[Jonathan] The top six qualifying teams
have entered Halloween Wars main competition.
Let's get ready to battle!
Tonight, each team will face some killer obstacles...
Welcome to my world man.
[Jonathan] ...and must turn the simplest of treats into elevated desserts.
This is the best thing I've ever eaten.
Which squad will survive?
And get that much closer to being named, Halloween Wars Champions
-and win the grand prize of 25,000 dollars. - Yeah, yeah.
Congratulations,
on surviving our qualifying rounds.
Unfortunately, Snax Sabbath had to leave the competition.
So, Pumpkin up the Volume, you'll be taking their place
we're excited to welcome you back.
Tonight, there will not be a small scare
because we are going into the big ticket spine chiller challenge.
At the end of this round, one of teams here will be cut from the competition.
So, let's see what our cute little Cassida has
in store for this very challenging challenge.
Ah.
Oh, no.
[man] Uh-oh.
I know what this means, clowns are not my thing.
-Uh-huh, I'm not doing this. -[honks]
-[laughs maniacally] -Anyway, in this Spine Chiller Challenge,
we... Oh, come on.
The only thing scarier than a scary clown
is a scary clown that can't follow a cue.
-Go. -[honks]
So for this horrifying display
we want you to imagine an innocent carnival or circus goer
being terrorized by a creepy clown.
-Oh, God. -[Jonathan] And each team must create their tasting element
using a favorite carnival treat
randomly assigned by this creepy clown.
Oh.
[Jonathan] There's caramel corn, cotton candy, chocolate dipped bananas
funnel cake, fried sandwich cookies
and a caramel apple.
You have got just seven hours.
Your time starts now.
-Oh, my God. -Creepy, creepy clowns come to scare me.
You ready to get started?
If this is redemption, you guys.
We're back to so crazy.
I think the most important thing we need to do this time
is make sure that we could show the judges, we know how to tell a story.
[Timmy] Okay, so what can be our clown doing?
-He should be like scaring somebody, right? -Scaring.
Okay, so what about we do it may be in a girl or boy?
-A little boy or... -Girl.
[Timmy] We decided that our clown would be a butcher
sneaking out on a little girl
from his circus that he's turned into his butcher shop.
And there's body parts all over the circus.
You know what my favorite game was?
The one with the hammer.
-Hell yeah, what do you call it? -The straight one. Yeah.
-We need that big, like iconic bell at the top. -Yep.
The story, we're gonna roll with is the knick knack clown
he takes his victims over to the hammer game
and give them knick-knack paddy whack on the head
collect some of the body parts as souvenirs and has his fun.
What about like, a puppet master?
-Like a really evil puppet master. -Oh.
-Marionette. Yeah. -A marionette, yeah.
Our team is going to make a killer puppet master
controlling an innocent marionette puppet.
-A lollipop. -Like a little girl?
-With a lollipop. -That can be our victim.
-Kids... -If I'm lured by sugar all the time.
Instead of making a main character, clown
the killer clown is going to be
a haunted tunnel, drawing people into it
but they're never gonna return.
What are the games in the carnivals?
-Balloons. -There's like the balloons. There's...
-The Dunk tank. -Or the...
What if in the dunk tank we put piranhas?
So the story for our spine chiller is
a clown that takes over a run-down carnival
luring on unsuspecting victims and having them go into the dunk tank
while his assistant starts poring piranhas into it.
Oh, no.
How about a cannon?
-All right. -All right.
For the killer clown, we have chose Sparky the clown
to lure the people to become human cannibals.
He's smoking the cigar and lighting the cannon.
-I'm gonna get pumpkins. -All right.
-Welcome back, guys. -Thank you.
Too bad, I'm gonna send you home again.
I don't know about that.
[Timmy] Drew is sculpting the face of the clown.
And he's just carving away
all of the texture so that he can add in the creases.
He's going for a really menacing sneaky look on the clowns face.
I'm gonna get started on the backdrops so we can get that out of the way.
I'm making some red strokes for our circus tent.
We're gonna set the stage by using a circus tent
so that our clown will turn it into a butcher shop.
We want this to look very innocent and welcoming.
I'm gonna try to make an actual balloon.
You know, I have to have a reference.
[Timmy] Vanessa is gonna make some balloon animals out of sugar.
Three little a tushy, right?
There can't be anything cuter than her saying tushy.
Getting the guts out of here now so I can start trimming a good piece out of here.
Dennis, instead of carving faces out of pumpkins and stuff like that
he's gonna be actually making the strength game out of pumpkin.
We're taking a little bit of a risk.
I think it'll be impressive if it can be done right.
This is how it's gonna look.
[Nils] Corinda's gonna run right into making the clown
and the unsuspecting fair guard guy.
You gotta lather him up with some stuff here, some chocolate.
