dstann

I am kind of hoping that with this season, because it had an extended break between season, and a new host/judges, they decided to play it safe and bring back popular contestants as well as Dave as a link to the past. I think the show was really good and I hope it rated well so they have the confidence to bring in first timer contestants and ditch the Master of Chaos.

I really like her as a judge, I like how expects them all to push themselves, be diverse, and be able to do everything if they want to be the inkmaster. I really didn't like it with the old judges who would sometimes just ignore the theme of a tattoo and give people a free pass because it look good. When they said a jury of peers of the eliminated contestants I was thinking, wow they brought everyone back? Then laughed so hard when only 2 people walked in and made up the jury. I am really disappointed for Bob, he had been very consistent and always near the top all season, but I just don't understand what he was thinking for his final tattoo. It was a cool idea but the design was just odd, the dragon looked like it had been rotated 90 degrees and hard to tell what it was. Another thing I enjoyed this season was the lack of drama. There was a bit of banter between the contestants but you could tell they liked and respected each other and it just made it so much more enjoyable to watch.

I think Angel is good enough to be ink master, but to do it this season she will have to run the gauntlet against some of the best competition ever. DJ has now found his grove and putting out amazing tattoos every week. Anthony is an ink master and is consistently putting out good tattoos. Bob and Gian have been near the top for most of the season. And Creepy Jason is also there.... I guess he could be a threat if all the tattoos for the rest of the season are black and white horror tattoos.

I was kind of relieved as I thought it was just going to be Chris Nunez

I am wondering if they are asked to overreact to every challenge. They all freak out over a mystery judge, seriously who cares, if you do a good tattoo it doesn't matter how many judges there are. Super surprised that Tony survived, his tattoo was awful.

Interesting that they went for a bottom 2 when Creepy Jason's tattoo wasn't great and could easily have been a bottom 3. Maybe they thought that if they put Jason in the bottom 3 then they are just going to say he is safe and pick out of the other 2 so there is no point putting Jason in the bottom. The bottom 2 were both pretty meh and either could have gone home. I am guessing one reason Katie stayed was otherwise they would be down to only one female contestant left. I didn't notice that they were eliminating all the females.

I actually thought Anthony might go home because as he mentioned he just got custody of his son so needed to go, so Steve going surprised me. What I didn't like in the winning flash challenge piece was the fact that you could see the side of some of the cups because they weren't arranged perfectly. To me that was bad technical application and the cactus should have got it. Not that it mattered, the masters chose some bad canvases for themselves. Pretty sure the preview for the next episode shows she is back. That is the second time this season that someone has not gone home for not doing the challenge. Creepy Jason in the tattoo in emulate a famous artists style and now Tony in the latest episode, both didn't really attempt the challenge, just put up a solid tattoo and get through. It just seems wrong because it makes the challenge pointless when you just tattoo whatever you want.

Have you checked out the 30 minute video of the 3 finalists showing off their back and chest pieces? I am pretty sure Jimmy was scripted to win. Remember last season when the judges kept saying to Laura all you do is aliens, show us something different, but no mention of that this season for Jimmy and his abundance of American Traditional. I feel like he always seemed to get positive critiques even when his tattoo's had obvious flaws. And then that second last challenge, Angel gets pulled up because her forest doesn't look realistic, Kelly gets pulled up for not attempting the morph, are you really going to tell me that Jimmy hit color realism for his jellyfish? It wasn't realism and it was hard to tell it was a jellyfish. Based on the two tattoo's Jimmy showed in the finale you could justify the him winning, though given the high standard you could justify any of them winning.

Hiram said that his canvas had very difficult skin which made it very hard for him to tattoo.

I think they are going to use the save for Jimmy. That is Frank's 3rd week in a row in the bottom so had to go.

Agreed, Frank had to go, his was the worst by far. Of the other 2 it was 50/50. The finale will be interesting to see how it will be run. Here in Australia we just had the Australian Survivor finale, only 15 of the 24 contestants made it to the reunion show where the votes were read, including one of the final 2. This was due to travel restrictions. Without a studio audience it also lacked energy. Are you allowed to get tattoos in America at the moment? Here in Australia tattoo parlors have been shut down because of the close contact needed.

Wow what a load of crap, how Jimmy survived that is just laughable. On versatility day Jimmy not only does 1 style 3 times, but he does the same style that he has done for most of the competition, surely that is a fail for versatility. Then it is also a drawing skills challenge, Jimmy's drawing would have to be one of the worst in the room because it was just an illegible mess that he created to try and trip up Hiram. Where is the judges normal critique of "I can't tell what it is from across the room"? I mean it was mega obvious that Angel was going to be saved but it is just so annoying when the judges decisions are used to create drama.

I think Jason's biggest problem was not giving the judges what they wanted. He tried to be artistic but the judges, mainly Peck and Nunez, want legible stickers. I think out of all the griffins Jason's was my favourite but that is not how the judges saw it.

If you want to talk about the judges being all over the place, last week Jason was eliminated on an American traditional tattoo because his tattoo had no whip shading which is a fundamental of American traditional. The following week Kay doesn't even do a new school tattoo but Jordie is eliminated because of legibility.

Jordie's tattoo wasn't great but it was no where near as illegible as they kept going on about. They just wanted to have Jason on his own as "entertainment".