‘Ink Master: Rivals’ season 5, episode 3 review: Does Emily Elegado’s ego match her artwork?
After seeing Caroline Evans go home the first week of “Ink Master: Rivals” it was clear that this season was going to be anything but predictable. Last week we lost Elton “LT” Duarte during the pinup challenge (although everyone really kind of dropped the ball on this one), and it seems that outside of Jason Clay Dunn and Joshua Hibbard there are really no front runners that are going to sweep the season like we’ve seen in the past. Let’s see who went home tonight:
Flash challenge: This season “Ink Master” isn’t holding back when it comes to testing the artists basic abilities in the first few episodes. This week they are testing everyone on their line work, something that every good artist needs to know how to do. The challenge is a team challenge and because Joshua won tattoo of the day last week, he assigned the teams. Joshua used his advantage wisely and set up all the rivals together (except for Ty’esha and Julia who lost their rivals and were put together). Jason and Joshua have found a way to work together well this season (ironically), so why break up a good match?
Using match tape to create a design, there were a few artists that really stepped up to the plate. Two people that we were excited to see working together well were Robbie and Jayvo as Robbie revealed that line work is Jayvo’s strong suit (a compliment!) Jayvo and Robbie, and Emily and Aaron impressed the judges the most, but Emily and Aaron came out on top (which they more then deserved) and got the advantage to assign all human canvases during the elimination tattoo.
Elimination tattoo: Since line work is the skill being tested for the elimination tattoo the guest judge tonight is BJ Betts who is known through out the community for his incredible line work. The artists will each have to create an ornamental tattoo and to make things even more challenging, two canvases will each get the same tattoo; meaning that there will be two artists going head to head and one artist will win and one will lose. Aaron and Emily used their win to their advantage (as they should) and Emily’s main target is Tim – who she really tried to put one over on by putting him up against Joshua, who’s line work is pretty amazing. Tim got a canvas that originally wanted her armpit tattooed, but after seeing the reaction from the artists, Tim had no problem getting her to move it somewhere else.
Judging: This was easily the best judging we’ve had in a long time: Most of the tattoos were at the high level we expect out of this competition. Even though Emily chose the skulls and chose to go up against Julia, she lost the challenge… and this didn’t humble her one bit! No tattoo of the day was named, but Joshua Hibbard was the clear winner again. As for the bottom we saw Ryan, Jayvo and Eric fighting for their lives with Jayvo packing up his shop and going home.
We really wanted to see Robbie and Jayvo’s relationship progress through out the season and expected both of the brother’s to stick around for a lot longer then this, but we were happy to see Robbie fighting for Jayvo to stay and the two of them hugging it out before Jayvo left. Episode grade: A-
If you are looking for more news on “Ink Master:Rivals” then head over to the link here where you can check out previews, reviews, interviews with eliminated artists (our latest ones are with Caroline Evans and Elton “LT” Duarte) and podcasts all about the show.
Also if you want to get even more great TV news sent straight to your inbox then be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter. It comes out every Sunday and is stuffed full of great scoop.
Photo: Spike TV