Avast my fellow LEGO®️ Masters fans, it’s time for the sixth episode of the season. And as you can tell by the title Pirate Ships Ahoy!, this one is all about pirates. Surprisingly, this is the first such challenge on LEGO®️ Masters USA. Now, I gotta vent a bit. Once AGAIN the episode was delayed in the US because of baseball. Episode 5 (last week) still went on for us Canadians though so it was nice to see it kept to schedule. This time however, we knew ahead of time of the delay as the US audience was told it would air on Sunday. Us northern folk had to wait until Tuesday for…reasons. Seems like no matter how hard FOX tries, the delays are unavoidable. But at least this time we’re not talking weeks (…not yet at least 😏). So let’s dive in and see what happened.
Previous Episodes:
- Episode 0: Sneak Peek🫣
- Episode 1: Ready to Launch 🚀
- Episode 2: Jurass-Brick World 🦖
- Episode 3: Brick Bull Ride Rodeo 🐂
- Episode 4: Out on a Limb 🌳
- Episode 5: Brickminster Dog Show 🐕
Get Swashbucklin’
Pirate Ships Ahoy! is a great theme this week. LEGO®️ and pirates so easily go hand-in-hand….hand-in-hook? Both really. What I really appreciate is the purely design and story driven directive to this week’s theme. No strength or technical requirements – just good ‘ol fashioned creativity. With fewer contestants, there’s more time to spend per team and I always enjoy that.
Now yes…there are eventually explosions, BUT they’re not the focus of the episode. The brief to the contestants at the start had no mention of things going boom. But was it a surprise to them? They didn’t act too surprised 🤔. Not that it took away from the fun mind you. But I do wish that the previews had not shown us that twist. It would have been so much more exciting as a viewer. But to paraphrase Will: “This is FOX, we had to blow something up”. Where’s the lie? haha. Full disclosure though, the explosions were AWESOME! Great job on the camera work too. Each one really brought plenty of high-seas debris.
Monkey-Infested Waters
Our builders came up with some clever ideas this week. And ironically two teams developed very similar ideas. Nick & Stacey and Ethan & Dom both featured a ship full of monkeys. In the former’s case, the monkey’s have taken over the ship and now sail around looking for the Golden Banana (#bananafacts). The ‘Plaintain Pearl’ (amazing name) is really well done with lots of brick-built characters that are full of personality. The Big monkey captain in particular is hilarious. Those banana leaf sails are also big standouts. I wish this one could have had an animated intro, it would have been awesome.
Less successful this week were Ethan & Dom and their ‘Monkey Mutiny’ design. Their boat build is awesome with great techniques throughout. But they missed the mark with a more muddled storyline. The monkeys have taken over the ship, but there’s also a mad scientist and some kind of formula to make them grow big and crazy? The Brickmasters had warned them early on to focus the story and not leave the details too late. And although they had some struggles, they were safe this week. Between these two teams, I doubt there was a banana element left anywhere in the building.
X Marks The Spot
The Top 2 teams in the Pirate Ships Ahoy! competition this week were Dave & Emily and Brandon & Greg. Congrats to our Canadian siblings for making this first top spot this week with their hilarious build ‘Legend of the Revengetables’. Kudos to Emily for just spitting out all those food puns! Oh man, it was non-stop – even Will was impressed. SO corny, but SO clever. Sailing the 7 Vitamin Seas? That’s gold right there. Their build was super clever, very colourful and the storyline was very original. They really understood the brief and knocked it out of the water this week. Well done!
If you’re getting a little bit of Deja Vu this week, you’re not alone. A big congrats to Brandon & Greg on their back-to-back win. Their build ‘The Stricken Princess of the Coral Seas’ was absolutely amazing. They really stuck to story and details this time around and it paid out handsomely. I was a little concerned when they first described their story – that was some dark stuff! They seemed to gloss over the ‘dead family’ angle thankfully and just present a clean, but still spooky build. The barnacles, coral and green colours were oustanding. And those kelp/raggedy sails were eye-catching in all the right ways. Congrats to these brothers on another win. They are gaining some major momentum in the competition.
Timbers Shivered
Another week and sadly another two teams at risk of going home. The bottom 2 teams this week were Austin & Justin and Liz & Erin. Our resident doctors built a fine, sea-worthy vessel but it unfortunately lacked most of the piratey fun and story beats that the judges were looking for. Like Liz & Erin, the final results just didn’t have those obvious pirate ship elements. In the case of the doctors, there was far too little engagement on the ship to read as a cohesive story. They left a little too much to the last minute, obviously putting too much focus on the physical build. But lucky for them, they live to brick another day.
In the end it was Liz & Erin to walk the plank and leave the competition this week. It was a tough episode for the friends as they really struggled to finalize their story and concept. What started as ‘The Good Ship Sweet Tooth’ morphed midway into ‘The Pizza Pie-rate Ship’. It was quite the pivot and a risky bit maneuver that came quite late in the build period. Liz & Erin made a rough realization that their candy striping looked more like a pizza box. It was pretty smart to then just roll with it and take the theme all the way. And although they did great with many elements (those sails!), it wasn’t enough to save them from elimination. After a lovely parting message from Amy, Liz & Erin are the latest team to leave the competition.
Final Thoughts
Pirate Ships Ahoy! was a really fun episode. It was a nice straightforward episode that focused on design and creativity. Did we need the explosions? No. Were they fun? Yes. But I worry that keeping things tame just isn’t in the FOX reality TV playbook. Despite the kinetic ending, I loved the theme and all the builds were great. I agree with the tops and bottoms and our overall winners Brandon & Greg. The brothers are definitely becoming one of the teams to beat. And let’s hear it for all 3 Canadian teams. Still in the competition and doing great!
- Both Brickmasters had awesome outfits this week – but OMG AMY! G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!
- Speaking of outfits, Will’s very dragged out costume gag was….a thing. #groan
- That brick built parrot however? That needs to be a set
- Also set worthy? The whole port build behind the pirate ships
- The puns were strong this week and I was here for them
- Liz’s story of her son and their relationship with LEGO®️ is super touching 😌
- Why we teasing the Golden Brick? Why isn’t it back already!? What are we waiting for?
- Emily telling Nick & Stacey about the competing monkey boat is either courteous or mildly schemish….I hope it’s the latter. heh
- Seriously though, Brandon& Greg’s initial story was hella dark. Kids show guys
OVERALL SCORE: 9 / 10
So how did you like this week’s pirate themed adventure? Which build was your favourite? Did you enjoy seeing everything get blown up? Drop some comments and let me know what you think. 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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