[Jonathan] Tonight, zombies and their love of brains
are the only thing standing in the way of our final four...
I really wanna get to the final three.
[Jonathan] ...and a trip to the semi-finals.
Come on. Why are you doing that?
-[Jonathan] Who will survive? -Go.
-Oh! -[Jonathan] Getting one step closer
to becoming Halloween Wars champion...
[woman] The tongue sandwich.
Oh, my God!
I will never forget this dessert. It's incredible.
[Jonathan] ...and winning the grand prize of $25,000.
Halloween Wars starts now.
[wolf howling]
[thunder rumbling]
You are the final four teams
still alive in Halloween Wars.
Whoo!
[Jonathan] Only one team will be the last team standing.
But to do that, you have to survive
our upcoming Spine Chiller challenge.
What do we have here?
[gasps]
Yes!
I love a party.
[in sing-song] And it looks like we've just been invited.
-Whoo! -Whoo!
Oh, I love it.
[Jonathan] But this is Halloween Wars.
So you know this party is gonna get out of hand.
Anyway, so in this Spine Chiller challenge,
we want you to show us a fun-loving group of zombies
having a killer dance party.
And everyone knows zombies' favorite finger food is,
well, besides fingers, brains.
-Yeah. -[Jonathan] So, for this tasting portion,
you'll have to create a dessert that looks like an actual brain
and will really make the judges think.
Huh.
You have got just seven hours to bring the house down!
The party starts...
-now! -Let's go.
Okay.
-Wow. Final four. -I can't believe it.
This is so exciting.
-I feel like we are on our fourth life already. -We're back.
-Yes. -Yeah.
We gotta do something different.
Like, we have to bring it now.
-All right, zombie dance party. -Zombie dance party.
How about a sock hop?
-Ooh! -Ooh, I like that.
I wanna make sure that I nail those characters for them this time.
-Awesome. -Because I'm not going home
because my characters are not good. That's not me.
The story of our piece is that in the '50s,
Friday night, it's a sock hop.
And they're gonna be dancing to the jukebox so hard
that their body parts are gonna be falling off.
I can make little, like, sugar, ice cream sundae dishes.
-Uh-huh. -And we put the brain-tasting element in it.
I'm from Florida so we're gonna do Florida man brains.
There will be a key lime pie base,
layer of pound cake brushed with strawberry puree
and orange zest vanilla white chocolate mousse piped in the shape of brains.
Something very, like, you know, glitter, fun, full of energy.
-Might be a Mardi Gras. So much energy. -[gasps] Yeah.
How many characters are we thinking?
'Cause it's a party, I feel like we need a little more.
-More than two? -More than two.
Let's do three characters.
Our story is gonna be set in the streets of New Orleans.
And we're gonna have a grand marshal
and a street performer on stilts.
We're gonna have a backdrop
that's iconic New Orleans style,
with a zombie throwing beads into the street.
What is the thing that they make in Mardi Gras that is very popular?
-The beignets? -Not the beignets.
-It's like a cake. The king cake. -The king cake.
The king cake, yeah. We can make this, like, a bakery.
-[Drew] Hm. -Yes.
[Timmy] And we can include our tasting there.
We're gonna do a king cake flavored yeasted bread
filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and toasted pecans
and topped with a white chocolate shell to resemble a brain.
A disco ball? Too obvious?
-[Kristina] Yeah, a little obvious. -All right.
What if we did, like, a mother-son dance?
Oh, what? You're gonna make me start crying.
Don't, don't. I'm gonna start crying.
Both Elan and I have sons,
and we thought it would be a really special moment
to show something special for our characters in particular.
So Mildred and her son R.I. Pete
will be hosting a garden tea party,
snacking on ladies fingers
and sipping tea made out of the real Earl of Grey.
What do you think about a tart?
-Would you be able to make that look like a brain? -Yeah.
Then I just...
I pipe the meringue so it looks like a brain.
[Kristina] To incorporate a brain-type texture,
Teresa comes up with an idea to do the lemon-meringue tart
spread around our picnic blanket.
-How about a luau? -[gasps] I like luau.
-There's a lot of fun stuff in Hawaii. -Yeah.
Our whole theme is luau.
We want to go with, like, a Hawaiian feeling,
so we are going to do palm trees, volcano and tiki hut.
This is a little bar.
There will be a space up here to put little
-drinks or something. -Drinks or--
The tasting element can go there.
Tropical brains are my favorite.
For our tasting element to fit our theme,
I want to make a dark chocolate shell
and shape them to be like coconuts.
-Okay. -I'm gonna go get pumpkins.
[Dennis grunts]
[Dennis] All right, let's skin this baby now.
Get the flattest part, part of that guitar.
[Nils] Dennis is gonna get started on the pumpkin guitar.
He's not really working on any faces today.
I've never done an instrument out of pumpkin.
This is gonna be so interesting.
[Corinda] All right, I'm just about ready
to put the, uh, melting wafers on these guys
to get 'em nice and solid.
We're gonna get 'em all covered.
I'm gonna do a mixture of realistic zombie and cartoony.
I want them to be super fun,
but at the same time, they're decaying.
[Nils] I'm gonna work on this jukebox.
I'm gonna be putting together some cereal treats and some cake.
