'The Great British Baking Show' Doubles Down on Its Choices in the Season 15 Finale

The Great British Baking Show's move to Channel 4 has finally run into the problem most assumed would occur much earlier. When Mary Berry left the tent (along with Sue and Mel), the critical consensus was that Paul Hollywood's ego would be allowed free reign. Within a season or two, viewers would stop watching—not because they couldn't stand Paul but because they would stop being able to trust the judge's opinions. You cannot spit upon people and insist it's raining for very long; eventually, they'll notice.

That the series managed to sidestep that in those opening seasons (Seasons 8 and 9, to be precise) on Channel 4 was a minor miracle, caused mainly by very good casting choices. If all three finalists present bakes that reasonably suggest any of them could win on a given Friday, whether or not Paul favors one or the other won't matter because it is easy to believe they deserve to win. Season 10 was when that started to fall apart, but the show was also handed a pair of distractions just at the right moment: Sandi Toksvig not working out as a host; her replacement, Matt Lucas, encouraging co-host Noel Fielding's worst impulses; and of course, the pandemic. 

I have repeatedly praised the show's casting of Alison Hammond as Lucas' replacement and continue to stand by that assessment. I also don't think it was the worst choice to nix the "National" theme weeks after the Mexican disaster; it was also a minor miracle that Japanese Week hadn't blown up in their faces two years previous, and every Jurgen fan knows he was sent home for telling Paul to his face the show knew nothing about German baking. However, the series fixing the distraction of hosting issues has left Paul's behavior as the one thing still wrong with the series. No one believes his judgment because he is painfully biased towards his favorites. Until now, when we hit the last episodes, the person being pushed by him either failed before the finale or (like Dan) collapsed in it. But this season is different, and perhaps the edit Georgie got last week, painting her as deeply sympathetic when she wanted to quit, should have been a sign.

For the finale Signature Challenge, the bakers are asked to make two dozen scones, 12 savory and 12 sweet. The two flavors must be in uniform batches and look identical within their group. Alison suggests ensuring their scones are "nice" to overcome the challenge. (Super helpy!) Noel snorts and tells Alsion she's on fire; she retorts that, hopefully, the scones won't be.

Let's roll through these sixty scones emerging from the tent and see which are light and fluffy and which we should light on fire.

• Christiaan Curry & Coconut Scones (Pass): These are so uniform you can barely tell the sweet from the savory. Prue frowns at the savory ones and calls them "Interesting," while Paul says they're slightly underbaked.
• Georgie Afternoon Tea Scones (Pass): Her scones aren't as uniform, but you can quickly tell the sweet ones from the savory. Paul grumps they're rather amateurish and admits they are tough instead of light.
• Dylan Strawberry & Salmon Scones (Fail): Alison's horrified whisper when she saw Dylan's scones was not a misdirect. The poor kid melted down under pressure and failed to finish. Paul and Prue are as nice as they can be.

It was always possible that Dylan would crack under pressure today. He's super hard on himself, and we've seen what happens to his attitude when he doesn't produce what he has in mind. That's precisely what happened here with the Signature, and it's genuinely a little heartbreaking to watch as you realize he may lose today because he couldn't get out of his own head.

I want to argue a bit with Prue's final Technical Challenge, which is to make "an Afternoon Tea Display." Technical Challenges are hard enough when you have to make one item you haven't practiced. An "Afternoon Tea Display" (the traditional kind) usually has at least six items on three tiers. She admits what she's telling them to do is "complicated," and to be fair, she has cut it down to three items, one per tier. But seriously, this is asking the bakers to make multiple strawberry tarts, mini-lemon sandwich cakes — think tiny lemon-flavored Victoria sponge cakes — and plaited egg & cress rolls. For Americans, who have probably never heard of that last one, these are tiny challah roles stuffed with egg salad and watercress. At least they have three hours? Dylan's face says you could give him twice that, and he'll still find a way not to finish.

Let's see whose Afternoon Tea is Top-Tier and who needs their cakes dipped in tea to be edible.

3. Dylan: His Egg&Cress rolls aren't plaited right; his tarts are tough, but he nailed the cakes.
2. Georgie: She nailed her Egg&Cress rolls, but her tarts barely pass, and her lemon cake is overbaked.
1. Christiaan: Only his Egg&Cress Rolls are less than perfect. 

