‘Best Ink’ season 2, episode 3 review: Not all good things come in pairs

There are some things about “Best Ink” that we absolutely love: the creativity, the art, and even some of the personalities that come out of the show. However, at the same time there are also some things that drive us a little bit batty. Maybe it’s that we prefer the grungy, gritty “Ink Master” when it comes to the tone, but this show almost at times feels a little too sappy and sweet. Remember when “LA Ink” was on the air? The part of the show we always hated the most was listening to the sad stories about why everyone was getting a tattoo. There’s a difference between hearing it for a minute or two, and stretching it out until it almost overtakes the art.

This week, we felt as though at times the latter happened as teams were forced to work in pairs for what was a pretty interesting challenge: create a bond between two family members with tattoos that permanently links one person to the other. For us, this just seems extremely risky given that you could get in some nasty fight with them later on, and want to scrap the ink. (It’s a little harder to cover up a giant angel than somebody’s name written on you.)

What we are at this point getting a little bit of a better sense of is who is really in this competition to go far, and who is doomed for a pretty early elimination. While Dollarz survived this week, he’s just not experienced enough to go far. With that, we almost wonder why he was even cast. At least the eliminated Kelly is someone who on paper looked like she could contend, though she has struggled to really make much of a mark at all once we actually arrived at the actual start of the competition.

Meanwhile, it is at least pretty clear now who the contenders are. Teresa Sharpe has consistently been strong, and we imagine that she is a likely finalist. Meanwhile, DJ Tambe and even Jarod Ray, despite being in the bottom three this week, both have a decent body of work from what we’ve seen.

We have some great tattooers left in the competition; now, let’s just hope that they have some opportunities coming up to really show what they can do.

Who are you rooting for on “Best Ink”? If you want to read our take of last week’s episode, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: Oxygen