”, but I’m guessing that I’ve seen it on several drunk drag-queens… we’ll see if I’m right later on. Jaclyn introduces herself, and right away stylestant Paulo (and his tongue-and-septum-piercing combo) pipes up with a breathless “Oh.. my GOD!… Jaclyn… SMITH!… I, when I was seven, had a big ol’ crush on her!… I know, I’m a gay man and I had a crush on a woman… Go figure! (gay eye-roll)” Yes, Paulo, except I wouldn’t exactly call it a crush… I would suspect it was more like you wanted to be the fourth Angel and be bestest girlfriends with Kelly, Sabrina and Jill. Just like I did…

…Paulo hails from San Jose, CA, and reminds me of a gaygoth version of Lindsay Buckingham with a giant soul-patch, and he’s definitely not afraid to gay out all over the place… the sheer size and scope of the hissing sibiliants spouting from his lips were enough to set my TV’s speakers just a-buzzin’!

Jaclyn goes on to introduce one of this seasons judges, named Kim Vo, whose pedigree is given as a “master colorist” and Jaclyn adds that he is responsible for Britney’s many-changing hairstyles…

…and has worked with some of Hollywood’s “top A-list celebrities, including Teri Hatcher, Kate Hudson… and Jenny McCarthy!” I was like WTF?!?? Since when is Jenny McCarthy considered “A-list”? Her last movie was that fucking Larry The Cable Guy’s Witless Protection, wasn’t it? Oh, well, I guess since she’s banging Jim Carrey she sorta A-list, although he hasn’t exactly had a hit on his hands lately, either (the Number 23… ooooooooweeeeeeoooooooooo!). Anyhow, back to Kim Vo… he (in my opinion anyhow) seems to be an oddly disturbing mix between Carson Kressley and Michael Jackson…

…very strange, but he has a cute pixieish smile, and it seems like he’s not afraid to be bitchy or mean (although I had to wonder why a “master colorist” would have had such a boring shade of blonde for his own hair color, but, eh, I guess maybe he’s not above having a Feria moment from time to time). I like him already, and Jaclyn gushes that he has salons in Beverly Hills (ooh!), West Hollywood (ahh!) and Las Vegas (ohh!).

Now, with Kim being a male and having a rather feminine name, we come to our stylestant Glenn, who is a woman with a masculine name…

…Glenn is from Decatur, AL and is the one you might have seen in the promos saying “Ah kin make ya feel better’n'a bottle of Prozac!” Yes, anothere Southerne Belle! Glenn is all a-twitter at being in the presence of Kim Vo and chirps “Ah’m very exSAHt’d to hayiv Kim owun the shaiow… color is Kim’s niche and thayat’s mahn also!” I believe her, too, because she’s got the exact same boring shade of blonde in her hair as well!

Jaclyn asks the stylestants which of them thinks they can win, and of course they all raise their hands (ha ha ha, like the promo says… eleven of them are wrong!). Which brings us to our next stylestant, who I noticed right away was wearing his sunglasses indoors and has a memorable name…

…of Oshun (pronounced O-shun). He is an L.A. boy and right away kinda sets my teeth on edge when he says “What makes me unique is Oshun got the potion for the motion… When I touch your hair and I do the flair… ‘Cuz I’m Oshun and I’m deep!” Yup, he’s a poet and he don’t know-et (well, I guess he does know it, but it seems to me that Muhammad Ali and Jesse Jackson always had a better grasp on their rhyming sing-songy speeches… and at least they made sense most of the time… I’m still trying to figure out what a “potion for the motion” is… maybe he’s talking about that new K-Y stuff?). Anyhow, Oshun says he’s been doing this for over 18 years! Since he’s only 31, that means he started touching hair and doing flair at the tender age of 13! He also helpfully adds that he’s been nominated for an Emmy! I tried to look it up and see if there was such a thing as an Emmy for Best Hair In A Drama Or Comedy and I couldn’t find one (only Best and Worst Red Carpet Hairstyles AT the Emmy Awards)…. I’m starting to catch the pungent scent of bullshit whenever Oshun opens his mouth…

We move on to Charlie, who is the one you’ve seen in the promos saying “It’s gonna be a beauty… bloodbath!!!”

