[Jonathan] It all comes down to this.
The heart-pounding, spine-chilling finale
of "Halloween Wars."
Poisonous Perfection versus the Undercakers.
We are here in the finals,
and it's time to get uncomfortable.
[Jonathan] Both teams have sliced their way
through the competition with razor-sharp precision,
creating jaw-dropping,
terrifyingly delicious masterpieces that combine cake
and the most pumpkin we've seen yet!
[Shinmin] That's a really heavy pumpkin.
[Jonathan] That's so heavy.
We have won three out of the four challenges.
And then we have the Undercakers,
who are our underdogs. - We haven't won a challenge yet.
They've been nipping at Poisonous Perfection's heels.
- [Nils] You hear that? - Uh-huh.
- [crackling] - That's the sound of risk.
[Jonathan] Now they face off for the final time
in a head-to-head battle where stretching themselves
to the limit is the only way to prevail.
I've done a few of these. I have yet to win one.
It would feel so good to not walk home
in second place again. - And only one of them can win.
[Jonathan] To win, they'll have to push themselves
to the breaking point. - [Jamie] It's gonna eat
your face off. - [Jonathan] Only one team
will succeed to claim the coveted championship title
and $25,000.
I love a good competition.
[Jonathan] Who will survive the ultimate showdown?
The clock is ticking, and the stakes
have never been higher. - [all] Oh!
- What was that noise? - No!
[spooky music playing]
[twinkly, spooky music playing]
Poisonous Perfection and the Undercakers,
you survived everything
from Scare School to the Boogeyman's Lair,
to find yourself here
in the finale of "Halloween Wars."
- Come on, guys. Great job!
[Jonathan] Yeah.
[Nils speaking]
Now you're gonna attempt to cast one last spell
over the judges, literally.
We want you to conjure
your most wickedly delicious display yet
by imagining a scene where someone has fallen
under the power of a Modern Day Spell-A-Thon.
[Aarti] Ooh.
For your tasting elements, transform savory ingredient
into an unexpectedly sweet treat.
In the skill spotlight tonight is...
everyone! This is the finals.
Of course.
Pumpkin carvers must carve a full character.
Sugar artists are responsible for an entire story element,
and cake artists must create a key structure out of cake.
Nice, OK. You got that.
The "Halloween Wars" title and $25,000 is on the line.
Your final seven hours starts...
now!
- Wait, where did he go? - Oh, Jonathan?
It finally worked, Aarti.
[Nils] All right, guys, it's the finals, here we go.
[Jamie] Look at our glowing cauldron!
[Nils] What have we got for tasting element here?
Miso.
So we got a nice salty umami flavor here.
We have tahini. Oh, tahini's good.
All right. I like tahini.
It's sesame paste.
I mean, it is savory, but man, sesame goes so well
in so many desserts. I think this is...
- Oh, good. Right on. - ... this is gonna be great.
We have won three out of the four challenges
we have worked on together,
and we know that we're a solid team,
and we just wanna bring it home in the finale.
What are we thinking with this Spell-A-Thon?
So what kind of like, modern thing would be going on
with magic nowadays? - AI.
AI is like, it's, it's kind of like magic.
- Maybe witches, wizards, sorceresses are using AI now... - For spells?
- ...to create spells? - Yeah.
Yeah? What's the best thing about AI?
You plug in a prompt and it shoots out something
that's like, not quite right.
Yeah.
The idea for our display
is that there's this spell GPT pod,
but since it's going haywire and malfunctioning,
we have these monsters breaking loose out of the wall
and the employee is trying to contain them,
but having a hard time.
[Jamie] And every single one of us has a spotlight.
So I've gotta make sure that whatever I do for my sugar,
it is like, the big, like, magical element.
The pod being a scene item should definitely be cake.
I'm gonna do a creature
that's come out of the pod, right?
Yeah, busted pod.
He busted out of it.
[Nils] All right.
So it is Modern Day Spell-A-Thon.
OK, so we need spells.
I think the hard part of this is most magic
is set in the past.
So I think we need to have a little bit of old magic
with new magic. - Yeah, OK.
Oh, OK.
We should have, like, witches, I guess.
We decided we're gonna do an old wizard
battling a modern witch.
She will be levitating, trying to close this portal
before he releases this monster.
Yes.
Pumpkin, cake, sugar, it's no longer one spotlight.
It is all the spotlight.
Every element on this board
has to be on point. - [overlapping voices]
[Tenisha] So we want to go all out for the finale.
We wanna have, like, a portal spinning to create
a very cool portal effect, and the witch will levitate.
I am nervous because this is my first time making an armature
that floats. - It's the finals, guys.
