[Jonathan] This season on Halloween Wars,
-we take scary to a whole other level... -[crow cawing]
...as we celebrate the beasts,
the baddies,
the monsters.
And for the first time ever, each team will be captained
by one of our very own all-stars,
eight former champions looking to stake their claim
in the Halloween Wars hall of fame.
[Shellane] I'm an all-star, you know?
You have to bring it every single challenge.
[Jonathan] The displays get bigger.
[man] No, no, no.
[Jonathan] And the monsters become even more terrifying.
-She's creepy AF. -[laughter]
[Jonathan] Brace yourselves for a monstrously good time.
Why?
The most heart-pounding season of Halloween Wars All-Stars starts right now.
Bone Battalion, Two Ghouls and a Butcher,
Delectable Demons, and Scream of the Crop.
To survive today's battle, you must impress our judges,
award-winning cake artist, design and decor guru, Shinmin Li,
and master culinary storyteller, chef and author,
Aarti Sequeira.
-Hi, everybody. -[cheering, applause]
Some beasts are just born that way.
But some are just regular people that become tortured souls.
In your first challenge, we want you to capture the moment of mayhem
where a mild-mannered mortal turns into the wildest,
most unique monster you can imagine
at the absolute worst possible time.
-[laughter] -[chuckles] Oh, great.
Each display must have at least two distinct, fully realized characters.
And to represent that devious duality in a tasting element,
you've been randomly assigned two opposing flavors
you must successfully combine into a singular sweet treat.
Scream of the Crop, you get miso and maple.
Bone Battalion, cheese and honey.
Oh.
Two Ghouls and a Butcher, chocolate and onion.
-What? -[laughter, scoffing]
-That's mean, Jonathan. -That's very mean.
-[laughter] -Oh, my gosh.
[Jonathan] And Delectable Demons, peaches and sage.
That is a lot to handle.
But don't panic.
Each team will be given one baking assistant
to help you keep your heads.
-Yes. -Oh, good.
You've got seven hours. Go.
-All right. Let's do this, guys. -All right, guys.
-What if we went with a baby? -What?
What if, like, the most opportune moment would be
-something, like, in the bathroom? -[Lincoln] On the toilet?
[Reva] Our team's the Bone Battalion.
So, maybe they could be in a bathtub.
[Lincoln] I like the idea in the bathtub.
My name is Reva. I'm here to do some sugar work.
I won on Season 9.
There's got to be another element because it needs to be a surprise.
So, what would be in her bathroom with her.
When I'm in a bathtub, in the shower.
uh, my pet always accompany me.
[Reva] So, we decide on a bewitched bathtub
with a lady transforming into a sea creature.
This happens because she had a mysterious bottle of bubble bath
that she decided to use on Halloween night.
What do you think of a vampire? Like, someone getting bit by a vampire.
This is bigger. We gotta do something different.
Something that's never been done.
[Briea] Our team is Delectable Demons.
My name is Briea Lowe.
I'm doing your sugar. I won Season 4.
Maybe somebody turns into something like a scientist or something, like...
[gasps] I love science.
So, our story is, a mad scientist lab is
infested with a bunch of beetles.
He would love to make a chemical that would take care of his problem,
but instead, it explodes, and turns his assistant
into one of the infestations.
Okay. So, there's an Irish monster called the nuckelavee.
-What's that? -[Kyle] It's a centaur where the rider
is coming out of the center of the spine of the horse...
-[Sarah] Oh, that's cool. -...and it's skinless.
[Kyle] The name of our team is Scream of the Crop.
My name is Kyle Miller. I'm a cake artist.
I won Season 4 with Briea.
Our display is a clown that didn't like his life.
So, he opened a Necronomicon, summoned a portal that transformed
his best friend, a cowboy, into a nuckelavee while he's at the rodeo.
Werewolf. That's classy.
-Werewolf, that is the beast transforming. -You can never go wrong...
Let's do a werewolf.
[Emerlie] He has to be mid-transformation.
-So, that's something... -Oh, mid. So, it has to be half-human. Okay.
[Shellane] Our team's name is Two Ghouls and a Butcher.
My name is Shellane. I'm the cake artist.
I won Season 11.
Our piece is a teen werewolf who goes out with his friends
to record some content.
The moon comes up. He starts contorting. His bones are breaking.
His friend is like, "I'm not sure what's happening,
but I feel like I need to run away."
-All right. Let's go. -Let's do this, guys. Come on.
-High-five. -We got this guys. Cool.
I really hope this is gonna go well, but I'm gonna bring it.
[Alan] Are you the one?
I like this one. This is it. This one speaks to me.
[Reva] Lincoln is our pumpkin artist.
He's known for doing faces and a lot of elaborate designs.
Lincoln is starting out with his tentacles for our monster in the tub.
He's got to get at least eight of them done.
[Lincoln] So, I cut out those tentacles, but I need to get them smooth.
And this pad, it acts like sandpaper.