What are you doing now?
Uh, I'm about to start on the mallet that the clown will be using.
So the chocolate is now setting up enough to cut it properly.
We want to look a little old. We don't wanna look too new
because he is a little bit aged, he's old school.
So it'll really look nice.
[Janette] This round we're really making sure that we're getting the scale perfect.
So that the judge won't ding us again.
We have seven hours,
and I plan on focusing on the puppet for six of the seven hours
to really get the details I want in there.
I did some chocolate in the rice cereal treats
so that when it dries, it kind of adds extra support and hopefully will dry in time.
Or I will say cool down in time.
Sylvian is working on the pastillage curtains.
Pastillage is similar to gum paste,
but it dries quicker and stronger.
Yeah, I'm making some movement to the curtain.
So that it kind of look natural.
[Janette] And Roger is working on the clown's hands and fingers.
I'm gonna a actually sculpt it kind of like a palm
and then I'm gonna take another piece of butternut squash and
sculpt the other fingers,
so you'll have this nice cupped hand with some popcorn in it.
I'm discovering I might be one of those people with fear of clown.
-[Janette laughs] -I am definitely afraid of clowns.
-I hate 'em. -Yeah, so am I.
What are you looking for in this challenge?
Well, first of all the scariest
cake creations we've ever seen on Halloween Wars
-have involved clowns. -Yes.
Clowns are inherently sort of two faced.
-Yeah. -So, I want to see the sweetness.
-Yeah. -The sort of drawing the people in and
then we need to see the darkness.
[Kristina] There is a lot for this challenge
alone is hitting that backboard right away.
Once it's airbrushed, it'll look the way we wanted it to look.
[Kristina] That's gonna take her probably a couple of hours.
And Teresa starts on her porch sugar pieces.
Ah...
That's cool.
I'm gonna be doing the little girl's head and dress out of pumpkin.
So for the skirt, I really wanna give it a lace detail on the bottom.
Just so you can see that it's you know, multiple ruffles underneath.
That looks so good, Kristina.
[Lisa] I took rice cereal and I'm carving it with chocolate so it's nice and firm.
I'm making the cannon.
I'm shaping this nice round butt area.
Lori is going to work on the back piece.
[Lori] Our backdrop is crate.
And we're just doing different variations of brown shades.
It's little pieces of boxes that we're covering with fondant.
I'm, uh, starting the bottom of this, uh, clown.
Dean's working on the clown's body.
This is usually the thickest part of the pumpkin.
See the resemblance? [laughs]
Oh, right now I'm creating the little piranhas to fill the dunk tank.
They're gonna be attacking our victim.
Our plan to get everything on the display
is gonna be to get all the must have details out first.
Ooh, what you doing?
I'm going to start doing the letters for our sign.
-The car... -The carnival.
[Maythe] I start with a square I can pretty much
carve my letters kind of the same side.
Look at these.
-That's a nice circus spot. -Right.
Based on the way things went last time with the peanut brittle
I got to make sure they've got that tasting element down.
We decide to put our tasting elements as the buttons for our clown.
And we've got our cashew cream puff with
a granny smith marscapone whip and a spiced caramel apple... Whooo.
I've got some of that Saigon cinnamon.
Pate a choux is almost like a very airy cream puff.
There are no chemical leaveners in it.
So you want to make sure that you've got all of the steps to get it created properly
otherwise it's not gonna give it that puff.
I need bread flour.
Now, I wanna put these guys on top.
And I'm going to [bleep]
Vikki!
I don't know how this works.
Um...
-Vikki! -Sorry I went to get a bigger pan.
Sure, make it the pan's fault.
You almost burned our station.
[Vikki] Thankfully, Maythe jumped on it fast enough.
I almost died.
We only lost a little bit.
So I should be able to adjust the flour and shouldn't have to start over.
[grunts]
[Vikki] You can't really have a cream puff without the puff part.
So, I've made pate a choux before
and I'm not really gonna worry about it
because this is gonna come out just fine.
I'm glad to hear that. [laughs]
The, uh, pate a choux topping is crackling,
whenever it fakes, it just starts to crack almost like old paint.
I'll give it almost like a fuzzy texture that I hope do the buttons.
Okay, pate is in the oven.
The inherent difficulty about this challenge that you and the house came up with...
-Yes, thank you. -Well done.
...is that you have asked them all to create not one but two characters.
[Aarti] There has to be a victim, there has to be a clown.
And so, I really love how some of these teams have taken them on.
Meaning Deadly Intentions is just doing the face and the hand of the clown.
Right? Brilliant.
-The Fun House, same sort of idea. -Same idea. Yeah.
Some of these teams have painted themselves into a corner,
by having to do two entire characters.
They do have seven hours but you know how fast that can go.
Let's leave it over there. Ohooh...