Everything we got, let's all just come together
and just peak at the right moment, OK?
- [Margi] Yeah, perfect. - [Jamie] Finale.
- [Nils] Let's go. - [Jamie] Let's go!
- [Karine] All right. - [Nils] About to pop off here.
Us pumpkin people have gotta help each other out.
- This is my pumpkin. - OK, it's good.
- [Paulina] Oh, no, it's... - [Margi] Don't you go over.
Couldn't have picked a round one.
[Paulina] Nope.
Just leave it here, and we'll go get yours.
- This one? - I think so.
[Paulina] Oh, my God. This one's heavier.
Oh, it's going.
- [Margi] That's good enough. - [Paulina] OK.
- [indistinct] - [Margi] Thank you.
Well, ladies, this is it.
We are in the finale of "Halloween Wars."
And what great teams to have.
Poisonous Perfection and the Undercakers.
These two teams are so different.
We have Poisonous Perfections.
They've won three out of the four challenges
that they've been in.
And then we have the Undercakers,
who are our underdogs, if you will. - Yeah.
And they haven't won a single one,
but they've always been so close.
Yeah, Undercakers has been nipping
at Poisonous Perfection's heels, and it's been a stronger nip
every week. And, and this is the thing,
this finale challenge is gigantic.
Every single medium needs to be on display in some way.
I'm looking for complete designs that don't look stark,
that don't look bare, and aren't just propped up
by three characters or three separate pieces.
[Paulina] All right, let's do this.
So for the finale, everyone has a spotlight,
and for Pumpkin, we have to make a full character,
and that's a lot of work.
So I'm going for a centipede-like creature.
This guy is monstrous, and I'm gonna build him all
on the table and then transfer him over.
And it is pretty risky.
It needs to be extremely sturdy, because we don't want
this thing getting wobbly.
To accomplish the arm, I'm actually using really
big chunks, 'cause I want this creature to be very lengthy.
Making a piece like this is time-consuming,
because making sure
that you're fitting all the pieces together right--
so a lot is riding on me
to make sure I get that finished.
- Arm segment one. - [Jamie] Nice!
Right now, I'm using a round dowel,
and I'm pushing it into my paste,
so it makes, like, a round indentation.
And that's gonna be the bricks for our walls.
Karine is working on our floor and our brick backboard,
and Jamie is starting on her tasting element.
I'm creating my pâte à choux to make profiteroles,
which is just fancy for cream puffs.
Our assigned ingredient is tahini.
Tahini is a challenge
because it is more savory of a flavor.
Jamie's making a profiterole
with a tahini, mascarpone, and cardamom filling.
This is my finished pâte à choux dough.
I'm gonna pipe it into a mold because this mold is gonna make
my puffs super consistent, nice and round,
and they're gonna look this even across the board.
OK, bringing this in the oven.
- Margi, how we doing? - Good.
I'm gonna work on the face and get it out of the way.
[Nils] Excellent.
And I'll carve the face probably on this side.
[Tenisha] Marguerite is sculpting our wizard.
[Margi] He's old with a furrowed brow,
he's kind of worried.
He's wizened, he's got sunken cheeks.
I'm nervous about this one because I will be doing
the biggest character that I have done so far.
There's no do-overs for this one.
I use butternut squash to make the hat
because it starts out as the right shape.
We're gonna get the sugar going, and this is what
we're gonna pour over the plexiglass for our base.
Hopefully, it is not so hot that it melts it,
but I've never seen anybody do it,
so first time for everything, right?
Poisonous Perfection has won almost all of their challenges,
and we have yet to win one, so this is the big one.
I've been on a lot of teams.
This team is an extremely talented team.
I really would like them to be able to win their first one
they've ever done,
and I would really like to win one.
All right, let's see if this works.
So I'm trying to swirl the colors in, so when the light
shines through, it'll look a little bit more
mystical, magical.
This is the big one that I'm worried about, though,
because you can hear it.
You can hear the board crinkling.
[man] Yep.
- You hear that? - Uh-huh.
That's the sound of risk.
So everything's looking all right.
I mean, really, time will tell because it has to set.
It looks like it's working.
We haven't had any catastrophic problems yet.
All right. I'm happy.
Lots of risk today, but it's go big or go home.
So for our backdrop, I'm creating
this portal effect.
I'm starting off with a base color of light pink.
Next, I'm going in with my airbrush machine
to add a bit of ombre
because I want the sky to fade out to darkness.
This is my favorite part.
I'm using my spatula with some colored buttercream
to make the trees.
So last time, I didn't get to do the kind of amazing colorful
backdrops I usually do because we were doing a kid's room,
which I know the judges loved.
