'Shear Genius': It's spelled H-U-B-R-I-S

Every time Jaclyn Smith says, "Your work was not Shear Genius" to someone on this show, it just cracks me up. And while I don't like to gloat over people's heartaches, when the right person is eliminated, it creates the illusion of justice in a world filled with chaos.

In this week's short-cut challenge, our stylists were tasked with creating stylish, structural hairdos on models with exceptionally long hair -- including one with 68 inches of cascading brown loveliness. That she had to separate with her feet. Okey dokey. So there's a lot of braiding and knotting and twisting and looping going on, some to hideous effect. I'm lookin' at you, Nicole -- the cherries and stems are cute, but what was with the weird strings of hair hanging in her face? Charlie's looks bridal, but despite that he and Matthew came out the top two faves.

And then the scary happens. Matthew's admittedly cute woven hair (though the pearl necklace draped through it is weird looking) wins him the challenge. "It gave me a feeling like the first time my wife told me she loved me," he says into the camera. Hey, did you realize Matthew's married? Because if you didn't, he's about to tell you. Every two minutes. For the rest of the episode.

Alrighty then. So as a prize Matthew gets to choose his "model" (an evening gown) first in the elimination challenge -- red carpet hair -- and then choose the order in which the rest of the stylists will choose as well. Thus, the kissing up begins. Matthew doesn't get along with everyone, and the jockeying for favor starts -- Meredith is a really transparent offender. Back at the house, Matthew goes straight to bed, but his suck-up colleagues drag him out of his room for a big ol' vodka toast. Then he proceeds to have a "heart to heart" with Dee, to whom he complains that the whole thing is like high school, and with Daniel.

So for the elimination challenge, they have to choose red carpet gowns and design their hairstyles for them. Hey, did I mention that Matthew's married? As he chooses, he's "trying to picture which dress would look best on his wife." And by the way, he's "happily married with a beautiful, gorgeous, perfect 10 wife." Oh brother. Protest much?

So Matthew gets all high school and exacts a little revenge on the competitors he doesn't like much by forcing them to choose last. And his ego's getting away from him. His client tells him that her hair doesn't curl, but he insists on curling it anyway. Reminds me of the famous quote -- it's attributed to everyone from Vince Lombardi to Jim Brown, but being a good Wisconsinite, I'm sticking with Lombardi: When you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before. Seriously. How arrogant do you have to be?

This challenge also makes clear the vast difference between the runway hair you see on Project Runway or America's Next Top Model and the kind of hair that celebs wear on the red carpet. Not so many risks on the red carpet -- you have to go for polished, finished hair that someone won't have to think about -- a sentiment driven home by celebrity judges Mark Townsend, an uber stylist, and actress Alison Sweeney, who plays Sami on Days of Our Lives and offers some excellent comments.

Charlie not only does a great style -- perhaps a little short on imagination but great on technique and color -- in the two-hour time allotment. Some others are pageant-y or unfinished looking. Paulo's is just insane -- wide, structural curls, flat on top. Great on the pages of Vogue, but doesn't translate. Gail finally ends up with something great -- inspired by the twisty, ropy back of the dress, she comes up with something woven and polished. Matthew's model's curls -- unsurprisingly -- all fall down. So once again, prohibitive favorite Charlie wins. Gail gets a much-needed shot in the arm. And Matthew falls off his perch from the top of the world and gets eliminated. But hey, he gets to go home to his wife.

What did you think? Are you beginning to wish, like me, that the producers would figure out a better way to edit these things so it wouldn't be so easy to see that the person who talks the most or is most ego-driven is going to get eliminated? What did you think of the sucking up?

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