Ink Master: Angels review: Did Jimmy Butcher defeat Ryan Ashley Malarkey?
For starters, let’s look at the Angels themselves, who are showing off a little bit more comfort and personality than they had a chance to back in season 1. We understand more of who they are as people and that works towards establishing their worldview as critics. While we didn’t love the idea at first of the artist knowing from the start of the episode who they were competing against, it does add a touch of story into each episode since there’s a built-in rivalry between the artists and an angel from the beginning.
Second, the Paramount Network series is actually giving us a better sense as to who these artists are, even more than Ink Master season 10 is. One of the largest struggles we’ve had in the process of watching this season of the main show is that it doesn’t feel like we know many of the artists all that well … save for the ones we met on Angels. The coaches just sap away a lot of the air time, and that’s of course in addition to the judges.
Tonight’s episode featured artists in Savannah and that included Clay McCay, Brittany Lively, and Jimmy Butcher, and of these three watching the rivalry between Clay and Jimmy was rather entertaining. They work on the same street and through the competition, they came to respect each other a little bit more. This episode was less about watching rivals bark at each other (which we saw a lot of during the first season) and a little more about seeing people show dimension. It’s a more interesting story to know that there is respect there, even if it may feel for Clay like Jimmy encroached somewhat on his territory back when his shop first opened.
Jimmy was the artist who eventually squared off with Ryan and by and large, both of their emotional tattoos honoring shooting victims were great. Nonetheless, the final decision was probably the right one: Ryan came out on top, and technically it felt a little bit more like she had the better tattoo. There was a lot of depth to what she did and a lot of proficiency. Technically, hers was strong enough to compensate for maybe a little bit of a readability issue. Any critique we give in general is totally from an armchair quarterback perspective as someone with zero tattooing experience who would fall on their face doing any of these sort of challenges.
CarterMatt Verdict
Ink Master: Angels is on its A-game right now, delivering episodes that are about tattoos but also about people. There seems to be an understanding here by the producers that there needs to be something more than just a format and this time around, they are executing that in some exciting ways.
What did you think about this week’s Ink Master: Angels episode, and did the right person go home? Share right now in the comments!
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Also, you can check out our exclusive interview with Ryan here or with Nikki here. (Photo: Paramount Network.)