Greetings and salutations my fellow AFOLs. Hmmm, that’s not very on theme is it? Hold on, take 2: YEEEEEE-HAW and howdy my feller AFOLs!! Ok, that feels right conceptually – but I’m not proud of it. Welcome back for another recap of LEGO®️ Masters USA, Season 3. The 3rd episode of the season is in the spittoon (can) and I’m here to bring you my usual blend of hot takes and silly jokes. Titled Brickin’ Bull Ride Rodeo, our contestants got to play in the cowboy and western sandbox. This week’s challenge was to create a unique character to ride Cedric, the mechanical bull with a brick-built saddle. It’s another ‘last or crash’ episode friends, albeit with a fun little spin. Let’s see how things went.
PREVIOUS EPISODES:
Saddle Up
Our challenge this week brings together two of this show’s favourite things: quirky characters and watching them shatter to smithereens. Last week’s challenge was our first such breaking challenge but in that instance it was the objective. For this Brickin’ Rodeo, it’s try your darndest to keep your build intact! There’s definitely a little more tension this way and it makes for good television. I really liked the approach to this ‘wild west’ theme, it was pretty clever. Cedric the bull has settings from 1 to 10 so it’s all about seeing who can make it to the highest level before being tossed. And with a challenge like this, everyone’s going to get their build destroyed. Very egalitarian in that sense.
the golden macGuffin (…brick)
Surviving the Brickin’ Bull Ride Rodeo wasn’t the only goal this week. This episode saw the return of the coveted golden brick. Yes, it’s back and ready to grant 3 wishes to the team that wields it! Wait ….*reads notes*….right, no, it can save you from elimination. I hope they change up the rules with this thing. I’m not a fan of the golden brick. It needs to change hands more often. Or at least, be stealable. In Season 1, it was basically Aaron & Christian’s the whole time until nearly the end. And in Season 2, it wasn’t that much different with it passing mostly amongst the Brother teams. For all it’s saving power, it hasn’t made much of a difference yet. Here’s hoping for something different this time around.
Character Driven
The Brickin’ Rodeo was not just about strength and staying power. Like all challenges, they needed to infuse their character with personality and, preferably, a nice aesthetic. And I gotta say, I think everyone succeeded fairly well in that regard. Every character was very clever, with quite a bit of great building on display. Each backstory was inventive and the end results were lots of fun. Shout out to all the fun female characters that our teams came up with.
©2022 FOX MEDIA LLC. CR: Tom Griscom/FOX
Skele-Tons Of Fun
My absolute fave build this week, from one of my fave teams, was Chabelita by Christine & Michelle. A Day of the Dead theme? Yes! Ladies! Work! I loved every detail. The skeleton was simple but effective. The face had an amazing animated expression. And speaking of animated, there was tons of sympathetic movement thanks to that great stringy hair and flailing limbs. This team managed to get to LVL 7 on Cedric, which was not overly high, but it kept them safe. It was the skinniest of all the builds. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone….it’s a skeleton after all. Most other builds went for max bottom-heaviness.
All those arms
Stand-outs for me this week were Austin & Justin’s Billy The Squid (amazing name) and Brandon & Greg’s Kelsey The Cactapus Queen. I guess I have a thing for multi-armed creatures. That squid was amazing though. Hats off to our resident pediatricians because they had a rocky start in episode 1. But they have rebounded nicely since being in the bottom 2. Billy’s blue colour was very lovely and they did superbly with the shaping of the body. Austin & Justin also made the right call in listening to Jamie’s advice of not using ball joints on the tentacles. It definitely kept Billy from landing lower in the rankings.
Where Austin & Justin went dense with construction, Brandon & Greg brought out the engineering prowess to make a gyroscope of sorts. The entire torso was a combo of technic parts, tires and gears (I think). This was easily the most unique approach from any team. They hoped Kelsey would match the movement of the bull and for a while it really worked! Their gamble mostly paid off with our girl Kelsey here reaching LVL 6. A Cactapus was a hilarious idea – it definitely added some flavour to a plant character.
