STEAMPUNK’D Delivers Some Hari-Kari This Week

Challenge #3: “Wild Wild East”

This week: the teams are challenged to bring steampunk to the bedroom, and along the way we find out just whether or not James can lead, whether or not J.W. has learned humility, and whether or not Ave and Morgan can get along.

The answer to all of those is the same, but … spoilers.

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Challenge 3: Asian Steampunk Bedroom

“Wild Wild East”
Female assassin character
Day-to-night mechanism gadget

TEAM JAMES: James, Ave, Charles, Morgan

TEAM J.W.: J.W., Karienne, Tayliss, Eddie

Special Guest Judge: Carter Oosterhouse from Trading Spaces

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JASON: On this week’s episode, we officially begin the count of “Ave’s Dramatic Moments”.

SONYA: Oh really?  I’m not doing that count, you can do that count, I want NO part of that count.

We can let Jake do it.

That fine, but I want no part of that.

I suppose we should begin at the beginning. This week’s challenge gave us an opportunity for plenty of off-color humor and bedroom jokes — which, thankfully, we didn’t get — along with some interesting visuals with the addition of the “Wild Wild East” component. Of course, for those of us in the know — and who isn’t? — not all Asian flavors of decor go together.

James, as one of the team captains, chose most of the team he had last week, and his first selection was no surprise. He and Ave seem to have formed a bit of a bond last week, and we see that play out this week as well.

Yes, it didn’t shock me that he kept his team from last week.  I did notice that J.W. seemed to have more purpose behind the team he chose.  He just didn’t chose them out of loyalty.  He had specific things in mind and their team started off pretty strong.  He seemed a bit softer in barking orders about his vision, but he didn’t disappoint when he got into it with Eddie.  Well, they didn’t really get into it, but he was pushing, even if Eddie wasn’t pushing back, much.

I was expecting Eddie to get a little more riled than he did, which speaks more to his character than to J.W.’s. And while J.W. was making very strategic choices for his team, it almost felt like he picked Eddie more to do the grunt work than to bring in his mechanical specialty.

J.W. seems almost obsessed with fabricating simple machines for his designs. Eddie probably had some decent ideas for making the armored windows work, but we never got to see that.

I suppose we should share the design ideas for both teams. Team J.W. was working off the idea that the character was an Asian princess who also happened to be an assassin, and her value was such that her room was armored. The “day to night” mechanism would have been sliding armor panels that covered the windows.

Team James worked up a design that centered around a geisha who also happened to be a secret agent type. The mechanism design had a fan as part of a dragon on the wall. The fan was the element to change the room mode from “day to night”, and I thought it was executed very well.

There were several things from each room that I liked.  That fan was definitely my favorite from either room.  The mechanism was cool and James was really proud of himself, as he should have been.  My second was Tayliss’ costume.  That costume was GORGEOUS.  There is no other way to describe it.  From the shoes to the cherry blossom in her hair, the detail paid to that costume was just beautiful.  Tayliss is just great with a sewing machine, she hasn’t missed a beat!   But wait, there’s more…the swords!  Swords?  Daggers?  Not sure.  Karianne rocked them, having never worked with foam she said.  That was amazing.

I was surprised she made those out of foam. I wonder if there’s any Worbla in the shop.

Tayliss definitely was on her game this week. And remember she’s never designed a kimono before, and one of the judges remarked that not only did it look right, but she knew how to wear it correctly.

J.W. did well to pick them for his team. Although speaking of cherry blossoms, that brings us to the other contestant doing something for the first time, with Charles crafting a mural for Team James.

Oh, yes!  How could I forget the tree? It took up the entire wall, it made the room.  With the tree on one wall and the fan on the other, I thought they were on track for the win.  But… Karianne’s newfound talent didn’t end with her bedroom swordplay.  She also made a cherry blossom mural that rested directly over the bed in Team J.W.’s bedroom.  It made a great focal point.

That painting certainly caught the eye of judge Matt King, who thought it was a repurposed piece of canvas based on how Karianne finished it.

King was also the one who gritched that James’ room looked like an Asian catalog exploded in it, with Japanese pieces next to Chinese next to Cantonese; basically calling James out for not knowing his Asian decor.

James even admitted that he wasn’t familiar enough with “Asian steampunk” to have a handle on the room, and I think that eventually worked against him, even though I thought the room came together pretty well. James even managed to work in electrical work, something he’s not done a lot in his steampunk career.

Yes, and this is where I had a ton of questions.  We almost had to pause the show because I needed a lot of explanation.  Here’s this guy who admits he’s not familiar with Asian steampunk, he’s not getting any help in this regards to his team, so it’s safe to say they didn’t know either. It’s a 3 day build…don’t they have a cell phone in the evening?  Can’t they look this stuff up to make sure he’s got all Japanese decor, or all Korean decor, etc.?

How would anyone expect anyone else (unless they work with Asian decor or are Asian) to know something that finite? Episode 1 and 2 seemed to deal with broad terms directly related to Steampunk.  So if he doesn’t know this stuff and you can’t look it up (maybe they are secluded?)  What ELSE are you going to do, but look at stuff and say, “Well, this LOOKS Asian, and it’s cool, here put it in the room”  LOL

Then came the question of J.W.’s fascination with manufacturing thing from scratch instead of taking something and steampunking it.  I don’t know the terminology.  It shows. LOL  Eddie was really making an issue of this off camera.  So much so that I thought it would lose it for them…but (spoliers)  it didn’t.