[Reva] I'm making a slurry.
We're gonna make a nice little paste.
I'm gonna go ahead and get the vinyl shower curtains started,
because that needs a lot of time to dry.
It has water, cornstarch, gelatin, and sugar.
Fingers crossed it works out.
It normally takes about 12 hours to dry.
So, I'm gonna push it, and we're gonna get it done in the seven hours.
It's an honor to be invited back for the All-Star season
because Halloween Wars is the pinnacle in the sugar world.
You want to be on Halloween Wars, and you want to win.
I'm gonna go to the dehydrator, get this in.
-So, hopefully... Fingers crossed. -Go, Reva.
Okay, now I'm starting with the cake part of the element,
which is milk cheesecake.
Daphne is our cake artist.
She is a home baker, and she really specializes in cakes with special effects.
So, for our tasting element, we're going to be doing
a milk cheesecake with apricot puree,
and a honey mousse.
My egg white is going to my cheesy batter
to make a light-as-cloud cheesecake.
Cake God, give me power.
Well, right now, I've got to get
the pumpkin glued to this board so it looks like stone.
And then, I got to paint it to look like stone.
[Briea] Our pumpkin artist, Eric, is in charge of the backdrop.
He's making all the stone out of pumpkin.
Eric is extremely fast at carving pumpkin.
He is the ultimate pumpkin carver.
And our cake artist, Shannon, is in charge of both characters.
Shannon, she can sculpt realism.
I don't have that ability. So, she complements my weak points.
It makes me feel so secure as a teammate,
but it makes me a little nervous.
But she says she can complete all of the bug body
made out of rice cereal treat and modeling chocolate.
And she's gonna make the scientist out of the same thing.
So, I'm now sculpting the torso of the scientist.
So, Eric, how do you feel about me leaving it super rough?
If I can come back to it, I will. But I'm gonna leave it here for now.
[Eric] Okay.
It's almost there, guys. Pastry cream has awoken.
My focus is the tasting element.
Oh, man, I got peaches and sage.
The only thing I can think to make sage really shine
is something buttery and creamy.
So, my tasting element is gonna be a play on baklava and fruit tart
made out of layers of phyllo dough
and sage sugar in between,
and a beautiful, velvety vanilla pastry cream with roasted peaches.
This is ready.
I'm gonna get my peaches in the oven to roast, to deepen the flavor.
And I fry the sage leaves in the canola oil.
And then, you sugar it.
Sage is very aromatic,
meaning that, when you fry it in oil,
it's actually gonna release its essential oils.
So, when you put it in the sugar, you have that aroma left in that infused sugar.
-Oh, my gosh. -Do you like it?
This is so good.
[Kyle] I'm working on one of the hind legs
for the nuckelavee on the horse side.
I'm gonna cover it with a mixture of gum paste and modeling chocolate.
I'm back here competing
because I want to show everyone that I've still got it.
Everything that I do, with my hands, with my mind,
everything that I see, it's all art.
I'm gonna show everyone that I'm one to be feared.
So, I start with the legs first on the horse.
So, then, all our pumpkin carver has to do
is fit the pieces on, and then tap them in.
How're you doing, Blood Stain?
[laughing] I call this technique
-"I need more arms." -[Kyle laughs]
[Kyle] Sarah Blostein, who we actually call "Blood Stain,"
is the pumpkin carver.
Blood Stain has to cut out individual pieces of pumpkin,
and then smash the pumpkin onto the dowels to hold the melon into place.
I'm putting it on in pieces because, uh...
since we have smaller pumpkins,
we can't really make the whole thing out of one piece.
I'm making the spell book right now.
[Kyle] Our sugar artist, Sarah, is working on our isomalt.
[Sarah] I'm doing it in a frame, so that way, it'll be flat.
[Kyle] Sarah Arnold is very, very clean with her art.
Everything is beautiful. It's all symmetrical. It's absolutely gorgeous.
I got the little wafer paper. There we go.
What part are you working on first, Alan?
I'm working on the werewolf's face.
Our pumpkin carver is Alan Silva.
He's making an entire werewolf.
Alan is serious about his sculpting.
He has his custom drills and tools
that he used just for his sculpting.
[Alan] Now that I'm done using the power tools to cut through the pumpkin,
I am using this fruit carving knife.
It's a Kiwi knife. It's very sharp.
[Shellane] Mmm. So, that's how you get your details?
[Alan] That's how I get the details.
Now, look at this. It just got a nose job.
-Hey... -[Shellane] Oh, snap.
-Alan, that's so good. -[Alan] You like it?
-[Shellane] It's perfect. -Thank you.
[Emerlie] This is for the ring light.
[Shellane] Emerlie starts working on sugar work.
I poured some isomalt down. I'm going to cover it in plastic wrap.
And then, I'm going to put a cookie cutter over this
and another cookie cutter because I want this cool, beveled shape.
[Shellane] I'm so excited to have her on our team.
Emily is very well known for her hyper-realistic edible props.
