It's thrilling to see someone who we've only see under a mask
reveal their face. But what are the very best face reveals in TV history? Does the
unmasking of one especially fast superhero make the list? Keep watching to find out.
One of the most immediately obvious things that sets "The Mandalorian"
apart from most other live-action TV shows is the relative scarcity of human faces in it.
Sure, there are some bare-faced folks in the supporting cast,
but our two leads are an alien puppet that doesn't speak and a mostly silent hero who
never removes his helmet. That is, until the first season finale, titled "Chapter 8: Redemption."
Our hero, Din Djarin, is a member of a highly orthodox branch of Mandalorians
called the Children of the Watch. One of the rules of this order is that its members are
never permitted to show their faces to any other living being. And throughout the first season,
Din abides by this rule at all times, so much so that not even the audience gets a chance to
see his face. However, during a climactic battle with the forces of the evil Moff
Gideon, Din is gravely injured and finds himself in dire need of medical attention.
His droid companion, IG-11, leans in to remove Din's helmet so that he can better administer
treatment. But Din draws his blaster and points it at the droid, saying,
"Try it, and I'll kill you. It is forbidden.
No living thing has seen me without my helmet since I swore the creed.”
"I am not a living thing."
IG-11 removes it anyway. Then, for the first time in the series, audiences got a chance to look into
the big sad puppy dog eyes of actor Pedro Pascal. At that moment, the Mandalorian became a little
less mysterious and a little more human — a trend that would continue into the show's 2nd season.
Throughout most of the run of "Avatar: The Last Airbender,"
Aang the Avatar is being hunted by a disgraced Fire Nation prince named
Zuko. They wish to capture the Avatar in order to restore Zuko’s honor. However, in Season 1,
Episode 13, a different servant of the Fire Nation beats Zuko to it when Aang is captured
by the forces of Admiral Zhao and locked up in the sovereign state's military base.
Aang finds himself surrounded by guards with his arms and legs in irons to prevent him
from using his bending abilities. For a time, all hope seems lost. But then,
a mysterious silent figure in a blue demon mask arrives on the scene.
This stranger frees Aang from his bonds and helps him escape the base.
“Who are you? What’s going on? Are you here to rescue me?”
However, as the two are on the verge of escaping into the woods, Aang's rescuer is struck in the
face by an arrow. His mask takes most of the blow, but he is knocked unconscious.
Aang kicks up some dust and unmasks him, revealing the face of Prince
Zuko. Aang considers leaving Zuko for the guards, but takes him to safety instead. Aang
waits alongside the unconscious prince, hoping to talk with him when he wakes up, but as soon
as Zuko regains his facilities, he attacks Aang, forcing the Avatar to flee once again.
The prince never gives Aang an explanation for why he rescued him, but this moment ends
up being the first sign that there's much more going on with Zuko than Aang initially believed.
"The Twilight Zone" is a show that's famous for ending its stories with a memorable twist,
and perhaps no twist is more memorable than
the one that comes at the climax of the episode "Eye of the Beholder."
The protagonist is a woman named Janet Tyler. She lies in a hospital bed, her face concealed
by bandages. Various doctors and nurses are hanging around as well, but their faces are always
off-screen or concealed in shadow. The doctors say that Janet is disfigured, and although she
has undergone a series of treatments in order to correct her appearance, thus far, the treatments
have been unsuccessful. Additionally, Janet's now reached the maximum number of times she's
allowed to attempt the procedure by law. This means that if it doesn't work this time, she
won't be allowed to try again, and she'll have to live with her appearance for the rest of her life.
At the episode's climax, when Janet's bandages are finally removed,
she looks totally fine. However, the doctors are horrified, disappointed that there's
still been no change. Their faces are now also finally revealed for the first time,
and we see large nostrils, sunken eyes, and a variety of swollen, drooping, or asymmetrical
features. Sure, maybe the metaphor seems a bit obvious or heavy-handed, but "Eye of the
Beholder" is still an all-time classic episode of television. Even knowing the twist ahead of time,
we dare to give it a watch and not let out a bit of a gasp when that reveal hits.
"Death Note" tells the story of a supernatural serial killer named Light Yagami and the various
law enforcement officials that try — and usually fail — to catch him. The only person who ends
up being a true equal to Light is a mysterious independent detective who goes by the pseudonym
"L." And even though L is widely regarded as the greatest detective in the world,
no one knows his true name, and no one has ever seen his face.
For a time, L only works with Japanese law enforcement remotely,
communicating over voice chat. But eventually, the police begin to distrust L and consider
cutting ties with him completely. So, as a show of good faith, L finally shows his face in Season 1,
Episode 6, "Unraveling." He reluctantly agrees to meet with the team of officers assigned to the
serial killer case in person in a hotel room. When the officers enter the room and see L,
the camera slowly pans up L's body, revealing a skinny teenager. His posture is terrible, he has
bags under his eyes, his hair is long and unkempt, and his clothes are way too big for him. Needless
to say, this is not what any of them imagined the world's greatest detective would look like.
One of the most enduring versions of the surprise unmasking trope is the version that also comes
with a surprise gender reveal. The best execution of this version of the trope in recent memory
was in the "Game of Thrones" episode "What Is Dead May Never Die." In this episode,
Catelyn Stark journeys to the camp of Renly Baratheon, seeking to make an alliance with
the young lord. However, she arrives in the middle of a tournament when Renly
is watching a battle between two figures in armor. The first is Ser Loras Tyrell,
one of the most skilled knights in Westeros and Renly's brother-in-law.