That's why we're bringing it back this time.
So, hopefully...
it will give us the win.
We've got Undercakers over here.
Tenisha is hand-painting, yet again, you know,
the most beautiful sunset in her trademark colors.
Again, like, their backgrounds have always
been a character in all of their designs.
And because she's so good with the palette knife,
she expresses such character and movement so quickly.
It's such a joy to watch.
I could watch her paint all day,
like, it's hypnotizing.
I found myself staring at her painting,
watching her do it, and I got drawn into it.
[Nils] All right, that should be good there.
Six hours left! Six hours!
- Whoa! - Let's go.
We're an hour in.
Gotta keep moving. Don't stop.
Is that large enough? No, you're not.
Right now, I'm working on the top of our pod.
For our cake spotlight, we need to have an element
of the scene being made out of cake.
So what better than that pod that is making these creatures.
I'm working to win.
I really working as neat as I can, so our piece is perfect.
I'm coating it in a thick ganache.
Oh, very nice.
So it's gonna harden really well?
Yes, and it's gonna stay put.
It means a lot to me to be able to show what I can do,
so I really, really would like to have that champion title
to bring back home with me.
My daughters will be so proud and so stoked.
- Are you good? - Yep.
OK.
We do really wanna win this finale,
not only for our whole team,
but also for Jamie, 'cause she's been here before,
and she knows what it feels like, and we wanna make sure
she takes home a win today.
It would feel so good to not...
walk home in second place again.
I have been to the finale twice.
This is, hands down, the best team that I've ever had.
I just want it to work out this time.
- Nils? - Yeah.
I've got two failures under my belt.
- How are you doing? - I've got, you know, like five.
I think there's an interesting story here
between Jamie on Poisonous Perfection
and Nils over here on Undercakers.
Both of these artists have been here a couple,
two, three times. - Yeah.
And they've never tasted the sweet flavor of victory.
So I think that that's also supercharging
both of these teams.
It's the competition between the two historical underdogs.
[Aarti] Yeah.
[Shinmin] And they both want it so bad.
[Aarti] Yeah.
And only one of them can win.
I am pouring tahini right now, and it's sesame seed paste.
It tastes, like, nice and toasty
and a lot like sesame.
The trick to balancing this is gonna be to kinda make it
a little bit sweeter.
So I'm gonna be incorporating the tahini into a creamy
mascarpone filling for our profiteroles.
This is just tahini and mascarpone,
and I'm just gonna mix this together
until it's relatively smooth.
I have a plan to make these profiteroles look like spiders.
The story is-- somebody asked for dessert,
instead, what comes out is a nest of spiders.
So I've gotta make little chocolate legs
stick onto my cute little profiteroles,
a bunch of spider legs.
So I've definitely been in the finale before,
and sometimes it's really, really close,
and it just comes down to the tasting element.
So I gotta make sure that these are looking pretty,
tasting amazing, because if it's close,
I wanna win with my flavors.
As far as competitors go, Nils is the one that has also
been crushing it along with me with our flavors
and our desserts.
So I think this is a really great, like, head-to-head.
And I love a good competition. It's not stressful at all.
For red and white miso, I've never really tried them
by themselves, so let's figure that out real quick.
Ooh.
For the tasting element, I get miso, um,
that's not something I've used a ton of in my life.
In fact, I've probably never used miso paste.
Didn't even know there were two types of miso.
Ooh, salty.
Also salty, a little more funky.
The red miso's got a little bit more flavor
and that aged sort of fermented flavor to it.
This one's a little bit lighter.
They're about equal salty.
So I think if I run both,
we'll see which one tastes better.
And we're gonna go with the one that comes out best.
Here we go.
For the tasting element, don't believe I've seen anybody
do a crème brûlée on this before,
so we're gonna run some crème brûlées.
And what I'm thinking is, since we've gotta burn sugar
on it, it can be sort of deflected spells that start
to melt the ground around, since it's a spell battle.
[Margi] Double whisking.
This is the white miso.
Red miso.
It's gonna be red.
They're both salty, but the red really has that pop
I think the judges are looking for.
It's a little bit more texture in it.
And I just, I think it's really important at this point
to really pop the flavor up.
So we're gonna go with the red.
What's crème brûlée without sugar?
Pudding.
Four hours left! You've got four hours!
- Oh. - Four hours.
Yeah, I'm good. Are you good?
Four hours. How are you feeling?
Jamie, I need you to hold this piece.
[Jamie] I love the shape of this.
It's a very thorax, abdomen-like insect.
I'm using zip ties to hold my pieces to that steel armature
because I can't screw it into it like wood.
- Just FYI, guys, I am a little behind on my time. - OK.