…Charlie seems to be angling to be “the bitchy one” when he says “The other stylists should be worried about me for one simple reason… I don’t give a fuck if they like me or not!” Interesting. So, I guess being bitchy somehow amps up your talent for styling hair? Charlie goes on to say that he’s “technically from Hell” but that he resides in Denver, CO. Ha ha. They’re in the same zip code, stupid. Jaclyn asks Charlie why he thinks he can win and he hisses “Because I have an eye like no one else, and I’m ruthless!!!” Jaclyn and Kim Vo exchange an amused glance and echo “Ruthless?” which prompts Jaclyn to say “This is scary!” to which Charlie helpfully responds “I’m not scary, just bitchy…” Oh, okay, I get it, you’re bitchy and ruthless and the other stylists should all be worried about you because you don’t give a fuck if they like you or not, but you’re not trying to be scary. Okay, Mary. (Damn you, Oshun, now you’ve got me doing it, too!)

Female Glenn says that she’s actually seen Charlie “perform on stage” before and that he has an amazing creativity… (I wasn’t aware that there were actual hair stage shows, but then they show a clip of Charlie wearing a pop-star’s headset and doing hair on a stage somewhere… and then they cut to this awfully limp blonde-over-black asymmetrical hair-don’t that he has amazingly created… I begin to think that Charlie is going to be a lot of fun to watch, bitchy or no).

We move on to Parker, who is from West Palm Beach, FL and is totally original in his aping of Christian Siriano’s hairstyle…

…Jaclyn asks Parker what makes him think he can win, and he haughtily replies “Everything my scissors touches is like superfly TNT (huh?!?)… what I do is so brilliant that I’m for shore going to win this competition!” Jaclyn and Kim share another amused glance… “They’re so confident!” she observes.

Jaclyn explains that each week there will be two challenges… the first is a “Short Cut Challenge” (which I guess would correspond to the “Quick Fire Challenge” on Top Chef) and an Elimination Challenge (which I guess would correspond to the “Elimination Challenge” on Top Chef) and then Kim Vo takes over and says their first challenge starts NOW…

…and we see all these women come out of the back of the salon, and they’re all wearing safety goggles. I was hoping maybe they’d all get in a scissors-throwing fight, but I was wrong. Female Glenn is worried and says “OMG, you NAYvur cut a client’s haiyur with GLAYses owun!” She was “mortified” by it. Huh? These women just walking out while wearing safety goggles “mortified” you? I think Miss Alabama Ding Dong is gonna crack under the pressure pretty quickly, bottles of Prozac or no!

Sure enough, this Short Cut Challenge is called “In The Dark” and the stylists will have to cut their clients hair… while wearing blindfolds! Oooooohh, double snap-eroo!!! Paulo immediately panics and says “Fuck me, we’re gonna cut hair blindfolded?!??!?” No, Paulo, I won’t, and yes, apparently, you are. This brings us to Nekisa from Concord, CA…

…who says “I always tell my stylists ‘Close your eyes and just check and make sure that the cut is even using the feel of your hands’…” Interesting approach. I would think using your eyes would be faster and more accurate. Still, I like Nekisa, she seems like she’d be a fun girl to hang out and get drunk with. Plus she has an exotic name.

Kim Vo says he will be judging their cuts and ranking them, and Jaclyn says they can go get set up. Parker jumps back in with “I joke all the time that I could do it blindfolded… this will be me proving myself right!” I don’t like Parker, he seems like a bit of a prick, and not only does he remind me of Christian Siriano, but also that hack David Cook (a.k.a. Smirky McSmugMug, the new *cough* American Idol *urp*). We move on from him to his female twin/drag alter-ego, Gail, from Columbus, OH…

…Gail seems to like looking all emo and wearing a lot of leopard print. All of her clients tend to look very emo, too. She’s another styling prodigy who started out at age 12! Can someone please tell me which salons are hiring 12- and 13-year-olds to be stylists? Because I want to make sure never to go there. Gail says “I always start out at the bottom and end up at the top!” Me too, honey… me too! Gail is desperately trying to convince her client to go with an asymmetrical cut because she won’t be able to see. She’s scared because “You have steel razor blades in one hand, and soft flesh in the other…” What is she holding onto, the client’s neck? I think Gail is a bit of a drama-queen.