The second is a character we've never seen before — a towering stranger in copper armor.
Despite being completely unknown to the crowd and not even a knight, this strapping newcomer
defeats Loras swiftly and definitively. After kneeling before the Lord Renly,
the stranger then removes their helmet, revealing the face of a woman. She is Brienne of Tarth,
a lady who is of noble birth and twice the warrior of any man she's ever met, but because of her
gender, she is not allowed to become a knight. Nonetheless, because of her impressive display
of martial prowess, Renly agrees to break with tradition and accept Brienne into his Kingsguard.
"Done!"
It's one hell of a character introduction, and from here,
Brienne of Tarth goes on to become one of the most compelling characters in the entire series.
There are several times throughout the series "Squid Game" when mysterious characters are
unmasked and secret identities are revealed. But strangely enough, the most emotionally impactful
unmasking in the series occurs not with a major character but with someone who doesn't even get a
name. In the episode "The Man With the Umbrella," players have to cleanly cut a small shape out of
a larger piece of Dalgona, a Korean honeycomb candy. If they break the shape while doing so,
they will be executed by one of the many armed guards standing around the room.
Toward the end of the game, one of the players, Player 119, breaks the shape he's trying to cut.
He is about to be executed by a nearby guard when at the last moment, he steals the guard's gun.
As a dozen or so armed guards close in around him, Player 119 ["one nineteen"] forces one of
the high-ranking employees in square masks — the ones known as "managers" — to unmask himself.
And when this manager takes off his mask, he reveals the face of an ordinary young man.
This reveal finally solidifies to the participants that whatever is going on with this game
isn't supernatural or fantastical. These guards aren't aliens or robots — these are just humans,
engaging in an all-too-human form of evil. Before turning the gun on himself, Player 119 comments,
"You're so young. How did you end up like this?"
Moments later, the mysterious Front Man arrives on the scene and, without ceremony,
shoots the unmasked manager in the head. He then tells his assembled masked employees,
"Remember. Once they find out who you are, you're dead."
In Season 3, Episode 2 of "Rick and Morty" — an episode called "Rickmancing the Stone" — Rick,
Morty, and Summer find themselves in dire need of a vacation. Using Rick's portal gun,
the trio ends up in a post-apocalyptic version of Earth, a Mad Max-esque world of murderous
warlords driving around in rusty hot rods. Hoping to put off returning to Earth as long as possible,
Summer ends up joining a band of warriors known as the Death Stalkers, led by a muscle-bound
warrior named "Hemorrhage", whose face is concealed by a helmet shaped like a bucket.
Later, after going on a raid together, Summer and Hemorrhage have an intimate conversation in
the Death Stalker's garage, during which Summer asks him if she can see his face.
In his low, gravelly voice, Hemorrhage replies,
"No one has seen my true face and lived."
But then, he relents, removing his helmet. Summer is then shocked to
find that Hemorrhage isn't at all what she expected. He isn't horribly disfigured,
but he isn't roguishly handsome either. Instead, he's just kinda dorky looking, with a head that
is far paler than the rest of his deeply tanned body, a bad haircut, and a terrible mustache.
This unexpected reveal ends up being one of the funniest moments of the series
and completely unlike any other face reveal in TV history.
Early on in the episode of "Firefly" titled "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Captain Malcolm Reynolds
and the rest of his crew indulge in a long night of drinking and merriment with some
friendly strangers. This is on a small planet in the middle of nowhere. The next morning,
Mal discovers that because he drunkenly participated in some sort of local ritual
that he didn't understand, he is now married to a woman he just met.
“Who are you?”
“Mr. Reynolds, sir, I’m your wife.”
She’s a meek and kindhearted woman named Saffron. However, by the end of the episode,
Saffron reveals that she is actually a skilled con artist who is only tagging
along with Mal and his crew so that she can rob them of everything they're worth. In the end,
our heroes manage to stop Saffron's plan, leaving her behind on a snowy planet to an uncertain fate.
Five episodes later, in an episode titled "Trash," Malcolm meets up with an old war
buddy named Monty. During their conversation, Monty tells Mal that he recently got married,
and he can't wait to introduce Mal to his new bride, a woman named Bridget.
When Bridget is finally introduced to Mal, she has an all-too-familiar face. That's right,
Monty has also fallen prey to the con artist that Mal knew as Saffron,
and her second appearance ends up being an even wilder ride than the first time around.
The threat of superheroes being unmasked by villains is a long-standing trope in
superhero fiction. Generally, this idea is played pretty straight. It's assumed that if
a villain ever unmasks a hero, they can learn that hero's secret identity and threaten them
and their loved ones. However, there is a particularly hilarious inversion of this trope
that occurs in an episode of "Justice League Unlimited" titled "The Great Brain Robbery."
After the evil Lex Luthor's latest invention — a mind-reading machine — unexpectedly malfunctions,
Luthor ends up swapping minds with The Flash.
After Luthor in the Flash's body is chased around the League's headquarters by the team, he finally
manages to escape and has a moment to himself in one of the base's bathrooms. Looking at himself
in the mirror in the Flash's body and wearing the Flash's superhero costume, Luthor says to himself,
"If nothing else, I can at least learn the Flash's secret identity."
He then unmasks himself and looks in the mirror at Wally West's unmasked face. After a beat, he says,
"I have no idea who this is."
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