- So I'm just keeping you posted. - [Karine] OK.
And I think this is a good point to consider moving it
over to our base.
It's a moment of truth, because if anything happens
while we're moving it, we won't have the time
to create one with as much detail
that I put into this first.
- Oh, here they go. - Oh, jeez.
[Jamie] Where am I standing?
We are twisting it first, because we want the tail
to be here, right? - OK.
So if you could push while we push simultaneously.
- That's a really heavy pumpkin. - [Jonathan] That's so heavy.
Don't pick it up. Just slide.
- [Karine[ OK, slide that. - [Paulina] Good.
- Ready? - [Karine] Yes.
OK, here we go, here we go.
- Oh, my gosh. - [Paulina] One, two, three.
- [Jamie] Lifting. - [Paulina] You got it?
- It looks so heavy. - This has to make it.
[suspenseful music]
[Paulina] OK, stop.
[gasping]
[Paulina] Down.
Right there is perfect. There we go.
- Whew. - That little...
that little hand dodge right there.
[Jonathan] Now what? Now they're gonna take it
off that, and they're gonna screw it into the board.
[Paulina] Pick up by the flange, not the pumpkin.
[Karine] No, I-- I'm trying.
[Jamie] Yeah, she'll take the wood.
- You guys, I'm so tense. - [Jamie] Ready?
[Karine] Yep.
- [Paulina] Slide it out. - Ho-ho-ho-ho!
- [Shinmin] Smooth. - Ooh.
[Jamie] Like butter.
[Paulina] All right, hold it there.
- Is this where we want him? - [Jonathan] You did it.
- [Paulina] Yeah. - [Karine] OK.
Wow, your palms were sweaty, huh?
This would be his knee. This will be his ankle.
It's gonna go like this.
I am making some legs.
The wizard is kneeling down, so he's got the power
to fight Aurora.
Movement is really important, of course,
and sometimes it's hard when you have static things
like pumpkins and cake.
So this part is pretty important because you've gotta get it
in the right position.
[Tenisha] So Margi has never done a piece this big,
but she's going to take the risk for this finale
'cause she wants to go all out.
[Margi] I'm using this loop tool.
This is one of the larger ones. They take a lot of stuff off.
I'm making a fabric texture on his clothing.
I think it's so exciting.
I'm kinda doing it for my grandkids,
and I kinda wanna just send them a little message that,
just go for it and have fun and do something that maybe
you're not that comfortable doing
because I was a little nervous,
I still am, kind of, but, you know, just go for it.
Don't be afraid to try new things.
I've really grown as a carver because I plunged myself
into doing things I've never done.
That's gonna work perfectly. These are ribbon strips.
I just, I like them to make fabric look flowy.
He's kind of a wizardy, raggedy kind of a guy.
That cape looks dope.
[Jamie] I'm gonna pour my panel.
I need to have three panels for this pod.
And actually, two of the panels are gonna be busted
because we need a monster, like, coming out of it.
I need some good-looking panels that I can control the break
and then glue everything back in place
in a sophisticated way.
Really?
Strongest piece of isomalt ever.
Oh, my God.
There we go.
Did you see the broken glass that Jamie is working on...
- Jonathan and Aarti] Yes. - [Shinmin]...out of sugar?
Crazy.
If I ask you to take a panel of real glass
and break it into pieces that you can put back together
like a puzzle piece, would you be able to do that?
- [Jonathan] No. - [Shinmin] I mean,
she's literally doing that, but with sugar.
- [Jamie and Karine] Done. - [Karine laughs]
[Jamie] It's looking super nice and clean so far.
I'm really liking it.
We just gotta make it look dark and terrifying.
I'm starting off with my structure.
I'm just gonna put the cake, put it together,
cover it with chocolate, then put the cake on it.
I'm going all-out for the finale.
I'm creating a levitating witch character that's fighting
our evil wizard.
This is a little nerve-wracking for me because I am nervous
about my character falling over.
Making cake pop filling, instead of stacking the cake on her.
I'm just gonna use cake and buttercream, just so that
I'm squishing it together, just so she's not too heavy,
and it'll be easier to mold.
I really want my piece to be light because she'll be flying,
and the less cake I put on and pack on,
it'll make her light enough so she wouldn't fall off.
I'm just about to start sculpting her face.
Ten years ago, back in Guyana, that's when I first started
trying out making cakes. I had to make my fondant
from scratch, because we couldn't go to the store
and buy fondant, like, that wasn't a thing.
So I eventually just didn't move forward with it
because it was time-consuming
and makeup is what took off for me in my career.
And fast forward to two years ago for my son's first birthday,
I made the cake and it was so fun.
