Two of the top three looks this week on Syfy’s “Face Off:” Tate (left) and Roy (right.)

If you watched Tuesday night’s episode of “Face Off” on Syfy, you learned something very important: do not use light-up eyes on any makeup if you become a contestant on the show, or cotton candy for hair. We also got a sharp reminder that this is anyone’s game, as one promising newcomer stumbled, another rookie stepped up his game, and a struggling veteran finally rose to the top of the pack with the challenge that was right up his (dark) alley.

If you follow the show, that probably gives you a pretty good idea of the veteran I was referring to above, but let’s proceed.

Before the contestants got to the spotlight challenge, they had a challenge with guest judge Valli O’Reilly for a prize of immunity from elimination this week. Each artist got a different set of monster teeth that they had to fashion into a full makeup.

The three favorites of O’Reilly were Roy, Tate, and Miranda. All three did great makeups, but seeing how Roy used that netting to create texture on his model… It was a pretty good guess he might take the top prize, which he did.

Then they moved on to the main event, the spotlight challenge, which had a trick-or-treat theme this episode. Each artist had to choose from between five different classic Halloween costumes: vampire, clown, scarecrow, skeleton or devil.

Is anyone else getting the urge to break out the Halloween candy, like, right now?

The top and bottom looks belonged to Alana, Laney, Tate, Roy, Scott, and Lyma. Although, it’s worth noting that newcomer Eddie did his best work of the competition so far with his version of the scarecrow, and one could argue that he might have been deserving of making that top three. It certainly shed a new light on him as a competitor in this series.

But the actual top looks belonged to Laney, Tate, and Roy. Roy did a devil with huge bat wings fabricated along with a sort of burnt lava-like makeup job. Tate was back to his horror roots, doing a scarecrow with a pumping heart. Laney had some issues with her clown, not realizing the cotton candy hair would melt in the hot lights, and yet she still pulled it out for top looks.

Speaking of which, if you don’t want to impress the judges, do lit eyes. But if you do want to impress Ve Neill, do hairy armpits. If you don’t get that, you need to watch the episode, already — I can’t spoon feed you everything!

Then there was the bottom.

Scott did a serial killer clown that had pulled out his own heart to use as a squeak toy. To the untrained eye, it actually didn’t look so bad, to be honest. Kinda good, maybe, despite being a somewhat… lopsided sculpt. But then there’s a reason that the rest of us aren’t judges on “Face Off,” I suppose.

The best part about the design was it prompted the first real “Glenn Hetrick zinger” (TM) of the season: “It looks like a misshapen Bert and Ernie.”

You gotta love a man who can be brutal and funny at the same time. Unless, of course, you’re Scott. Poor guy.

The next look on the bottom, Lyma, not only got a harsh critique from Hetrick on her sculpting and paint job, but Neville Page took her to task for the red-lit eyes.

“This is something that, for me, never works… when creatures have glowing eyes. What this does is it cheapens it.”

And last on the bottom was Alana. While her work has been very good throughout the season, I have to confess I kept feeling there was some repetition I couldn’t quite put my finger on: A certain common theme of a very round, smooth, pale face that seemed to be done week after week.

And apparently, Hetrick was seeing it as well, and sort of went off on it in deliberations.

“It doesn’t look anything like a ram,” he told his fellow judges. “She can’t just tell us it was supposed to be something and then bang out this super simple form that she uses in every makeup. That’s not going to cut it.”

With some of the harsh comments Hetrick made in deliberation, it looked like a fan favorite might be heading home. But, instead, rookie Lyma — who had done some of the most original work this season — was sent packing, despite looking like she might be a dark horse to make the finals after last week’s top three finish.

All bets are off on this one, folks. Well… almost all bets.

Veteran Miranda started off really strong and continues to do very solid work, but last week Laura and Roy really showed what got them so far the first time around. And while Laura didn’t make the top three this week, she still put in a very good makeup in an area that’s not really her greatest strength.

Roy made top three again with another great makeup, and with immunity. He may not be the horror guy that Tate is, or the beautiful fantasy painter that Lara is, but he sort of lands in the middle space between the two, able to do some of each. His versatility may be the key to winning it all this season.

And then there’s Tate. If you’ve been reading my recaps of “Face Off,” you know I love my horror guys (Eric Fox!) Well, Tate finally took the top prize this week in his perfect wheelhouse of horror makeup. Not terribly surprising, I’ll admit, but as I’ve pointed out before, many fans felt his previous work this season was being seriously overlooked.

As a horror chick, I think you know where I stand on that one.

With Lyma out as a possible dark horse, there is still newcomer Laney that could upset the veterans, or if we start seeing more work from Eddie as good or better than what he did this week, you never know how far he will go. Hopefully, this bottom-three scare for Alana well pushes her to stretch herself and make use of the skills she has to really push the envelope and create something new and mind blowing from her — she’s far from out of it. Likewise, Miranda is running strong and getting more confident in her makeup. Well, sometimes she’s more confident. Someone on twitter likened her to the girl in school who always thinks she’s going to fail the test and gets an A+.

But, all that aside, if I was a betting woman (and as a poker player, yes, I am a betting woman) I’m putting my money on Tate, Roy, and Laura for the final three.

There, I said it. Sue me. Send the lynch mob with the flaming torches.

Who do you think should have been in the top, the bottom and sent home? Comment below the gallery of photos from this episode!

Next week’s show features Elvira, so tune in Tuesday night to Syfy for the next episode of “Face Off.” And check out this interview with Tate about some cool projects he has in the works.