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In the finale, Rene Fris doesn’t have to fear sexual harassment from Dr. Boogie. The top three are Anthony, Ben, and Daisy. Their special treat before the competition: meeting with Vidal Sassoon, who speaks to them about Who Does Your Hair Dot Com.

Who would have thought hair was about narrative? Rene Fris tells the stylists their hair must tell a story. So, before their begin to work on their models, they pick out some dresses. Daisy picks a black and white theme, Anthony looks for dresses that are modern with movement, and Ben seeks color. I guess the dresses are to help the models line up like a story book so their story can be told through their hair. The first model’s hair will say “Once upon a time,” while the second model’s will be the body of the story, while the third will say “The End.” Okay, that was kind of ridiculous, but sometimes its fun to poke fun at rhetorical language, especially that of a Bravo TV program.

Ben’s story is about the Hollywood chick, Anthony’s is about modern movement, and Daisy is about vintage hairstyling.

Anthony and Daisy look naturally look very nice for the competition, while the shaved and tattooed Ben cleans up and wears a black suit. Too bad they don’t pick the models. The selection’s been made for them based on their selections of dresses. This is the editing they need for their story books.

The real story is in their running against the clock to finish their hairstyles. Anthony tells Rene to go away (good for him), while Ben and Daisy are on the wire, and Daisy does not have time to completely Marcel wave the Nancy Kwan bob on one of her models.

Vidal Sassoon is the charming old dandy I hope to be when I’m his age. I love the thick frames, the ascot, his suit, and his generous opinions of the hairdressers. They each did a bob in hopes of getting on his good side (which it did), but he felt they could be shorter in the back.

Ben falls short with the updo, Daisy does better but is eliminated first, and Anthony is the winner.

Coming up in two weeks: Top Chef, the next stop-gap for Project Runway.

Since I didn’t post last week on Shear Genius, the two bleach blondes Tabatha and Tyson went home, while Anthony and Daisy won the bridal hair competition.

And, as usual, the winner gets to chose the first in a challenge. Anthony and Daisy chose the first two boxes out of random, which indicated who would get to pick the models for the African-American hair challenge. Anthony and Daisy go for flat-ironing, while Dr. Boogie and Ben start off with chemical relaxers. Dr. Boogie’s model looks better before he straightens her hair. The afro framing her face looks more current than the 80’s bougie style he gives her. Poor Ben has a nightmare with the moisturizers, as he puts too much crap in his model’s hair, making it too heavy. Anthony wins, but I liked Daisy’s style better.

The next challenge is a nightmare for all of them. They have to work with a professional photographer at a shoot, and all the judges are present. Poor Anthony has to deal with a hair-line issue when the model’s hair flows beautifully on the ground while lying down, Daisy gets her wet look down, and Dr. Boogie’s OCD is his undoing as he constantly interrupted the shoot to fix his model’s diva do, making it heavier and heavier. Ben initially has a melt-down, but manages to rock it towards the end. He, along with Daisy, are in the top two for the finale. Daisy wins! Yay!

Ben looks like he has a nice ass under those jeans, Anthony’s tall and charming with that accent, and I still think Dr. Boogie’s a big queen.

Dr. Boogie’s attempts to keep his model’s hair from flatlining sends him packing. Anthony gets to compete in the finale.

Now they should pair up the eliminated hair stylists with the Flavor of Love Girls. Project Runway veterans could also do their duty to help their fellow human beings by giving these lost girls style tips. One person definitely needed to be educated on the meaning of couture.

In the reunion that follows, we learn that Evangelin still uses hedge clippers and that Pretty Ted raised his prices after being on the show. Anthony rates Tabatha a 6 on the bitchiness scale (out of 10), while Tyson says she’s an 11.

Dr. Boogie leaves the issue of his orientation unanswered, though his innuendoes leave little doubt, though it’s not solid truth. Got to love what he says about Rene, the Tim Gunn figure, as far as giving him a beer at the beach and taking him home.

My money, so to speak, is on Daisy or Anthony next week.

Now I have to write a review about the person who does my hair. I’ll do a shout-out when it’s done.

Dr. Boogie mentions that having a poster on the wall of fame is the kiss of death, and most who have a poster get eliminated. It certainly is an interesting forecast, based on observation. Pretty Ted was one of the first to have a poster, and he’s now old news. Danna, the two-time winner, of the Joan Osborn curls—could she be next?