Now we meet this season’s Totally Obvious Lesbianaâ„¢ Dee, of Miami, FL…

…Dee is sporting one of those skunky blonde’n'black faux-hawks and looks kinda hard. She says “making people feel great is what I’m all about… I specialize in sexy!” She further insists “You’re gonna feel like a ROCK STAR every single time you’re in my chair!” Does that mean I’m going to be shriveled from exhaustion, alcoholism and drug abuse and wanting to constantly vomit? In that case, YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!!! Seriously, I think the whole term “rock star” needs to be retired as an adjective, especially since it’s now just a brand of energy drink (sorry, Erick, I know you like to drink them…) Anyhow, Dee says she has a great girlfriend (this was such a shock) and that “with her on my side, I know I’m gonna do well…. and if she’s not on my side, then I’m gonna hunt her down and cut the bitch…” Okay, she didn’t say that last part, but that hardness in her face says to me that she could be, uh, rather intense in a relationship.

Meanwhile Oshun is babbling “I’m gonna let my imagination just run wild and I’m just gonna let my hands move through their hair like Oshun, ‘cuz I’m deep!” He then looks uncomfortable, as if realizing that he’s already overused his catch-phrase about being Oshun and being deep. Yes, Oshun, we’re only 30 minutes in, and you have totally worn that phrase out. Congratulations. Now here’s perky Meredith, from Chicago, IL…

…and trust me when I say, this girl has the most dragaliciously sculpted eyebrows I have ever seen on a biological woman (assuming she’s not actually a drag queen or even a fierce hot tranny mess). She certainly isn’t lacking in self-esteem as she spouts “Everyone should be shaking in their boots because I have it all…. they just don’t know it yet… and frankly, I’m the cutest thing you’ve ever seen!” She giggles shrilly. Mmmkay, not so much. She turns to her terrified client and says “We’re gonna win this bitch!” Or maybe she was snarling at her “We’re gonna win this, bitch!” Could’ve been either. Watch for those eyebrows, coming to a drag show near you. And now we have pretty little Nicole, from New York City, NY…

…she kinda reminds me of Shirlie of the group Pepsi & Shirlie (former backup singers for Wham! and George Michael) and seems kinda sweet and humble when she says “A lot of people think that I’m an underdog in this industry because I’ve only been doing hair for five years…” Awww, poor thing! “I’m a professional cutter… I don’t really think I’m an underdog, but that’s what I’m gonna find out!” Wow, her lack of self-aggrandizement is really refreshing from all these other bitches saying how great they are and how awesome everything they do is. Then little Nicole takes her self-deprecation a step too far when she nervously giggles to her client “I can’t even walk straight, let alone cut hair straight with my eyes closed!” which causes her Asian client to make a face like a kitten trapped in a microwave. At that point it’s time to move on to Matthew, who is ALSO from Dallas (hey, no fair having two experts on “Dallas Hair” on one season, Bravo!)…

…Matthew owns his own salon in Dallas (they show him there cutting his own hair in a mirror) and immediately fills the position of Token Straight Hair Stylistâ„¢ when he gushes “The only thing I love more than hairdressing is my WIFE!!!” I’m willing to bet that on every single show he appears in this season that he’s going to mention his wife or being straight, and I’m sure we’ll be treated to him getting all huffy about why people automatically assume that just because he is a hairdresser and wears purple shirts and sucks a lot of dick that they automatically assume he’s a homosexual!! Sheesh! They cut to him working on his client and saying “I’ll try not to hurt you…” She responds with a great big “Ow!’ as he immediately nails her ear. Way to go, Great Straight Hope…

Kim Vo is now circulating amongst the stylists as they work… Nekisa is doing a “layered A-line bob” which Kim thinks is very “ambitious”. Nekisa gets a worried frown and asks what he means. Kim smiles and says “It’s jagged and I hope it looks a lot better by the time we get to judging.” Nekisa hopes it will, too.