I'm gonna be at least 80 inches out.
Well, I can't blow these in one shot.
So, I'm deconstructing it.
The process of making a sugar balloon animal
is a little bit different than making an actual balloon animal.
Three sets of two balloons together.
And then one, two, three in the tushy.
But I have to make. It's a process.
It's all about the details.
Only five hours left.
Oh, here he comes again Dennis the Menace.
[Dennis] I'm gonna do the tent and I'll be on the moon shortly.
For background, Dennis came up with the idea to paint sort of a circus tent in the back.
He's going to try to make it look like it's a back bin.
Looking good, Dennis.
Dennis is highly talented in multiple mediums, you name it he does it.
He's been in illustrating for a long time
he got into pumpkin carving about five years ago,
and he's real good at it.
[Corinda] I'm airbrushing some face so we can get a little more depth.
I finished the clown's face. I can make the victim's face now.
Okay, so I need 40 grams of gelatin.
We got cotton candy for the tasting element.
I'm gonna be making toasted cotton candy marshmallows
We're gonna put the toasted cotton candy right along the tree roots
and everything. We think it's gonna blend in nice.
The first thing, I'm gonna need to do is the gelatin blooming
get the sugar and simple syrup and the glucose in the pot boiling.
I'm gonna strain the gelatin best I can
put it in the bottom of the bowl,
pour the hot sugar mixture over it.
And you let it whip, until you get that marshmallow consistency.
The tasting element challenge is Carnival foods which I love,
so much I'm gonna eat all these.
[Aarti] I think the hardest one is cotton candy.
I'm gonna start adding the cotton candy extras.
It's all about that texture and that how do you create that in a tasting element?
[Nils] Nice.
This doesn't have to be perfect
because we are gonna brulee them and then its set time.
[Lisa] I'm gonna use the fondant. I'll try to do the claw first. It's working.
-Then Lisa is gonna do a killer aren't you Lisa? -Yes.
Dean is working on the body of the clown but
Lisa is going to place the head on there
and Dean is going to create the head that is coming out of the cannon.
[Lisa] Dean, what do you think?
-Oh, it's looking good. yeah. -Yeah?
Oh, it makes me feel better.
You know, we definitely gave Lisa the note last time,
that her sculpting wasn't really up to snuff
hopefully that'll give her some more time,
-Yeah. -And just focus on and don't have to worry about
-how it transitions into the body. -Correct.
Check it out.
-His big toe sticking out. -Ah.
-It's so cute, it's brilliant. -That's details.
How do you look?
Normally a soft pumpkin is not a good thing
but he's making it really fast.
-So I'm touching up... -Oh, good.
Thinking about crazy head clown, I'm gonna have short spikey teeth
so I'm gonna out those in.
And then I'm putting in details that kind of resemble
the makeup that most clowns would have.
So how do you feel about this one?
I feel good, I mean the last this I wanna do is, uh...
-go home after this. -Yes, still a lot to show.
You have four hours left.
All right, guys.
-So, you're gonna have enough time to... to finish? -Yeah. It's going.
[Sylvian speaking]
Our tasting element is caramel corn.
We are making a white chocolate popcorn box,
with brownie, chantily and caramel Crémeux layers
topped with caramelized popcorn.
[Sylvian speaking]
[gasps]
That face is awesome, dude.
We have Spice Ghouls making here some sort of fun house?
So it's a fun house where the children come in but they don't usually leave.
-Ooh. -Yes.
[Aarti] All the lines, it's okay if they're a little wavy.
-Fun houses are that. -Right, it has to be a little psychedelic
and so if your lines aren't straight
-that's cool, because that's kind of part of the design. -Yeah.
[Aarti] So, I think that, that's sort of smart.
I still would give her a bow. I think...
-Yeah, yeah I'm gonna give her a bow. -Do you have time for that?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
To represent the carnival goers that did not make it out of the clown tunnel,
I will have some abandoned childhood toys.
I'm almost done.
Oh, my God. It's so cute.
-I love her little backpack. -Yes.
We should have like something sticking out of it.
How are you doing on time?
I mean, I think I'm okay.
-Oh, my God. -Oh, [bleep] .
Oh, no.
-Oh [bleep] . -What happened?
So, since this fondant kind of like started sliding down,
it kind of dyed this red.
Pumpkin and fondant don't mix very well, the dye can transfer on to the pumpkin.
It's should be okay, it looks like making her dress
-pink, red. Something like that. -Red? Yeah.
[Kristina] Things sometimes don't end up the color that they were planned to be.
We have to be careful, because if we get too much leakage
it could be going to other parts of our piece.
Teams, you've got three hours, let's go.
I'm getting a little short on time, so I'm just starting like clown face
you've gotta look good.
I'm getting into the nose of my pumpkin here. You can see it's soft.
