[wolf howling]
I'm back!
I'm Zach Bagans and I've taken control of Halloween Wars,
leading teams of world class cake, sugar and pumpkin artists
on a tour of some of the most haunted locations in the world.
Inspiring them with my own personal experiences with the paranormal.
Pumpkin gods, let's go.
[Zak] Now there's one last battle to see who will win the trip of a lifetime
to a city famous for its pastries, and its hauntings.
It's the season finale of Halloween Wars.
Let's get spooky!
-Uh, careful, careful. -Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh.
-Oh, my gosh, oh, it's... so big. -Thing is huge.
-I'm scared. -Oh, my gosh!
[lightning crackling]
[Eddie Jackson] One last battle, one last challenge from Zak.
Pretty sure this one is gonna be scary.
[lightning crackling]
[music playing]
[Zak] This season, you've taken on witches,
voodoo priestesses, and worst of all, possessed dolls.
Now you're about to face off
one last time in your greatest challenge, yet.
So it's only fitting that you be inspired
by what many believe is the greatest city in the world,
Paris, France.
Ooh!
[bal musette music playing]
-[Shinmin Li] Whoa! Okay! -[contestants laughing]
[Aarti Sequeira] Wow!
[lightning crackling]
[Zak] The City of Light has a darkness
lurking beneath it.
Miles upon miles of tunnels filled with the remains of 6,000,000 souls,
The catacombs.
Quite literally, an underground empire of skeletons.
I can't think of a better way to face your final Halloween Wars challenge,
than to be inspired by a place where I was forced to face my own mortality.
Now don't let that same fate happen to you.
Paris, beautiful and haunted,
and that's why the winnin' team will win an all-expense trip
of a lifetime to the City of Lights.
-Oh, my God! -No way!
[Eddie] Now the catacombs may be haunted, but in Paris, they haunt in style.
Mmm-hmm.
[Eddie] So your final challenge,
create a spectacular, spooky fashion show
featurin' monstrous models on a haunted runway.
Now, as for flavors, we want you to use
one of these famous French pastries as your inspiration in your cake,
macaron, eclair, or charlotte russe.
You got seven hours.
Everything is on the line, so get to work!
-I wanna go to Paris. -Paris, Paris.
Oh, my gosh!
All right, but what kind of monsters do we think of when we think Paris?
-Sewer? -Clowns.
-Big cities always do have a lot of rat problems, right? -Yes.
-[Willie] All right, like a big monster one. -So we need a big rat!
-With, like, radioactive sludge underground. -Oh, yeah.
You wanna dress it up?
-Yeah! -Well, of course!
-Sewer couture. -Yes!
[Jamie] We're making a mutant rat, who's modelling in a fashion show.
She'll be rotating on a runway in front of rat spectators, and mouse paparazzi.
What choices were we given? We've got eclair, charlotte russe, macaron.
Kinda likin' the idea of an eclair.
-Yes. -Okay.
-My favorite. -Then maybe I can make, like, little, tiny bits
of shoe pastry, like, rolled in chocolate, to put it in there.
Texture!
[Jamie] We're gonna try and make a hazelnut cake,
with layers of dark chocolate ganache and raspberry compote.
It almost looks like peanut butter.
It's the finale so we are going to be pushing ourselves
harder than we've ever pushed before.
Done and done!
-Flavors? Suzanna, you went to pastry school in France. -Yes.
-What are you thinking? -Yes?
-For me, like, the best dessert, it's macaron.
So runway, fashion week.
Win you think of the catacombs,
-like, what kind of... could you see? -I mean, it's all bones.
-A skeleton model -[Suzanna] Mmm-hmm, yes.
We need to give her, like, a nice model pose, like...
-Yeah, she should be showing off. -You know, like,
-she's tipping a hat? -Yeah!
[Genera] We have a skeleton that walks the batacomb runway,
and she decides to summon her bat friends to help her accessorize her gown.
What if we have her on top of the turntable
-so she's like turning at the end of the runway? -Oh, that'll be so nice.
[Genera] This is the final,
like, there's just no time to be playin' around, like, we have to give our all.
-You know, French cakes are super rich. -Yeah.
[Genera] Typically, macarons are almond flour and powdered sugar,
so we wanted to go with an almond cake,
and layer that with a dark chocolate ganache,
whipped cream, fresh raspberries, and a macaron shell.
Going to the oven.
-We are really left with the top two teams. -Mmm-hmm.
These are definitely the teams that have been bringing the best of the best
- every challenge. -[Aarti] Yeah.
I love that head to head, mano a mano.
I know, and Ghostly Gals and Lollipop Lunatics have a history.
They've been together since the qualifying round.
-[Shinmin] Right! -[Eddie] Oh, yeah!
