Since RuPaul is involved, I’ll be recapping the Skin Wars season 2 premiere.
I watched Skin Wars last season and it was ok. Like most of the reality shows I watch, I enjoy seeing people with a skill set I completely do NOT have compete. My one disappointment last season was seeing a lot of what looked like collages painted on people. It just wasn’t my thing. I preferred the body art where the models blended into the background. What I did enjoy about Skin Wars were the names of some of the contestants. Gear Boxxx. Mythica Von Griffyn. Dutch Bihary. I mean, come ON! And these people AREN’T drag queens and their names are fabulous. So let’s see what season 2 brings.
Rebecca Romijn totally steals Ru’s “Hello, Hello, Hello!” upon entering the workroom. This forces Ru to steal Alaska’s “Hiiii!” upon his entry. Craig Tracy and Robin Slonina opt out of Drag Race opening catchphrases. Competing this season, and my initial impressions of them, are:
- Aryn Fox (Cincinnati)
- Purple hair
- Avi Ram (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)
- Israeli painter overalls
- Cheryl Ann Lipstreu (Belews Creek, NC)
- I’M CLASSICALLY TRAINED, DAMNIT! Ok, Serena Cha Cha.
- Dawn Marie (Madison, WI)
- C’mon midwest!
- Fernello Nelson (Queens, NY)
- Catchphrase Kanye confidence
- Kyle Vest (Orlando, FL)
- Goofy Fabio. From the romance novel covers, not Project Runway. Wins for male best name.
- Lana Chromium (San Diego)
- Katya Zamolodchikova. Wins for female best name.
- Marcio Karam (Pompano Beach, FL)
- Ew
- Rachel Deboer (Maui)
- Havaii. And yes, that’s how it’s pronounced.
- Rio Sirah (Atlanta)
- Graffiti unicorn
- Rudy Campos (Houston)
- The mayor of makeup according to him, but according to me Dutch 2.0.
- Sammie Bartko (Heber City, UT)
- Preacher’s wife
There’s a lot of testosterone with some of these male contestants. Marcio is checking out all of the female contestants. He loves painting naked women. Ew. He may be a decent guy but he’s giving all kinds of a skeevy vibe. Fernello is another alpha male who’s very impressed with himself.
Fernello wins the first mini-challenge, which was a painting based on things like “favorite song” or “passion.” We’ll see if he continues on a winning streak or if the crash & burn comes for him.
The main challenge is a head to toe paint of a chess piece. The top 6 contestants get to pick their chess pieces and then they pick another painter to also get that same piece. Those 2 competitors are slated to go head to head against each other. Fernello gets to select his piece first. Of COURSE he picks the King. He also selects Kyle as his competitor because he thinks Kyle’s the weakest link.
In this challenge we learn that Kyle is kind of a goofball. He expresses himself best visually, so when you ask him to come up with a narrative, it’s not quite clear. He’s got this weird convoluted story to go with his paintings. And Fernello as a queen in the center. It makes no sense at all and the model has to flip her hands around to ‘demonstrate the narrative’, but it looks good. Except for the pig nose on Queen Fernello, but that’s intentional.
Rio, Kyle, Sammie, Lana, Cheryl Ann and Avi are the winners of each pair. That means Aryn, Dawn Marie, Fernello, Marcio, Rachel and Rudy are in the bottom. Marcio and Fernello are in shock that they’re not great.
The top 3 are Kyle, Lana and Cheryl Ann. Cheryl Ann is continuing to demonstrate her alpha-womanness by declaring herself the strongest painter of the bunch. Ummm, no. Probably not. IJS. Next.
Marcio, Fernello and Rachel are the bottom 3. The winner of this first challenge is Lana.
Hmmm… the contestants are expecting the cute Russian not to be such a contender, but she’s surprising them with her skill. Sounds like another show I recently watched.
Fernello is sent to safety first. He thinks he needs to take charge. That probably won’t help, but give it a go Fernello! Eliminated in this first episode is Marcio. Rachel is safe.
Marcio doesn’t get a redemption arc for his skeevy first impression, which is unfortunate but he was the weakest link. Earth tones for a color challenge was a bad choice Marcio.
And then he leaves us with “There’s a lot of naked women in Miami for me to paint.” Ew. Bye Marcio.
What did you think of this first episode of Skin Wars?