You're not gonna get hard detail lines in there
so it's just telling me I gotta back off.
I'm getting my detail lines out here.
This is gonna be potato.
I'm just cutting out basic shapes for my eyes and my teeth.
It saved me a lot of time. They're gonna sit here and oxidize
and get like real hard brown crust on the edge.
It's not like this guy goes to the dentist.
Okay guys, I wanna start doing the face.
For the victim Maythe throws out, "Well, give me a scare face, I'm like..."
And she's just like, "Great. You're gonna be going into the dunk tank."
[Maythe] Mr. Be scared. Not cute.
Get in there, get in there.
Curly like, Vikki.
She's not getting my face.
Details upon details upon details, upon details.
Really trying to sell the creep factor.
[honks]
I'm gonna move on to the girl.
Good.
Really open with this girl I have an expression,
"She's kind of scared and just kind of trying to hide her face a little bit."
For this, I'm gonna put two cups of water.
I'm gonna make a syrup which is going to be super yummy.
[Timmy] For our tasting element we're gonna make picarones.
It's a basically a Peruvian version of the funnel cake.
They're gonna look like intestines,
because all circuses have intestines.
I'm gonna put some, uh, orange peel to give a nice citrusy flavor.
It's a very yummy syrup, it has pineapple, orange
cinnamon sticks, cloves.
-How are we good? -Okay.
This is a childhood dessert. My grandma used to make it.
And I'm doing it in competition, no pressure.
[Sylvian speaking]
Okay.
We have the Deadly Intentions over there.
-Oh, my gosh. -And they're doing marionette.
-Thanks, thanks guys. -Hey, that's really good, Jonathan.
I love the idea of a marionette puppet. There is this look of
-sheer, like sadness on the puppets face. -Mmm-hmm.
[Aarti] Yeah, the thing that I love about Janette's marionette is it
sits on this nice boundary between puppet and human.
-And that's really hard to nail and she has. -Yes.
-So, I put it up there now? -Yeah, you want help?
-It's going to be like the strength machine, if you will? -Yeah.
-What is that called? The strong man machine. -Strong man machine, I...
-I know a lot about it. -Jonathan will know about it.
[bell dinging]
-How many have you got left? -I have to do the side and the...
-Okay, here. -The top.
It looks like Lori is taking a long time on these boxes.
Lori, not to be critical, but I haven't seen anything on the tasting element yet.
[Lori] that's the next thing going on.
I like the way these boxes look, but it's taking forever.
-I'm trimming it. -Okay.
We gotta get tasting going.
[Lori] All right, I'm gonna work on it, right now.
[Lisa] Lori said she was gonna do the tasting.
[Lori] I am actually gonna start the tasting element.
I just want to get something done.
Put something up, I don't want to be behind anymore.
I'm making a chocolate cigar, sauced with a banana custard.
Toasted pecans and dipped in chocolate.
Just give me a little fire.
The caramelization on the top of the banana will simulate the flambe
-of a banana foster. -There you go.
I think we should put it in the fridge.
-Fridge? All right. Cool. -Yeah.
I'm just making a whipped butter cream. This will taste
like an, um, chocolate sandwich cookie.
[Janette] For our tasting element Teresa is making a Deep fried cake pop,
with a vanilla butter cream center and a raspberry dipping jam.
Teresa is gonna be mixing raspberries with fruit pectin.
This is a sandwich cookie and I'm gonna freeze it.
Then it's ready to fry.
You need it crispy.
If it's not crispy, it's a big fail.
So, I'm hoping that I could fry it right before you're ready to go.
We'll see if that materializes.
[Jonathan] Two hours left.
All right. I like the look of that.
Titus made this giant pumpkin clown that's in the front,
and it's about three times larger than the one in the back.
And between the two of them,
there's not a lot of cohesion.
So he's struggling with that.
So I'm going to put the torso
and see if it holds.
It's really incredible to me how much they have in their design.
-And I would hope that they would just stop about now... -[Shinmin] Yeah, okay.
[Aarti] ...and not put anything else on there.
[Titus] Looks good. Looks good.
[sighs]
[sighing] Okay.
These ones came out perfect.
It does look like Vikki...
-...who was struggling with her pâte à choux... -Yeah.
...seems really happy with that, so that's great.
Then next big dun, da, da
-[Jonathan] Yeah. -will be the glass.
So this is the glass front for the dunk tank.
The tricky thing about this is it's a poured sugar piece.
And she's bending it over a silicone mat
under the heat lamp to just, kind of like, ease it into shape.
Once it's set, and if she brings it
to the actual display and it doesn't fit,
like, she would have to start over.
-Right. -You can't re-bend it.
-Coming behind you, May. -Yeah.
-[Maythe] Got it? -[Vikki whispering] Oh...
[bleep]
[both gasps]
-Oh, of course. -Oh, no.