-There was no bad team today... -Yeah.
[Shinmin] ... But we're really happy you guys are here.
I mean, they're really well matched.
-[Eddie] So let's talk about that, so... -[Shinmin] Yeah.
... Today's challenge is all about, like, a haunted runway.
-When I think of a Paris fashion show... -Yeah.
... I think of bling, I think of lots of glamour.
So what do we think about flavors? We got eclair, macaron.
All three of those are elegant, refined, crisp, and then a creaminess...
-Mmm-hmm. -... Or almost like a melt in your mouth...
-Yeah, yeah. -... Texture.
So it's not the flavors that really get to me,
-it's the texture, how do you recreate that in a cake? -[Eddie] Yeah.
Can you believe we are here in the finals?
-I know, we've come so far. -[Suzanna] Yes.
Monique? Look at this pumpkin.
-Are you ready for this? -[Monique] What are 'ya gonna do with all that?
-Ah! -[Monique] Oh, my gosh!
It's so pretty, look at this!
-[Monique] Wow! -[Willie] You can fit inside of it.
-That pumpkin is bigger than Willie. -Carve that pumpkin.
-[Monique] You think I could fit on the inside? -I think you can.
[Willie] Whoo! Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!
I need this for the, uh, sewer part.
What if we, like, build stuff.
This is a sewer, so I want to create an arch,
and then Bev's gonna do, like, um, metal bars made out of chocolate.
Nice.
[Bev] I'm creating an isomalt sludge puddle for under the model on the runway.
Different types of green, 'cause it's radioactive.
I'm just mixing my colors at the moment, so that we get some radioactive shades.
So I'm goin' for different textures,
colors, and all sorts of surprises bubblin' up.
[Genera] I'm just cutting out a rough shape of a bat wing.
She calls upon the bats to dress her up,
so the dress will be made of the bat wings.
This mixture is like a wafer paper conditioner.
Uh, wafer paper is very brittle,
so applying this conditioner keeps the wafer paper flexible.
I am applying the wing armature.
Uh, which is just forwire, topping it with another wing,
and then I will dust a nice layer of cornstarch,
and that just stops it from being sticky,
so they're ready when we go to attach 'em.
-Bev, do you like eclairs? -My favorite!
[Jamie] I love eclairs, but trying to base a cake
off of all of the subtleties of a French pastry,
and the textures of a french pastry, that's gonna be really hard to translate.
I've decided to go with a hazelnut, chocolate eclair.
I'm really hoping to bring that eclair flavor out
with little bits of pate a choux,
baked off, and rolled in chocolate, to put into the cake.
Pate a choux is a dough that they use to create eclairs and cream puffs,
and in my piping bag is my choux paste.
As an eclair, you would pipe a longer line,
but I'm just using this to make
tiny, little crunchy, choux-flavored balls, to go into the cake.
And now, I'm goin' to the oven.
Oh, Suzanna, what are you choosing to make
as your classic, French dessert?
A macaron.
I'm thinking with the dark ganache
-it will protect it from getting soggy. -[Shinmin] Yeah.
Um, if you get the ganache rich enough,
-that is going to preserve that crunch of the macaron... -Yeah.
... And it won't let any of the moisture of the cake penetrate.
-That's what I'm really worried about... -[Shinmin laughing]
... The moisture of the cake.
-All right, ladies, well... -[Monique] Thank you!
-[Bev] Thank you, so much! -... Best of luck!
[all] Thank you.
[lightning crackling]
Not today, Satan.
Six hours!
Wow.
So I just got my choux balls into the oven,
and so now I need to work on making a ganache.
Oven, oven, oven.
Roasty, toasty choux balls!
Do, do, boop, boop, ba, do.
I'm coating my little choux balls in chocolate.
So throwing it onto the cool choux balls, and then throwing it on the sheet pan
will cause it to temper, and they'll be all nice and happy and delicious.
Done.
-[Suzanna chuckling] What are you doing? -I am currying skulls
for the catacombs, check it out!
I found pears, which are perfect because they're already that skull shape,
and then when you let them oxidize, they turn a little bit brown.
So if you guys see, this is kind of, like, the start of one of the pears,
and then this is how it's going with the oxidation process.
So you can see, it's already starting to get brown
which is great, 'cause it's gonna give it an aged look,
which is perfect for the catacombs.
[Suzanna] We need two tails to go in the cake, it's going to be the center part.
Now they need to dry.
I've never put a macaron inside of a cake.
This is a challenge for me because we need to keep the texture.
I wanna do something a little different,
so we're makin' these sewer grates using chocolate and skewers.
Come on, pour.
Willie, I'm about to put on the sewer grate vertical bars.
[Willie] Oh, nice. Those look good.
Yeah, they're made out of chocolate
-with some reinforced skewers. -[Willie] Nice!
