Welcome back to LA Ink, the spin-off of Miami Ink and the third of TLC's tattoo trilogy. Tonight's second season premiere finds proprietress Kat Von D coming back to her LA shop after a trip with her boyfriend Orbi. She's also with child. Here's what happened in tonight's LA Ink.

Kat Von D has been on tour with Orbi and his band. As soon as she gets back, she announces to her staff, minus Hannah Aitchison who is in Chicago, that she is with child. But then, immediately, she says she's kidding. Wait, what? I thought she really was pregnant! That was a whole lot of misdirection on those TLC promos.

Kim Saigh decides to give Hannah a call in Chicago. Hannah sounds like she's starting to settle in Chicago, which worries Kim and Kat, but Hannah doesn't seem like she wants to leave Chicago anytime soon. Unfortunately, the shop has been getting lots of calls from prospective clients looking for Hannah. That's bad for business, yo, and Kat needs to consider hiring someone to permanently take Hannah's spot. And in the meantime, the rest of the staff has to make sure they have full schedules all the time.

Kat catches up with Corey Miller, and tells her how hard it was for him to pick up with slack with her and Hannah gone. He also tells her that Pixie Acia split for a week to go to Mexico as well, leaving Corey and Kim alone. Kat is very disappointed in Pixie and is having a hard time deciding whether to deal with Pixie like a boss or like a friend. To help make her decision, Kat goes to see an adviser who helps her realize that she would have fired Pixie if she were just an employee and not a friend.

Kat also consults with Corey about her dream to do an annual tattoo convention-music festival. She wants it to stand out from the hordes of other tattoo conventions, which is why she wants the music half of it. She's considering calling it MusInk. Corey is excited to help out with whatever he can do.

There are five customers at the shop on tonight's LA Ink.

Joanna, adult film star and entrepreneur, wants to tattoo a woman symbol with a woman's face on the inside. She's in porn, and wants her tattoo to represent the contradictions she feels as a woman in porn. Corey does her tattoo, and while he's sketching it out, Joanna shows off her moves on the pole. Then, while he preps her side, she flirts with him something fierce, going so far as to perform a humungus fake orgasm. Corey just rolls his eyes impatiently.

Kat gets a client named Marky with a skin condition called vitiligo, which means that he has areas of skin that lack pigmentation. He wants a tattoo that reads "It's called vitiligo" in Old English lettering. He opted for this educational-type of tattoo, rather than a more confrontational one like, "Please stop staring."

Kim gets a first-timer who wants a huge tattoo to represent all the women in his life, including his girlfriend of a couple months. It's a really intricate, huge floral work that runs the length of his arm, from wrist to shoulder. But because it's such a large, he needs to come in for a second sitting before it's done. But when it is finished, he deems it "bonkers." I think that means he's happy with it.

Corey's next client is a man who wants a crow descending into fire on his left arm, representing death. He has an existing tattoo on his right arm of a phoenix ascending from water. He was in a horrible accident a few years ago, leaving him badly scarred all over his arms. He ran into a burning trailer to rescue his friend. The doctors put him into a coma for three and a half weeks afterwards so that he wouldn't go into shock from all the pain he was in. Corey assures him that his scarred skin will tattoo just fine. The tattoo comes out great, and looks really interesting on his pebbly, scarred skin.

There's a cancellation in the schedule so Kim calls the Latin singer Lala Romero to see if she wants to move up her appointment. Wait, is this the Lala who hosted the I Love New York 2 Reunion Show? This particular Lala wants to get a picture of a solidera, what looks like an old-timey Latina chick, on her leg with the Mexican flag in the background. Kat herself is Latina and is excited to do something so iconically Latina.


-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of TLC)