Yeah, this is too short.
Vikki just put the sugar glass on top of the piranha tank,
and it's just too short.
[Aarti] I mean, I would have thought
that would have been part of what she measured.
[Vikki] I'm starting to panic. It's very heavy.
It's very thick and it doesn't really have a lot of grip.
We are running out of time. [sighs] And...
[Shinmin] There's a gaping hole.
If I were her, I would not start over.
I mean, this is her opportunity to add some design,
-like, frame with, like, hardware. -[Jonathan] Frame. Yep.
[Vikki] So we decide that we're gonna go with more fondant
because it's gonna help us to get it to stick.
[Jonathan] There's only one hour left.
Oh, my goodness. We are running out of time.
-You ready for this, Dean? -[Dean] Okay.
-Okay. -[Dean] Give 'em to me in order.
-And here's six. -Okay.
[Aarti] They seem to be quite behind.
-I feel like Lori has been stressed for hours now... -[Shinmin] Yeah, yeah.
...because she's had so much work to do.
We need the top of this one and this one covered.
[Lori] Okay.
[Kristina] So because our main character is a part of the carnival,
I wanna make these teeth seem like they are old, decayed wood pieces
that have been used again and again.
A way to make sure that the teeth don't look too uniform
is to really texturize the front of 'em
so that when they're painted
you can really see that grain texture come through.
I am so in love with this giant clown face right now.
I hope that they finish him.
We need to get everything on this board.
What's that? Oh.
Okay.
[Roger] Can I take that, because I got to...
Can I put that on now?
-[Sylvain] Yes. -[Roger] Okay.
Over here.
So we're just testing the fit right now of the isomalt control bar
in the pumpkin hand.
And normally, like, pumpkin and sugar don't really love each other.
So this is kind of crazy what we're doing here.
[Janette] Okay.
-What do you need? -Nothing.
Just gotta get going.
[Nils] I'm adding cotton candy, sugar.
And I'm gonna hit it with a little bit of torch so it's a little bit warm.
Hopefully, the caramelized outside
will give it that cotton candy hit that I'm looking for.
I am giving this guy some hair,
just so he's not totally bald.
And then I'm gonna move him over
and work on the clown's shoes.
-[Nils] How we doing, Dennis? -Good.
I'm just trying to figure out exactly how I'm gonna get into
-that nose a little more. -[Nils] Yeah, no, you're good.
Get those done and then move to the tree.
because that's, like, the last pumpkin stuff, right?
We're on crunch time.
It is now!
This is really cool.
Gonna cover the top with this mohawk.
[Timmy] I'm working on a face that's of a small child.
I have to be careful about the creases that get added in.
-First of all, I'm so happy. This is their comeback. -Yeah.
And second of all, they really listened to us.
The last time, because their story was completely unclear...
-...we weren't sure what we were looking at. -[Aarti] Yeah.
[Shinmin] There was so many things going on.
And I think now, they're just sticking to clear story.
-[Aarti] Mmm-hmm. -[Shinmin] And everything that, so far,
that they've added to their base, really needs to be there,
and it's essential to their storyline.
Really cool.
Just get that same tilt down, okay?
[Timmy] Good job, dude.
So, a really fun technique to make hair
is to pull strips of butternut squash.
You can roll up a butternut squash ribbon,
and make yourself a little ponytail.
That hair looks so realistic.
My artistic style
is using different fruits and vegetables in pumpkin carving
to bring color to the pieces.
I carved fruit last year.
I carved an engagement ring out of russet potato and carrots.
And when folks see these,
you would never be able to tell that they were made
out of pumpkins or vegetables.
She looks terrified but cute at the same time.
You have 30 minutes.
[Aarti] Sylvain's driving me [laughing] crazy.
-He is driving me bonkers, actually. -[giggles]
[Aarti] Because you have no puppet without puppet strings.
This is the second time in a row where he's left
the most pivotal part to the last moment.
[Shinmin] It's one thing if he has several
cold sugar strings just hanging in the wait,
but he hasn't even pulled them yet.
-The peak of procrastination. -Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, we gotta get the stuff going.
Sculpture wise, I'm almost there.
I got couple of elements left.
I'm putting the eyes into the the victim's head.
He needs to be kind of terrified
because he's about to be shot out of a cannon.
Wouldn't you be scared? [laughs]
[Lisa and Lori] Aww.
[Lisa] Perfect.
We've got the backdrop done,
so I'm probably getting to my sugar.
-[Lisa chuckling] Oh, my God. -So...
-Sorry. -No, that's okay.
-[Lori] Hey, it's a team effort... -[Dean] Your time.
-...and I will move quickly, you know? [chuckles] -[Lisa] Yeah.
I am working on decorations for the cannon.
I'm pouring various different stars.
I'm gonna make some candy.