Buckin’ Broncos
The top 2 teams of the Brickin’ Rodeo were some familiar faces. The Stephens (episode 1 winners) had another wonderful week with their build, Burton the Bow-Legged Bull Frog. Being from Calgary these two knew plenty about cowboy and western culture. It was a charming character with bold, bright colours and an adorable face. Throughout the episode, the brick masters really stressed the need to build with a low centre of gravity. Essentially keep the build short and close to the saddle. Doing so would help combat that wild buckin’. And sure enough, Burton made it to LVL 8 – a really solid showing.
Joining them in the top were last week’s winners Emily & Liam with their hilarious build of Jackalope Jill. It was a fairly unassuming build technique wise. But wouldn’t ya know it, Jill smoked the competition! This squat little creature barely budged or lost a brick, maxing out at LVL 10! She didn’t even lose an ear. With such a strong performance, it came as no surprise that they won. And not only that, a back-to-back win. So we’ve now got our first repeat winners, and the current front-runners. Congrats to this mom and son duo for taking home another win AND the precious precious golden brick.
Couldn’t Hang On
The Brickin’ Rodeo claimed another two riders. Dave & Emily, one of our three Canadian teams, landed in the bottom 2 with Toby The Pig. And where everyone was going dense and heavy with their builds, the Canucks took the opposite approach. Although he was a cutie (that face!), Toby was built really hollow anda bit too tall. There was quite a bit of struggling with connections and assembly throughout the episode. That poor porker wasn’t meant for this world and crashed hard at only LVL 2, the weakest showing from all the teams.
Finding themselves in the bottom 2 again this week were Grandpappies Kerry & Patrick and their Spaced Out Cowboy build. Throughout the episode they were on the struggle bus. The judges were nervous about their approach, and with good reason sadly. Their build was WAY too tall and quite honestly, pretty chaotic theme wise. It wasn’t so much a character as a general concept. The aesthetics weren’t there and although they survived to LVL 4 (better than the other team) it wasn’t enough to save them. Consequently we had to say goodbye to arguably the cutest team to ever be on the show. Keep on buildin’ gents and thanks for a fun few episodes.
Ethan & Dom Enter the Chat
What’s reality television without a twist? You all wanted a twist right? Oh, you didn’t? Me neither but here we are. The Brickin’ Rodeo came to a close with a new team being added to the mix. In a first for the show, a new pair enter the competition to compete next week. But before that we got introduced to TikTokers Ethan and Dom. The oldest contestants exit to make room for the youngest contestants. The circle of life I guess. Joking aside welcome to the competition fellas. I’m definitely curious to know the story on this team and why they came into the show the way they did. And are they at an advantage? A disadvantage? Time will tell.
Final Thoughts
The Brickin’ Bull Ride Rodeo was a fun twist on a common challenge. Going with a western theme gave us some very fun characters. I loved how creative everyone was with their approach. The tops and bottoms were easy to predict this week. I was scared for the Grandpappies right away and that was well founded. Really a shame to see them leave. It was the right call sadly and they will be missed.
- Amy ‘The Outlaw’ Corbett and Jamie ‘The Kid’ Berard. Love it
- Speaking of the judges, why didn’t we see Jamie’s hilarious gyrating? It was in the teaser. Too hot for TV? 😂
- Jamie gets the fashion nod though this week thanks to those chaps.
- Chabelita needs her own series.
- Seeing the interior core of the Stephens’ built was wild. Even Jamie made note of it
- The tumbleweed gag was perfect
- After an elimination scare, I assume Dave chugged all the maple syrup
- Bags with $ signs on them will always be funny to me.
- One more time: Please do something more interesting with the golden brick
OVERALL SCORE: 7.5 / 10
What did you think of this week’s episode? I enjoyed it quite a bit thanks to those amazing character builds. The twist of the new team was interesting, but TBD on how it works out. What did you think of the twist? Did you enjoy the episode theme? What character stood out the most to you? Comment below and let me know. Thanks for reading and until next time, keep on brickin’. 🧱
-Frank
LEGO® Masters USA airs Wednesdays at 9:00 PM ET/PT on FOX in the US, and on CTV, CTV.CA and the CTV app in Canada. Follow our full coverage here.
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