I'm getting that iced up and covered and put together
so that it takes a good amount of time off of her plate.
Are you gonna be able to airbrush this joker for me at some point?
-Yep. -All right, cool. I'll get it set up and ready to roll.
[Drew] Starting on one of the zombie heads with this squash.
Getting it peeled up.
Drew gets started on the heads of our zombies.
We're creating two guys and a girl.
Drew is really going for scary, which he is great at.
Like, really realistic, gory zombies.
[Drew] Move on the next.
[Timmy] Vanessa is gonna start on rice paper garland.
So, this is rice paper.
As soon as you dump it in, you want to...
To squeeze the center.
Otherwise they fry flat, and I don't want flat.
I want to have all those ruffles.
[Timmy] I'm gonna start on our zombies.
We want these to look like they're skin and bones.
The judges last time thought that we needed to elevate our stuff
off of our bases a little bit,
so this time, we're gonna do one on stilts
so that we get that height that they were looking for.
[Vanessa] Ours is gonna have so much movement.
[Timmy] They're dancing stances.
Dances stances.
[Dean] You know how palm trees are kind of rough.
I'm gonna try to create texture with the original color of the pumpkin.
So, Dean right now is carving a palm tree out of pumpkin.
[Dean] Kind of nice not having to take all that orange off first.
I am... I have to make leis for the zombies.
So I want to get a whole bunch of cut-out flowers done real quick
so that I can set it aside so they can dry.
I'm just using a ball tool to push down into the center of the flowers
just to cut them a little bit.
They're gonna be, kind of, glued on top of each other to resemble a lei.
[Lisa] I'm gonna get started on the volcano for our backdrop.
I am going to use the buttercream.
The flames are going up.
And I'm just, kind of, tapping in the color so it's, like, a gradation.
What are you doing to my wall?
[Dean] I'm making it so there's less for you to paint.
[Lisa] Ah. You're so smart, Dean.
Takes a lot of separate parts to create a full figure,
and that's what we're gonna be doing today.
We really are taking on a lot with this challenge.
This is it. From here on out,
everything has to be done to that next level.
I'm using butternut squash today, mostly for its size.
For this challenge, I will be making the young boy.
This is a very small character
so the butternut squash is just more appropriately sized for this piece.
It's gonna be a timely process
'cause I really want the details of that
fancy style of clothing to show through.
But it also has to have the gnarly guts hanging down.
I really wanna use this pastillage.
I am expediting the drying by adding a little vinegar.
[Kristina] Teresa starts on her pastillage tea cups.
[Teresa] I can always use sandpaper at the end
to get that nice porcelain finish that I'm looking for.
I'm working on this backboard,
and I'm trying to do this, like, palette knife
impressionistic painting with buttercream.
I do have a background in painting.
I actually was a visual artist first,
and then, kind of, jumped into cakes from there.
[Kristina] For Elan's palette painting techniques,
we won't be able to blend too much.
The buttercream does begin to crack and dry.
So not only is she gonna have to work quickly,
but she's gonna have to layer the color,
rather than be able to blend it.
Well, this board is huge.
And trying to do an entire painting on here is a challenge.
But I think since we're in the final four now,
bringing out our tricks, kind of, starts now.
The challenge is to see an undead dance party.
When I think of zombies, I think of... [grunts]
-[Jonathan] Yeah. Right. -Like, very stiff movement.
I don't think of popping and locking or any of that.
So I think the difficulty here is conveying movement
through characters that we know to be very stiff.
-Right? -[Shinmin] Right.
If there is one challenge where we really want to see movement,
-it would be this one. -Right.
Dennis is getting the pumpkin guitar carved up, and it's gotta be perfect.
Oh, my gosh.
[Corinda] How you doing, Dennis?
[Dennis] No, that ain't gonna work.
We have a situation.
[Dennis] No, that ain't gonna work.
Little breakage of the handle here.
It's cracking on the pumpkin side.
With this pumpkin guitar, everything was good.
All was good, and now, all is not good.
Is there anything that you think can be done to it
to make it better or not?
So I think what I'll do is I'll take a nice little skewer
and try to fit it right through there.
Hold it in place.
Come on.
[Nils] Is it gonna work?
[Dennis] Let's give her a shot.
Yeah, keeps it solid.
Keeps it solid.
-Good thing. -[Dennis] Yup.
Better.
This tasting element is really fun
because it's pretty much open ended.
-Yeah. -We asked for brains.
-Yeah. -What are you guys hoping to see?
I think, naturally, everyone's gonna go,
"Okay, let's make it look like a brain."
-[Shinmin] Mm-hm. -But who is gonna take it the extra mile and say,
"I want it to feel like a brain" on their palette.
Toasting the pecans just to give them a little more flavor.
-Crunch. -It really brings out all these oils.
For our tasting element, we're making a king cake brain.
We'll have a yeasted bread filled with brown sugar,
cinnamon and toasted pecans,
a salted bourbon caramel and a white chocolate shell.
I've made caramel before.
Enough times to know that the bourbon leaves a nice flavor
after the alcohol, it evaporates.
[Timmy] This week, I'm gonna step in
and help Vanessa with the tasting element.
She's never made a king cake before, and I have.
