Master Class

Written three episodes into the new season

We are most defi nitely a Lego household. We have ton of unopened sets yearning to be built. Boom is constantly setting the bar here for what can be done with bricks. So we were extremely happy about the return of Lego Masters. Season 1 was tremendous fun; I was really looking forward to what would be new in Season 2.

Through the fi rst few episodes, the challenges have focused on speed, largesse, and strength of story. Host Will Arnett along with Brick Masters Amy and Jamie guide the contestants through the challenges, creating some drama, keeping them on task, and offering advice. Lego Masters quickly became appointment television and one of my favorite competition series to watch.

Kal summarized the show like this: Lego Masters features fun, creative challenges. Master builders attempt to try and win the Golden Brick to save you from being voted off. We’ve only seen three episodes so it’s hard to say it’s better than the fi rst year. I like the contestants more this season. I really liked last year when they would stop the challenge midway through and throw a different challenge in the mix. In the latest episode they had to build a 4-foot tall tower and put in on the Brickter Scale

to shake it and see how stable it was. That was so cool. I would love to grow up and be a contestant on Lego Masters with Boom as my partner, of course, because he’s really imaginative and great at building small-scale things. My contribution would be building the larger scale things as well as incorporating technical motion elements.

To update, the challenges and builds were really intense this season. The most talented people who will probably win the whole thing have embraced being the villains this season. Actually yelling at the TV that the Douche Brothers (as Madeline calls them) need to go home has been a fun dimension to viewing this season. You should stream it if you missed it live. —LV

These are some Lego Masters stills to show how builds had to look good exploding (the frog) and be able to move (the dragon fl oat). Then there are Reddit contributions (#10 and #15). One week Madeline tried to sort all our bricks. @Aggravating_Fox7859

Sorting by size and color

Boom’s build

Hit or miss with cheap toys

A collection of what we’ve seen at Dollar Tree and other 99-cent stores this summer.

NOT ALWAYS A DEAL

But Dollar Tree became a hit anyway

When Boom and I popped into a Dollar Tree, we had no idea that they might have his favorite thing: Transformers Botbots. Old series that hadn’t sold at other locations were on the shelf in one of our locations. When Betty was obsessed with Cookie Swirl C on YouTube a couple years ago, we heard about Dollar Tree all the time, but finding our own discounted premium toys made it a destination.

When we couldn’t find Botbots in the store, the rest of the selection was still entertaining. A mega pack of Dough was a hit with Betty, but Make-It Bricks seemed too cheap. Considering I bought 20 cones that look exactly like the 2-pack Sports Disc for maybe $12, the Dollar Tree cones seemed terrible. The plush My Little Pony knock-offs (or My Little Voldemort as I like to say because they have no noses) were a lot less scary than what we found at a mall knock-off of Five Below (upper left). I mean, they were a knock-off of Five Below... —MV