She can literally make anything out of food,
and make you think twice if it's sugar or not.
She does isomalt and includes actual lights in it.
I'm astounded by her work.
[Emerlie] Okay, okay.
[Shellane] I take some rice cereal and start sculpting
our dancing friend character's head.
I'm covering my RCT
in some skin tone modeling chocolate.
I start with just blocking out the major features of the face,
and then, going back in and fine-tune mouths and nostrils.
It means a lot to me to be back here.
It's just like coming home again and going up against people
who know what it's like to compete in this atmosphere and know how hard it is.
I'm ready to go at it.
Hurry up. Come together.
Teams, you have six hours left.
-Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. -Six hours.
Oh, boy. Already an hour.
[Jonathan] So, this week, it's all about the monsters,
-and as the monsters transform. -[both] Yeah.
So, what are you excited to see?
[Shinmin] We want to see a transformation in action, all right?
We want to see something that looks innocent and normal,
but changing, turning into a monster.
[Aarti] You had asked them to create two distinct characters.
So, that's also difficult, who is the supporting actor in this scene.
We are stacking our cake for the scared, frightened teenager
who's witnessing her friend turned into a werewolf.
Her torso is entirely cake.
I layered the cake with some chocolate ganache.
After that, I want our character to have
pretty fashionable clothes.
We've got Two Ghouls and a Butcher.
And I love Shellane who is back
-as their returning all-star. -[Shinmin] Yes.
Yeah, I think the reason why Shellane was always
the secret weapon in her previous team
-is because she's so quiet. -Yeah.
[Shinmin] But she is one of the best sculptors I've seen in a long time.
And one of the reasons I think that her creations are always so great
is because they're pretty realistic.
-She knows anatomy down to the nerve ending. -[Shinmin] Yes.
I probably shouldn't go for realism on a time competition.
There's just so many details like this. It honestly could take a week
to get down exactly how I would want it.
Like, am I insane?
You're insane for coming back. I can't believe you want to do this again.
I guess I like to torture myself.
[Reva] I'm frantically rushing to create chocolate shells
for Daphne's tasting element.
She's thinking she wants the tasting element to look like bubbles.
[Daphne] Since Reva has the chocolate ball ready,
I'll start working on the honey mousse.
[Reva] The honey mousse will then go
into the chocolate spheres, along with apricot puree.
We still have to wait until the cheesecake is done
before we can finish off her recipe.
[Daphne] Okay. Got it.
I am beginning to sculpt the monster bug lady's body out of rice cereal treat.
[Shinmin] It looks like there's a bug that's coming out over this wall of pumpkin.
And it's a large character, and it looks super structurally sound.
[Shannon] So, I still gotta finish refining the body.
I have to sculpt in some details.
I have to make some wing shells.
And then, the wings come out from underneath those.
And then, I got to sculpt the whole torso and the head.
[Eric] Okay, I'm gonna start the face.
Right now, I'm making a mad scientist.
Scared look, kind of like an Einstein look. We're kind of going with that.
[Briea] Eric, literally, can carve anything.
Realistic, cartoon, it doesn't matter.
He owns his own business, doing caricatures for locals and famous people.
And he also carves snow and sand on top of pumpkins.
How talented can someone possibly be?
[Eric] I'm gonna have to sit down and paint this guy's face.
I take food coloring and I take confectionary sugar,
and I add that in with some edible gels.
The viscosity is a lot more than what you typically have
from a regular food color gel.
So, it's thicker. It sticks really well to pumpkin.
All right. So, I'm working on our tasting element.
So, I'm just gonna start my caramel for the miso-pear compote.
So, we actually get miso and maple. [groans in disgust]
Good thing is that Sarah is actually excited to get miso.
So, Sarah is going to make a miso-pear compote
with a maple mousse,
and a miso-walnut crunch to look like rocks.
I want to chop these really fine so that I can roll out a layer
and it won't be too, too thick and hard to bite through.
[Kyle] Sarah gets her walnuts. She smashes them all down with her miso crunch.
And then, she cuts them all out into little round circles.
And then, she does her coating on the inside with the maple mousse.
[Sarah] Compote is going in.
And then, I get my crunchy crunch.
Okay, guys, tasting element is done.
It's gonna go into the freezer
-for a long, long time. -Awesome.
Only five hours to go.
Five hours.
-[Emerlie] Ooh. -Yeah?
-Yes. -Oh, I love that. Yeah.
[Alan] Werewolf feet coming right up.
[Shellane] Alan is still working on his werewolf,
and it's just taking him a lot longer than what he anticipated.
Alan, how're you doing over there?
Hey. Um, I think I'm gonna need some help.
-[Shellane] Okay. -I don't think I have enough time to carve a body.
I don't think I have enough time to carve a body.
[Shellane] Alan says, "Shellane, I need your help.
I need you to do these back legs."
I stop what I'm doing because my teammate needs me.