I first began making king cakes after the Katrina hurricane.
A bunch of the people from New Orleans
actually moved to our area in Eastern Tennessee,
and they were looking for king cakes.
Just adding my toasted pecans.
Then I'm gonna add some melted better.
I've rolled the dough out and filled it
with our brown sugar, cinnamon mixture
and allowed that to rise a second time.
This filling is gonna add a lot of texture inside.
We will fill the caramel inside of this.
Yeah, I'm gonna go in the oven with these.
[Jonathan] Don't lose your heads. Only five hours left.
-Look at the side. -Wow!
[Kristina] Look at the seam on the side.
That is seamless. That's crazy.
We're at this really nice, fancy garden party mother and son dance.
It's gonna be a very proper zombie.
But he also needs to look just ripped
and oozing and disheveled like a zombie.
So, I'm taking a lot of time on this piece,
but if I can nail all of these details,
I think it's gonna be worth it.
-Elan. -Hello.
Can I just tell you that I am the most in love
with this backdrop of the entire season.
-Are you serious? -It is stunning.
-Oh, my God. Thank you. -I can't even get over...
Well, okay, since you are doing this, Teresa,
what kind of chocolate are you doing?
-It's 54% couverture. -Okay.
So the higher percentage of the couverture,
it gets too hard.
-Yeah, exactly. -This stuff...
So, you are doing couverture chocolate, but instead of tempering it,
you're saving yourself time and you're rolling it.
[Teresa] Exactly.
[Shinmin] Where is this going by the way?
[Teresa] That's, uh, gonna be the radio.
[Shinmin] Oh!
I thought you were actually working on your tasting element.
I know that your characters will be sipping Earl Grey.
Do you think this is a really great opportunity
for you to put in some Earl Grey flavor into your tasting?
I love that orange bergamot.
-[Shinmin] Yeah. -That's a good flavor profile.
-Okay. -Just, just dropping in,
sprinkling little, you know, suggestions.
-I believe in you. -Thank you so much.
-Spice Ghouls all the way. -[Teresa] Thank you.
I think that was a good idea.
I think that was a great idea.
[Teresa] See how that looks? Kind of old school, the buttons.
I'm gonna put the blacks together.
Make them look like a rodeo.
That's my plan.
We got a lot to do, girls. We bit off a lot on this one.
[Lisa] How about less talking and more working, Dean?
[Dean] Do you see my hands moving?
So, I'm working on making bamboo for the tiki hut.
Lunatic lounge.
[Lisa] Lori, look what he's doing.
He sprayed it and he's brushing it over.
-Oh. -[Dean] I sprayed it to get the dark brown
-to go down into the grooves. -[Lori] Oh. Uh-huh.
[Dean] And now, I'm scraping off what's on the surface.
[Lori] Oh, that's cool.
[Dean] Hopefully it gets the desired effect.
I'mma put the bamboo on.
[Lisa] Okay. You need any help?
[Dean] No.
-[Lisa] Lori, you all right? -[Lori] I'm good.
I'm just finishing up the flowers, petals and the leaves.
And then I will start working on the stems.
Okay.
[Dean] Ah, Lisa.
Yes.
-[Dean] Um... -[Lisa] What?
I need you to fix some painting over here.
-What? -[Dean] You gotta fix this.
[Lisa grunts in frustration]
The roof didn't cover it all.
I need you to fix some painting over here.
The idea changed after I drew the line, okay?
Just fix it, please.
Slap it on there. I'll airbrush it.
[Lisa] All right.
I'm a little concerned about that.
[Dean] Do the other side, too.
-The other side, too? -Go around, you'll see it. Yes!
I'm losing time.
[Dean] You got all the time in the world today.
I don't have time. I have two characters to cover,
and finish the... the hut.
-[Dean] Less talk, more fixing. -Oh, boy.
Just say that one more time, please.
[Lisa] Dean made a mistake.
[Dean] Timmy, don't you got your own team to worry about?
Just one more time.
[Dean] That's enough talking about it. Let's move on.
What?
You have four hours left.
[Dean] We gotta do this so fast, it's tough.
But we can do it.
[Lori] I'm trying to get my chocolate
to a temperature between 28 and 30 degrees.
Vanessa is going to make our king cake brain.
[Vanessa] Right now, I am just tempering some white chocolate.
[Timmy] We're gonna create the brain appearance
by using a plastic mold
and pouring in some tempered white chocolate.
[Vanessa] Tempering the chocolate,
you develop beta crystals.
And white chocolate, the right temperature for the beta crystals
is between 28 and 30 degrees
for that nice snap.
I don't know if I should put this on the fridge.
I'm steering clear of primary colors this time.
Last time, Shinmin and Aarti were not fans of them.
But, I mean, our team tends to stick to using
more of, like, moody tones.
And we're going back to that.
A lot of times, if you're trying to make a tattered look,
you can overdo it.
I am gonna tatter him, but I am not gonna go super crazy with it
because I wanna make sure it looks good.
I'm gonna start on the tasting element.
I'm gonna start getting everything rolled out properly.
And then we're gonna start rolling from there.
This dessert, I'm fairly comfortable with.