As a makeup artist, I still have to go into these characters
and highlight and contour.
So it was basically the same techniques,
I'm just using different mediums.
She's just one of my clients getting her makeup done.
[Jonathan] No one paints a face like Tenisha.
- That is true. - I'm just saying, best makeup we've ever had on the show.
[Jonathan] Fierce.
This is the finale, and I cannot believe
that we are here.
I'm very grateful 'cause I'm self-taught
and from a little country in the Caribbean,
and now I'm here doing this.
It still feels like a dream. OK.
The most impressive part to me of their design is in the back,
they're going to have this spinning portal
that's opening up.
So we're gonna try to make this really light
'cause the turntable is designed to sit flat,
but we're gonna try to mount it to the back
so that it'll turn this way through the board.
So hopefully this works.
We're taking some risks today, but we are here in the finals,
and it's time to get uncomfortable.
I have done a few of these. I have yet to win one.
I'd really love to win it.
You know, I know my kids are at home sending me videos
being like, "Dad, you can do it."
And so I just, you know, just wanna win for everybody--
they sort of supported me through all this.
Tenisha, you still gotta paint the inside of that.
I'm painting the portal with the same colors of buttercream
I used for the backdrop.
Get it going.
[tense music playing]
It's working, and it's, it's rotating.
[Tenisha] Oh, my god. Oh, my god.
- What happened? - Oh, no.
[Margi] Oh, careful. Watch him, watch him.
[Tenisha] So I got, I really got to glue it.
[Nils] Yeah, glue it now.
[Tenisha] So if this witch falls, we're losing this finale.
Tenisha, so...
metal and glue doesn't really go together that well.
So we're gonna hit it with a little bit of duct tape.
OK.
So see how that holds right now?
She's gonna rotate a little bit.
- [Margi] Is it, did it hold? - It's still gonna rotate.
Right now, it feels like everything is going wrong,
and nothing is going right.
We didn't realize that glue, plastic and metal don't glue
well together that well.
The pipe was not glued in when it was put on.
And at this point, it's really hard to take it off
and fix the problem.
I'm gonna see if I can loop it and basically keep it from...
doing anything too crazy here.
We twisted copper pipes around the base of it,
which gives it even more support.
[Margi] Nils has been here a number of times,
and Tenisha and I haven't.
It's really helpful to have him reminding us all the time
of what we're doing, keeping on task, keep working, have fun.
Don't stop. Don't breathe.
Just keep going.
Them never having done shows, I take it upon myself
to make sure that they can succeed.
And ultimately, I think being a team leader,
you don't sit back, you get your hands dirty,
you get in there,
and you just try to lift everybody up.
- [Tenisha] OK. - [Nils] Sweet.
- [Margi] You're a hero. - [Tenisha] Thank you.
Gotta get a lot of green for a lot of tentacles.
For the giant creature coming out of the portal
with the big green arms,
the hard part about this is these are
really big pieces of sugar.
So they have to be fairly thick.
So these tentacles will be becoming out of the backboard.
So I have to put a little bit of a dowel in it.
So, 'cause I drilled a hole, so it'll go through
and it'll hold so it won't go.
But basically I have to make sure
that the general support of it is strong enough.
That's why I torched into it.
Give it a twist here.
Don't, can't make them too thin, but then we're gonna use this...
to sort of give them some movement.
So as it...
solidifies, it'll hold a cool shape,
'cause they can't just be like this.
All of Nils' sugar work seems to be sort of supportive,
either underpinnings or backboard pieces,
but still, like, huge characters in the story.
Yeah, and what I really love is he's being very
deliberate tonight. - [Aarti] Yeah.
He is trying out different methods.
[Nils] Trying to get this guy on.
It's hot sugar, so it's gonna bend, but I need it
in a specific shape, and a specific length.
It has to bend just right for the piece because it's going
into this spring, and then I have another one coming out,
so it needs to feel like it's actually moving.
[Karine] Now I'm working on our magician.
It's gonna be building the body with rice cereal treats
and then making the details with modeling chocolate.
I'm gonna need to move him to the base.
Here, little guy. Let me grab you.
Yay.
For sculpting my head...
last week, went really, really well.
So this week they know what I can do,
so I need to bring it once more.
[Shinmin] Karine's characters are getting better and better
with each challenge.
The details, do you see the hair?
You can actually see the way the hair is combed back.
I feel like I can almost see every strand.
[Aarti] Yeah.
[Karine] It's looking very good.
So I have some gold and some silver isomalt
that I'm going to pull
because I'm gonna have this unicorn that's, like,
kinda cute, but not really because it got messed up
in the machine, and it's gonna eat your face off.