I get some modeling chocolate and some fondant,
[laughs] and I just start mashing it onto this werewolf.
Alan didn't think he was gonna finish his werewolf,
but he caught that pretty early on.
He asked for help. He got it from Shellane.
[Aarti] And I also kind of have to give it to Shellane,
-like she set that... -Vibe. The kids say, "the vibe."
-Yeah, she set a vibe in her team. -[Jonathan] Yeah.
"We're all here to pitch in together."
Thank you so much, Shellane.
[Shellane] No problem.
-Teamwork makes the dream work. -That looks amazing.
[Shellane] We're a team.
[Kyle] I'm gonna start on the clown.
And what I'm doing right now is making sure
that I put on a form that will not fall.
I start making the rodeo clown out of rice cereal treats,
modeling chocolate, fondant.
The way I sculpt into the clown is,
I add on little pieces at a time,
and then, I have to blend them in seamlessly
so they don't look like they were puzzle-pieced together.
I'm using gel because this is actually a modeling chocolate,
and airbrush colors will not stick on it at all.
Let's go over to Scream of the Crop with Kyle.
[Shinmin] What I really like about Kyle is, he knows how to handle really big pieces.
My problem with Kyle, sometimes, he tends to focus on one character,
and then, he leaves very little time for the second character.
Today, we're starting off the bat with two characters.
-It's a lot. -Yeah, that's really--
Yeah, both have to be amazing.
Well, did you know that, since you've seen him last,
he is now a medaled jujitsu fighter.
-What? -Yeah.
So, I think that that sort of discipline
-and that competitive edge... -[Jonathan] Yeah.
-...will really come into play here. -[Shinmin grunts]
Also, I am not messing with him.
Don't worry. I've got you.
Got him, man.
-I feel so safe. -Kyle, uh-uh.
Not these judges.
[Blood Stain] Kyle, the clown.
[Kyle] Oh, yeah.
-Well, I need you to go actually look at his face. -[Blood Stain] Oh, my God.
Teams, we've got four hours.
Four hours until we're done.
It's so smooth and white.
-[Lincoln] Oh, that is beautiful. -Yeah.
Daphne, it's really to the point where those should be done.
-I mean, are you almost there? -Yes, I'm working on it.
[Reva] Daphne decided on a very intricate tasting element.
[Daphne] I'm finishing the final element, which is the cloud cheesecake,
and you can tell how soft it is. So, I have to be extra careful.
And now, I'm gonna put it on top
of the apricot jelly and honey mousse,
and then, I'll cover it with chocolate.
Tasting element done.
The tasty element is done!
[both whoop]
Now, you can work on your bust.
-Are you done with the carving of the tentacles? -[Lincoln] No.
[Reva] So, the tentacles are taking a little bit more work than we had anticipated.
There's a lot of gluing.
There's a lot of cutting out of little individual pieces
to add on to the larger piece.
You better be making some big tentacles, though.
Because there's gonna be a big tub.
So, we're just getting the tub covered in the fondant right now.
[Jonathan] Over on Bone Battalion,
we have our returning champion, Reva.
One of her challenges is to actually make her creations
scary enough to be spooky on Halloween Wars.
Right. And that was actually something
-I think has haunted her since her win... -[Shinmin] Mmm-hmm.
...that people have said that her creations were not spooky enough.
[Briea] Shannon, I'm starting to make the phyllo cups.
I'm still working on the tasting element.
I've already finished the pastry cream.
I've already finished the fried sage sugar leaves and the sage sugar.
I'm starting to layer phyllo dough to look like petri dishes.
You go ahead and layer it with melted butter
and, of course, the infused sage sugar.
And you just do melted butter, sage sugar, melted butter, sage sugar,
all between these layers of phyllo dough.
Briea is using, I think, one of the most complicated ingredients,
which is phyllo dough.
I just wonder if that's going to translate to petri dish.
-I know. -Because, when you look at the petri dish,
they're very clean, sterile, flat,
and phyllo dough bakes up to look like ripple-y layers.
So, I don't know if the actual pastry is the right choice.
[Briea] All right, guys, I'm gonna go in the oven with this.
I cannot spend any more time on these cups.
This tasting element has sucked up a lot of my time.
I need to get started on my sugar beakers.
You've got three hours.
[Blood Stain] So, I'm using butternut squash for the horsehead
because A, it is perfectly horsehead shaped,
B, it's a lot softer than pumpkin.
I've got to make this hole in here
because Sarah's making these gorgeous sugar glass eyes to go in.
[Kyle] Blood Stain is a costume designer for TV, movies.
She's a completely self-taught pumpkin carver.
-Do you want to move them now, or are you still... -Uh, we can move them now.
[Kyle] She taught herself how to carve pumpkins using regular tools around the house
and it's like she's been doing it her whole life.
I'm making a dome-shaped moon and I'm going to place it over the lights.
I want the moon to be
a 3-D shape coming off of the backboard.
So I fill the balloon with water and some air.
