‘Ink Master’ season 6, episode 12 review: An inspiring night of tattooing leaves us in tears
With Matt and Craig going head to head with Tyler and Chris last week on “Ink Master” and losing to them, it feels like the outcome of the show is becoming more and more clear with every episode that passes: Chris Blinston will be our “Ink Master” winner and Tyler will be in the finale with him because it’s great TV to see Master and Apprentice up against each other for the title. While we have no problem with this happening since we think both Tyler and Chris are excellent artists that deserve to be there, we wish the edit of the season and the judges critiques didn’t make it so obvious that this is the way it’s going to play out.
Flash challenge: The past few seasons have included a challenge that shares inspiring stories and brings us canvases that we may not always get to see on a show like this. Our favorite challenge was when they had breast cancer survivors come to the show and have beautiful designs tattooed over their scars – we can’t say enough about how amazing this was to watch! This week the remaining artists will be tattooing canvases that have a loved one with down syndrome while they showcase their abilities to use finesse. The art that the canvases want tattooed has been created by their loved one with down syndrome giving the artists in the competition an extra level of pressure to get it right.
Watching Matt work with his artist to show her how to draw a treasure chest was easily our favorite part of this episode. He didn’t take over the drawing, showed her how to do it, and she produced a really fun piece. Everyone was a winner in our minds and the judges agreed – no top tattoo, everyone did an amazing job! Because there is no winner, the skull pick for the elimination tattoo is picked by random skull draw and the winner was Erik.
We have to admit that we were sobbing like a baby through out this whole challenge. The contestants worked beautifully with their artists, the tattoos were inspiring and we even had a fan of Craig Foster in his artist Jay! This was an incredibly touching and inspirational challenge that will stay with us forever.
Elimination tattoo: We saw Matt and Craig push Erik to choose a side and team up with them to take out Chris and Tyler. With Erik getting the skull pick, Chris and Tyler tried to push for an alliance with him as well, but he’s been playing a stellar game without anyone’s help, so we have to ask – does he really need to pick sides? Erik didn’t want to make an enemy out of Chris and Tyler, so he gave them better canvases, and then randomly handed out the really tough ones. We were a little disappointed that Erik did that since he really didn’t need to – why not pick the canvas you want and randomize everyone else?
To test finesse, the artists will be creating Victorian tattoos and they will be doing them on the canvases throats. Very rough challenge and there were some tough canvases in the bunch. Chris is facing a canvas with really tough skin and was having a hard time getting the ink packed in and not only that, but his canvas almost didn’t sit through the tattoo.
Judging: There were some very pretty tattoos that came out of this group, but Kruseman blew us away with how incredibly delicate his birdcage was. The other artist that produced an incredible tattoo tonight was Duffy! So pretty and we are excited to see her giving the men a run for their money tonight. Tattoo of the day went to Duffy and it was well deserved. Maybe we are going to see a woman in the finals after all? As for the bottom, we had Matt (jury choice), Erik, and Chris sent back to the judging room and we lost our silent ninja this season – Erik went home tonight.
We rarely give out an “A+” here at CarterMatt, but this episode of “Ink Master” was so touching and beautifully done that we can’t not give this our top grade. All of the artists handled themselves like true professionals and we look forward to seeing what they do for this episode next year now that they’ve raised the bar. Episode grade: A+
What did you think of tonight’s episode of “Ink Master” and do you agree with who the judges eliminated tonight? Leave us a comment below and tell us who you want to see win it all. If you want more news on “Ink Master” then head on over to the link here where you can get more reviews, previews, interviews with the eliminated artists and podcasts all about the show. Also, if you want more great TV news sent your way, then be sure to sign up for our weekly CarterMatt newsletter. (Photo: Spike TV)