I'm making wheels. I'm multitasking.
For the cannon, I have different colored center pieces
that are going to go on each wheel,
and then I have to decorate them.
Oh! Oh, my God.
-Oh! -No.
Oh, my gosh.
[sighs]
Now this wheel's fallen apart.
I can't put it back together. You guys?
I'm freaking out. These are just cracking like crazy.
[Lisa] How many wheels you have?
I have two cracked and one not cracked.
[Dean] Cracked wheel's probably better than no wheel.
[Lisa] It could be a part of the story.
-[Dean] Do you have two? -I've never had--
Uh... I could.
We can get away with two wheels, Lori, if that's what we have to do.
-I have a work around for ya -Okay.
-where we only put two on. -Okay.
Lift the sides of this with RCT.
It's not ready to be covered yet.
Wow. Look at everybody's.
How awesome.
[sighs wearily] Oh, God.
[Jonathan] 15 minutes left.
Come on. Let's start frying.
Picarones, they're supposed to be round.
I'm making it look like intestines, you know.
This actually smells like grandma's house.
She used to make them all the time.
We have to cover the rest of this.
-It's not covered. -I know. That's why you could use it.
Yeah. He looks pretty damn scary.
[Teresa] When you do a panko for anything,
if you're frying it, it's flour, egg, panko.
So I figured, you know, the judges might like something that's crispy.
Tasting treat's going on.
Doing a mix of coconut, rolled oats, and rice cereal.
This is gonna look like a mixture of grass, saw dust.
Again, another super clean presentation from them.
The colors. They're so good at just creating a really balanced color palette.
All right, air brush as fast as you can.
I'm trying. The puppet, we gotta have the string.
So is he gonna pull the strings out of that sugar, you think?
It looks like it. You can tell by the way he's moving that sugar.
It's still about 320 degrees, perhaps.
Like, he's gonna have to wait for that to cool just a little bit
before he can start pulling it.
He is putting more silver in my hair.
-[Aarti laughs] -[Shinmin laughing] I know.
Only ten minutes left.
-Oh, my God. -[exclaims]
-[Dean] We need the wheels on. -Okay.
Beneath that?
[Dean] Put the other wheel on the front.
Just lean it and get it...
[Lisa] I'm doing the final touches of our cigars.
And I'm going to add a little white with a little black,
like it was already smoked.
[Maythe] These pieces are too big, see?
[Vikki] It's getting stuck.
I'm putting some splashes too.
There. We're almost through, guys.
Can you go, instead of doing that,
-...can you put the marionette puppet strings? -Yeah, sure.
[Shinmin] He's pulling the strings right now.
-Is he pulling it, like, right? -No, he's now pulling it.
-Oh, yeah. Look, he just pulled it. -He's, he's...
[Shinmin] He pulled it and now he's placing it.
Oh, and he has to line them up with every joint.
That's nuts.
[Sylvain] Here we go again.
It's not Deadly Intentions,
it's down to the wire.
[Jonathan] Teams, you have one minute.
[Lisa] All right. Enough time for powdered sugar.
Tastings. I don't wanna drop these.
-[Janette] Can I put this on? -Like this.
[Janette] Beautiful.
-[Dennis] Hey, let me get it in there. I'm taller. -[Nils] I got it, I got it.
-[Lisa] The wick. -[Dean] The wick's on there.
-[Timmy] What's up? -[Vanessa] Show time.
[Janette] You need this to go on the knee.
-[Corinda] It's going. It's going. -[Dennis] There you go.
-[Jonathan] Ten... -Careful, careful, careful.
-Just get it as good as you can. -...nine, eight...
-...seven, six, five... -Oh, this will work. Make it work.
-...four, three, two, one. -Do it right here. This.
Time's up!
Send out the clown.
-Yes, yes, yes. -[exclaims]
-[sighs in relief] -But anyway...
-[sighs] -Great job.
-[thunder rumbling] -Pumpkin Up The Volume,
tell us about your really frightening clown.
[Timmy] Welcome to Butcher's Carnevil.
There is plenty to scare any circus goer,
whether it is body parts for juggling,
or intestine blown balloons.
-You seem like nice, wholesome, kind people. -[chuckles]
-We are. -You are not.
-[Aarti] You are twisted and really scary. -[all chuckle]
I'm so creeped out [laughing] by this clown face.
That is the stuff of nightmares.
Timmy, the girl, goodness gracious, her face.
The expression.
The way she's got her hands by her eyes.
-Good job. -Thank you.
This is such a clear and precise story.
Your characters completely stand out.
Vanessa, your sugar work,
including that little tied knot at the end,
it's just so well done.
The only thing,
if you're gonna go ahead
and paint something in that backdrop,
-...put it a little lower so we can see it. -[Timmy] Okay.