What happens when you fill the balloon with water
is that when the isomalt touches the latex,
it's able to cool down
because that water is circulating inside the balloon.
And then I dip the balloon into fresh isomalt
a couple of times to create a nice, thick wall.
Making an isomalt piece this size is really risky
because it's a lot more fragile
and it can easily break.
I'm just blending out these craters.
Once the isomalt balloon is cooled down,
I need to snip it very carefully
so that the water will drain slowly into a bowl.
I need to be able to keep the water and the isomalt separate
because water will disintegrate isomalt.
-[Shinmin gasps] -[Jonathan] Whoa!
[Emerlie] I'm holding this balloon, and it just pops on its own.
Water goes everywhere.
And at this point, we're too far along for me to redo this moon.
[chuckling]
It's safe.
[Emerlie exclaims]
[Shellane] Everything's good, right?
I caught it on the back of my arm.
-[chuckling] Oh. -She caught it.
Oh, my gosh!
-Wow! -Wow! That would have been a disaster.
-[Jonathan] Yeah. -It's such a beautiful moon.
Who said Halloween wasn't a contact sport, huh?
Am I right? Am I right?
Yeah? No, I got myself. Cool, cool.
[Emerlie] It's time to hang this moon.
Test it.
-Yes! -[Shellane] Yes. Beautiful.
[Emerlie] It's perfect.
[Alan] Hey, guys, real quick, let's lift the wolf.
-Okay. -[Emerlie] Hold on. I need to get the shoe.
[Alan] There we go.
Needs to turn. We need to turn a little bit more.
Hold on. I gotta let go.
Okay, great.
Come on, girl.
I want to finish this character.
[Reva] Daphne is working on the main sculptural character,
creating a beautiful face,
a head that looks like she's turning into a sea creature.
They've got a human changing into an octopus in a shower,
which could be cute
-if it's not scary enough, right? -Yeah.
I mean, it would be definitely frightening.
-But is it going to be spooky enough... -[Jonathan] Right.
-...especially compared to all of the other designs tonight? -[Jonathan] Mmm-hmm.
[Shinmin] I think it's because there's no element of danger.
Okay, so the tentacles are done.
So I'm cutting this cat out finally.
[Reva] Lincoln is in charge of creating the second character,
which is supposed to be an ominous cat.
[Lincoln] So I want, like, a cat with an elegant look.
It's made with butternut squash.
And I cut the squash, glue it together,
then I, kind of, sculpt the cat.
[Reva] That's a tiny little kitty cat over there.
I thought the cat was going to be made out of a large pumpkin.
But it turns out that it's being made out
of butternut squash, so it's much smaller
than any of us had thought it would be.
That's really important because that's our second character,
and it really needs to have some presence.
I need tentacles for the cat.
I'm concerned about the second character here at Bone Battalion,
because the cat is very static.
-It's not really reacting... -Right.
-...to what's happening in the tub. -[Jonathan] Mmm-hmm.
-Yeah. -And also it's very small
to have such a diminutive supporting actor.
I just don't think it does much for this main character.
You've got two hours, teams. Two hours. Let's go!
-[Emerlie] Two hours? -[Alan] Seriously?
[Emerlie] Oh, my God!
[Kyle] What I'm doing now is I'm doing the front
of the nuckelavee rider's body.
I'm trying to make him look like all his flesh is ripped off.
The skin is all gone, so it's all exposed teeth and muscle and sinew.
And it's just the creepiest-looking thing you've ever seen.
-[Blood Stain] I love him. -[Sarah] You got him?
Yeah, he's on.
[Blood Stain] We're going to have to start painting.
I just love the fact that the rider
-has exaggerated super long arms. -[Aarti] Mmm-hmm.
[Shinmin] And it's in motion.
You can tell he's coming for you.
[Kyle] How you doing, Blood Stain?
-I am doing okay. -[Kyle] Okay.
I'm feeling very stressed.
Shannon has been focusing on the bug head.
She not only has the bug to complete,
but she also is in charge of the entire body of the scientist.
I'm working with modeling chocolate,
and I've never done that in my life.
So I turn around and Eric's completely finished with all of his pumpkin work,
and he's starting to sculpt... modeling chocolate?
[Eric] Shannon asked me to give her a hand
with some of the modeling chocolate.
[Briea] But he is literally sculpting
the rest of the scientist's body,
and he's doing a fantastic job of adapting quickly.
[Eric] Shannon, how you doing?
[Shannon] Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and get her up on there.
Push the face.
Oh, boy.
Okay. You tell me where to position him.
-[Eric] As far over as we can. -[Shannon] Okay.
Far this way?
-So-- -Like, his leg almost off the thing, or--
-That's good, that's good. -[Shannon] You safe? Okay?
My tasting element is chocolate and onion.
I'm just gonna start with an onion and pear jam.
We won chocolate and onion.
I use the word "won" very loosely.
Emerlie is a little bit more optimistic
about the chocolate and onion pairing than I am.