Back at Matthew’s station, not being satisfied with just injuring his client, he has now managed to actually cut his own finger… he sounds concerned when his client/victim tells him he is bleeding and quickly assures her “I promise I don’t have anything…” Yeah, how about stopping and getting a Band-Aid on there, huh Edward Scissorhands?

Kim Vo has moved on to bother Oshun, and asks him how he’s feeling. Oshun booms in a too-loud voice that he doesn’t know what he’s doing (surprise!) and that he’s feeling hair (bigger surprise!). Eventually the 45 minutes they were given to complete their blind cuts runs out and Kim Vo starts judging…

He immediately jumps on Parker’s cut, asking him if he truly was satisfied with it… Parker insists he is. When Kim asks the client, I couldn’t hear what her answer was… My guess it was in a small voice “ihateitpleasefixthemessthisassholedidtomyhead.”

Next up is Female Glenn who says she did a very hard precision cut to show she wasn’t afraid to take risks. Kim looks less than impressed.

When he gets to Danny Dallas’ client he immediately clocks the tackiness… “I see some tease in here… are you from Dallas?” and Danny beams and drawls “Even blahnd-folded!” like backteasing hair is such precision work and he’s just been complimented. To tell you the truth, it didn’t look all that different to me from what the woman walked in with.

Kim asks Lesbiana Dee what was the best part of doing the cut, and she says when she got to use the feathering razor (see? I toldja the bitch likes to cut!) Kim looks a little taken aback and says incredulously “You weren’t scared to use a razor on her while blindfolded?” and Dee says nope. Her client looks no-so-sanguine about the experience, but grateful not to be spouting blood from anywhere.

Charlie isn’t trod upon too harshly by Kim, which prompts him to say in an interview, “Then again, I thought they all looked like shit…” So far, I kinda have to agree with him…. at least he included himself in the bunch.

I can’t even remember if Kim had any critique for Gail’s cut at all. It was kinda non-descript, but I’m guessing Gail was itching to dye it black and make big long bangs to cover the girl’s face…

Meredith also seemed to escape mostly unscathed (or my notes are illegible)… Kim just kind of looked and moved on…

Now Paulo certainly wasn’t about to take any critique for his chop-job from fellow queen Kim Vo without making some kind of smart remark, even if it was only in his private interview where he exploded “Dude… I’m blindfolded! It ain’t gonna be a perfect haircut!! You’re lucky that she still has her ears and her eyeballs intact!!! (gay eye-roll)” To Kim’s face, Paulo was like “Wow, cutting blindfolded was a trip!”

By the time Kim got around to Nekisa’s client, Oshun seemed to feel that he, too, was qualified to judge her skills… “Nekisa’s cut was real lopsided, it had no symmetry, no movement…” Luckily he stopped short of saying “It had no motion of the Oshun, ‘cuz I’m deep!” Kim seemed less than happy with Nekisa’s job, too.

And then Kim brought the karma wheel and rolled right over Oshun’s toes with it! He frowned heavily and quite pointedly asked “Where was your guideline here?” as he pulled his fingers through Oshun’s client’s hair… “It’s right on top there…” Oshun said uncertainly, and Kim, who was clearly unable to find any such ‘guideline’, gave out a small “Hmmm…” before moving on. The other stylestants looked like their thought-bubbles were all going “Oooooooh, I’m glad that ain’t me!”

Kim moved on to Straight Guy Matthew, and commisserated with him on his injured hands before pretty much saying his cut was ugly. Like a little salt for those cuts, Matthew?

Lastly, Kim took several minutes to go over Our Little Underdog Nicole’s work… Nicole said that Asian hair is very hard to work with because it is so pin-straight, you cannot hide mistakes in it. Kim seems impressed with what she did (and she was the one who said she couldn’t even walk straight!!!).