[Paulina] The unicorn will be rice cereal treat and modeling chocolate.
Jamie was on "Halloween Wars" in two past seasons
as a cake sculptor, and I know she is very excited
to actually get her hands into some sculpting.
So I have found my way back into cake sculpting land.
I am making the most deadly purple unicorn I have ever seen
in my entire life, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
How do we feel about him right there?
[Paulina] Yeah, it looks good.
I am pulling strips of skin from this giant pumpkin
because I wanna use them to help cover my zip ties,
but also give some texture to my bug monster.
[Jamie] Paulina, can you go into super high gear?
I'm trying.
I am super stressed for time because I still need to paint
this whole guy, and there are a lot of zip ties to cover.
Even though their characters are on the board,
they're nowhere near finished, like, we have characters
on the board but we still have a long way to go
with Poisonous Perfection,
I mean, we don't see any painting, nothing,
it's just pumpkin on sticks right now.
Yeah, we can see what everything's made of--
- [Jonathan] Yeah. - That is not the point.
And also in terms of carving
an intricate pumpkin manipulation work,
I think actually Margi's done a lot more...
- [Aarti] That is true. - ...in terms of details.
Mm-hmm, that's a good point.
So I started to spray his cape, I wanted like a rich purple
and it was coming out more like our aprons, burgundy,
so I'm adding some blue to it.
I'm gonna see how that looks.
[Shinmin] This wizard, it's just a complete
different level from Margi. I've never seen this from her.
[Aarti] Yes, and I'm just so excited that we're seeing what Margi
is capable of.
This blood is the blood of the past competitors
who have been eliminated,
and I'm gonna add to it very soon.
Well, now's a good time for us to see what Margi's made of,
because this is the finale.
So if you're gonna deliver, now's the time to do it.
All right, I'm gonna grab here, you grab there.
I'm gonna walk backwards. Holy smokes, he's heavy.
- [Margi] I know. - Watch your cord.
Mm-hmm.
OK, we gotta go around that cart.
Where's he going? - [Margi] Well, he's gonna--
- [Nils] OK, he's on. - [Margi] Yeah.
- [Nils] Careful. - Feel like he's gonna break--
- Nah, you're good-- all right. - [Margi] Thank you.
- You're my hero. - [Nils] All right, let's go.
All right, let's get him on, make sure he looks right.
Just make sure he's facing that way.
Is there any way to lift up his visor?
- [thud] - Oh!
What was that noise?
- [Tenisha] Oh, my god. - [Margi] Oh, no.
[gasp]-- the wizard fell!
- No! - [Jonathan] Oh!
No, no, no, no! They were in such good shape, oh my gosh.
All right, where did he hinge?
All right, push up. Push up.
Just push up.
Get him up. Give me some dowels right now.
Wood dowels. Here we go.
I've been in the crap before. Let's get out of it.
- What's going on with his head? - Everything.
OK, hold on. Hold on.
Don't stop yet. It ain't over till it's over.
Just chill. Hold on.
Hold tight. Don't let go yet.
Don't let go yet.
They have to be wicked careful, right?
They've got one character that is not that steady
on the left-hand side.
They've got now that character on the right-hand side
falling over.
And don't forget, they have massive pieces
of sugar in the middle of their entire design.
[Shinmin] It's so precarious.
[Aarti] They've gotta work quickly, but they've gotta work
with a lot of delicacy. - Yeah.
[Margi] Nils, Nils, Nils.
You're fine, don't be sorry. We're not done.
- [Margi] Yep. - All right, Margi.
Let's see if he's OK.
Well, let's put the chest plate over this,
see what it looks like. Breathe.
I'm gonna skewer through the back and through the front.
[Margi] I'm gonna hold it this side.
[Nils] Yep, you're good. Hold him.
Hold it. We got him, Margi.
OK, that's in.
Nils came to the rescue and pulled us all up
and figured it out. Thank goodness.
So now you gotta cut
and cover, OK? - OK.
Teams, you have 30minutes left, 30 minutes.
Here we go. Let's go.
[Karine] You only have 30 minutes left.
[Paulina] What color do you think I need to paint this in?
Because remember, the purple was brown.
[Karine] Well, we need something quick.
[Paulina] Could you paint my guy?
Could you just do him in red?
Coat it all in red, and I'll come in
and do the highlights.
I feel a little stressed for time.
We're just all hands on deck to get this guy painted.
Just be gentle and fast. We'll airbrush the spikes.
Black on all the crevices. The red will be the base.
- Thanks for all your help. - I'm making some magical splats
out of isomalt right now.
You know, like it's been thrown against the wall kind of shape.
[Karine] Jamie, we need you on tasting-- please.
