Episode Recap: Troubling Transformations

The contestants enter the lab to discover that it’s really a LAB! As in, mad scientist’s luh-BOR-uh-tree. Disembodied limbs, sinister looking vials, creepy insects crawling all over, etc.. Inspired by experiments gone wrong (Dr. Jekyll, anyone?), the artists will create TWO makeups – one of a mad scientist mid-transformation, and one in full-fledged monster state. It’s a ton of work for two days, but hey, they’re all-stars, right? This is a non-elimination week, so everyone’s gunning for immunity.

Emily is super pumped because the lab, as she says, looks like her room. She collects oddities and curiosities, so she’s brimming with ideas for her and Tyler’s electrical shock monster. The doc’s electrical experiment has fused with his arm, and he is now a superconductor! Cig and George are also in their wheelhouse, with a doctor who went too far with a medical augmentation. An amputee tried to make himself an arm, and now it’s the arm that’s in charge!

After presenting Venus McFlytrap last week, Rachel and Gage are wary of using the Venus flytrap in this week’s makeup, but their field of horticultural hybridization all but growls for that particular carnivorous plant. They choose pinks and purples for the monstrous aspects, a choice that Gage doesn’t ultimately love… but they’re safe.

When Evan can barely tell his model is wearing a prosthetic pec (he and Ben chose chemical exposure that bulked the doctor’s muscles beyond recognition) he hopes it’s a good thing… they’ve been on bottom looks far too often for comfort. Their wishes and fears are amplified when who should be on the judges’ panel but the legendary John Landis, director of such monuments as An American Werewolf in London and the Thriller video. Everybody’s starstruck!

The judges look poorly on Keaghlan and Melissa’s insect DNA splicing, largely because of the coloring. They found a beetle with brown, blue, and white coloring, but the result on the monster is that of a flag. Landis loves how they took the turquoise into the transition makeup, but they, along with Ben & Evan, are on bottom looks.

When crafting his radiation exposure monster with Adam, Logan makes a clay press of the model’s life mask to place in the bubbling flesh of their monster-fied astronaut, as if the radiation had consumed his face along with his humanity. The proportion of their giant arm is a tad overstated for Landis’s liking, but the series judges admire the grindhouse aesthetic, and place them on top looks.

Joining them in top looks are last week’s winners, Emily and Tyler, whose proportions, paint job, and concept are perfectly aligned from transition makeup to monster. Winning when John Landis is on the panel is a prize in and of itself!