Now it’s time to announce the winner of the “Short Cut Challenge”… it comes down to the top two being Lesbiana Dee and Underdog Nicole… and Lesbiana Dee wins!!! She is really excited because she says she visualized herself winning and it happened! Yeah, like she was going to visualize herself losing, come ON with the lame psychic stories, people! Nicole gets second place. Following her in order is Drag Queen Meredith, Female Glenn, Dallas Daniel, Emo Gail, Bitchy Charlie, Straight Guy Matthew, Ãœber-Gay Paulo, Parker The Prick…. the bottom two are Exotic Nekisa and Motion Lotion Oshun! Kim Vo looks straight at Oshun and says

“I have NEVER seen such a butcher job!”

Ouch! I had to feel a little bit bad for Oshun at that point, it must have been embarrassing as hell to be called out like that by a Master Colorist, and Oshun says “I know I won’t be in last place….” right before Kim says Nekisa is 11th place and Oshun is dead last. Awww. A rather chastened-looking Oshun says “After today I have to step up my game… the best always finish last… but then I’m gonna be first!” Well, you just pissed away the good-will I was building for ya, Oshun.

Now it’s time for the stylestants to go home to the fabulous beach house they will be staying in while they are competing in L.A. It looks like it might be in Malibu or Santa Monica, but then again, it might not. The house is huge and all the stylestants seem to be happy to be done with their competition for the day. As they all raise a big glass of wine, Paulo wonders to the camera who among them is “going to be that bitch…” but for now they are all loving each other. That will last until the first Elimination Challenge and then the backstabbing and accusations will start. I can’t wait!

Oshun, who is wearing his sunglasses inside the house… at night… is telling everyone “I ain’t going nowhere… I’m here to stay, baby! I’m gonna put the Hollywood flair all over that hair!” Ugh, the lame rhyming thing is really getting annoying. Why is this guy getting so much screen time? Could it be because he might not be here very long? Hmmmmm….

The next day, back at the Salon, Jaclyn introduces the stylestants to their “mentor” René Fris…

…now, I find René to be kind of hilarious with his Danish accent and his Melrose Place haircut… He is basically here to offer advice and critique (like Tim Gunn does on Project Runway) but he will not be judging the stylestants… you know, except for when he opens his mouth and words come out. He says “For you firss Elimination Challenge you gonna have tonss off fun… how mainy time do you have client bring in picture of celaibrity and say they want you to geive that to thaim? Today is no difference!” He then beckons for today’s victi- er, I mean, clients to come in. He says they each have a picture of a famous hairstyle that the stylestants will have to do an interpretation of. They all turn over their pictures…

…and the stylestants all gasp in unison! Yes, the “famous hairstyles” are all cartoon characters (Betty Boop, Jem, Wilma Flintstone, Lucy Van Pelt, Judy Jetson and Marge Simpson)! The order that Kim Vo put them in the day before is the order in which they will get to choose which style they want to do, and each style will be tackled by two stylestants each! Drama!

Lesbiana Dee goes first and picks Betty Boop, while Underdog Nicole goes with Jem (duh, she’s only 24, for her Jem was probably an early childhood memory!). Drag Queen Meredith goes with Judy Jetson, Female Glenn takes on Jem also. Dallas Daniel picks Wilma Flintstone (was there any doubt?) and Emo Gail copies him and picks her, too. Bitchy Charlie goes right for Marge Simpson because, as he puts it “She’s a big ol’ piece of white trash… just like me!” Straight Guy Matthew also takes Marge. Ãœber-Gay Paulo settles for Judy Jetson, while Parker The Prick settles for Betty Boop. This leaves Lucy Van Pelt (from Peanuts) to both Exotic Nekisa and Motion Lotion Oshun. Oshun is confident that he can do this, he now says that he’s been nominated for TWO Emmys (I smell something bullshitty again) and says he’s worked on “everything from ‘Passions’ to ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’!” How fortunate for Oshun to have worked on “Ocean’s Thirteen”! It’s like Oshun for the Ocean! Right? Devotion Goshen Lotion Motion Notion Locomotion Ocean Potion Quotien Yoshen!