So I got different sizes,
and actually they just slip in.
-[Willie] Otherwise, the color will be... -[Bev] So this is falling.
So the pumpkin is falling from... away from the board.
-[gasping] Oh, no. -[Willie] It's not good.
[Bev] This is the finale, and this pumpkin is the main base of our runway.
I'm starting to get worried it's going to fall apart.
I can't put them on there.
[lightning crackling]
So the pumpkin is falling from... away from the board,
so we need to shore that up before I can get these chocolate bits on.
There you go, do you need some of this on it, too?
-Sure! Will it work? -Yeah. There you go.
-[Bev] Hmm. -Did it work?
-There we go. -[Willie] Yep!
It's workin' beautifully.
[Genera] Yes. All right, check these cakes out.
-Yeah, they're perfect. Yes. -Perfect, okay, I'll set 'em to cool.
So I'm just going to the oven to see if my macarons are ready.
-Ooh! Look at those cakes! -Oh, my God! It's freakin' pretty!
[Monique] Genera, look how freakin' perfect these are.
[Genera gasping] Ooh!
[Suzanna] Yummy.
[lightning crackling]
-Oh, no. I don't like that. -[Willie] Oh, no.
Five hours!
Wow, five hours.
-[Genera] Five hours. -Hustle, hustle, hustle, guys.
[Eddie] So listen, I mean, the winnin' team
will win an all-expense paid trip of a lifetime, to the City of Lights.
Bein' that this is the, uh, last challenge, are we gonna critique a little bit harder?
-I mean, we're gonna have to. -[Shinmin] Hmm...
I think especially because these teams are just that good.
All right, guys, we really have to do this.
-We gotta do this! -We gotta win it!
-Willie? You made it to the final. -[Willie] Hello.
-We're very excited to be here. -[Aarti] Yeah?
-All right, Jamie, talk to me about the flavors... -Yeah.
... Of your cake, which dessert did you choose?
-So we've gone with eclair. -[Aarti] Okay.
And your basic eclair is really simple,
-just vanilla, and chocolate and choux pastry. -Yeah.
And so we're doing a hazelnut, chocolate eclair...
-Okay. -... With a little hit of raspberry in it.
Okay, why was it important to you to add the hazelnut and the raspberry here?
I think that the hazelnut is gonna make it just a more interesting flavor
than just chocolate and vanilla.
We are going a little... a little crazy,
we are adding some different elements this time.
Your whole cake looks a little smaller than you did last time,
and that's not a bad thing.
[Jamie] Oh, yeah!
-[Aarti] All right, I'll see you later. -[Willie] Yeah.
[softly] I'm a little nervous
about the addition of the hazelnut and the raspberry
to the eclair flavors, but she's so confident,
and she makes great cakes, so let's see.
[Genera] So right now, I'm molding the shoe that she will be wearing.
And then I'll make some extras that will be on the side of her vanity.
So basically, you pour the chocolate, let it sit,
and then you separate it to reveal the shoe.
Let's get this baby in the freezer.
[Willie] I'm actually doin' a paparazzi camera.
So we're gonna put fillings made out of butternut squash,
and then we're gonna have a flashing device inside of it.
All right, you ready? You're gonna aim, you're gonna hmm, hmm, hmm.
-[Willie] Nice! -[Jamie] Yeah!
-Those are nice legs. -[Jamie] I know.
I'm now going to the oven.
Takin' you out. I am done with these ovens! Bye, guys, see you around!
I'm giving the cake a perfume dust.
Ooh, it smells so good. It smells like that rosewater.
So I was spraying it with a rosewater simple syrup.
I use that to, um, [sniffling] kinda give it a...
a more essence of the French, you know, give it more fragrance.
Our cake has a layer of the almond cake,
then we have a layer of ganache,
a macaron shell covered in another layer of ganache,
and then a layer of whipped cream with fresh raspberries.
We're super nervous, I've never put a macaron in a cake.
[Monique] It's gonna crack anyway, once you cut into it.
[Genera] We're hoping that layering it
with the dark chocolate ganache will kinda seal in that texture,
But we don't know how this is gonna go.
So right now, I'm tryin' a sculpt her bodice, um,
so it's basically, like, this part of your... well, your torso.
Uh, we wanna give her kinda like a skinny waist,
and then it's gonna blow out into, like, the ball gown style.
[Monique] Oh, no.
Four hours left, you guys!
[Jamie] Smoothing out my hazelnut pastry cream,
before I fold whipped cream into it to make my hazelnut cream layer in my cake.
This is just like the filling that would go into an eclair.
[singing] Gonna need some raspberries.
Raspberry and chocolate, and hazelnut, they're all just classic combinations.