There will be a key lime pie base,
pound cake brushed with strawberry puree,
and orange zest, vanilla white chocolate mousse
piped in the shape of brains.
And then it's gonna be coated with a fresh strawberry puree.
Key lime juice, it's tart, it's tart,
'cause you gotta cut the sweet.
But that's what makes people like key lime.
It's that tart, sweet, good mix.
Well, that just came out about as perfect as it can.
Off to the side. We're all gonna go to the oven at once.
Okay, next one is...
onto the pound cake layer.
Let's go it on slow.
The house didn't dish up anything weird today,
so we're just showing the judges
who we are and what we do, right?
Hey, guys, this competition is becoming real.
I am hungry. I want this.
I hope you guys want this, too,
so let's just freaking run.
-[Corinda] Got it. -[Nils] My kids are talking to me,
they're sending me messages saying, "Love you, Dad."
-And I'm just, "We're not doing this crap." -I know.
[Corinda] My son is sick, and he's like,
"Mommy, I hope you win."
[Nils] This ain't for us, yo. This is for them.
All right, pound cake, check.
One bake, one trip.
Key lime pie, they're gonna have slightly different bake times
so we're gonna watch this.
There's only four teams today.
The tasting element is becoming a bigger and bigger part...
-[Shinmin] Yes. -...of what we consider.
You know, just because these teams are so neck and neck.
This is our vanilla panna cotta for our tasting element.
This will be poured into my coconut chocolate shell.
I am doing a vanilla panna cotta
with a passion fruit, orange gelee,
with a raspberry fruit caviar brain,
topped with a dark chocolate shell.
For the gelee that's gonna be on top of the panna cotta,
it's going to be equal part orange juice, equal part passion fruit.
The most important thing of this challenge is to shape
and have the same texture, like a brain.
So that's why I chose to make a fruit caviar.
The caviar, it's going to be a raspberry puree.
And I'm gonna add some agar agar.
So, I froze the oil
so when I pipe the raspberry fruit caviar, it gets, like, solid.
She's making a raspberry brain, um, with agar agar.
And the smart thing about that is agar agar sets
a lot more firm than a gelatin
so we're really gonna be able to retain that brain shape.
-[Lisa] Does it look like brains? -[Lori] Oh, yeah.
[Lisa] So, this next layer is passion fruit orange gelee.
And then you have the raspberry brains.
[Dean] So that's gotta set up first.
[Lisa] It's not gonna take too long.
It has enough agar agar.
[Dean] Hurry up because I'm getting crabby.
[Lisa] Yeah, you're always crabby.
[Jonathan] Three hours left.
Three hours left.
Oh, boy.
So, guys, I'm starting to dress our mommy zombie.
-[Teresa] Okay. -[Elan] And I'm doing, like,
a little bit of draping on the top part.
But it's the bottom that I'm, like, really gonna be the most focused on.
'Cause I really want that to just really bellow out
and look as realistic as possible.
I'm gonna start the tasting element, so I've got to make the...
-Yeah. -...sablee dough for the tart.
Our tasting element will be a lemon tart
with a Earl Grey sablee crust,
a strawberry gelee, and strawberry meringue brains.
I'm gonna steep the Earl Grey tea right into the cream.
I don't want hot cream in the dough, obviously,
so I let it sit for two minutes.
Shinmin suggested a little flavor of the bergamot
to go with the tea that we're serving today.
A good sablee dough is not overworking it and using cake flour.
'Cause when you use regular all-purpose flour,
the gluten structure is really high,
so any time you add moisture to it, it gets tough.
And then, cut it when it's frozen.
In the freezer.
[Vanessa] I'm piping some details on the arch.
[Timmy] Get that on here in a minute.
[Vanessa] Give me two seconds, please.
To create the archway, Vanessa is gonna hand pipe
some royal icing to create that wrought iron technique.
-[Drew] You got it? Okay. -I do.
Set it up there.
Easy, easy, easy.
For the color scheme, we're going for very traditional New Orleans.
The taupes and the browns and the greys.
Very muted.
All right. I think we're ready to rock, dude.
I've got most of him done.
I'm gonna go ahead and add some ribs
-and then do tons of airbrush and stuff. -[Vanessa] Yeah.
Mm-hm. Uh, I'm just gonna see if this is ready.
So, this is gonna be for the tasting element, brains.
Oh, I can't unmold this thing now.
Come on!
-Oh, I can't unmold this ting now. -No?
Time is ticking away, and I'm just so worried.
We have to have a brain on this.
And we're not sure why this is sticking.
[Vanessa] I mean, chocolate is sensitive to temperature.
I had it next to my frying pan
so I don't know if all the heat affected the chocolate.
[Timmy] We don't want to spend too much time on this.
I don't think that's gonna come out.
Timmy's gonna do something different.
I am getting ready to fill the skin cakes with the caramel.
We had so much trouble with those brain molds.
I'm just gonna scrap 'em, and we're gonna move on
and just use the traditional icing.
So it's gonna look the same,
and it's gonna taste just like a king cake.
I think it's much better than the brain mold
because now you really truly are giving the judges
-a true king cake. -[Timmy] That's right.
[Nils] So what I'm gonna do here is
I'm gonna get the pound cake cut out first
so it can soften just a touch.