Our tasting element is going to be
a caramelized onion and pear bonbon
topped with fried rice paper, sprinkled with sea salt.
[Emerlie] Onion is a savory flavor.
I still want the judges to taste the onion,
but I'm gonna tone it down with some of that sweet pear.
And then we'll smooth it out with some white chocolate.
[Shellane] She adds this balsamic vinegar.
Then she adds a little bit of honey.
I've tempered some white chocolate,
and I'm filling my bonbon mold
with my white chocolate.
I'm gonna dump the white chocolate back out just so that I have shells.
Okay, I'm just filling my bonbons
with the caramel, onion and pear jam.
So I'm just topping this
with a little bit of white chocolate mascarpone ganache.
And then I'm gonna cap them.
We really wanted our piece to be interactive.
We wanted the judges to have to, kind of, dig through the trashcan
to get the tasting element.
[Emerlie] So this is wafer paper pieces
that I use on top of the bonbons
so it just looks like trash.
One hour. You've got one hour left!
One hour. All right, you guys, we gotta move.
Let's do these wings.
I spent way too much time on that petri dish tasting element,
and it's still not assembled.
I haven't pulled the wings yet.
So I pull the sugar. This has connection points.
We're just gonna feed it right through.
I'm gonna make the outline first and then use gelatin,
believe it or not, to give that ethereal look of a see-through wing.
These are the translucent part of the wings,
and I'm using sugar to attach the gelatin.
[all gasping]
[Shinmin] Briea broke one of the wings.
[Aarti] Oh, no.
[Briea] All right. That was awesome.
I just broke it.
-What just happened? -[Shinmin] Briea broke one of the wings.
[Aarti] Oh, no.
Oh, man.
This wing is a really difficult technique.
I gotta redo the veins,
somehow attach the gelatin
and move on to the tasting element.
All right, Shannon, the wings are gonna stay right here, okay?
Tasting element. Let's do it.
So I'm trying to assemble this tasting element
and brûlée these peaches with the sage sugar.
Try to caramelize it for some black notes on those peaches,
throw a sage leaf on and hope my petri dish is delicious.
Teams, you have 30 minutes left.
I'm making the selfie stick.
So I have the stick itself, plus the tripod legs.
[Shellane] Emerlie has this unique technique
of making sculpted chocolate that I've never seen before.
She, kind of, takes clumps of chocolate,
and then rolls it out into a uniform log and chops up pieces.
She then glues them together with more chocolate
and does this, like, polishing technique.
[Emerlie] So what happens is if you take hot water
and you give it a little water bath, it melts the surface.
And then the melted chocolate on the surface
will fill in the little holes and gaps.
[Shellane] I'm astounded by her work.
Okay. If I place this, no one's gonna ruin it, right?
-No. -Okay. Here?
[Shellane] Yes.
-Come on. Lower-- -Let's make sure of the position before we place it.
We don't have that much time, mama.
I love you, but I can't talk a whole lot right now.
[Reva] We have to get everything onto the board.
Is it the most beautiful, edible vinyl curtain there could be?
No. But it's done, and we're getting it on here.
[Sarah] Okay, guys. So I'm gonna finish our tasting element now.
This is a chocolate shell,
so it'll harden when it sets, and it'll look like rocks.
I'm gonna put our little tasty guys on here.
Teams, you have ten minutes left.
Ten minutes remain!
-[Reva] Oh, my God. Okay, guys, ten minutes. -[Kyle] Ten minutes.
[Reva] We're gonna get this done.
[Briea] Do not jiggle this table for the love of God.
Do you need some chocolate to set it or anything, Briea?
-[Briea] No. Please leave me alone. -Okay.
-I need-- -[Shannon] I just don't know
which beakers Briea wants where and--
[Eric] Briea, there's also an option
-to let it rest under it. -I understand.
-I need to be left alone. -[Shannon] Ten minutes, you guys.
Guys, I need you to stop micromanaging me.
-[Shannon] I'm not-- -I'm being as kind as I can.
[Eric] The anxiety is heightened.
When the anxiety is heightened,
the whole team dynamic changes at this point.
Not there, not there.
We got to put the beaker in his hand.
-Can't be there. -Which one goes in his hand, Briea?
I understand.
This needs to go here,
and the other beaker needs to go there.
-We talked about this. -It's gonna block her face if you put that there.
-[Briea] No, I'm not. -[Eric] You're gonna block her face.
Composition. Think about it.
Over here, this is negative space.
-That's perfect. -Yes. It's so true.
-I-- -[Eric] Believe me. It's what I do for a living.
Oh, my God, they're actually fighting.
I'm gonna have a panic attack if you don't trust me.
I really am gonna have a panic attack.
[Eric] But that has to go down there.
It's our first time working together,
and we're definitely having difficulty listening to one another.
Guys, please listen to me.
-She's screaming. -I've never seen this much tension on Halloween Wars.
-She's screaming at them. -I've never seen people actually scream.
