THE HOLMES SPOT: All American Handyman

Another exciting week of All American Handyman has come and gone, and yet another contestant has been forced to hang up his tool belt, whittling the handyman hopefuls down to 8. Here’s the Holmes Spot All American Handyman week 2 recap…

Week two, “Crying Babies and Playground Battles,” subjected the remaining 9 contestants to two ridiculously hard challenges. In the “fix-it” challenge, contestants were to complete four common tasks: 1) replace a doorknob, 2) repair a broken screen, 3) patch some drywall, and lastly 4) replace a light switch with a dimmer switch. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. The kicker was that the contestants had to work quietly, as they could not wake a simulated baby in a crib several feet from their working space. The “baby” was a microphone attached to a flashing light. If the light went off, the contestant was disqualified from the challenge.

Sonne was the first to be DQ’d, waking the baby within the first five minutes of the challenge. Although the other contestants took great pains to be as quiet as possible, one by one they fell, leaving only thee contestants standing by the end of the allotted time: Carol, Scott H., and Michael. Mike and Scott examined the work of the three remaining handymen, judging the quality of their work and the cleanliness of their workspace. They judged Michael to be the winner, mainly because he was the only contestant to finish all four tasks without waking the “baby.”

In the “build-it” challenge, contestants were given 4 hours to build a swing set. Mike stated that the contestants were being judged on the following criteria: 50% teamwork, 50% creativity, and 100% safety. Michael, who won the advantage in the “fix-it” round, grouped the remaining contestants into the following teams:

Team 1 – Scott H. (Team Leader), Michael, Rodney

Team 2 – Paul (Team Leader), Carol, Scott C.

Team 3 – Chris L. (Team Leader), Julia, Sonne

Ryan Ostrom, Chief Marketing Officer for Craftsman Tools was introduced to the contestants as the surprise guest judge.

At the end of the 4 hours, three distinguishable playground swing sets were certainly present, but not one got the pass from Mike. As the contestants entered the warehouse, a pile of wood pieces from their swing sets were piled bonfire style in the middle of the floor, signifying a job not well done.

The criticism for Team 1 was that they did not read or follow the safety instructions included with every piece of playground equipment they were to build with. As a result, there were major safety issues.

The criticism given to Team 2 was similar to Team 1: safety. Their sloppy swing set left both Mike and Scott unimpressed.

Lastly, Team 3 somewhat impressed Mike by installing most of the railing on the inside of the swing set, making for a safer railing. They also installed a safety guard in front of the swings, and demonstrated fairly good planning. However, as the time wound down, they rushed and installed part of the railing incorrectly, and Mike was easily able to pull it apart with his bare hands.

In the end, Team 3 was judged to have the best built playground. At the bottom of the pile, up for elimination was Team 2. Scott explained that there were several “fatal flaws” that led to their team being on the chopping block. Primarily, they displayed a lack of communication and leadership, which in turn led to sloppy work (nails poking through the boards, for instance), as well as many safety issues.

Scott C. “Sarge” was called to the carpet and asked whom he though should be sent home. Scott C.’s answer to the judges was that he thought he should be sent home, because he felt he was more of a cheerleader than a leader. Scott C. stated that if he got to stay, he would never make that mistake again. For that reason, Scott C. was not eliminated and spared another for another week, leaving team leader Paul and Carol on the chopping block. In the end, Paul was sent home, because essentially the breakdown between the team members was due to poor communication, and as the team leader, Paul was held responsible.

One interesting thing, this episode of All American Handyman was (as far as I can tell) the network debut of Mike’s new tattoos. During the build-it challenge, Mike rolled up his sleeves, exposing his half-sleeve tattoos for the first time on TV (or at least the first time on TV that I’ve seen). See Mike Holmes Tattoo Watch 2012 for more information.

You can also read my All American Handyman Week 1 Recap, if you missed last week. Or, you can watch the full episode on HGTV.

ALL AMERICAN HANDYMAN CONTESTANTS - WEEK 2