This is one of my favorite episodes of the show, number seven in my book. It's pretty much "The Haunting Hour's" modernized version of "The Picture of Doran Grey" and here it works really well as it wickedly satires on our current Vanity counterculture.
It makes sense as vanity, image, and popularity just as those things were a problem back in the century the book was written, has actually gotten a lot worse as it's now became epidemic with the use of cell phones, the net, the wide advertisements in magazines, TV, you name it it's all out there. To me what really is bothersome about this vanity counterculture is how it gives out the wrong idea about what true beauty really is.
Really like some of the cinematography in this episode, there is one image from the very beginning that was good where we see this series of pictures of really good looking girls hung up on the wall and the camera slowly zooms in on one empty space. We can easily guess whose picture will be hung up on that wall. This image alone already puts you in suspense knowing what's to come for the protagonist.
The suspense in the episode is great as throughout the episode from beginning to end you have a sense of impending doom that constantly mounts. Ariel Winter who is of course known for "Modern Family" I think is a fine actress hopefully she'll have more in the future. Really like her performance in this, I bought her shift in persona.
We at first see her as just an ordinary girl Gracie who is on the working middle class end of things. She's not on the popularity list despite her dreams of being popular and beautiful but she does have a lot going for her with her good relations with her best friend and family.
That is until a certain agency rears its ugly head and takes her in as pretty much being the next it girl. We see her modeling career just skyrocket to heights she's probably never dreamed off; but of course, as an old saying goes, it's too good to be true. We then see as she's good high in popularity and highly focuses on her popularity, the uglier her persona becomes and you can say fails to live up to her first name, along with the image of herself stored on her phone disturbingly gets more and more physically uglier, like she's got some sort of skin disease.
It's really sad as Gracie was a person that was actually likeable and as her personality gets more rotten, I actually find myself disliking even hating the character which is something I don't like to do but she drove me and others to it.
The sad thing also about Gracie was that she was already beautiful way before all of that glitz and glamor, she never needed it personally I never really care about all that because really the fame and the images their selling as a whole is all just a bunch of light and shadows, not real. But sadly, she doesn't or doesn't want to see the truth, what's even sadder are most people that place high value in vanity never do.
Though her character is also in debate as to whether she's a victim that has fallen prey to the demonic influences because of her slight low self esteem about herself along with her naïve and misguided belief in the vanity lifestyle. Or if this ugliness and the persona with it is what she always was it just took a big push from demonic forces to bring it out.
Really like the best friend whom despite everything isn't ready to give up on Gracie yet. Like Nancy Drew throughout the episode is doing investigative work as she sees the world of vanity has a heart of darkness. This subplot gives us a small glimmer of hope, were hoping somehow she can find the truth on time so she can save from all of this. But that glimmer is fading as we see it might already be too late and worst of all Gracie may not want to be saved.
The ending just goes to show that true beauty isn't from the lens of a camera but from what you do and feel with your own soul.
Rating: 4 stars
