STEAMPUNK’D Delivers a Straight Flush

Challenge #6″20,000 Leauges”

This week, it’s Team Eddie vs. Team J.W. in a head-to-head contest that leaves us flushed with excitement. Or something… And host Jeannie Mai looks like she’s auditioning for the sequel to Dredd.

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Challenge 6: Bathroom

Nautical Design
Functional Water Pump
Wardrobe: Pajamas

TEAM EDDIE: Eddie, Morgan, Charles
TEAM J.W.: J.W., Ave

Guest Judge: cosplay celeb Chloe Dykstra, whose father John made The Empire Strikes Back what it is (go look up the Dykstraflex Camera…).

 

JASON: Most of the manor is complete. Just a few more rooms to go, and now we get to one of the most important rooms in the house — the bathroom. The challenge this week I thought was a little too cliched — a nautical theme in the bathroom? But then I remembered I have ship art all over my master bedroom/bath, too. So never mind.

SONYA:  I wouldn’t call it the most important room, but if you think so, okay.  I liked the nautical theme, but I have flowers in my bathroom, so that’s probably why I didn’t think it was that cliched.

So, with that said, it was interesting to see just how different the designs were. Eddie’s room was more whimsical, where J.W. went for the solid Jules Verne look — his was the more realistic of the two, I thought, with the “lived in and used” feel to it.

I loved watching J.W. hunt and gather in the Punkyard, with Ave following him around like a lost puppy.  He was off to the races, and she was struggling to keep up.

Yes, she’s clearly starting to feel out of her depth, which is in keeping with my prediction from a few weeks ago. But we’ll get to that anon…

Yes, Jason, we will validate your correctness later.  Or now, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right.  Ave can’t sew, and she finally admits in this episode.  I don’t recall her ever actually saying it in other episodes, but I could be wrong.  She says she need to hot glue stuff and J.W. was being very firm with her about making sure everything was hand sewn.  Well, you can’t draw blood from a stone and Ave eventually found her handy glue gun.

You’re right about Ave not having mentioned her lack of skills before now. And she even makes the distinction here that she and Morgan are on completely different levels when it comes to building costumes. So J.W. was right to push her into upping her game.

Morgan, in the meantime, faces a challenge with the costume design this week. Steampunk pajamas.

 

It was strange to see her putting it off.  I kept waiting for her to get started, then when she admitted she was “stuck”, I was like, “What?!”  LOL  Miss Morgan has been whipping out costumes left and right, to see her struggling, was strange. I thought her final product was cute.  It didn’t really match the room, and the judges mentioned that.  

Yes, it was much more “flapper” than “steampunk,” and I think that factored into the decision when they chose the room. Eddie’s team just didn’t quite bring it this week, even though his water pump mechanism was pretty well executed. But even Eddie faced a challenge with that. We saw him struggle with a design at the same time Morgan was fighting the costume. Charles seemed to be the only one who didn’t have much of a mental block this week, but his shortcuts on the harpoon were just a little too noticeable.

It seemed a little bit too much like, “Someone has to go home”, it’s going to be you, Charles, um, let’s find a reason, um, um, um, HE USED ZIP TIES, Goodbye. Ave glued a weak looking costume together.  That’s all she did.  She gets to stay?  Ave has been weak for weeks.  J.W. did the whole room.  I really liked Eddie’s pump, but the simplicity of J.W.’s pump was pretty cool too.

It fit more with the whole “form follows function” design of the room. And while Ave was certainly weak in her part of the design, she’s on the winning team so she’s automatically safe. That won’t be the case next week.

J.W. really went crazy in that bathroom design.  It looked cool.  I did like it better than Eddie’s bathroom.  The pump in Eddie’s bathroom was the big focal point, it just wasn’t enough.  

Definitely could have used more of the steampunk tchotchkes that he’s included in the other rooms — gauges, pipes, and more of the stuff that would make it work as a steampunk design. I liked the rivets, but without the pipes it didn’t seem like we were in a metal room. Just a space with rivets that served no purpose,

Miss Morgan’s stenciling was beautiful though, with the rivets and the mirror.  You’re right, without the pipes, it fell on flat walls. LOL

I like what Charles did with the tub, though. He’s very good at the metallic finishes and aging. But I think the other challenge for him was fitting in with Morgan and Eddie.

Yes, he seemed out of the loop and out of place.  I thought the portholes looked like something that would be in a kid’s bathroom, but that might just be me.

That’s a good way to look at it, I think. The design just didn’t quite come together. As the judges noted, the whole thing worked more within the story than the actual room itself, whereas J.W.’s submarine design really came together. Matt King called it “verisimilitude”.

Yes!  Hearing Eddie tell that story was pure entertainment!  J.W. isn’t much of a story teller.  He seemed very out of his element explaining the room and explaining  Ave’s splashes of red here and there that were CLEARLY not part of J.W.’s original design.  He was just letting Ave add something, not just the costume.

I think the contrast worked into the story they told. And the overcoat was a nice touch. It really felt like something the crew would give to a woman who was clearly out of place in the sub.

J.W. and Ave, come out with the big win.  It was hard to call this one.  It went down to the wire for me.  J.W. took first maker, Eddie took second, so they will be team captains yet again.  (I’m seeing a pattern here)  J.W. will get to choose first.  You think he’ll go with Ave again?  It’s smart if he does.

I think J.W. will choose Ave more to avoid Morgan, and also to have a little puppy follow him around. We’re definitely into the weeks where the strongest designers are the last ones in the game.

He needs to keep his real competition off his team.  That way he can knock them off.  Save a weakling like Ave on his team, easy to beat in the end. That’s how I’d play it.  If he picks Morgan, it’s a sure save.  They are too strong to beat. Secretly, I want to see boys against the girls. But, that can’t happen with the captains chosen.

Plus, Eddie and Morgan already have a rapport, so I’d expect those two to work together again. Next week is going to be where the challenge starts to get really tight. Morgan’s going to have to really step up to stay in the game. Right now, it’s not looking so good for her after Ave gets booted.

Eddie may want Ave on his team for the same reason, though.  Keep the weak link, and win the challenge yourself.   We shall see.  It’s getting down to the wire.

Either way, next week, they’re going to tell Ave she’s… the weakest link.

Until next week.