‘Ink Master’ season 2 premiere review: The ink is back

There are a number of great programs on TV Tuesday night, but “Ink Master” is one that we have admittedly been looking forward to for some time. It’s the ultimately guilty pleasure show for the hardcore: it’s like “Top Chef” but with tattoo, and everything about the tone here is top-notch. There is crazy drama, at least three people spent the entire premiere talking about not “being there to make friends.” Of course you’re not there to make friends! We also knew that this was going to be an interesting season when a guy introduced himself by saying that he first learned how to do tattoos in prison. Oh boy.

If you’ve seen the show before, then the format should be familiar to you: the show starts with this show’s version of a quickfire, where a winner is chosen who gets an advantage in the latter elimination challenge. Jesse Smith won what was a battle of carving tattoos on “dead bodies” (which were really just models) in a morgue, and he then got to choose who would work with various human canvases. The theme this week? Tattooing people for the first time. There was certainly plenty of shocking moments here, from a client wanting the New York skyline made out of bacon to a woman in Cee Jay Jones who legitimately misspelled the word “Corinthians” on her client’s back. We actually liked the rest of her tattoo, but this is the sort of thing that is almost career-ending when it happens on TV (even if it is just a mistake). Therefore, it’s no surprise that she was sent home.

Overall, we really just cannot wait for more of this show. It’s creative, intense, and it brings a nice, no-holds-barred look to reality TV where there aren’t any sob stories and the people who are fighting seem more than capable of actually getting into it.

Do you love this show, and what did you think about the premiere?