This is not gonna end well.
[Eric] We've got too much negative space.
[Shannon] I hear you. I hear ya.
What can we do about it?
We got beakers. Can the beakers be on the floor?
[Briea] Yes, you can place beakers on the table,
and you can place one beaker on the shelf.
[Eric] What can I do, Briea?
[Briea] Can someone put the petri dishes on that shelf?
Can I put some on this table, Briea?
-Because they're not all gonna fit on here. -That's fine.
-[Shannon] Okay. -[Briea] That's fine.
At the end of the day, a pressure cooker is a pressure cooker.
But I can't say that I'm happy with my attitude.
[Lincoln] Are those balls and stuff ready to go in?
These are the ones that are... For there, the tasting ones.
So I'm just gonna grab some modeling chocolate
and do some feet for the bottom of the tub
because right now, the armature is exposed.
I'm putting the feet on, and then I'm doing the bubbles.
-One minute! -Okay, one minute, one minute.
[Shellane] I don't feel comfortable
putting it on there and it breaks,
so I'm gonna place, and then you can smooth out.
Oh.
-Ten, nine, eight... -[Sarah] Oh, my God.
-Okay, I'm just gonna do some of these cracks. -...seven, six, five...
-This thing is not working. -...four, three, two, one.
Time's up!
Oh, my gosh!
-[Emerlie] Okay. No, hugs. -[Alan] Hug, hug, hug.
[Briea sighs] I love you. Thank you so much.
-Thank you, thank you, thank you. -You're welcome.
[Briea] Thank you for all your hard work.
-You guys did great. You did-- -Thank you for your hard work.
[Eric] You did so good.
Two Ghouls and a Butcher, you're up.
[Shellane] We have our teen werewolf.
He goes on a outing with his friend.
And they want to create some content.
We have a pumpkin werewolf.
We have a cake that is our friend.
Cake and modeling chocolate.
We have a chocolate and isomalt ring light
as well as an isomalt moon.
Shellane, this girl is everything I want to be,
except for the fact that her best friend
-is turning into a werewolf. -[Shellane] Yeah, yeah.
[Aarti] It's just so beautifully sculpted.
Your pumpkin work, Alan,
I think it needs some lightness on the werewolf side
so that we can really see some of it
-because it's a little bit dark. -Thank you.
We asked for someone in mid-transformation in an inopportune time.
This is literally caught on camera.
The composition is great.
We have one, two, three.
The eyes just really follow this flow of movement.
And, Emerlie, I love the fact that you gave us
this gorgeous sugar moon there.
Emerlie, tell us about the tasting element
and what ingredients you got.
So we got chocolate and onion.
I definitely feel like we got the hardest one here.
So this is a caramelized onion and pear bonbon.
It is a caramelized onion and pear jam
in a white chocolate bonbon,
and then it's fried up rice paper with sea salt.
[Shinmin] Wow. That's a very interesting bite.
It tastes both savory and sweet at the same time.
That's a really good balance there.
The only thing I would change
is I would use a darker, maybe, like, bittersweet chocolate
as opposed to the white chocolate.
It doesn't have a very strong chocolate flavor.
I love that you kept some of the texture of the onion in there.
That's a very bold choice.
-I did not want to shy away from it. -[Aarti] Yeah.
-I wanted to own it. -[Jonathan] Smart.
-[Emerlie] Yeah. -This is a very bold, confident, assertive bite.
Two Ghouls and a Butcher, thank you so much.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
[Jonathan] Delectable Demons,
tell us about your monster in transition.
[Briea] Today, they have decided to make a chemical
that will get rid of their bug infestation problem in the lab.
But the experiment goes wrong.
The transformed woman,
it's made of rice cereal treat,
modeling chocolate and fondant.
You have sugar wings, you have a pumpkin face and a pumpkin background.
We made all the stone brick.
Wow. There's such a sense of movement in your piece.
I'm obsessed with this scientist.
Eric, you've captured this amazing personality in his face.
Shannon, this character in the back, the assistant bug,
she's creepy AF.
Some of the sugar work is not as successful.
Like, the wings on the actual assistant herself,
they seem really rough.
I can hear it.
It is such a vivid depiction of this moment.
When it comes to the tasting element,
I feel like you guys could have worked it into the scene a little better.
Briea, tell us about the tasting element.
[Briea] My ingredients for the tasting element was sage and peaches.
I made a baklava tart,
made out of layers of phyllo dough, butter and sage sugar in between.
And a beautiful, velvety vanilla pastry cream
with roasted peaches atop a sage fried leaf.
Briea, this is a lovely bite.
I really love the tender, toothsome peach
with the creaminess of the vanilla pastry cream.
I do wish that I had a little bit more sage.
My favorite part is actually the creme pat that you have in here.
It's got that perfect, smooth but still jiggly texture.
I agree with Aarti.
I wish there was a little bit more sage flavor.
Delectable Demons, thank you so much.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
[Reva] Here we have Penelope.