-What are we trying today? -The ingredient we got was funnel cake.
So I made picarones.
I made them in the shape of intestines.
-Wow. -Yum.
[chuckles]
[Vanessa] Picarones are made out of pumpkin,
and sweet potatoes, and aniseeds.
The syrup is made out of orange peels,
pineapple, cinnamon, cloves,
aniseeds, brown sugar.
I think this is just a really thoughtful dessert.
[Shinmin] It definitely feels very carnival.
But, you know, sweet potato and pumpkin,
the flavors are not really strong.
I think that if you were just to add, like, a tiny bit of heat,
-like, in a brandy or something... -Mmm.
-...it would just feel extra cozy going down as well. -Kind of...
Which is what you would expect from a deep-fried intestine.
Pumpkin Up The Volume, nice work.
-[Shinmin] Good job. -[Drew and Vanessa] Thank you.
[thunder rumbles]
[Roger] Our evil puppet master
is actually luring carnival goers in
with caramel corn,
and then turning them into his puppets.
I love the story.
It's very much like that clown kind of
draws us in immediately.
Janette, holy cow, your marionette,
there is so much emotion in his face.
I love the composition of this piece.
The only thing, I was so nervous
-about your sugar strings coming in at the last minute. -[chuckles]
It could definitely be more taut
to suggest more tension,
but I'm so happy that they made it on there.
Tell us about your tasting element.
[judges gasp and exclaim]
-Wow. -What?
[Sylvain]
-I'm, like, emotional and crying from this dessert. -Aww.
-I'm not even kidding. Like, I got teary eyed. -Aww.
-Wow. -I was like, "This is the best thing I've ever eaten."
[giggles]
This is so elegant.
The crunch and crack on the outside of that popcorn
-is so perfect, Sylvain. -[Jonathan chuckles]
It doesn't get caught in your teeth.
-It just cracks, and dissolves, -Yeah.
and disappears.
Deadly Intentions, well done.
[all] Thank you.
[thunder rumbles]
Sparky the clown lures his victims in with candy.
And then they end up being tied up in a human cannon ball.
He's lighting it with a cigar.
-[Lisa] He's lighting it with a cigar. -[Jonathan] Brilliant.
[Aarti] Lisa, I wanna start with you.
We put a lot of pressure on you. Let's be honest.
And I really feel like you leaned into it,
especially with Sparky.
You spent a lot of time
getting as much detail as possible into his face.
And I think you did a great job.
I do wish that that had carried over
into the fondant work on the cannon.
Dean, the detail in that ding dang collar,
-[Lisa chuckles] -it is so good.
The background, it's beautiful.
It did, though, take so much of your time.
So I would suggest really think through,
how much time is this gonna eat up?
-And is it worth it? -Right.
Dean, the fact that you put potatoes inside a pumpkin,
carrots, inside the potato,
unbelievable.
So beautiful.
What are we eating today?
Our side ingredient was chocolate-covered bananas.
We made a banana foster.
And we added a rum extract, brûléed bananas,
and toasted pecans,
and dipped them in chocolate.
When you look at this,
it just looks like a solid piece of chocolate.
And I just love how you have this
delicate banana fosters custard in here.
I didn't really taste the pecans.
I feel like you could have maybe crumbled them a little bit
-and scattered them throughout the custard. -Okay.
So there's just a little bit more
-of that crunch in that texture. -Yeah.
Sweet Lunatics, thank you.
-Thanks. -Thank you.
[thunder rumbles]
[Titus] I'd like to welcome you guys to carneball,
the worst carnival in the Midwest.
The ride are run down, the attractions are terrible,
and the entertainment is iffy at best.
-Wow. -[laughs]
[Titus] So, our victim, Vikki, here
doesn't find that out until the clown has already
launched the ball hitting the target.
That's when she catches sight of the piranha
and the other clowns out to kill her.
-[Jonathan] Aarti? -Well, first of Titus,
you should narrate everything in my life.
[Shinmin laughs]
I think one of my favorite parts here
are those piranhas.
There's so much detail and movement.
My only disappointment is that,
because all the colors you chose are so bright,
they look very pale,
and they sort of fade into, you know, their own background.
Vikki, I applaud you for the fact that you
put your sugar glass on there and it didn't fit.
You had a giant gaping hole, and you saved it
by creating this framework to go around it.
So, good save there.
Um, I think my biggest problem
is the lack of focus.
-[thunder rumbles] -I think my biggest problem
is the lack of focus.
Your colors are muddled
and the board is a little bit overcrowded,
so we're not quite sure where to look.
What are we tasting today?
So, we had caramel apple as our tasting element,
and you guys can just pop off his little buttons.
And we ended up going with a caramel apple filling
with a cracked profiterole, mascarpone whipped cream, and a spiced caramel.
Aarti?
