You know, just a casual Tuesday night on the BBC.
Blood! Pus! Kink! And more eyes than you can shake a stick at, this episode truly has it all!
Bloody Blinders
For the start of what is essentially Prosthetics Week the MUAs have to tackle the task of creating a convincing fight wound worthy of being on the set of Peaky Blinders. As well as the fresh fight wound the MUAs will also have to create an aged scar based off a wound from a continuity photo, testing their attention to detail, understanding of how wounds heal and the basic concepts of left and right… Dolli.
As a warning, there will be gratuitous amounts of blood and injury detail in this recap, so if for whatever reason you didn’t watch the episode and are reading the recap, first of all: Why? and second of all: Beware.
With Sophie being the unrivalled Queen of Prosthetics this was pretty much her challenge to lose and in her usual Sophie style she was very confident, as she deserves to be, and I just really loved the fact that in the midst of everyone furiously scrawling down prosthetics application notes Sophie was just chilling, having a great time
A delicious power move.
I was a little worried that this would go the route of the Holby City challenge last series in which Hannah was so very eager to please during it because she wanted to go into film and television makeup and then she proceeded to end up in the red chairs. Sophie had no such issues while creating her bottle slashing injury
that is gnarly! And the attention to detail of putting tiny flecks and shards of glass into the cuts and the various grooves – it’s a breath-taking piece of special effects makeup, which she maybe got a little carried away with and somewhat ignored the aged scar which was less well applied but no one’s going to give it a second look when you’re looking like Freddy Krueger’s latest victim.
Everyone got a different type of injury with some, like Sophie, getting very gruesome ones and then some more minor ones like Ryley who was dealing with a fist fight injury – which was maybe kinder for someone who is less experienced with prosthetics but there’s also less blood and gore to hide behind if something doesn’t quite go to plan. I really like the way she embraced the challenge though, she knew she was slightly out of her depth and just rolled with it and while her final piece was maybe the least convincing injury, I think some of her colouring, especially around the eye, is really quite fantastic
the lip needed to be significantly more swollen, at the moment it’s a little jarringly pristine and the bruising around the temple looks less like a thumping great big bruise and more like the ground textures of a farming hut in Skyrim
the whole thing needed to be a little bloodier, it’s all a little polite but I understand the hesitancy given this was a fist fight injury and she wasn’t dealing with a chair to the face like Jack who topped their makeup off by just about pulling a full Carrie
it’s SO GOOD. The way the blood drips through the eyebrow and down his nose? It would look phenomenal on camera, but it’s the profile shot where the whole thing truly comes alive
much like Sophie’s the main piece is phenomenal but they didn’t quite carry it through the healed scar that’s a little plasticky looking but it’s also hard to care about it when you’re marvelling at the major head trauma going on on the other side of his face.
Craig also had one hell of an injury to deal with and has some experience in prosthetics as well as fighting if his detailed description of what he would do in a fight is anything to go by
the best part of this conversation was Maya Jama looking VERY uncomfortable and I’m just delighted it made it into the episode and I eagerly await Craig’s star turn as a cage fighter.
The injury he was dealing with was a gunshot wound to the face, which is a little ridiculous given that they only have 2 hours and they were expecting him to have half the face blown off with bone, fat and sinewy muscles spilling out all over the place. Like guys, he is but one man with one tiny prosthetic
and it was no surprise that his piece was a slightly too apologetic gunshot wound
it does look more like he took a hammer to the face than a bullet, and I’ve stated by gripes with that expectation, but I really like his treatment of the nose and lips but the whole thing needed hell of a lot more roughing up.
Lastly we have Dolli who, unlike everyone else, first went in on her aged wound and unfortunately either overthought how image reversal on cameras works or just had a complete brainfart and put the scar on the wrong side of her model’s face, which offended Loz Schiavo greatly because it would have to go back off set to get fixed. I wont real off every Peaky Blinders makeup continuity error now because I’m not *that* petty, but I do have a list, the field execution scene springs to mind immediately.
It is doubly unfortunate for Dolli that her prosthetics were all applied and treat so well
I think for a knife wound, she could have done something a little more dramatic, evidently her guy won the fight he was in because that ’tis but a scratch – I’ve seen more gore from a spot I picked too much.
As for the aged scar, she struggled a little but with the blending but had the quick thinking to remedy it by covering it up with another injury detail and unfortunately blabbed the whole plan right in front of Loz like she was a Scooby Doo villain
also, we are now a Dolli’s New Wig Stan Account.
A Peaky Blinders Injury Ranking
- Jack and Two Pints of Blood
- Sophie The Slasher
- Dolli’s Papercuts
- Craig vs Insurmountable Expectations
- Ryley’s Floor Face
Sophie snags the win with her attention to detail, I think they could have made it a joint win with Jack but I can’t begrudged a Sophie win especially because she looked so happy
give her the universe to be honest.
As for the red chairs, there’s no change from last week as Ryley and Dolli find themselves in danger with Craig only narrowly avoiding the 15 minute penalty.
Sins and Wins
For their Creative Brief the MUAs have each been assigned a deadly sin that they will have to base a makeup off of and has to feature at least one prosthetic, or if you’re Sophie you can do six and barely break a sweat. As there’s only 5 MUAs, two of the sins don’t get to make it to the chairs with Pride and Greed getting the chop, I’m always shocked that the Catholic Church couldn’t think of more things to feel guilty about and put Greed and Gluttony into two separate categories.