I'm gonna get the key lime cut out.
Mm-hm, mm-hm, key lime is good.
I'm gonna brush a little strawberry puree on it.
Put the skin side down on the key lime so it sticks, right?
Ah, yes.
I unmold the mousse brains, right out of the mold.
Oh.
Coat it with a fresh strawberry puree.
How does that look, Dennis? Does that look brainy?
Oh, yeah, that looks brainy. Very good.
Back to the freezer.
Fridge.
Fridge. We're going fridge.
What are you doing, Dennis?
[Dennis] I'm working on the bench. I'm trying to make pieces fit.
I can make a nice pattern
to cover up the cracks from the pumpkin
that's trying to fit them together,
and hopefully get away with it.
This part I might have to patch, though, right here.
I patch that, I can still do the grooves.
Make it a nice seat.
Well, what do you guys think of the bench?
Oh.
-That's cool. -Nice.
Now you just gotta paint it.
-Paint it. -Yup.
[Corinda] I'm gonna do my best to give her a yucky, ugly face,
but still keep it feminine.
-[Dennis] Uh-huh. -[Corinda] How do you even combine
yucky ugly and feminine?
-Is that possible? -[Nils] That is a solid question
that I don't know the answer to.
Okay, I am, if the isomalt gods are with me,
going to make a surfboard.
These are silicon noodles.
In order to get some really cool shapes,
I discovered that if I use my sewing pins and pin them in place,
then I can get them to do what I want them to do.
[Dean] Don't worry, we're with you.
[Lisa] Yeah. I'm with you.
[Lori] Here it goes.
[Lisa] Oh, boy, Lori.
That looks massive.
[Lori] Surfboard is poured.
I've made zombies before, but not this size.
When you gotta make things, like, half your size,
it's really difficult.
[Dean] You're gonna have time to help Lisa at all?
-[Lori] Yeah. What do you need? -[Lisa] If you want,
-you can put the leis on this guy. -[Lisa] Okay, great.
Two hours to go!
Just wanna get this radio done
so I can dry dust it.
Okay, Elan, I'm ready. You ready for the radio?
[Elan] Yeah.
Right now, I am trying to bust out these zombie heads
'cause we don't want to be waiting till the last minute
to get all this pumpkin painted.
They are gonna be watching themselves dance.
My son and I love to dance together.
It's actually one of our favorite things to do.
I really hope it's a nice mother and son moment,
dancing together and enjoying treats.
Elan, how are we looking?
[Elan] Depending on, like, where everyone's at,
'cause if we need help, Kristina,
-you might have to jump over for this. -[Kristina] Yeah.
I'm learning how to thread rice paper
to make a floral piece for our design.
I knew we had a lot to do so I made sure I had my stuff done.
We're using dental floss to string this garland.
I would never have thought, ever, I would be doing this.
[Vanessa] Look at you. Wow!
-It can be better, but-- -Good job!
It looks fantastic.
[Drew] Careful.
Step back, have a look.
-Scissors. -[Drew] Preach.
-[Drew] Yeah, there, that is-- -Once you get that airbrushed, that's gonna look great.
What, what I want to do...
Listen. Listen to me.
What I want you to do...
[gasps]
-[Drew] Is do another one. -[Timmy] ...is do another one.
[Timmy] I'll clean that.
[Dean] Since they're zombies and they eat brains and
human flesh and stuff, we're thinking about doing a head...
on the spit.
On the Clown Challenge.
Aarti and Shinmin liked the victim's face.
So I'm trying to up the game from that, but time's ticking, so, uh,
we'll see what we get done here.
Did you see that second character from Lisa?
[Aarti] Yes. Oh, my gosh, I love it.
She is dancing, she's grooving.
There's this really lyrical movement to her body.
[Aarti] Sweet Lunatics manages to do...
grand scale really well,
and teeny tiny details really well.
You think about the swamp,
you know, they created these massive beautiful trees,
and then the teeny tiny splash,
that was coming off of the jet ski.
We're seeing the same thing repeated today.
[Lisa] Oh, do you have one of those leis I could use?
I'll use it as my bikini.
-Oh, yeah. -Oh, bikini top.
Like a bikini top.
I'm gonna pour some records real quick. Here we go.
I'm just pouring black in, but then I'm gonna take my sugar pump, heat it up,
and pop it right through the middle.
So that they'll be a record.
Then we're gonna come back with an icing sheet, make the interior part white.
[Corinda] I'm making a pink poodle skirt,
'cause, I mean, what are the 50s
without a pink poodle skirt?
And...
her skirt's gonna be tattered.
[Nils] Dennis is having fun again.
[Dennis] It wasn't there for a while,
but I am now.
[Jonathan] You have one hour.
So the, um, bread,
is actually just vanilla cake.
The tongue itself is the modelling chocolate.
This is a tea party,
and what is a tea party without, one, the tea, and, two...
the little tea sandwiches.
And Elan,
She made tongue sandwiches, guys.
[Elan] And to make lettuce
that I'm putting together, it's just wafer paper.
And I'm brushing that with, um,
some petal dush and a little bit of canola oil.
[Aarti] This is usually the point for this team,
where they're all hands on deck on the design,
and that's not happening right now.