You know when you make caramel...
-...and it has that slight, like, caramelized sugar? -Yeah, yeah.
That's the only thing that's missing here.
If this was an apple profiterole
I'd be like, "All day. 100%. It's amazing."
But because it's supposed to be caramel apple, that's what I'm missing.
Sugar Spirits, thank you.
-Thank you. -Thank you, guys.
[thunder rumbles]
[Corinda] After a long hard day
of entertaining all of the circus goers,
Knick-Knack gets his paddywhacks in on a certain few guests.
He likes to save a memento from each person that he smashes.
I love that you used this really dark background
to make everything else really stand out and pop.
The characters, those two characters,
you were working on them, Corinda, like, the entire time.
The way that you shaded with brown, not black,
-[Corinda] Mmm-hmm. -to me was such a smart choice
-because it feels a little singed... -Thank you.
a little dirty, a little old.
Shinmin, what do you think?
Nils, we've talked to you before
about maybe placing too much sugar work.
So you really scaled down this time,
but what a great decision that was.
Dennis, I know you're a really strong carver,
but there's not a lot of carving here.
I see your skull, and that's gorgeous, but it's placed in the back.
I'd love to see more of you, your work,
-and your personality come through. -Okay.
What are we tasting today?
We got cotton candy.
We made a cotton candy marshmallow.
There's a little bit of cotton candy oil,
and I actually put cotton candy sugar into the marshmallow
-after it had cooled so you add a little crunch. -Mmm.
Aarti, do you like it?
-I want to throw this at you it's so good. -[chuckles]
And it has that weird cotton candy flavor
-that you can't put your finger on... -[Jonathan] Mmm-hmm. Yeah.
-...that's just sort of, like, sweet... -[Shinmin] Yeah.
-...fruity, pineapple? -[Jonathan and Shinmin] Yeah.
-I don't know. -Yeah!
[Aarti] It's, like, kind of all over the place
which is what cotton candy is.
[Shinmin] I don't know what to do with you guys.
-This is incredible. -Trick Or Sweet, great job.
[all] Thank you.
[thunder rumbles]
[Kristina] Welcome to the cannibal carnival.
When little Charlie asked his mom
if he could take little Susan to the carnival for the night,
little did he know he wouldn't be making it home that night.
[gasps]
[Kristina] And no one would believe
that little Susan would tell everyone
that the clown tunnel swallowed her brother whole.
Aarti, what do you think of this?
To me, your design is an exercise in sometimes less is more.
You guys put all of your effort into this two characters,
and you made them really sing.
Those teeth are crazy pants.
-[Shinmin] Mmm. -[chuckles]
[Aarti] They're so detailed.
They're chunky, they're gruesome.
That sugar piece in the back, I wish it was lit up from the back.
I think we'd be really able to see
all the work that you put into it.
Shinmin, what are your thoughts?
Boy, did this come together.
The face of this pumpkin girl,
-I like that you had her facing us... -[Kristina] Mmm-hmm.
...but her eyes are looking back at that clown.
She's selling the fright but we're seeing all of her facial features.
I think the pastillage on the clown itself is still super rough.
Perhaps if you went in there, even with a paper towel,
and just kind of rub out some of the texture here...
-Yeah. -...we would get, like...
-...a much more refined clown. -Mmm, mmm-hmm.
What are we eating today?
So, our assigned ingredient
was fried chocolate sandwich cookies.
So what I did is I made the crust,
and I crunched it up, and I made the vanilla filling.
And then I fried it and dipped it in a cocoa nib chocolate.
And we have raspberry goo for you guys.
What are your thoughts?
I feel like this is the most carnival treat
-that we've had today. -[both] Mmm-hmm.
-[Shinmin] I also love that the crunch continues in -All the way through.
-as you bite, right? -Mmm-hmm.
It's really carnival. It's really circus.
It's what we asked for.
Great job.
-Thank you. -Thank you so much.
-[thunder rumbles] -Teams,
for this spine chiller round
you all weren't clowning around tonight,
delivering amazing creations out of cake, sugar, and pumpkin
that had the judges crying with joy.
And now, to the circus elephant in the room.
The team going home tonight is...
Sugar Spirits. [sighs] I'm sorry.
Your display was just too busy,
and your tasting element lacked the required caramel flavor.
[Shinmin] Sorry, guys.
[Vikki] I'm devastated,
but I'm still filled with just so much pride
from the things that the judges did let us know
that we did well.
-[thunder rumbles] -Get some rest.
We'll see you back here next week.
-[thunder rumbles] -[Jonathan] Next time
on Halloween Wars...
Tonight is going to be wild!
-Ah! -I am the baddest witch.
[man] So pretty.
I ain't going near you.
You broke it. I got to fix it.
-Oh! -Oh, my gosh,
the whole side of it just fell off.