‘Ink Master’ season 3 finale review: Joey, Jime and Tatu Baby face off, who won?

This has been an exciting and at times frustrating season of “Ink Master”. We have seen some great tattoos, fun challenges and a antagonist we loved to hate (but secretly loved) who stirred the pot and kept things interesting (we’re looking at you Joshua!). This season has also been incredibly frustrating and if you’re a long time reader of these “Ink Master” articles then you’ll know where we’re going with this.

Tatu Baby should not be in this finale… there we said it. When she quit the show she should’ve been the artist sent home and not hand held all the way to the finale by production and the judges. Her tattoos this season were not as good as what we saw from her on season 2, she had three incomplete pieces and she quit. This is not an artist that should be in the finale over better artists who wanted to be there (like Kyle and Joshua… especially Kyle). As we said in our weekly “Ink Master” rankings we can’t see Tatu Baby actually winning this season, but if she does, Spike TV should expect a legion of angry fans on their doorstep in the morning.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way it’s time to get to what everyone really wants to know. Who won “Ink Master” season 3? Jime Litwalk, Joey Hamilton and Tatu Baby were all sent back to their home towns on the last episode and were given their final challenge: 35 hours to tattoo whatever they want and then bring their canvas back to the live finale tonight for a final judging. While Tatu Baby decided to go with a much bigger area on the body, Joey went with a smaller area so that he wouldn’t be as pressed for time and could get in more detail. Jime had a bit of a challenge with his canvas because they had quite a bit of art work on them already.

Last year America voted for their favorite artist (Tatu Baby) to compete again. This time America has voted for the top two artists to come back and face off on the show tonight for a spot on season 4. We love the idea of the face off rather then just who is the most popular considering that this is a tattoo show after all. We want to see competition! The two artists voted back to compete (the first time there has ever been a live tattooing competition on TV) were Kyle Dunbar and Chris May. Both did amazing tattoos, but after Kyle got completely robbed from being in the final 3 it was no surprise to see him voted back in for season 4.

A couple of interesting highlights from the show:

1. Many of the cast members felt that Tatu Baby did not deserved to be standing in the final three and Joey even called her out, saying that it should’ve been Craig. At one point Joey even said that if she is not eliminated first tonight he’s walking off the stage. Ouch!

2. Jason put the judges on blast about their totally bizarre critiques this season (which we completely agree on), saying that sending Craig home for not doing black and grey on proportions day was wrong and that many people didn’t really understand what they were being judged on because there was no consistency.

3. Joshua of course got dog piled by everyone, but he was one of the few people honest enough to called Tatu Baby out on the fact that she has been doing mediocre work all season and had a lot of unfinished tattoos.

4. What was up Chris Nunez’s butt tonight? They invite a human canvas back to talk about Joshua and when she says she stands behind the tattoo he did and contradicts the judges Chris kicks her down and tells her she’s just here for “her 5 seconds of fame”? You guys invited her here!

So who won “Ink Master” season 3? Tatu Baby got eliminated first and it was down to Jime and Joey. It was really close and for most of the episode we were thinking that Jime had this, but Joey came out on top and was crowned the winner of “Ink Master” season 3. This is not the only thing Joey won. Fans have been voting all season long on who had the best tattoos and Joey won this as well. What was his prize? He gets to go and work with Oliver and Chris in their respective shops. Yes folks, he wins a day of work.

Are you surprised that Joey won “Ink Master” season 3? Are you excited as excited as we are to see Kyle coming back for season 4? Leave us a comment and tell us what you thought of the finale and the winner. We’ll be back to cover “Ink Master” season 4, so be sure to book mark us for weekly reviews, previews and rankings.

Photo: Spike TV