Ink Master season 9 episode 2 video: Is someone cheating?

On Ink Master season 9 episode 2 (airing on Tuesday night), there’s the potential for controversy and while there is that potential every season, this time it seems to be a little more serious. This time around it’s all thanks to an accusation of cheating that is flying towards one of the contestants. Was there cheating going on during an elimination tattoo? There’s an indication that this could have been the case, but until we actually see the episode and see what’s happening it’s hard to know if this is just promo hype or if someone actually broke the rules.

The main component that is missing from the new promo is the “who is cheating” part of the equation — so you’ll be left to watch the episode in order to find out! That is not the only mystery that is present going into this episode, as you’re also going to have to see who the new team is joining the competition. Much like the season with an All-Star twist, every week a shop goes home, another one comes into the game. It’s frustrating for everyone out there who’s a fan of fairness, given that someone could seemingly make it all the way to the end and win without having to actually compete in a good half of the season. For us that would be a disappointing winner, much like when Big Brother gives huge advantages to players that save them or help them get to the winner’s circle.

Alas, this preview doesn’t give you too much more insight into what is coming, but it does offer you further insight into how this show is going to continue to handle the whole Shop Wars twist. It’s a bit of an adjustment to not be able to refer to any of the artists individually since they are there representing the shop more so then themselves. Maybe this is better for business to get the name of the shop out there, but for us the artists are the stars and are the reason people go to a shop in the first place. Like for us, We would go anywhere that Tim Hendricks is working to get a tattoo, and it makes no difference to us what shop he’s working at. One of the interesting experiments after this season (though it may be hard to quantify) is learning whether or not the show focusing on the shops has actually helped overall business.

All in all, this looks like a dramatic episode — if you recall, the other preview for tonight’s episode (you can read more about it here) featured someone threatening to walk out of the competition early. – which is not unheard of on this show. Ink Master is one of the more stressful competitions out there and as we have seen over the years on this show, there are also a lot of fragile egos. Every season there’s at least one person that talks about quitting and in some cases have actually quit (or been talked out of quitting like Tatu Baby in season 3).

Tonight, there will be a full review for this Ink Master episode online at the link here. For now, be sure to share some early expectations in the comments! What do you think will happen with the cheaters, if the cheating is as serious as it seems? Let us know below. (Photo: Spike.)