Like, putting all three a those together, I think it's the ultimate bite,
that's what I'm always goin' for.
And now, we do hazelnut brittle.
Now this is my hazelnut cream,
and next I'm gonna sprinkle this with all of my little pate a choux bits.
My next layer is ganache, and so a little bit a raspberry,
and now we do hazelnut brittle.
Both of these cakes are taking really big risks here in the finale with texture.
-[Shinmin] Mmm-hmm. -[Aarti] We've got actual choux pastry
in the eclair cake.
-[Shinmin] Yep. - We've got real macarons in the macaron cake.
Both of these classic, French techniques are very susceptible to moisture,
so it's anyone's guess how these are gonna turn out.
[lightning crackling]
-It's happening again. -[Bev] Oh, no.
-More lightning, all the lightning, all the time. -[Bev] No.
[Monique] That means a twist is coming.
[Genera] What's it gonna be this time?
Oh, no.
[Witch cackling]
Oh, no, I don't like that.
[Monique] I think that means a twist is coming.
[Zak] The catacombs of Paris were created in an effort
to eliminate the city's overflowing cemeteries.
Centuries worth of eternal resting places disturbed all at once.
Walking down these eerie passageways is a good reminder
never to lose your head.
Especially when you're so close to the end.
Eddie, one last time, my friend, tell them about their final twist.
No, Eddie, it's okay, you don't have to.
Best way not to lose one's head, put a lid on it!
[Suzanna] What?
[Eddie] We want you to create an edible hat, or fascinator
for you and your teammates to wear.
And remember, it's all about high fashion,
and high Halloween, if you wanna stay in vogue around here.
So put your thinking caps on.
Modeled by us?
It's for us to wear.
At the end of the challenge, we all have to be wearing one.
So what kind of ideas do we have?
Uh, I think a headband with a fantasy flower on it,
with a... an eyeball in the center.
[Jamie] Do flowers fit with our rat though?
I guess we could put a couple flowers on him.
What if they're all pink flowers?
I'm gonna pull a sugar flower with some eyeballs.
[Jamie] Bev tries to make sure that this flower looks creepy
by putting a little isomalt eyeball into the middle of it.
[Bev] Eyeballs? Who's got the eyeballs?
How 'bout that?
I am making fascinators with wafer paper.
This is the finale, we need to make sure that this twist looks on point.
Tryin' to make some leaves for our flowers.
Ooh, that's a pukey green, but it matches our sludge though.
We're going to attach these with piping gel.
Eyeballs going in the middle.
So now the three of us will match our fashion mama.
[Willie] I'm doin' what?
-[Bev] Dude, you're wearin' a flower on your hair... -[Willie laughing]
-... Or I don't wanna he... hear it. -He's gonna look so nice.
[Monique] Okay, what you guys think?
So what's edible that we can, like, do quickly, and make it look good?
It has to go with the theme, right?
So what if we put, like, a little sugar skull in there?
And then you can make those flowers,
-'cause then it'll go with our entire theme. -Uh-huh.
So I'll cut these off, we put them on the thing.
-So it'll be like what mine is right now. -[Suzanna] Mmm-hmm.
-[Genera] Uh-huh. -[Suzanna] And then the skull.
[Monique] And then you can put the skull head, you can mold it onto this.
-[Suzanna] Uh-huh. -You can put the chocolate on it.
That'll be so cute, okay.
This is a fun twist to end everything on, right?
A fascinator!
It's topping it all off!
[Eddie] Ooh!
-[Aarti] I mean, this is a twist worthy of the finale. -Yep!
Not only do they have to construct a fascinator, or a hat,
so they have to be creative about it,
but it's got to be sturdy enough to actually be worn.
So I think the trick is to really make this
all look like it's part of a collection.
-Mmm-hmm. -That not only will work with their cake,
but also with each other's fascinators.
-Maybe it's using the same color? -Mmm-hmm.
-Since the... the mediums are gonna be so different. -Yeah.
I have the headbands we're gonna use,
I'm just gonna cover it with that lace fondant that you used for her bust, okay?
-[Genera] Oh! Nice. -[Monique] So it'll all kind of tie in together.
Okay, so I'm using the top of the pumpkin for our headbands.
Just a little bit different lighting.
And you know it's the twist for the final, so it has to be, like, super nice.
So with the white chocolate, I have skulls.
[Genera] We molded some chocolate skulls to go with our skeleton theme,
and then there was a sugar flower that Suzanna made.
[Suzanna] I'm just adding a little bit of gold to the skulls,
because these are going to be on a headpiece, so they have to be, like, very fancy.
[Genera] Every challenge, we've been killing these twists,
so we wanna push even harder for the finale, so we have to make this one count.
-[Suzanna] Like this? -[Genera] Yes.
