Every Haunting Hour Ever #39: Headshot

Season: 2
Episode: 17 
Original Airdate: January 28, 2012
Director: Micheal Scott

This is it folks, we're FINALLY at the Headshot review! Hooray!!! Thank God I don't have to wait any longe--- Wait... this IS the Headshot review, right? (Whispering off screen) Okay. Well, let's not beat around the bush and get started before someone tells me this isn't the Headshot review. 

In this homage to/modern-day retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a teenage ice cream shop worker named Gracie Wilde leaps at the chance to enter Teen Teen magazine's (Who's almost as good as Beer Beer or Burger Burgers) Prettiest Face contest, but the excitement of the contest and Cassandra Hobbes' (who is neither a 17th century English philosopher nor an imaginary pet tiger) coaching are turning Gracie into a cutthroat diva who will do anything to win — even if it means giving up her soul. 

One of the things I enjoyed about the episode was how it handled the homage/retelling of the Dorian Gray story. It updates the story enough to where modern audiences can understand it, but not too much to where it becomes something along the lines of Yo Yogi! A.K.A the most dated thing ever. 

Never go full Yo-Yogi!

Unlike those film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays where they have a modern setting and the play's original dialogue, the dialogue and setting are both modern in this episode which makes it significantly less distracting and/or jarring to watch. 

Another thing I enjoyed about the episode was the ending. So towards the end of the episode, Lexi (Gracie's best friend) reveals that Cassandra Hobbes was right all along. Gracie had the power all along to walk away from being famous. Because she didn't, Gracie's beautiful face now hangs on Cassandra Hobbes' wall while her new and permanent face is uglier than the one that was on her cell phone. I'm not going to lie, this ending genuinely freaked me out. I mean, it really unnerved me and gave me the heebee jeebees! I remember being terrified of it on my first viewing of the episode. In fact, I can reenact that moment right now. 

GAAAAHHH!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! GET IT OFF SCREEN!! GET IT OFF SCREEN!! Ahhh!!! *Throws TV out the window and somehow catches on fire as dive bombing pigeons create massive holes in the yard* (Note: We realise some of this reenactment took creative liberties to make it seem more interesting, but in this case, we simply found it unavoidable. We are not responsible for refunding the time you wasted reading that part.) I think the ending is effective in conveying this unsettling feeling through a combination of the grimey visuals (colours mostly consist of yellows and greens, there's a subtle presence of fog or steam, etc), atmospheric background music, and that frog like voice that Gracie lets out before her new face is revealed. As you can tell, I really love this ending!

Overall, Headshot is hands down one of my favorite episodes of season two! Even if you aren't familiar with the Dorian Gray story, there is a lot to like about the episode and if I were to name everything that was good about the episode, we'd be here all day. 

Overall Grade: A