Yeah. Yep.
Excuse me.
Coming in.
[Karine] Can we torch the nest?
[Jamie] Oh, yeah. Hang on.
So the effect that I'm going for with this nest is they get
zapped and burned, but some of them escape.
I'm gonna get everything I need to put on at the end
ready, all right? I'm working on wands.
So hers is really nice, light, futuristic.
And his is a little bit more oldie but goldie.
All right, I'm gonna go get some tasting elements.
I'm making some flames to be sort of around
where the tasting elements are, 'cause they're gonna be
spells that didn't quite make it or they got deflected.
So they're little burn spots and fires
that are on the ground. All right, heads up.
I gotta get in here.
That's on.
I have this bar of green, and we wanted to put
a magic meter next to our pod,
so I'm gonna bust out a magic meter
as fast as humanly possible. - Five minutes left!
- Five minutes! - [Nils] Here we go.
[Karine] Five minutes to go, and Jamie's creating
an entirely new piece for the design.
Have you ever generated images using these AI generators?
[Jonathan] Yeah.
Like, you have to watch the clock as it tells you.
Because it usually takes, like, a few seconds,
sometimes longer, depending on how complicated it is.
[Aarti] In the world--
Because she had the time to do it.
[Jonathan] Yeah. That's really smart.
[Aarti] That's wild.
All right, you're hitting him with silver?
- [Margi] Yeah. - [Nils] OK, cool.
He's gonna need silvers in his striation--
- [Margi] Yeah. - [Nils] Right, so it gives more movement to his cape?
- Yeah. - [Tenisha] Let me know if you can see any more of the dowels.
[Nils] Hit the portal so it's got a little bit more oomph, OK?
- [Tenisha] OK. - It just needs to be shiny.
It's not shiny. I'll do it myself.
[Paulina] We need some shading on your dude and the unicorn, please.
This rubble is really cool, you guys.
OK, put the rubble over there.
- I'll grab it. - [Jonathan] Ten...
[Tenisha] Just need to get everything on.
- [Jonathan]...nine, eight... - I'm coming in.
[Jonathan]...seven, six, five, four...
[Jamie] I don't think anything, anything.
- [Jonathan]...three, two... - [Paulina] It's on.
[Jonathan]...one! Time's up!
- [Aarti] Well done, you guys. - Congratulations.
Yay.
- I love it. - [Karine] I love you girls.
Good job, guys. That was hectic.
- [Margi] That was bad. - It's all right.
- Stuff happens. - It looks terrifying.
In like, the best way.
- OK. - [Karine] You did good,
you did good. - [Jamie] He's super cool.
Looks good, guys.
For all the stuff that just went down,
it ain't bad. - [Margi] Holy crap.
[Tenisha] Whoo...[indistinct]
[indistinct]
[suspenseful music playing]
[thunder rumbling]
Undercakers, tell us what magic you came up with.
[Nils] Sometimes old problems have modern solutions.
And Aurora was the top of her class in mage school,
but she was banished because she was doing things
people didn't understand.
She finds Bartholomew the dark mage,
putting the final touches on his spell to keep the forest
in darkness forever.
And Aurora takes it upon herself to stop him.
Aurora is made of cake and chocolate.
Bartholomew is all pumpkin.
The evil creature coming through the portal is sugar.
I've really enjoyed watching you as a team,
you've grown so much.
I love the sugar work
that you have on the base there, Nils.
Tenisha, every single challenge, you create something
absolutely gorgeous with your painting,
with your sculpting,
your palette knife skills are out of this world.
However, one thing to note, with this backdrop,
which is gorgeous, if you just switched the color
and you created a darker border with a lighter center,
your characters would pop a lot more.
Because right now,
your witch character is pink on top of pink,
and then your wizard is the dark on top of dark.
So in order for them to pop, we need higher contrast.
I think that this is the strongest piece
that you guys have created to date, and this is when
you want to be peaking. Margi...
I didn't know you could do this!
Neither did I.
[Aarti] There is so much texture.
There's so much personality in the hunch of his shoulders,
his cape kind of billowing behind him.
And I just love seeing this kind of work out of you.
Thank you.
[Aarti] This whole design has such great moodiness to it.
I will say, the one concern I have here is that,
you know, the story.
When you tell me the story, then I understand
how this is a modern sorcery tale.
But if you hadn't told me that, I don't think it comes across
clear enough that this is sorcery happening in 2025.
Mm.
- So, what treat are we eating? - So, we got miso today.
so we made miso crème brûlées, and I put a little touch
of lemon in there just to brighten the backside
so it didn't sit too salty.
[clinking]
Freaking abracadabra, Nils. Like, this is so good.