[Willie] Hmm, what's goin' on?
Three hours!
Crunch freakin' time.
[Jamie] Willie wants to make fancy boots out of pumpkin.
Willie, how are the shoes comin' along?
[Willie] It's gettin' there, with this one I forgot the size that I need.
Now that I have the shape that I want, the second one should be a little bit faster.
[joking] I wish I didn't "need" to do this.
This is just the rat body, the clothing is gonna go on next,
but she's gonna have bare shoulders,
so I just gotta cover that part with rat color.
I just put a zipper on the back because it's clothing.
Everybody loves a model with long legs.
Rat face.
So I need it to be kind of oblong.
A little bit pointed down near the nose.
And this mutant is gonna have three eyeballs
because sometimes when you step in radioactive sludge,
you grow another eyeball.
Fun thing about making mutants is you can do whatever the heck you want with it.
Let's attach it.
Aw, she looks so nice now.
Now I need to do bones, to also go into the runway,
out of white sweet potatoes.
So it already has that kind of blanched bone look.
And I'm just sheeping it and it's gonna go kind of underneath the skulls.
So many bones, so little time.
[Genera] I can start covering the skirt.
[groans] I just got that feeling in my tummy where you're like,
"Oh, this is not gonna end well."
They have a huge, pretty impressive character, but it's on the ground.
And we've got less than an hour to go.
It's still not on their kick base.
And then you look across over here at Lollipop Lunatics,
-they have a pretty full landscape there. -[Shinmin] Yeah.
I literally want to go over there and pick that lady up
and put her right on there right now.
Um, so I'm using a modeling chocolate
to sculpt her bones because it sets super firm.
Okay, her leg is ready.
We have so much to do.
We have to move the model.
We have to add shoes, purse, hat, everything.
I feel like we're still behind.
Like are we gonna finish?
-[Aarti] Hello, Ghosty Gals. -Hi.
Um, ladies, I hate to point this out
because I can see your fellow competitors over there
and their cake looks awfully full.
And yours looks a little
-minimal. -Yeah.
So we need to finish the skeleton body
in order to put it on.
She looks heavy.
Do you feel confident that your structure can handle her?
-Yes. Yes. -Okay.
Okay, I'm gonna see you later.
-All right. -Thank you.
I am really, really worried that they're not gonna get this finished
the way they want to,
the way a finale deserves, on time.
So, right here, I am making gelatin
to make decorations on our model's outfit.
So these are acetate sheets.
And I'm trying to shape them into ruffles.
I need to melt down a lot of gelatin
and then I'm gonna pour it over the top of it and when I pour it over the top,
it'll just leave like a thin coat
and I'll be able to peel them off and put them onto my piece.
Cool thing about these gelatin ruffles is they're gonna stand up like 10 inches
off of her shoulder.
So I gotta get 'em in front of a fan to dry as quickly as possible.
If they don't set, they're just gonna be these joogly messes.
Okay.
-[lightning rumbles] -[shudders]
More lightning.
Two hours.
Uh...
[Monique] Is the head ready?
[Genera] Yay.
So the head came out perfectly. It didn't crack.
So now, just gotta glue the two halves together.
So she's ready to get up on stage.
Uh, if you wanna grab the turntable and then I'll set it up.
All right, so our turntable's on.
She's gonna sit on top of it
and then rotate so it looks like she's spinning
on the edge of her catwalk.
-So we need all three of us to bring her on. -[Genera.] Yes.
-[Aarti] They're moving it. -[Shinmin] Oh.
-Oh, my gosh. -It is huge.
[Aarti] It's so big.
-[Suzanna] Step, up, up. -[Monique] Careful. Careful.
[Genera] Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh.
[judges exclaim]
[both] Oh, my gosh.
[Genera] I'm scared.
We have to make sure she's centered perfectly on the turntable
because if she's like too far to one side, she might tip.
-[Suzanna] Okay. -Oh, my gosh.
Look how she's wobbling. Oh, my gosh.
[Genera] Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh.
[Aarti] Oh, my gosh.
[Genera] I'm scared.
-Is she on? -[Suzanna] Yeah.
[Genera] Right there.
[Monique] She's cool looking.
Oh, it's got that bony leg sticking out, like a split in the skirt.
[Monique] I gotta turn it on to make sure it works, guys.
-She is rotating. -Wow.
Yay, it works.
Ain't no bad seat in the house.
[all laughing]
One hour left.
-Just stop. -I need to speed up.
Willie, you're the fastest carver in the west.
Willie makes a whole rat audience out of sweet potatoes
but leaves the little root on there to act like their tail
and he makes tiny, little mice photographers and they look so cute.
When I think of fashion shows,
I don't just think of the models,
-I think of the people watching, right? -Yeah.