-[Elan] It's a tongue sandwich. -[Teresa] Yes.
I need help deciding on where the... layout is.
Do you want the fire between them, or do you want it, uh...
[Lisa] Between them.
-[Dean] She wanted fire in the middle? -[Lisa] Yeah.
[Lisa] Dean, I'm coming.
[Dean] Do you need to paint her anymore?
-Do you want to paint her over there? -I'm gonna airbrush her.
-[Dean] You're gonna airbrush her over here? -Yeah.
Oh, God, Lisa. That skirt looks so cute!
I'm gonna put some brain on him as soon as I...
-Oh. -[chuckles] This was...
[Dean] Over here.
Before we do the floor,
we gotta have everything in place.
[Lisa] Should I put it on now, or later?
-[Dean] What, what, what? -[Lisa] This.
-[Dean] Where's it going? -The tasting on top.
[Dean] Oh, yeah. Keep...
Keep a couple out.
Don't waste too much time on that.
Need some more graham cracker crumbs over here.
-Okay. I just... -[Lori] Be careful. Be careful.
There's plenty around there. Just move 'em.
You just gotta take 'em from there.
Just, let's get the surfboard.
-[Lisa gasps] -[Dean gasps]
[Aarti] Oh, no.
[gasps]
[Aarti] Oh, no. The surfboard broke.
Don't know if we're gonna have it, guys.
-[Lisa] Why? -[Lori] It just snapped.
It's really hard with big pieces.
I'm gonna see if I can get it...
-...to sit together though. -[Dean] We can lay it sideways
this way...
up against the... hut.
Fifteen minutes to go. Let's go.
[Dean] Fifteen minutes. Come on, let's get it done.
[Lori] We gotta let this cool, and then, hopefully, be able to move it in one piece.
-[Kristina] I can finish painting on the board. -Okay.
[Kristina] Behind, behind, behind.
It's gonna be really, really, really important
for me to match the color of these zombies,
to the color that Elan has already done
on her mommy zombie.
Here. Let me take over so you can do finishing touches.
[Nils] It's good. Perfect.
What do you think? Like this?
[Nils] I would say if we can get it further up,
'cause I'm gonna drop a record there and there.
Heads up.
[Corinda] Where are you guys thinking?
[Nils] Like, right here.
Good.
Welcome to the fun, baby.
Vanessa's gonna make some chocolate Mardi Gras beads.
And then she can melt those and attach them together
and sprinkle them with sanding sugar,
to create some glittery effect.
And voila.
-[Vanessa] You wanted the greens? -[Timmy] Okay.
[Vanessa] We... we need to get this done, like, yesterday.
[Nils] So what I'm thinking is, we're just gonna take this,
and we'll just...
I feel like if I just push it, it'll, like, be a little more natural.
All right. Ready?
-[exhales] -[Dennis] Oh. Aw.
[Corinda] So sad.
[Nils] Oh, that landed right.
[Corinda] Do you think we need a poster?
Just make one up. If it looks good, we can.
Instead of, like, Taco Tuesday,
-you can do, like... -Frontal Lobe...
-...Friday. -[Corinda] Frontal Lobe Friday.
[Nils] Yeah.
[Teresa] Meringue is a little flat, because the powder,
but I, kind of, wanted the power flavor,
so I took the hit.
They're looking a little oozy.
Unfortunately, the powdered strawberry,
didn't mix very well with Teresa's egg whites.
But at this point, there is nothing we can do.
[Teresa] Placing our tasting elements.
Perfect.
[Jonathan] Five minutes remain.
[Dean] We gotta go, guys. We gotta go. We gotta move.
-Move, move. -[Lisa] We gotta hurry.
There goes the surfboard.
-[Shinmin] Oh, no. Oh, gosh. -[Aarti] Oh. Oh, okay.
[Aarti] Oh, my gosh.
-[Aarti] Lori's not breathing. -[Shinmin] She's a nervous wreck.
She's not breathing. Oh, gosh.
Really delicately.
Is it on?
[Dean] Lean it right.
I'm like, "Ooh!"
-I'm afraid leaning it, it's gonna... -[Dean] That's good.
If it's there, it's there.
-And it adds that pop of color. -[Aarti] Yeah. Okay.
See, they needed it.
-That's amazing. -It looks ding-dang good.
[Aarti] It's amazing.
Can I just slide it?
-Ready? What else? -Uh-huh.
[Kristina] Any extra detail you can think of.
-[Jonathan] Okay. -W-what?
-Ooh. -[Jonathan] Huh.
Oh, my gosh.
[Nils] Dennis, I need your tall arms.
-[Nils] Top one. Top one. -[Aarti] It's moving.
-Why are you doing that? -[Shinmin] Uh-uh.
-[Nils] Okay. Okay. -[Shinmin] I'm not mad at it,
now that they didn't knock anything over,
but it wouldn't have been worse if they did.
[Jonathan] It looks good.
All right. I'mma get the tasting element ready.
[Corinda] Gosh.
[Dean] One of those secrets I have is...
pull away the skin,
from some section,
leave the skin in another section.
And you get a two-toned variant color, painting it one time.
[Lisa] That looks cool.
[Dean] So it gives you that different variation of color.
