Ink Master season 10 episode 5 review: A surprising person gets a tattoo…
We’ll admit that the elimination of Katie Rhoden, good as she is, was completely overshadowed tonight by seeing the decision from Anthony Michaels to become a human canvas in order to save Mike Diaz from elimination. His original human canvas walked out on him when Mike made it clear that he was not going to be able to do what he was asking for. We do think that there was some miscommunication along the way in terms of what the guy wanted and what Mike wanted to give him, but that canvas really was a jerk about it. He was super-condescending to Mike, who is an artist who was trying to do his best. Maybe he did bait-and-switch him as Oliver Peck suggested, but we don’t think he did so with malice or any poor intent – he just wanted to give this canvas the best tattoo he could.
Ultimately, Anthony did step in and offer up his skin in order for Mike and he did his best tattoo of the entire season. It’s clean, legible, and it fit the theme (pixels) of the challenge. We wish that many other people had some of the same luck, especially Steve Tefft’s team. They were looking last week like they may have been underestimated (especially Steve who free-handed a portrait this season!!!) but here, they were a mess. Katie went home and just didn’t seem as though she was a good fit in this environment. Meanwhile, Fame went from being at the top of the leaderboard to being near the bottom. He was lucky that Katie screwed up — we suppose that Lil’ D’s tattoo was not good enough to be safe, but at least his was legible and we knew what it was. It would’ve probably been better to put Daniel Silva in the bottom for whatever that was that he drew. He had one of his typical intricate designs that he tried to pass off as fitting the challenge; then, he put a bunch of pixels at the top when he started to get insecure about it. The whole tattoo made zero sense and we’re shocked that he wasn’t in more danger. It doesn’t really matter if you are a good tattooer or not if you are putting out that kind of work and not really meeting the challenge.
Before we move on, how about some credit to Jason Elliott for completely delivering on what was a pretty tough tattoo? He won tattoo of the day over Josh Payne, which marks yet another occasion in which Josh has done great work and has still not won.
Team DJ comes roaring back
It’s pretty clear at this point that Lil’ D is on borrowed time, but it’s hard to envision a situation where Josh, Frank Ready, or Deanna Smith go home the next few weeks. They were instrumental in the Flash Challenge win and, leading out of this episode, we’re probably more confident with the three of them than anyone on Team Steve.
What we’re the most curious about coming out of this episode is whether or not Anthony sacrificing himself really inspires the rest of his team to do better and create even stronger work. He is, by far, killing it as a coach. We’re not sure either DJ or Steve would’ve done what he did.
CarterMatt Verdict
We’d say that as a whole, Ink Master season 10 episode 5 delivered on a lot of great stuff, whether it be getting to see Anthony as a canvas or watching the plan to sabotage Jason completely backfire. We are slightly bummed that Katie’s elimination was almost a non-factor, especially since she was such a great character the past few weeks.
What did you think about Ink Master season 10 episode 5? Did you think that the right person went home? Be sure to share below!
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