The Great British Baking Show “Patisserie Week” usually doubles for the season’s tense semi-finals. It’s the remaining bakers’ final, desperate shot to impress Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith before the finale. This year’s version of “Patisserie Week” was no different, prompting one baker to nearly meltdown and quit, and Noel Fielding to jest, “No jokes! Only powerful baking!”
Perhaps the wildest twist of the entire episode, though, was the final eliminated baker’s reaction to getting the boot. After joyfully accepting the news as matter of fact, they proceeded to not only break the fourth wall — shifting focus to the Netflix‘s show’s usually invisible camera operators — but also to commit theft. It was a wildly sweet farewell to one of The Great British Baking Show‘s most talented bakers.
**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show “Patisserie Week,” now streaming on Netflix**
Four bakers entered the tent at the start of The Great British Baking Show “Patisserie Week” — Dylan Bachelet, Christiaan de Vries, Georgie Grasso, and Gill Howard — and only three will duke it out in next week’s finale. In the end, Paul and Prue decided to send Gill home, noting that her elimination was less about any mistakes that it was down to her understated bakes. While Dylan, Christiaan, and Georgie consistently challenged themselves with ambitious techniques and innovative flavor combos, Gill always stuck with what she knew. Ironically, it would seem that Gill also knew she was a goner before anyone else did.
As soon as a heartbroken Noel revealed Gill would be going home, she exclaimed, “And quite right, too!” She straight up told Prue, “They outbaked me by a mile!”
“Patisserie got me, but I can’t be sad,” Gill would later explain in her confessional interview. “I’ve had the absolute best time. It’s brilliant. I cannot be sad!”
Gill also couldn’t be tamed. After the routine round of hugs and well-wishes, Gill paused to thank everyone, and we mean everyone, involved in the production. “Thank you everybody! It’s been absolutely marvelous and you’ve made me feel so special. I really, really loved it. Thank you!”
She then pointed straight at one of the cameras. “You! I want you! Come here!” she said, rushing towards an off-camera crew member. Another camera pulled out to reveal Gill bidding a fond farewell to a cameraman she clearly bonded with over the course of the season. “I did my best,” he tells her, suggesting for maybe the first time on screen the tight bond that the bakers have with the crew!
(Coincidentally, The Great British Baking Show‘s official Instagram account posted a behind-the-scenes look at the set, via a day in the life with host Alison Hammond. Am I now dreaming of living in a little hut outside the Bake Off Tent? YES.)
After giving her favorite camera man a shout out, Gill then turned thief. She boldly announced that she was now going to go “and rob that lilac bowl.” While her fellow bakers laughed, Gill scurried to the back of the tent, where a collection of pastel mixing bowls have been living since day one as set dressing. Gill stole her soft purple bowl, explaining that she’d had her eye on it since week one.
“I won’t get my cake stand but I’ve got my bowl,” she said, still hugging it during her exit interview outside the tent.
This season of The Great British Baking Show has been nothing if not chaotic. We’ve seen bakers fall, contestants quit, and now, larceny committed in the tent. Will Gill’s bold move to yoink a bowl out of the tent become a tradition in the future? Will protections for the competition’s ceramics be put in place? All I know is I now have a hankering to add a lilac bowl to my kitchen collection and that there’s only one more episode of The Great British Baking Show left this year.
The Great British Baking Show finale lands on Netflix Friday, November 29.
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