I love that Lollipop Lunatics included an audience of rats.
It was just like, "Oh, there's rats in the crowd."
And we're like, "That's so thoughtful."
[all laughing]
[Genera] Suzanna, can I get the shoe?
[Suzanna] Look, Genera, it turned out super pretty, the shoe.
-[Genera] Oh, perfect. -[Monique] Oh, that's awesome.
[Genera] I'll put the shoe on her.
It's not holding. Seems like it's gonna fall off.
I'm gonna dip her foot in chocolate.
-Okay. -[Suzanna] Ready?
[Genera] So her foot is on.
So it's just basically chocolate holding chocolate to keep the shoe on.
[Jamie] Willie has helped me attach a wire frame around her waist
so that we can have a skirt that floats a little bit away from her body.
I want this skirt to look smooth and flowing like fabric.
So as I place it, I'm going to gently put pleats into it all the way around our rat.
I think it looks nice. It looks like fabric.
Any mutant rat would love to wear this outfit.
I'm trying to put in as many details as possible,
so we're hoping that all of that ingenuity and insanity
is gonna help us through judging.
[Bev] For now, I'm focusing on the nails.
I have to get those up there because she cannot not have nails.
That's gonna be obvious.
I have to cover the wire.
It's all right.
The red nails are holding up well.
-[Jamie] Freaky mutant rat nails. -Yeah.
The bat wings needs to go on like right now.
[Genera] T he bat wings easily push into the skirt.
Getting all the details in there,
that's the most important part.
Like, you know, the judges are always commenting
our details are always on point, so we gotta make sure we give it to them.
So I'm adding the chocolate ruffle to make it look like more like a fashion statement.
I really love the volume of that skirt.
-Yeah. -I mean, I wanna wear that skirt.
-I do, too. I do, too. -Right?
[Shinmin] And you know when you watch
a fashion show, they always leave that big, big, dramatic wow moment dress
-for the end? -Yeah.
-This looks like the dress. -Yes.
I can actually hear all of my gelatin separating
from my acetate sheets right now,
which means that they are pretty close to being good.
Because it is later in the competition,
I only have one chance to get these ruffles right.
If she doesn't have these ruffles,
she's not gonna be that fancy sewer fashionista that we're looking for.
[chuckles]
My gelatin works.
What's really cool is this gelatin has a memory of the shape that it was in,
so I just have to gently put it back into its fan shape and we're all done.
And now I'm gonna take these things and put 'em up on her shoulders.
Yep.
So I'm thinking that they look pretty cool.
I love the texture that they've got going on in the shoulders.
It's got that, like, almost '80s...
-I was gonna say like '80s shoulder pads. -Yeah, but revisited.
Very Cyndi Lauper.
-Mmm-hmm. -Yeah.
[Eddie] Oh, I see some lights.
-Oh. Flashing cameras. -Oh.
-Paparazzi. -That's a nice touch.
So I'm adding a lot of depth and color with airbrush paint as best as I can.
And makeup.
Ten minutes, teams. Come on, let's rush. Let's go, let's go.
-Are the bat wings done? -[Genera] Yes.
-I need to get her head on, so I can do the other hand. -[Suzanna] Yes.
[Genera] And then, I have to mold her other arm
to make it look like it's holding the head.
Oh, so her arm does not want to stay on the hat.
[Monique] Just leave it.
It doesn't have to be holding her hat.
It just can be, like, next to it.
[Genera] Oh, no. I need to get that right.
She has to show motion.
Like, why now? This is the finale.
Like, I'm not gonna stop until this is perfect.
Oh, so her arm does not want to stay on the hat.
I was just determined to make sure this hand is gonna stay on the hat.
It's the angle of the wire.
The wire's pretty stiff.
If I move the wire enough,
it'll stay in the position it needs to.
I have to adjust her forearm wire
to make sure there's enough give in the wire,
so that it doesn't fall off.
[exclaims] All right.
[Jamie] We have to have our hats on.
-[Willie] On my way. -[all laughing]
[laughs] Oh, my God. That's hilarious.
[Bev] It looks good.
Three minutes remaining.
[Jamie] It gets so crazy at the end.
There's no time to think about the fact that this is the finale.
We just have to focus on getting it all done.
[Monique] Careful not to push it too much.
Genera, just forget about it.
-[Genera] No, the chocolate was too dry. -Okay.
'Cause I don't want you to push this over.
Oh, my gosh.
-[Aarti] This is it. -[Shinmin] I know, it's all come down to...
-[Aarti] Final 30 seconds. -[Shinmin] Yeah.
[Aarti] It's been a long road for these guys.
I can't believe it's all going to end in 30 seconds.
-[Suzanna] Hurry up. -[Genera] Get a move on.
[Jamie] Come on, Willie. Let's go.