You used the red miso, right?
Instead of the white miso.
I think that was a brilliant move.
There is just the right amount of, like, nutty,
savory underbelly to this thing that then you balanced
with sweetness. - [Shinmin] That savoriness
is so present, I can almost taste the beans.
So great job on that.
The only thing, I don't think you torched
all the sugar completely.
So there's still a little bit of granulated sugar
around the edges.
So I taste the sandiness of the sugar.
- That's the only thing. - Thank you.
Undercakers, well done. Thank you.
[Tenisha] Thank you.
Turn some lemons into lemonade, right?
Poisonous Perfection, Abracadabra,
tell us what you made.
In a world of modern witchcraft, Spell GPT
is the newest magic-powered 3D prompt generator.
However, unfortunately, on this day, it malfunctions,
and all the prompts are turning into nightmare monsters.
And poor Mike has to fight them off and contain them.
So we have our centipede-inspired monster
is made out of pumpkin.
Mike over here is rice cereal treat and modeling chocolate,
as well as our lovely mutated unicorn doll.
All the spells and the wand and the glass sheet,
that's all sugar work.
The spell GPT pod is also made out of cake.
Welcome to the finale.
You ladies really want this bad, and it just really shows
because not only does it have a very interesting body,
but you also segmented all the parts so that it looks
like it's just not something you would find in nature.
I also love, Karine, that you've added such dynamic movement
to Mike, because he really looks like he is just fighting
and trying to hold his position here.
Jamie, you are all over this piece.
I love the fact that you gave us broken sugar glass,
and it looks super believable.
I love your centipede monster.
I think it has this sense of a little bit of, like, terror
and fear, and things have gone oh, so terribly wrong.
So I love this idea of working AI into the craft
as old as time-- sorcery.
I think that you showed a lot of real intelligence in,
at the last minute, shading the floor,
throwing the rubble down, adding the lighted elements.
I know that you're trying to convey chaos,
but I'm still not fully convinced
that it's not a teeny-tiny bit too much.
The last thing I'll say is that Centipede does match
your background.
So it's not quite standing out enough from the backdrop.
What sweet treats did you make for us?
We have tahini.
So I have made tahini profiterole spiders.
It is a tahini mascarpone cream with cardamom, drizzled
with a dark chocolate ganache, sprinkled with toasted sesame
seeds, chopped up toasted and salted pistachios,
and just an extra sprinkling of salt.
Jamie, first of all, I think this is such a great idea.
I'm really looking for like a strong sesame flavor.
And because you used a mascarpone cheese
with the tahini, the tahini is lost in the mascarpone.
And I really want it to get that nuttiness
and the slight chewiness of tahini.
I get it.
I mean, we're just tasting things differently,
which happens sometimes.
I think that this is such a wonderful dessert.
I really love it.
I loved that when I picked it up,
I could smell cardamom immediately.
But then I get the chew from the tahini in the filling.
So I know we're having different experiences of it,
but I'm very satisfied.
Poisonous Perfection, great job.
- Great job, guys. - Thank you.
Why was there a less filled one at the front?
That's my fault.
[Karine] One was less filled than the others.
[Jamie] Oh, I know, exactly.
Undercakers and Poisonous Perfection,
we asked you to deliver an epic spellbound display,
and you did not disappoint.
Each team had the judges entranced with your captivating
design and tasting elements that had us all saying,
"Witch, please."
Undercakers, we've seen such growth from you as a team,
and this is definitely the best work we've seen all season.
Nils, you took on the role of team leader, team fixer,
and team cheerleader, and that really impressed us.
And all three of you are amazing artists,
and your attention to detail is magical.
Unfortunately, some of that was lost because of color choices
and a story that doesn't make sense.
Poisonous Perfection, you have impressed us
with your humor and polish week after week,
and you deliver a clear story.
Today, we got a true sense of that horror that we love here
on "Halloween Wars," but you over-delivered
on the chaos.
And while the centipede is beautiful,
it blended into the brick background.
In a championship battle where the teams are this talented,
the difference can sometimes come down
to the smallest detail
and which team pushes themselves to come up
with something that is truly never been seen before.
This was the toughest decision of the season.
The winner of "Halloween Wars" and $25,000 is...
[suspenseful music playing]
Poisonous Perfection, congratulations.
- Shut up! - [squealing]
- [clapping] - Oh, my...
I am so thrilled and so proud of our team
and what we produced. - Jamie!
- I finally did it! - Yes!
[Paulina] I couldn't be more happy for Jamie,
for Karine and I on our first try.
We couldn't have asked for more
than this incredible experience we had.
- Jamie! - Yeah! Whoo!
[laughing]