Written by Eric Dietel
Directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield
The Beard Hunter: "Look at me, look at my face. I want you to always remember this- Ernest Franklin, the man who defeated Cyborg. I wonder who will play me in the movie."
Yup, this guy was definitely something else alright. I could've done without the image of seeing Ernest consume both Niles and Victor's facial hair in order to get a read on them, which seems to be something the show added itself as the comics Beard Hunter apparently had no powers and was killing bearded men due to his own inability to actually grow one himself.
As a distraction, he was kind of okay in itself and I guessed he proved his effectiveness by getting under Victor's skin the way he did. Not to mention it showed the Bureau of Normalcy weren't wasting time in trying to deal with the gang following the events with Darren Jones and Danny the Street, which I guess is a good thing in moving the storyline along a little.
For the most part though, I did find the Beard Hunter amusing and irritating in equal measures so his eventual death at the end of this episode was almost a nice way of ending things this week. Tommy Snider did fine as Ernest but I do think he could've been a character that really would've grated had we gotten any more of him. Then again, you never know with this show.
Of course while Victor and Rita were mostly working together to deal with Ernest, we got a lot of flashbacks to an adventure Caulder had in 1913 where he encountered a immortal cave woman, fell madly in love with her, got a little feral, killed his Bureau of Oddity co-worker, Alistair while also attracting the attention of Mr Nobody as well.
Ten episodes in and the biggest criticism that can be leveled at this season has been overextending this missing arc with Caulder. With five episodes left to go, it really does feel like the show needs to wind it down and just get him back with the team, even if he did reveal to Nobody that he'd sacrifice them over his former girlfriend this week. Nobody made some hints about not everyone making it out of the season alive and I assume going into a second season, we're going to have something of a fairly big-ish cast shake up.
- The episode's director, Salli Richardson-Whitfield is probably best known for being a regular in SyFy series, Eureka.
- Is it bad that I kind of agreed with Ernest regarding This Is Us? I tried to get into that show but couldn't.
- The first episode I think in which we didn't encounter another one of Jane's personalities, given that her, Larry and Cliff were barely in this one.
- Chronology: The majority of the 1910's for Caulder's flashback storyline along with the Beard Hunter story being parallel with the events of Jane Patrol.
Hair Patrol isn't one of the best episodes going with a polarising guest antagonist and a seeming no ending to this Caulder missing arc, which has gone far too long now. Then again, with five episodes left to go and the promise of a cast shake up, I wouldn't be surprised if Caulder is one of the characters who won't go into the next season.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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