René says they all have 2 and a half hours to complete their interpretation of these iconic styles and then tells them to “Go shake it!” Which I’ve never understood. Shake what? Their scissors? The curling iron? The crimper? Maybe he means the blow dryer! Fuck if I know.

Underdog Nicole runs into trouble right away. Jem was a neon rock star superhero in the 80′s, her hair was all about nuclear-bright candy colors. Nicole’s bitch of a client wants this to be “subtle”, so she’s refusing to let Nicole color her hair anything louder than airport-carpet-red. This is freaking Nicole out, because she doesn’t know how she’s going to pull off Jem without going over-the-top… Poor Nicole…

Meanwhile, René is trying to help Oshun out by suggesting that he put some highlights in his chunky client’s thin hair. Oshun nods emphatically while running over to the coloring station, where he admits under his breath that he has just fucked up the girl’s coloring badly… they cut to showing her with a neon blue streak coming out of her hair… wait, he got Lucy, not Marge Simpson, right? Get it together, Oshun! Remember, you were going to step up your game!!!

Nekisa is telling René that she wants to do Lucy, the “college age” version. She immediately makes herself a liar by putting in terrible orange raccoon-tail stripes in her client’s jet-black hair. She is realizing as she is taking off the coloring foil that she has fucked up royally, and, in her own words “Oh my Gooood, this looks like shiiiit!” Her client can tell something is wrong, because Nekisa is apologizing to her. Man, I hope these ladies get paid at least 1K for letting these people fuck up their hair!

Meanwhile, Charlie, who has Marge Simpson, is busy rubbing blue and blonde hair extensions into a ball that he’s going to somehow use around a latticework of bobby pins he has constructed to get the height of Marge Simpson’s beehive.

Straight Guy Matthew, who also has Marge Simpson, is having to “lift out” the black in his client’s hair (who happens to be Asian, and as we’ve learned earlier in the evening, Asian hair is very hard to work with) and then “bring up” the blue. René asks Matthew if maybe he took too much on trying to color hair that dark? Matthew looks scared, and you won’t believe what his end product looks like…

The time keeps ticking away until the 2 & a half hours are up, and now it’s time for the very first “hair show”! Jaclyn Smith introduces the other regular panel judge, Kelly Atterton…

…who is the West Coast Editor of Allure magazine. I guess the East Coast Editor can only work on Project Runway? And today’s guest judge is a wispy little guy named Neeko…

…whom Jaclyn says is a “celebrity stylist” for Halle Berry, Charlize Theron and Pink! Yay for Pink! I’ll bet Neeko knows how to dye hair pink, too! Let the judging begin!

First out of the box is Dallas Daniel, and I have to admit, the big swoopy style he did was very Wilma Flintstone…

Next up is Emo Gail’s Wilma. She looks sad, too. Like she did up her hair for her senior prom and her date stood her up. Awww. Giant toilet roll curls like that should not be wasted sitting at home!

Then we have Underdog Nicole’s Jem… she got around her bitchy client’s refusal to color her hair by using colored hair extensions! Yay! But wait, if they could use colored hair extensions, why did some of them wind up freaking out so much about coloring the hair itself?!?!? Hmmmm…. at least I totally get Jem from this look, although the client did this really spazztastic “Jem pose” when she lurched her way down the runway to present her style. It was totally lame…

However, Female Glenn’s version seemed to be a lot lamer… it looked like a soccer mom’s variation on Meg Ryan, circa 1998 with pink tips. This screams “I’m trying desperately to remain hip and cool, but I’m FAILING!!!” Ugh. And she did this with her eyes open. Both of ‘em!

Next up was Exotic Nekisa, who had had such a terrible time with the coloring, but somehow she had fixed it up so those errors were not apparent, and the look actually was kinda cute, it really did look to me like an update of Lucy Van Pelt. Go Nekisa!