[Timmy] Come on, guys. Put everything in.
I really wanna get to the final three. Come on.
Thirty seconds.
-Last minute touches. -We got it. We got it.
Go. Go. Go.
[Lisa] Hurry, Dean. Hurry.
[Nils] I love that we can see the ribs,
and there's some blood and guts.
[Vanessa] On the other one, too.
-[Drew] I'm coming. I'm coming. -[Teresa] Do it.
Just do it.
-[Elan] You hate getting dirty. -[Teresa] I know.
It's okay, I'll look away.
-Ten, nine... -[Teresa] Okay, you guys. We're almost there.
-Push, push, push. We gotta go. We gotta go. -[Jonathan] eight, seven,
six, five...
four, three...
two, one.
Hands off your displays.
Good job, everyone.
[Timmy] Oh, my gosh.
-That come out. -We worked hard. We did it.
[Lori] Aloha, from Lunatic lounge.
Tired of trolling the beaches
for brains, the zombies are having a Hawaiian Luau,
including a head on the spit.
[Aarti sighs]
[Lori] And some tropical delicious treats for you.
Aarti,
I know I wouldn't be safe at this party.
My head would be on that spit if I was there.
And yet, I still wanna go.
There's a quality to your zombies
that feels like they are continuing to rot, right.
Like, these eyes are still there, she's lost one. God bless.
Dean, that face,
it's so gorgeous
that I wish you'd maybe pushed it into the back a little bit,
'cause it's stealing focus from the zombies, and it's a zombie party.
-Shinmin. -It is so clear where we are at right now,
and I love that.
I also love these trees.
The fact that you used that white pumpkin,
you get this natural shading. And the gloss,
that is just so beautiful to look at.
Tell us about your tasting element.
So for your tasting, I made...
a vanilla panna cotta with a...
passionfruit orange gelee,
topped it with a raspberry brain,
in a... [chuckles] ...dark chocolate shell.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
Your brains are delicious, Lisa.
I love the first thing that I smelled was that passionfruit,
which is so appropriate for being in Hawaii.
And it's so smart to pair it with that vanilla panna cotta,
but the chocolate, kind of, takes over,
'cause it's a very strong flavor and everything else here
is, oh, so delicate.
So I, kind of, wish it was maybe white chocolate,
-so it wouldn't interfere so much. -Okay. Yeah.
The panna cotta is my absolute favorite part of it.
It's a little bit silky, it's a little bit jiggly,
and it's perfectly balanced.
And then the strawberry agar,
which I really, really love.
I wish that you had piped it on a little bit thinner,
so we'd get more of the appearance of a brain.
You, Sweet Lunatics.
Thank you so much.
-[Dean] Thanks. -[Lisa] Thank you.
[Elan] Mildred and her son, R.I. Pete,
are hosting their annual mother-son garden party dance.
Heads will roll and bodies will rock...
as they... [chuckles] ...enjoy Earl Grey tea,
and tongue sandwiches.
[Jonathan] Aarti.
Elan, that backdrop,
we couldn't breathe while we were watching you paint it.
Thank you, guys.
You were using buttercream,
but it may as well have be oil paint. It looks the same.
Your design...
just pulls me into an art museum.
And then, Kristina,
you matched that same aesthetic with this little boy.
You took almost the entire time to do it and that was a risk.
I do think that it paid off.
-Thank you. -[Aarti] The way that you left
some of the innards on there,
to make it look like he was actually disintegrating as he's dancing,
is just so powerful.
And then when I come down to the head,
I feel like they don't quite match.
They, sort of, look a little cartoon-y,
compared to this fine art painting that I see in the rest of it.
-[Jonathan] Shinmin. -[Shinmin] Kristina,
you used this wrapping technique
that I've never really seen before.
And that's more like cake building, where we layer upon layer
to create that contrast and the textures. So...
I love that you think really outside the box as a pumpkin carver.
It's really gorgeous details all over this thing.
The little teacups, Teresa, are just...
so beautiful. They look like china.
Just exquisite.
What are we tasting today?
We have our... our brain tart.
It's got a beautiful sablee crust,
with a strawberry gelee insert.
A lemon curd with that strawberry meringue on top.
And I also listened to your advice.
And I put, uh, little bergamot in the pastry.
Aarti.
That topping, you want it to look like brains.
You and I both know
ain't no brains look like that.
The top of the tasting just doesn't look like brains.
Yes.
Honestly, the meringue...
Once I put in the strawberry powder,
I just looked in there,
-and I was like... [gasps] -Oh!
I didn't realize it had a little fat.
Luckily for you, the inside is my favorite part.
Oh, nice.
[Aarti] This dessert totally makes sense against this backdrop.
This is a tea party tasting element.
Mildred would love this.
A little bit of that bitterness from the tea,
paired with that citrus as well, the bergamot,
just works so well in the crust.
It , sort of, holds the whole thing together.
[Jonathan] Spice Ghouls,
good job.
Those brains, I was dying.
I know. I know. I know.
[Timmy] Today we have for you the biggest street
zombie dance party around,
Zombie Gras.
We have a zombie grand marshal,
and a zombie street performer dancing on stilts.
And no Zombie Gras would be complete without...
a spectator leaning out of the brainery,
tossing beads into the street.