Again, it is painful to watch Dylan snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In any other circumstance, Christiaan would be in the wings, about to walk away with the win as the frontrunner falls. But Georgie's edits are getting more and more sympathetic, as she's shown mothering Dylan as he crashes.

The season's final challenge, the Showstopper that these three will take outside to Welford Park, where the families and former contestants await the results, is to make a decorated hanging cake. (Those are the weird upsidedown multi-tier cakes you find at super high-end weddings, where the cakes are suspended from largest to smallest from a decorating hook. There are variations where a right-side-up cake is suspended in a basket, but those are cheating.) The theme should be a "summer garden party" rather than a wedding cake, but it's still a mandatory three tiers, with at least two flavors of cake that are filled.

Dylan hasn't lost yet; he could pull out a Showstopper good enough to overlook his previous submittals. But it's a much harder road than it should have been, and his self-defeating mentality is evident even before the Showstopper Challenge starts. (Noel's suggestion of blackmail's not bad either, but offering Paul a foot massage probably only extends to Georgie.) 

The bakers have four hours to pull this off; let us pray.

Dylan’s ‘Colours of Murano’: So let's be real, it's not the most handsome cake, but it does follow his planned design and came out how he intended (mostly). But the real issue, which the judges slam into instantly, is that nothing about it says "Summer Garden Party." "Abstract Sesame Street Colors Cake," sure. "Picasso's Concept of a Cake" definitely. The flavors are great, but also not summery at all. It's the first thing he's nailed all episode but this was not the Showstopper he needed to win.

Georgie’s ‘Summer Garden Celebration’: You don't get any more "Summer Garden Party" than this. It's a floral bomb, with iced flowers stenciled on the sides and vines down the sides of the tiers (which are hung middle-large-small) and fresh roses as decor. Her flavors are all summer-focused, too: strawberry, lemon, etc. Paul looks like he won the lottery even before he tastes it, and his smile doubles when he sees Prue loves it too, and he can totally talk her into rewarding this one the win.

Christiaan’s ‘Sculpted Summer’: His hanging cake is in the traditional order, large, middle, and small, and his flavors are cohesive; everything is lemon-based, just different variations on a lemon theme. But Paul instantly gloms on his middle tier, which isn't perfectly iced, and the bottom one, which is just this weird blue bulbous nothing. The cake inside is perfect, and even though most of us hate licorice, the judges do not. They love the unusual use of flavors, though Prue admits some might find it too strong, and Paul jumps on that, complaining it's overbaked.

Dylan knows he's out of it by now and seems at peace with it.  Meanwhile, Christiaan is no fool; he knows he left the door open for Paul to argue Prue out of giving him the win in the face of Dylan's collapse. Georgie is utterly puzzled. She walked in expecting to take third, but she's not. Paul says, "he wants to talk to Prue" after she argues for giving Christiaan the win, and Alison vocally hopes Prue will stand her ground and force Paul to go full "fisticuffs." But that's not who Prue is, and anyone who has been paying attention over the last seven seasons knows she always folds in the end.

That is how Paul finally got to crown his favorite as a winner. It's not quite the "Default" win of last year, but it also feels undeserved, despite the show doing everything it could to edit her into it. Paul's obvious attraction to her and favoring her from the start was too heavy-handed throughout the competition, making it impossible for anyone to judge her properly.

That is the problem here: Paul's open favoritism means we no longer believe what he says about a contestant's bake. Georgie may have had fantastic-tasting bakes all season, but we, as viewers, don't know if she did because we don't get to taste them; we have to believe the judges. I know people who haven't believed a single thing out of Paul's mouth since he forced Jurgen out, but in my opinion, the actual damning behavior was last season, forcing Dan through when he was far past his sell-by date. Paul's insistence that Dan belonged there when he did not prove him to be a liar. That's simply untenable for a series that requires viewers to believe it when the judges say, "This is the winner." That now makes two winners in a row who feel like the show was backed into them. This should be a red alert for the producers because reality competition shows are only as good as their last winner. It only took two bad winners to tank American Idol; it remains to be seen if GBBO can survive.

The Great British Baking Show continues on Netflix with the double episode release of Christmas 2023 & the New Year's 2024. Festive specials on Friday, December 9, 2024. Season 16 is already greenlit.