The first challenge, as the teaser from last week promised, was a men’s make-over session. Many of the men had long hair (and the one with the shortest hair had a preppy, moppish look). The guest judge for this exercise is the A-list stylist Christophe. Is there some tradition where the stylists go by one name? It’s the touch of the diva for sure, as very few can pull off omitting their surname in their public persona.

A long-haired musician places his absolute trust in Ben, who gives him a short, but very rock-n-roll haircut. Anthony and Daisy bring their clients down to more conservative styles, as they need it to advance their careers.

Tabatha had quite a challenge—a kid who looked very much in place with the grunge-rock 90’s. She cut his hair down to a longish style more appropriate for this decade. While she pared down the guy’s locks, she eyed her competition Tyson, who cut his client’s fro down and flat-ironed his hair into something reminiscent of Lenny Kravitz. She’s not too keen on Tyson flat-ironing a man’s hair and Dr. Boogie notes this guy will freak when his hair reverts to its natural texture.

I love Dr. Boogie’s observations. They’re witty with that right touch of camp, so it makes me wonder…. I may never know the answer, but he is very head-on with what he sees and reports. I’ll tune in if he does hair commentary (post Shear Genius) in the future.

Danna’s haircut may be a foreshadowing, as she has the weakest transformation. She compromises too much, and the guy has enough hair to make a ponytail.

Dr. Boogie brings his guy’s Jesus hair down to a more sculpted “New Age Caesar look” where the bangs frame his face. While this is the most transformed look (and Tabatha feels he should have won), she wins the competition and gets to choose for herself and the others the elements of the second competition: period hair.

Tyson giving Tabatha a disadvantage with getting to choose her scissors last comes full circle here. She won when he tried to throw her for a loop. Here, Tabatha picks out the most difficult period for Tyson to work with, which is Elizabethan hair. He has a full night to stress out over it and I’m surprised we don’t see the puffing away on a cigarette. After a while, inspiration comes to him and he has a plan. Tabatha picks out an advantage for herself with 80’s punk rock, though she does not completely feel it. Initially giddy over making things hard for Tyson, Tabitha gets to watch him win. However, she displays good sportsmanship by politely applauding him in the end.

Ben gets the flapper look without bobbing his models hair, Dr. Boogie’s going medieval is an interesting effect that could have been worn by Natalie Portman in the Star Wars films, Victorian look achieved by Daisy is a runner up to Tyson’s Elizabethan.

I’m surprised Anthony didn’t think bigger hair when he did his model up for the 1960’s. He should have been thinking of Julie Christie (or even more about Austin Powers babes), but there was too much flatness. while Danna gets the feel of the 1940’s, but it’s more school marm than the long, wavy look that captured the glamour of the era. Danna, who seems to have some 1940’s action going on with her hair, must pack up her scissors.

Next week promises some interesting drama between Tabatha and Tyson.

For the first challenge, there was no creepy doll heads to be fried, dyed, and laid to the side. The stylists had to give their models a hairstyle that could make the transition from day to night, with the model using accessories to create the evening look. Most of the stylists trimmed their clients hair, gave it some daytime style. Danna worked with her model’s hair to put some braids in here and there. While this was a pretty, but OK style, but the evening look, just a small modification with the accessory, helped her win the challenge. Ben had the most challenge with a woman whose hair was extremely fine and over-processed (too much blonding), but he trimmed it into a manageable day style that translated into something simple, but elegant. The biggest disaster was Dr Boogie’s, who went the Paul Mitchell route and decided to cure his model of her tresses by shaving it and shaving it until she had a redhead version of a Florence Henderson mullet.

Speaking of severities, Evangelin decided to keep on hacking with her hedge clippers. All I can say is good luck and get those things sharpened regularly.

Of course, the clippers became a motif for discussions at the day spa, where they all have a relaxing afternoon. Anthony and Tabatha can’t quite believe Evangelin would continue to use them, and Tabitha (along with Danna) get into a heated argument with Edwina Scissor Hands about her new tool of choice. Tabatha appropriately comments that Evangelin may be setting the industry back, but goes on further to attack her clients.