What she didn't realize was that the bath bubbles
that were given to her by a stranger
turned her into a sea creature.
Penelope herself is the cake element,
with modeling chocolate and rice cereal treats.
The tub is also a cake element.
The tentacles are actually pumpkin.
We have an edible vinyl shower curtain,
and some sugar balls and chocolate balls.
There are so many unique techniques here.
I love, Reva, that you showed us something new today
by cooking down the gelatin with the cornstarch
to create these super bendy,
flexy, rubbery shower curtains.
Lincoln, I think you did a really good job
incorporating the pumpkin tentacles into the cake display.
I cannot tell that that's pumpkin.
The thing about this cat is that it's very small.
And without you explaining what is happening,
I don't understand how it fits into the story.
The challenge was a monster in transition,
but at an inopportune moment, and we're not getting that.
You didn't make great use of your second character.
That's where you get the tension.
Tell us your two ingredients and what did you make?
Cheese and honey.
So I made a very light and delicate cheesecake to go with honey mousse.
I add apricot coulis in to balance the sweetness.
Mmm.
This is a very delicious bite, and it was super fun.
I think that apricot was a really lovely touch.
It's very bright and happy.
And a lovely counterpoint to the sweetness of the honey.
But I'm missing the cheese.
It's almost too subtle.
I absolutely love this tasting.
The honey mousse is just loud and clear.
I can definitely taste the honey.
I think it's so smart that you did the cheesecake.
So sorry to disagree.
Um, the texture of this cheesecake is so airy and fluffy.
It's really, really clever.
Bone Battalion, thank you so much.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
Scream of the Crop, tell us about your monster.
So this is yee-haw!
Wow.
[Kyle] So what happened is our down-on-the-luck clown
opened a portal that turned his best friend
riding his horse into a nuckelavee.
The horse is butternut squash, pumpkin,
and our rider is modeling chocolate with fondant.
The clown is rice cereal treats and fondant.
The sugar elements are the flames, the book and the tasting element.
I think this is such a clever design.
You guys did such a great job of melding all the mediums together.
We have to talk about the nuckelavee.
Great texture, great carving.
A really great, sort of, melding of the two artists here
into one piece.
It's funny because when you started to paint it red,
I was like, "Oh, my gosh! Wow!
It's just turned into a whole different thing."
Unfortunately, because you didn't create shadow in there,
some of that great texture that you carved in
isn't really jumping out anymore.
Ew, first of all.
You were able to incorporate your skills
as pumpkin, as cake artists and modeling chocolate.
And you created this really uniform, cohesive body.
The colors are just too bright.
You know what they do with rodeo clowns that retire, right?
They host Halloween Wars.
Sarah, why don't you tell us about the tasting element?
What ingredients did you get?
[Sarah] So our ingredients were miso and maple.
So for you today, we have a miso pear compote inside a maple mousse
with a miso walnut crunch layer,
and it's dipped in a white chocolate shell.
Decorated to look like rocks.
[Shinmin] My favorite part is the actual
walnut maple crunch that you have on the bottom.
It's just a nice way to add texture
to an otherwise pretty soft tasting.
I can definitely taste the maple as well.
Miso is tough. Miso is very subtle in flavor.
I agree. I think you were a little light with the miso.
I love the pear in there.
I think it adds a little bit of freshness.
Scream of the Crop, great job. Thank you so much.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
There is some great work out here tonight
that really impressed the judges.
But one team pulled out all the stops in presentation and flavors
to seamlessly transition from terrifying to downright delicious.
The winner of this challenge is...
Two Ghouls and a Butcher. Congratulations.
-Onions and chocolate. -A winning combination.
Wow!
And now, for the tough decision.
The bottom two.
Scream of the Crop, the sculpting on the horse
and the clown face are amazing.
But you covered all that pumpkin in red paint,
and we lost all the details that you worked so hard on.
Bone Battalion, we loved seeing something fresh and new,
like the shower curtain.
And the work on the octopus face was delightful.
But we don't feel any tension
from the monster transitioning,
and that was the challenge.
This was a tough decision for the judges to make.
The team leaving us tonight is...
Bone Battalion.
[Reva] I'm not used to being the one out first,
so it's humbling.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you, guys.
-Thank you. -[Kyle] Bye, guys.
[Reva] I can accept it.
And I can come back and do better next time.
Two Ghouls and a Butcher, Scream of the Crop and Delectable Demons,
we'll see you all soon for more monster action.
Next time, the six teams face off in an all-out Halloween War.
-[Emerlie] So perfect. -[Shellane shrieks]
That whole thing's shaking.
[woman 1] It's so scary looking.
[Jonathan] As they take on demons that haunt your dreams
and a challenge inspired by Nightmare on Elm Street.
-[Briea] Oh, my God! -Oh, my God!
-[woman 2] These are going down. -[man] I'm not touching it.
-[woman 3 gasps] -[Shinmin gasps]