Is it on?
That's it. Time's up.
[Zak] It's time for your creature catwalk.
[female judges] Wow.
[Shinmin] Good job.
[Jamie] We just take a deep breath.
That's the end. We've made our final piece.
And now it's up to the judges.
-Done. -What am I wearing?
-You're wearing something beautiful. -[all laughing]
[Monique] Well, our fashionable skeleton
always wins best dressed at the catacombs catwalk.
This year, she summoned the bats inside the tunnel to help her with her gown,
to beat all the other competition.
So, once the bats collected to help her skirt,
she strutted her stuff and had the best bat-acombs dress.
We went with our theme of headbands.
And we went for a pumpkin topper,
a chocolate skull, a candy flower and a little light.
Well, Ghosty Gals, I love your skeleton supermodel.
I think that she has such elegance
and she has such confidence,
which we can really see through the way that you've positioned her body.
I can feel her sashaying down the catwalk.
So good job there.
The supermodel is the star of this piece
and everything that's underneath is kind of stealing her spotlight.
There's skulls, there's bones, there's macaron,
there's a gorgeous perfume bottle.
Those things, honestly, don't showcase your talent as much as her
and so I would've left those off.
And I love your twist.
To me, that little brush of gold on there,
kind of reminds me that we're thinking about Paris
and sort of the chic-ness of Paris.
-So good job. -Thank you.
What a great way to incorporate your three skills.
The pumpkin, the sugar and the cake.
And to have the skull there, which also ties into your design.
Really well thought out, so that's a really successful twist.
Thank you.
For me, I think the showstopper is the skirt.
And I love the length. How it takes up a majority of the skeleton's body.
But leaving that slit in there with that exposed leg,
gives me the illusion of movement,
like this skeleton is walking down the catwalk.
Which I really appreciate.
Not a big fan of the pumpkin bones at the bottom.
And it's because we're in the finale,
and I've seen you make fingers,
I've seen you make these beautiful spiders,
I've seen you do so much over the course of these weeks.
And now we get to the finale and I have these pumpkin bones
that it's like, "Is this the Ghosty Gals
that made this angular fish last week?"
You know what I mean? So it's kind of throwing me off.
But at the end of the day, I think that you absolutely nailed the challenge,
like you do week in and week out
and that is the reason why you're here today.
So our inspiration was a macaron.
So this is an almond cake
soaked in a rose water simple syrup.
-Okay. -[Genera] Layered with dark chocolate ganache,
whipped cream, fresh raspberries and a macaron shell.
First off, I think that, in my opinion, the macaron
was the hardest one to try to incorporate into a cake.
Only because the macaron has like a distinct kind of texture.
Right? So you have that crispness and then immediately after that, it has that chew
before you get to the filling.
So I get the flavor,
I'm hoping that I get that texture, but I'm not getting that texture
and I think by incorporating that into the cake like you did,
it basically kind of disintegrated.
You know what I mean?
But I do really appreciate the almond notes that are coming through.
I agree with Eddie.
This cake is 100% there in terms of flavor.
The almond sponge part itself
does have a nice texture.
It's subtle, but I can definitely taste the almond flavor in there.
You gave us a moist cake but, unfortunately,
that just completely melted down your macaron.
To the point where when I looked at this,
I thought you actually created a separate layer
of like a raspberry compote in here.
Um, because that's how wet it got.
But the flavors are great.
[both] Thank you.
I mean, I agree, the macaron texture is not pronounced.
But there's something there. There is a little bit of that melt in your mouth texture
that I'm getting.
I love the pop of fresh raspberry in there.
Um, especially against an almond cake
which tends to be a little bit on the drier side.
So that was really smart
and putting that big, thick layer of whipped cream in there
was also really smart.
Knowing how dry almond cake can be.
So my fascinator off to you
-for taking the risk and going for the macaron. -[judges laugh]
I do think that it was one of the more challenging desserts.
You're nearly there.
[contestants] Thank you.
-Thank you, ladies. -[contestants] Thank you.
[Jamie] So, standing in a pile of radioactive sewage,
our mutant rat supermodel is walking down the catwalk
in front of a crowd of rat spectators,
mouse paparazzi and she is here to work it.
So our fascinators Bev made for us
and they are to match the very fancy accessory on her shoe.
And they're made out of wafer paper, glitter
and they have their very own creepy mutant eyeball in the middle of them.
First off, I love her face.
I think that there's something disturbing and yet kind of beautiful about it.
It does still feel model-y about her,
so good job there.
You know, I like the way that you tied your twist into your design.
Honestly, it reminds me of poinsettias.
So it's kind of pulling me in the direction of a different holiday.
I never thought I would get excited about sewer couture, but here I am.