Yes, the essence of steampunk is re-purposing material instead of creating it from whole cloth. Gears, gauges, watches, chains, brass, pipe fittings, and the like — all go into the aesthetic, and even though Eddie managed to get a few pieces in the room, it was obvious Eddie was frustrated with J.W.’s almost Amish fascination with making everything out of wood and rope.

Re-purposing!  There’s the word.  Amish?  Hm.  I don’t think the Amish use that color of green. Why does he like that green?

Well, it was a lighter lime color the first week…

But speaking of green – as in envy – let’s finally claw into the (meow!) daggers flying between Ave and Morgan.

Aw, yes…the girls, the girls.  My goodness, the girls.

I love baseball.  My boys have been playing it since they were 3 years old.  Everything relates to baseball. You can learn a lot from baseball.  The best part is: Three strikes, and you’re out!  FIRST, Ave cries, NEXT, she faints (very badly, too, but she scared a producer so brownie points for good acting), and FINALLY she cut the damn skirt ON PURPOSE!!!

If she didn’t cut that skirt on purpose, then she’s really dumb because she couldn’t see that it was a completed skirt.  So either she’s vindictive or she’s stupid.  Pick your adjective, Ave.

I’m going to say it was probably a little of both. Ave clearly doesn’t know as much about costuming as she thinks she does. Add to that, she’s working off the judges’ challenge to do something other than her mechanical device so she doesn’t end up being a “one-trick pony” and going home. She probably has just enough experience with costume design that she thinks it’s an easy way for her to contribute since she’s not in charge.

Add to that her animosity with Morgan from the very beginning of the challenge, and her arrogance in thinking she knows more than she does, and you end up with the both of them working at cross purposes. Ave dismissed Morgan from the get-go because Ave grabbed costuming as a task and then Morgan jumped in with her claim of expertise on that.

By the time Ave cut the skirt — which, by the way, she’s got to wear — I can very easily see Ave not paying attention to anything Morgan’s doing because it’s not important. Ave has dismissed Morgan because 1) she isn’t part of the established team, and 2) she jumped into territory Ave already claimed as her own.

It’s entirely possible Ave cut the skirt on purpose, but I can see it going both ways. I also don’t think she’s stupid.

Nope, can’t be both.  You have to be smart to be vindictive. I should know.

James missed an opportunity to tame these chicas and come out looking like a great leader.  Opportunity missed.

Definitely. James should have stepped in when it seemed like things were going sideways. Except they were both telling him they were fine, when they clearly weren’t, but I’m wondering how much of it he saw given that he was working up the electrical — something he’s not done very much, and he was probably sweating bullets just because he’s the captain.

He was too busy sorting Asian decor, wrong! LOL

I kept wondering about who Ave reminded me of dressed up in her costume.  It was killing me during the show, I just couldn’t remember.  Then she took forever trying to make the costume thing work.  I think even Morgan rolled her eyes during the LONG wait. It was a few seconds, but in T.V. time, it felt long and silent.  Dead time.  Anyway, it hit me.  She looked like Chun Li from unMortal Kombat!  The little buns in her hair.  I kept thinking during the dead time of the “costume change”, if she passes out now, it would be more exciting than watching her fiddle with the “switch”.  I can’t even remember how the jacket was suppose to switch.

The switch was supposed to be part of the “day to night” transition. I think the original idea was for the jacket to be reversible, only Ave screwed up Morgan’s design with the addition of the big leather epaulets on the shoulders.

Oh yeah.  I forgot about that.  They just didn’t work together at all.  They blamed each other in the end. Said the other should go home, when asked. It was just ugliness.  So they pose the question to James, “Who should go home?”  Of course, James says he should go home, and he does.  I really thought it should have been Ave.  It shocked me she wasn’t in the bottom two. I really believe they took James’ comment as a sign of weakness instead of honest humility.  Basically, if you think you should go home, then we’ll send you home.  It was shame.  I was very disappointed to see him go.

I figured Ave and Morgan would be the bottom two. James was probably giving an honest opinion — and a leader takes responsibility for his team’s failure — but he pretty much fell on his sword with that one.

And I expected his team’s room to win, too. I was very surprised that J.W.’s room won.

Guest judge Carter Oosterhouse from Trading Spaces nailed it when he pointed up the failure of J.W.’s mechanisms. The team should have used Eddie’s specialty and gone with the re-purposed motors.

J.W. again demonstrates his arrogance, although it was diminished somewhat this week. But I’m going to lean toward that being a product of the show being edited to play up the drama between Ave and Morgan. I don’t think J.W. has mellowed or learned anything yet.

Yeah, how can a room that doesn’t incorporate the theme of Steampunk win a Steampunk competition?  Also, only ONE armored door moved. Their only mechanism didn’t even work how it was suppose to work.  I was very confused by this episode.  So, who are the leaders for next week?

Next week pits Tayliss against Karianne.

Aw, yes!  Tayliss and Karianne, some girl on girl action.  Sorry, Jason, had to do it.  The cheesy bedroom joke has been done.

And with that, I think we’re covered. Next week, we’ll be back with another recap and discussion. And we want to hear from you. What did you think of this week’s show? Predictions for next week?

No, I’m tired of being wrong.  I’ll just see how these two ladies play this out.  They are very talented. It should be a good one.