Ink Master season 10 episode 11 review: Is this the biggest elimination yet?

Ink Master season 10 episode 11 almost played an interesting mind-game on all of us as viewers. After all, about halfway through the episode it felt clear who was probably going home. Yet, it was almost hard to believe it was happening and we spent the entire second half of the episode looking to see if there was a way out for that artist.

In the end, though, there wasn’t, and with that Frank Ready has departed the season well before his time. He was one of the strongest and most-consistent artists this season, and seemed to be plagued mostly by just having a bad day and producing a design that the judges deemed fairly simply for the challenge but also inconsistent and messy. Frank himself knew that it wasn’t his best work and he almost expected to go home over it. The funny thing is that from afar, this tattoo actually looked pretty great — you didn’t really start to see some of the issues until you got a little bit closer to the design. This is why we’re not a judge on this show! Visually we actually thought that the tattoo was more appealing than either Jeremy Brown or Deanna Smith’s, but it’s about how the design looks close-up in addition to how it looks far away.

In general, though, the main theme of the challenge in this episode was rather nice since it put the contestants into a position where they could create a lot of different ideas and designs — they were only limited by the location in the sternum. It was pretty clear from the halfway point, as well, that Juan Salgado was going to win tattoo of the day given how much he discussed his love of Puerto Rico during the episode and how this particular challenge was for them. It is somewhat of a surprise that Juan hasn’t won tattoo of the day until now given that he and Josh Payne are probably the two most consistent artists on the season.

Is anyone else feeling that there could be a final three this season with one member from each team? It doesn’t even seem like you’d need to force the issue for that to happen. Roly T-Rex seems to be on the rise on Team Steve, and we certainly think that him versus Josh and Juan could be compelling television. We held firm to the idea of Deanna getting a winning edit most of the season and that may still be true, but for now we’re starting to think that it may be a fourth-place edit and that could be perceived as a victory in its own right given how she has little experience she has compared to most of the other artists who are left.

DJ Tambe just can’t win Flash Challenges

We don’t know if there is really anything that matters with this, but Anthony Michaels beat him in the Flash Challenge this week doing something that DJ apparently does a lot of in his daily life. If you’re invested in the coaches’ face-off at the end of the season, maybe the narrative of DJ as a possible comeback kid excites you.

CarterMatt Verdict

Ink Master season 10 episode 11 was incredibly entertaining, so much so that it was able to overcome some predictability both in terms of the worst and best tattoos of the day. This is the biggest elimination at least since Matt Buck on a talent level, and with Anthony still having three artists left it feels like he’s in the driver’s seat for now.

What did you think about Ink Master this week and are you upset by Frank’s elimination? Share below!

Also, be sure to like CarterMatt on Facebook to get some more scoop on the show including some previews as well as interviews with the artists. (Photo: Paramount Network.)