-Aarti. -[Aarti] So,
I just have to applaud you on how much you've filled up the base this time.
You also achieved height,
and this feeling of movement,
simply by my eyeball having to move across.
Timmy, when you were creating your zombies,
they were so perfect.
And I was like, "Please, go in there and destroy your darlings."
And you did.
You went in there and you hacked at them,
and you showed us bone and tatted clothes,
which is what we have come to expect from our zombie friends.
-Hmm-mmm. -[Aarti] I think for me,
the issue is...
the color that you chose for your building,
it's almost too similar, sort of, in the same palette.
I think if you had...
added some shadow,
maybe chosen a deeper color,
I think that would've set your characters off even more.
These colors would really pop.
[Jonathan] Shinmin.
The pumpkin faces by Drew are...
-absolutely amazing. -[Drew] Thank you.
[Shinmin] You just really know how to get in there,
and carve out details that represent themselves with almost no color added.
All of your skills, I really wanna applaud you,
but overall...
a little lost in your story, because of poor color choice.
So what brains are you serving us tonight?
So today we did...
a mini king cake.
We have a yeasted dough,
with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans inside.
We did a salted bourbon caramel filling,
and royal icing on top.
Shinmin, what did you think?
[Shinmin] Vanessa, I noticed that...
you did the brain topping a second time.
Uh, actually that was... Timmy.
-Timmy, you did this by hand? -[Timmy] Yes.
-Hmm-mmm. -[Shinmin] So you piped on the royal icing?
-[Timmy] Hmm-mmm. -[Shinmin] It looks just like a brain.
-Thank you. -[Shinmin] What I also love...
is because you have this really ooey-gooey caramel center.
It also has that, kind of, gooeyness,
that we would expect the brain texture to be like.
It's a little too close to home, actually...
in terms of texture.
I echo what Shinmin said.
It looks just like a brain, you weirdo.
For me, I think that whole thing is eating really sweet.
-Yes. -And that probably because of the royal icing.
-It's just a lot of sugar. -Okay.
Pumpkin Up the Volume,
thank you so much.
-Thank you. -Thank you, guys.
[Timmy] Thank you.
[Corinda] Our zombies here,
nearly twist and shout themselves to death
every Frontal Lobe Friday.
Their sock hop includes...
their ice cream, which they did not want the ice cream.
So they threw it off of the table,
and they decided they wanted their brains instead.
"Frontal Lobe Fridays?"
I love that. I love that you created this
really velvety finish on this pumpkin booth
that looks super believable.
And the fact that you just threw
this ice cream sundae on the floor,
it really adds to the whole story.
It looks like they literally danced their limbs off,
and they were bumping into furniture and just knocking stuff down.
Now I know that they're zombies, they are undead.
But there's just something a little lifeless about...
the expression.
Perhaps, like, even a snarl
like, a curling of the lips to express some, sort of, personality.
-Okay. -[Aarti] Corinda,
you are so good at capturing fabric.
Those jeans are picture perfect.
And I love that they're even cuffed.
-I saw what they did back there. -Yeah.
Dennis, I love your guitar.
And, um, one last thing,
I love the color that you chose for the background.
But it matches so much their skin tone
-that it doesn't set them off. -Okay.
And that's something that I know about you guys
is that you use these really rich
background colors to really set your characters off.
And that's what I was looking for here.
-Okay. -What are we eating today?
So the special for this Friday is...
Florida man brain.
So the bottom layer is key lime pie, with a graham cracker crust.
There's a layer of pound cake, brushed with strawberry puree.
And that is an orange zest vanilla white chocolate mousse piped into molds
to look like brains.
And then just on top, our crunchy memories they've had.
Pop of texture in there for you.
Nils, I think I was a little skeptical
about the pound cake weighing the whole thing down.
But that key lime pie filling
has so much personality and structure to it
that it really stands up against that pound cake.
I will never forget this dessert.
It's incredible.
What I really love best, is that last minute crunch that we get
from the little pop crunches on top.
The only thing,
the piped top where you're expressing the brain,
looks a little more like spaghetti,
as opposed to brain.
Trick or Sweet,
they think...
you did a good job.
Teams,
you all strutted your stuff out there
and delivered some amazing work.
There's a lot at stake.
A spot...
in the semi-final.
The team going home tonight is...
Pumkin up the Volume.
I'm sorry, but we're gonna have to say goodbye.
The judges felt that your story was a bit muddled,
and your tasting element was just too sweet.
[whispering] Thank you.
[Timmy] I am devastated.
I really feel like we created a piece that was good enough to keep us here.
I think Pumpkin Up the Volume really grew,
because we went home and we were able to come back,
and really show great pieces of work, and
we're really proud of everything we did.
Congratulations.
You three teams have made it to the semi-finals.
And judging by what we saw tonight,
it is going to be a tough competition.
So get some rest.
[Jonathan] Next time on Halloween Wars...
We're not playing it safe today.
This is hell on earth for a vampire.
[Jonathan] We have a killer time.
[Elan] Oh, this is a big boy.
[Kristina] Damn.
I'm going as fast as I can.
Not fast enough. Go faster.
[Lisa] Oh, I wanna go pet it.
Ah!