Mark and Steven Erickson on winning ‘Lego Masters’ Season 2 and upgrading ‘Castle Bros’ title [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW]
Season 2 of “Lego Masters” concluded on Tuesday, September 14 with brothers Mark & Steven Erickson walking away with the $100,000 grand prize and title of “Lego Masters.” The duo was able to out-build 11 other teams on their path to victory including fellow brotherly finalists Zack & Wayne Macasaet and Jacob & Caleb Schilling. The Fox reality TV competition is hosted by Will Arnett and judged by Brickmasters Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard. Watch our exclusive video interview with Mark & Steven above.
“It was like a powder keg with the wire that’s got the spark going and then the explosion at the end,” Steven describes the moments leading up to being named the winners. “Hearing our names, Mark and Steven, in the end was hard to put into words. If you could imagine all the dynamite you could ever pack into an area, that’s pretty much it.”
The moments leading up to that win may have seemed like a short time to viewers at home, but the brothers waited days to find out they were victorious. “We got feedback from judges on all the builds,” Mark explains. “There were interviews and then a day between the results of that so it was hung over our heads for quite a while.” Steven adds, “They spent a very long time judging that process.”
Although the final build challenge was 24 hours long it wasn’t filmed over the course of a single day. “It wasn’t 24 hours straight,” Mark reveals. “Most of us would be completely wiped out at that point. It was broken up into anywhere from nine to seven hours per day over three days. It was exhausting, challenging, but not too bad.”
For their final challenge each team was tasked with creating anything they wanted as long as there was a daytime and nighttime look. “Before the show I was thinking about building a tree man just for fun,” Steven says. “I wasn’t able to get anything going before the show. We were brainstorming before the finale and we had a few ideas, but nothing really stuck. I remember Sunday morning, Mark knocks on my hotel room door and says, ‘Hey Steven, you wanna make a tree man?’ and I’m like, ‘Yea, let’s make a tree man!’ and he just walked right out.”
The final name of “tree man” became “Warden of the Woods” and the structure nearly crashed moments before the final judgment when Steven tripped over power cords connected to the lighting feature. “This was absolutely terrifying,” Mark admits. “We had done very well with the execution of our build up until that point. It’s a dark floor, dark cords, Steven has very big feet and he just tripped on that cord and it gave the whole build a little jerk. Thankfully everything was built well, but if it had all gone crashing down we only had a few hours left at that point, we definitely couldn’t fix it.”
Despite winning the season, Mark & Steven did have to relinquish their title of “Castle Bros” to Jacob & Caleb after losing a wager in the Episode 11 challenge, “Cliffhanger.” “We are okay with letting that go,” Mark says. “We build a lot more than just castles. We do sci-fi and more fantasy stuff now too. Caleb and Jacob’s castle build was gorgeous and they really earned it. It’s a little sting, but we did end up winning the ultimate prize, which was the ‘Lego Masters’ title, so we feel like that’s a little bit more of a broad and slightly grander title.”