Craig draws the gluttony card and decides to draw inspiration from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because the characters are kind of all based off of the 7 deadly sins but in a rather fundamental misunderstanding of the source material, goes with Charlie as the embodiment of Gluttony when the whole point was that Charlie didn’t sin AND AUGUSTUS GLOOP IS RIGHT THERE CRAIG. Today, I learned I’m a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory purist. And then he proceeded to basically make an Augustus Gloop cosplay anyway
the chocolate mouth is *very* distressing.
The judges are a bit underwhelmed that after they explicitly told him to make something big and gratuitous that he kind of just turned up a makeup that looks a bit like your brother regretting his decision to eat every Easter egg in a single sitting, but the treatment of the skin is really good, the look of spider veins and slight bruising sells the idea more than his ungoiterous neck does.
While Craig came under fire for prosthetics that were too small, Ryley was having a bit of an issue with hers being too big as the small horns she ordered turned out to be not such small horns
and at no point between this moment and completing her sort of Max Fleischer style devil did she think to cut them to size, which I can kind of understand because it would mean you remove the base and you’d have to use either scar wax or silicone gel to help attach and blend it into the skin and we know how that’s gone in the past. It did however give us the glorious moment when it did dawn on her that she could have trimmed it down
She’s such a treasure.
As for the final makeup, it was, as she intended, very cartoony
Dom mentions that she could have gone down a more beauty route and done something really sultry and alluring and I think Ryley’s hesitation and fear of going that route speaks to a few of the gripes I have with the show and the imbalance between the big high concept makeups and the more beauty and glamour makeups which I get the feeling the show is increasingly getting scared of engaging with.
Ryley’s partner in Red Chaired Hell, Dolli, was dealing with envy and was, rather refreshingly, not really using the colour green and instead was focusing on icy blues and purples to create the effect of her model having been submerged in icy water as is the punishment for envy
the sort of pearlescent effect of the skin is hauntingly beautiful and definitely succeeds in giving the illusion of a beautiful drowned corpse and there’s something siren-like about the whole thing. As for the eyes, they did look better when she had the eyelashes attached to them,
I’m not sure on the placement, I think they’re in that weird space of being so ever so slightly off that it’s very jarring. I’m not entirely sure why she bothered blocking out the brows either, or why one of them looked like a Nike tick for the longest time but I did like the makeup, even with the few little flaws here and there.
Jack was also dealing with eye prosthetics as they took on Wrath and created a twisted, vicious looking makeup based around the abusive reactions they receive on a daily basis for the way they present, which is an emotion I can highly identify with and I think that’s kind of why I had a very positive reaction to this makeup whereas the judges weren’t so keen
I think there’s a very specific type of anger that trans and gender non-conforming people feel when they’ve been mocked or insulted – it cuts, it burns, it eats you up and I think this makeup kind of perfectly encapsulates those feelings and emotions into some pretty gruesome body horror. The paint work might be a little muddy but the contorted skin, especially in that eye coming from the crater is viscerally upsetting.
Lastly we have Sophie who was doing Sloth with her concept being a sort of slowly rotting corpse
there’s a real video game style to it, I think it’s the saturated oranges and purples – which were genius colour choices despite them not stereotypically being associated with laziness or death and yet perfectly illustrate her idea. Also the detailed, shiny ooze she achieved in her little pustule pockets was grim
This aired at 7pm while I was having my tea, can’t say I appreciated it.
A 7 Deadly Sins Makeup Ranking
- Sophie’s Lethargic Zombie Boy
- Jack’s Misunderstood Wrath
- Dolli’s Poor Cold Model
- Craig’s Suspicious Use of Cooking Chocolate
- Ryley’s Big Horned Devil
Due to the judges generally not so positive reactions to a lot of the makeups I was convinced we were going to get our first ever 4 way Face Off challenge with an emergency set of twins but instead nothing really changes and it’s a Face Off between Ryley and Dolli.
Tats All Folks!
For their Face Off Challenge Dolli and Ryley were given the task of making a set of star tattoos completely disappear
really the need for identical twins in this challenge wasn’t entirely necessary but we are assured that despite one being a larger surface area, the other one has thicker lines and therefore this is an even match which seems a touch dubious to me.
The judges were primarily looking for a complete lack of visible tattoos but also wanted perfect blending and natural looking skin. I thought that this would be a challenge made for Ryley as she’s spoken quite a bit how she used to always completely cover up her birthmark and she certainly knew what she was doing when she reached for the orange colour corrector to neutralise the green/blue shades of the tattoo
unfortunately for her she wasn’t quite generous enough with the full coverage foundation and you could just see the faded outlines of the tattoos
meanwhile Dolli, despite having slathered everything in a greenish colour corrector she so much full coverage foundation that there was no chance of anything being seen
and so for giving us just the slightest peek of a tattoo it’s Ryley who is sent home
She’s been an interesting contestant as prior to the competition she kind of exclusively did very pretty, glam makeups and yet her greatest successes have been in the more conceptual ones: her faceless horror and the gemstone eye spring to my mind. And if you want to see what she’s up to now, follow her at RyleyIsaac – you could honestly waste several hours just watching her Reels.
And so, we reach out Top 4
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