Face Off Season 9 episode 8 recap: The Gauntlet

Face Off season 9 episode 8 Nora judges round 1
Nora, her makeup & the judges in round 1

To sum up Face Off Season 9 episode 8, let’s quote Nora: “If it’s a fight to the death they want, it’s a fight to the death they’ll get. Let’s go, thunderdome.”

This episode puts the artist into The Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is a series of 3 challenges, each one harder than the last. The artists will be ranked on each challenge. The person on top of the leaderboard at the end will win. The person on the bottom will be eliminated.

For the first gauntlet challenge, the artists pick a model. Each model is dressed to indicate if they are in a cold area or a warm area. The artists have to do an exposure damage makeup that corresponds with the model’s costume.

Most of the artists get that ‘exposure’ means exposure to the elements. Jasmine thinks of just generic exposure & decides that her warm-area model is exposed to a poison. Not what they were going for Jasmine.

Nora and Jordan, both painting frostbitten models, are the top looks for this first round. Nora ultimately takes it. So after round one, here’s the look of the leaderboard:

Face Off season 9 episode 8 leaderboard round 1

In stage 2, the models come back in, this time with pre-made prosthetics and costumes. The artists must paint these models to create a character with whatever they’re given.

Both Kevon & Evan lament about how they’re weak in painting so this gauntlet has been really hard for them. Wah wah. Again, aren’t you supposed to be able to paint to work in the industry?

Ben begins his critique with the judges qualifying everything – I really don’t know how to do a beauty makeup…this is such a challenge… blah, blah, blah. Eyeroll. Boys, go to Sephora & hang out for a day. Preferably in a non-stalker-y sort of way.

In stage 2, Kevon and Ben are on top, with Kevon taking it. So we get the round 2 leaderboard:

Face Off season 9 episode 8 leaderboard round 2

But then the leaderboard changes because blah, blah round 2 is weighted more than round 1. While I get that, I don’t get how Kevon can go from 9th in the first round to 1st in the combined 1st & 2nd round. Even if the 2nd round is more highly weighted, wouldn’t that put him at like 4th or 3rd? Here’s the leaderboard that combines rounds 1 & 2:

Face Off season 9 episode 8 leaderboard round 1 & 2 combo

In stage 3, the artists have 3 models EACH.

Face Off season 9 episode 8 models round 3
A Face Off artist’s nightmare

They are told to create a focal character & 2 supporting characters. They’ve got 4 hours, plus 1 hour in last looks. Some artists get angels. Others get witches & warlocks and a third group of characters is goblins.

The Angels:

Of course the guys are disappointed that they have angels instead of either the witches or goblins. Beauty makeup is scary! Jasmine unfortunately paints her fallen angel with so much gold that he looks like a tourist trap living statue guy.

The Witches:

The variety in the witches is nice to see. Ben’s skin markings for his focal character are nice & unique but he barely does anything with his supporting characters. Meg decides her main character needs an eyeball in her forehead. Which she’s done on that model before. With the same paint. It’s unfortunate.

The Goblins:

The goblins are probably my favorite group. Stevie’s got a pimp goblin & his girls. Nora declares her goblins gross.Ve is impressed that Scott even got nails on his goblins.

Scott, Ben & Kevon are sent back to the makeup room when the judges talked to each artist, indicating their likely not-losing, but not-winning status.

Evan ends up winning stage 3 of The Gauntlet. We don’t get to see that leaderboard. Instead, we cut to the chase & learn that Nora threw it down & wins the first Face Off Gauntlet.

Jasmine, Stevie & Meg are in the bottom, even though Stevie got high praise for her stage 3 makeups. I call way shenanigans with the whole leaderboard concept. If Evan went from 8th to 1st (assuming, they never show us that), and Stevie also got praise, you can’t tell me she was that far down on the leaderboard. Aarrggh! And Scott was 6th in the last leaderboard, is sent to the mediocre middle but then somehow rises in the rankings on the final leaderboard? Really?

So here’s the final leaderboard of bogus-ness:

Face Off season 9 episode 8 leaderboard final

And Jasmine’s going home. Which is bogus because she’s an excellent painter. She probably did screw herself over, but I see her as a stronger painter than Meg.

While I liked the concept of The Gauntlet, the whole order of the artists seemed random for some people, especially Stevie. They keep telling her to be confident in her skills & then pull this kind of shenanigans.

What did you guys think of The Gauntlet?

3 Comments

  1. a lot of work was required in such a limited time…exhausting to watch this quantity vs quality endeavor. then trying to figure out the judging…this round adds to the next which counts more…..the way people were moving all around on that leaderboard was just plain confusing. then Jasmine winds up on the bottom? how could that happen? been watching Faceoff from season 1 and this was our least favorite episode.

    • I know. I mean, Jasmine didn’t do great in this episode, but neither did Meg. And all the praise Stevie got for round 3, which was to be rated higher, and she’s still in 8th place? No sense.

      The idea for The Gauntlet was a good one, but the Leaderboards were way too subjective. I’d like to see them do it again with a different scoring system.

      • I agree with Ruth. I was excited about the leader board concept but when their vague “weighted” factor started kicking in it started looking pretty random. I can not believe that Jasmine went home!

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