Which brought us around to the unfortunate Lucy by Oshun. He had these two weird twisty pigtails on the back, and the rest just looked limp and lifeless. It wasn’t a hot mess… it was a cold one.

Straight Guy Matthew’s supposed Marge Simpson was totally and completely FUBAR because it was Peggy Bundy meets Margaret Cho in 1992. Awful, but funny as hell (I’m sure Margaret won’t be laughing when she sees it). I’d say that was a big ol’ MISS THE MARK for Matthew…

Bitchy Charlie on the other hand, seemed to hit dead on with his almost too-literal interpretation of Marge… his whole use of the bobby-pin framework and the blue hair extensions was pretty damn ingenius… and really, how else are you gonna do Marge Simpson except in a literal translation… just scroll back to see Peggy Cho with her blue-black hair and you can see which one brings Marge to mind, first…

Also in the literal translation category for Betty Boop was Parker The Prick… which I have to say, he did get the look pretty spot on, but when you looked at her hair close up, there was 67 pounds of product holding it completely still. She’d probably get cut if she ran her hands over it…

Lesbiana Dee’s version of Betty Boop, however, made liberal use of the toilet-roll curl as well (she called them “pin curls” but I still say “Charmin curls” is more accurate) and that severe center-part wasn’t doing her client’s scalp any favors, either.

Paulo’s version of Judy Jetson looked more like Trashy MySpace Slut with Highlightsâ„¢ and I lost any resemblance or inspiration of futuristic retro-teen hair at all…

…while Meredith, on the other hand, got that big ol’ swoop in there (seriously, that hair was teased to within an inch of it’s life, and I’m betting it was bulletproof, too). I think she got it right, though…

And so our judges deliberated and asked a few questions of the stylists. Neeko apparently doesn’t like hair that’s too stiff, so he didn’t like Dallas Daniel’s Wilma for that reason (he kept harping on it, while Daniel told him “Ah’m from Dallas, Ah keep hayirspray in mah baick pocket!”) and they seemed really impressed with Nekisa’s effort. Eventually they dismissed Nicole, Glenn, Meredith, Parker, Dee and Paulo, saying that they were neither the best, nor the worst. Yay for mediocrity!

It just so happened that they kept back both Marges, both Lucys and both Wilmas. They liked Charlie’s Marge, while Matthew’s was horrible. They liked Nekisa’s Lucy, while Oshun’s was shunned (oooh, snap!) and they liked Daniel’s Wilma, while Gail’s was just wilted. And the winner today was….

…Dallas Daniel!!!! Jaclyn proclaimed his work to be “Shear Genius”!… Yay, Daniel! But now it was time to announce who had made their last cut among Matthew, Gail and Oshun… and it was Oshun who was sent to pack his scissors (as the judges called his style “undone”, “unfinished” and “unfocused”….

BUT I RHYME!!!!

…of course, as he was leaving the room, Oshun chose to go the classy route by muttering “This is bullshit, man!” within earshot of the judging panel. Nice going. Don’t these people realize that a show like this might be of some interest to people in the hair styling industry, and to allow yourself to be seen acting childishly might not bode well for future employment within that industry? In his final interview Oshun tries to play it off like sucking really bad was actually his original and intentional plan as he bullshits “My strategy was to downplay my great work for maybe one or two challenges, then I was gonna blow ‘em out the water… but it backfired on me… Oshun got washed out!”, and then, thankfully for the last time we hear “I’m Oshun… and I’m deep!”

One last thing… earlier in the competition, when his blindfolded cut was being critiqued by Kim Vo, Bitchy Charlie had said something about “At least it still looks better than any of the Real Housewives Of Orange County!” and Jaclyn and Kim Vo shared another one of their knowing glances… because it looks like this week the “clients” are going to be…. the Real Housewives Of Orange County!!!! OOOH, I can’t wait for this next episode!

P.S. It does look like Kate Jackson is going to be a guest judge at some point this season, too… Maybe they will have an Angels reunion….? Let’s all hope!