Thankfully, Evangelin is deterred from using the gigantic cutters by Rene Fris during the elimination challenge. The objective is to create a hairstyle for Vanessa Williams, which should then compliment the dress she plans to wear to a red carpet event. Evangelin looks to eighties hair and creates a straight-curly combination that’s put up with fringes hanging along the ears and the back. While Ben does well with problem hair in the first challenge, he overcompensate on this one by adding hair pieces to thicken his model’s hair for the red carpet. He winds up creating an “unfinished” look that looks like a bird’s nest in the back. Both of these stylists are up for elimination and Evangelin winds up getting pruned from the competition.

Dr. Boogie recovers with a competent hairstyle that shows he has thought of what the hair will look like photographed from any angle. While this impresses Vanessa Williams, he isn’t in the top two.

Danna wins the second challenge in a row in one episode. Her straightened hairstyle with a bit of a chignon in the back is what Vanessa feels the most, while Daisy makes a comeback from the French twist celebrity hairstyle with something more appropriate for a celebrity.

As the contestants get fewer and fewer, there are some more opportunities to showcase the stylists as people. Evangelin’s newfound passion for the hedge clippers fueled the drama this week, but the producers should steal one of the stylists’ tool bag and let them fight it out amongst themselves as to who did it.

Now, I have to wonder about Dr. Boogie. Gay or straight (or somewhere in between)? He claimed in the first episode he wasn’t gay, yet commented on how gorgeous Rene Fris was and wanted to tweak his nipples at the Michael’s check out lane. He makes wittily campy comments like “Carrot Top in drag” (maybe some straight men are “Mary’s” at heart), and can be femme flamboyant at times. Where’s the jury on this?

Next week, they get to cut men’s hair. The bigger challenge is to get geeky men with long or bad hair to look good afterwards.

This episode’s title could be the title of the final act of any reality tv episode where one contestant gets axed. It still applies here, but have you ever had a haircut or color that made you want to cry?

I missed blogging about last week’s premier episode. Here it is in a nutshell: Outre hairstyles done with arts and crafts from Micheal’s. French stylist Paul-Jean (whom I suspect inverted his name from Jean-Paul) got the axe for doing a hideous extensions job, while maned pretty young thing Theodore won for improvising with a box on top of his model’s head.

This week’s episode involved dye jobs and celebrity hairstyles. That’s enough to make at least one stylist cry.

Their practice challenge is to bleach out their mannequin’s hair from black to a level 8 blonde (which is very coppery). Tabatha, the icily cool English master of bleach blonding who does her own hair, wins while Evangelina manages to get it right and Ben reaches the right level on a fluke. Theodore, the pretty young thing with the curls, and Danna are so overconfident about their abilities as colorists that they lounge around, chatting with guest judge Roy Teeluck of Nexus, who looks like the love child of Bono and Kyle McLaughlin. Needless to say, neither of them get the bleaching right because they should have been watching their heads. Then, the rest of them don’t get it close except for Dr. Boogie, who almost wound up with a blue-haired doll head.

There’s a loft the contestants stay in, though the show doesn’t stay there too long to show it as a living space. Homes in reality tv are usually breeding grounds for drama. The Real World is still running after 15 years because of it. This show is all work because they are taken to a wall where their clients’ photos are. Tabatha, Evangeline, and Ben get to pick theirs first with the pictures of the clients’ celebrity choices. Tabatha does an excellent Victoria Beckham bob on her model, though she preferred it shorter on the back.

Everyone else has to pick theirs without the matching photos, coming in cold the next day. Given that, Anthony is able to pull of giving his model a layered look favored by Carmen Electra. The charming English accent also helps, but he deserves the win he gets.

Some aren’t so lucky. Daisy gets a client from hell who is more Marcia Cross (in Daisy’s words), but wants Christina Aguilera’s blonde wavy hairstyle. She loses time negotiating with her model, bleaches her hair down to a shade of red (there’s no time to make it platinum), and puts it in a French twist. Jim, the flamboyantly nerdy stylist, bleaches his model’s hair down to a bright orange. Dr. Boogie’s reaction is, “Oh my god! It’s Carrot Top in drag!” At least his client tries to rock it on the runway, though the judges can infer she’s not really into it. Unfortunately for him, he’s gone.

This show right now is all work. We only get to see them at the salon for the most part, and the judges are the most professionally removed. Jacqueline Smith has a great hairstyle, but she’s detached. No Heidi Klum style “Auf Wiedersehen” or Jonathan Adler “See You Later, Decorator.” No one checks in on the departing stylist like Tim Gunn or Todd Oldham, and the axed one packs up and leaves alone.