"Tell me about your muzzer." -- Dr. Freud

So sorry I've been away for so long... I had to make a deadline for an art exhibit that I waited until the last two weeks to do. Let's go back to the episode I meant to dissect two weeks ago: Dealing with your Childhood Angst Without the Help of a Trained Professional.

As you may remember, the contestants holed up in a children's museum.

And then they were forced to create something out of the crap student art supplies that only mixed-media artists usually know how to transform into something amazing. The artwork had to show how the contestants' childhood experiences transformed them into the artists they are today. The reaction from most of the artists:
"MY CHILDHOOD IS A LOCKED ROOM TO WHICH I HAVE THROWN AWAY THE KEY."

Especially Designated Hotness, who was once -- shocker! -- the kid nobody'd sit with at lunch time.

"It sounds sad, but I would just like, go in the bathroom stall and like, eat my lunch alone." (That explains the boob job and her obsession with the male gaze). Even Cartoony Boy, who usually has great ideas right away, is daunted. Tortured Artist is ready to curl up and die because he can't use his familiar tools: "I don't wanna go home for not knowing how to use popsicle sticks."

The only people excited about the challenge are Swanky and Weird White Girl the Mad Hatter. (Look at her headgear. I had to change her nickname.)

Oh yeah, and no more immunity for winning a challenge. Ready to call Mommy now?

Speaking of mommies, Starving is even more unprepared to deal with his childhood issues. Apparently his Jehovah's Witness mother pretty much ignores him now that he's not down with the church. "I know my mother still loves me to death but she, like..." [four LOOOONG pauses, blinks back tears] "she doesn't respect my life choices."  Poor bastards: they're being judged on their artwork and who they were as vulnerable kids.

Inspector Clouseau pretty much hates everything he sees, because they're recreations of actual childhood artworks. So do the judges and Switzerland. Only Swanky and the Mad Hatter create pieces that are both symbolic and personally meaningful.

The Mad Hatter's artwork looks like My Little Pony went to a swingers' party, but that's the point. "Rainbow" references her childhood growing up in a San Francisco commune -- again, what a shock -- and the people she loved dying of AIDS. Guest judge Will Cotton offers high praise: "I don't often see a work of art that I wish I'd made myself, and yours is one of them."

Starving goes home, but not to Mommy.

Tell me what you thought of this ep, but no spoilers for the next two! I haven't watched them on the DVR yet!