[all laughing]
Um, although I don't feel like the dress feels very high fashion,
the finish, I feel like is the cleanest fondant work that you have shown us to date.
I love the folding and the draping of the skirt.
I even love the way you airbrushed it
and you went in there to kind of lowlight the shadows and the drapings.
Now because this mutant mouse has great textures on the face,
and I see some of it on the leg as well, even on her back,
I wish that you kind of continued that
throughout the arms and then the front parts of her legs.
And your twist.
What I do like is that you've tied in the color to your cake display.
And so, it works as a collection.
So really, really well done there.
It's kind of hard to be nice and neat
when you've created this sewer scene.
We've seen you throughout this entire competition
give us very precisely done characters, very precisely done items,
so what I'm saying is you guys have taken a total departure
from your norm you've shown us throughout this competition.
And I actually appreciate that.
Doing something a little bit different for the finale.
Um, so much so, to where it all makes sense in a weird way to me.
This sewer scene is all about things that have been dying down there for ages.
And then this dress that you've given us has this '80s vibe.
[all laugh]
Right? So I'm thinking like this rat found this dress
that has been down this sewer for ages.
The more I think about it, the more I think that this is absolutely brilliant.
[judges laugh]
Now the biggest thing though for me though is that I feel like the character
is very stiff.
So I wish there was more movement.
Now your fascinators,
I agree, I've been trying to figure it out.
And I'm like, yes, that does look like a poinsettia.
It really does.
I wish that you would have found a way to kind of tie in that old school, beat up vibe
because that's what I'm getting from your scene sewer.
And then when I look at this, this looks like a Christmas party.
[all laugh]
I'm not knocking a Christmas party, but it is Halloween Wars.
[judges exclaim]
[Shinmin] All that good stuff.
We were inspired by an eclair.
So it's hazelnut cake
with layers of hazelnut cream,
dark chocolate covered little choux bits
and dark chocolate ganache hazelnut brittle
and a thin layer of raspberry compote.
This cake doesn't put me in the mind of an eclair.
Puts me in the mind of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
This cake doesn't put me in the mind of an eclair.
Puts me in the mind of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The hazelnut is very pronounced
because you used it in a few different ways.
And then, every now and again,
I get pops of that raspberry.
Mmm-hmm.
[Eddie] And it's taking me down this kind of PB and J vibe.
Which isn't a bad thing, but I really wanna get that eclair type of vibe.
But I gotta tell you, this is a really good cake.
This is the kind of cake that I want a glass of milk to go along with it, right?
It's like a mouthful
and it kind of makes my mouth go smack.
And it is because of the hazelnut cream.
I love hazelnut, but I feel like if you'd just said this is a hazelnut cream cake,
I'd be like, yeah, you got it.
Yeah, Jamie, when I get those bites of chocolate covered choux,
I do get eclair.
The sadness for me is there's not that many of them in each slice of cake.
I would've covered an entire layer of it,
so it's loud and clear that this is eclair.
Particularly because you added these adornments of hazelnut and raspberry.
You needed to nail the eclair part of it even more forcefully
than you would a cake you were making at home.
All right, Lollipop Lunatics, thank you so much.
[contestants] Thank you.
All right, Lollipop Lunatics and Ghosty Gals,
you showed tremendous skill in pumpkin,. cake and sugar.
[Aarti] In this final championship round,
Zak asked you to deliver your scariest work yet
inspired by his terrifying journey
through the underground catacombs of Paris.
[Shinmin] Lollipop Lunatics,
you impressed us with the sheer volume of work
that you have accomplished.
The details of the rat face and the finish of her dress are picture perfect.
But your rat was a bit rigid.
And we wish you had more of that beautiful fur texture.
You flower fascinators looked beautiful,
but they felt a little more holiday than Halloween.
And your cake was delicious,
but it was a bit more PB and J than eclair.
And Ghosty Gals,
we thought your fashion show might be a fashion fail,
but you were able to pull it together in those final moments.
We loved the cool, but moody palette
of your skeleton's haute couture dress.
And you were able to create the illusion of movement
with that exposed leg bone.
But you were missing some of that sculpting
that you've impressed us with over the season.
And the bones on the base were a little messy.
You slayed the twist with your fashionable fascinators,
but your cake wasn't as successful in mimicking the texture of the macaron
that we were looking for.
This was a tough decision for us.
It was the closest of the whole season.
The winner of Halloween Wars is...
-Ghosty Gals. -[team exclaiming]
Yes, so Ghosty Gals are the Halloween champs.
Ghosty Gals, how you feeling?
We're leaking. [laughs]
So, so happy.
-You did it. -You should be so proud.
We're so proud of you.
-[Eddie] Seriously, good job, both of you. -[contestants] Yeah.
[Eddie] Really good job.