Thanks for the Tears, Paul and Prue

By
Roxana Hadadi,
a Vulture TV critic who also covers film and pop culture

Spoilers follow for the current season of The Great British Baking Show through the sixth episode, which premiered on Netflix on November 1.

The problem with a great season of The Great British Baking Show is that, eventually, nearly all of the people who make that season great will be sent home. And so it goes that now, more than halfway through an engaging season of more-manageable challenges and shaken-up Technicals, this year’s first heartbreak elimination arrives.

In an Autumn Week outcome as shocking as that one season when Paul didn’t use hair gel, Dylan and Nelly — two of this season’s earliest standouts, responsible for dynamic flavor combinations that Paul and Prue have spent weeks praising — both underperformed in their Showstopper challenge. Autumn-hater Dylan’s patchily frosted all-white Diwali cake was visually underwhelming and not very in line with the theme, but it tasted “gorgeous,” according to Paul. Nelly’s “Woman in Autumn” cake, decorated with self-portraits of her younger and current selves in vibrant frosting, was glorious to look at (“A terrific achievement,” said Prue), but the flavor combination of spinach sponge, plum jam, and chocolate and avocado cream was too chaotic. Nelly seemed to have the edge with what Paul called an “exquisite” poppy-seed-and-apple-pie Signature, compared with Dylan’s tough-textured and burnt rough-puff apple pie, and they were similarly placed in the Parkin ginger cake Technical. But the judges increasingly rely on Showstopper flavor for their decisions, which resulted in our joyously accessorized, jocularly friendly, invigoratingly honest Nelly being shown the door. Who’s going to flirt with Noel now, or brusquely tell Paul he’s “already shiny,” or confidently (and rightly) proclaim to Alison that the GBBS contestants are the stars of this show? We lost a real one in Nelly, a GBBS breakout whose unapologetic authenticity was a delight each week.

GBBS has been around long enough now that its contestant archetypes are as set as overgelatined mousse and as comforting as a pan of savory buns. There’s often a rough-around-the-edges working-class guy with a surprising flair, a first-gen or immigrant contestant whose ingredients blow Paul’s mind, and an older man or woman whose homey — or, in GBBS parlance, “rustic” — style was shaped by the bakes their families loved. That’s not to diminish the individuals who fulfill these roles each season, but to praise how GBBS’s casting decisions complement the series’ built-in consistency. These personalities are as reliable as each episode’s Signature, Technical, and Showstopper trio of challenges, or Paul taking his handshake super-seriously, or Noel trying to stir up shit by asking bakers which hosts and judges they like the most. (Kudos to youngsters Dylan and Sumayah for directly telling Noel that, actually, they prefer Alison.) The steadiness is part of the draw.

But every so often, you get someone willing to wiggle free of what their role was perhaps meant to be and show facets of themself that you wouldn’t necessarily expect. Think of eventual 2015 winner Nadiya Hussain’s use of bubblegum and cream-soda flavors to signal her playful personality after weeks of doing poorly on Technicals; instead of letting that anxiety overwhelm her, Nadiya reset her persona with those mischievous eclairs. Dylan and Nelly have surprised in similar ways. Dylan’s hottie appeal is partially derived from the tension of a dude who looks like he takes style cues from Rufio (complimentary) delivering such luxurious and delicate bakes, while Nelly’s forthrightness about the personal inspirations behind her offerings (her five unborn children with her husband, her own aging) are an endearing counter to her amused insouciance. They represent two different modes of GBBS contestant — Dylan is there to prove his skills to himself and gain some confidence as he pursues his dream of being a chef; Nelly is there to spotlight her family favorites, have a good time, and maybe run away with both Noel and Alison — but they’re both watchable, entertaining bakers whose skills seemed solid enough to get them to the end.

Until, of course, Autumn Week, which only made me love Nelly more before her time on the show came to an end. Nelly tends to accept praise with a tight smile and deflect criticism with a joke, and because of the latter, she’s been a fount of reaction shots as the series has given her a class-clown-style edit. That performatively cheeky side of her personality, which includes her jokingly threatening Noel with a blowtorch and striking a braggadocious pose on her stool when finishing a challenge early, is still there in Autumn Week, as she deadpans after seeing Dylan’s Showstopper, “We need to eliminate him somehow, you know? Slap him.” But when she talks about her own Showstopper and how it will focus on how she is “entering the autumn” of her life as a woman and “harvesting all the experience” that has come before, she blends her customary self-deprecation (narrating how she’s going to pipe a “triple chin” on her self-portrait) with the same frankness she exhibited when talking about her pregnancy losses. She’s thought about what the “autumn” of her life means to her and found a way to reflect that perspective through the bake, and she’s assured enough to share all that with the judges, the hosts, the other contestants, and us viewers, embodying a candidness that is exactly why we watch reality TV in the first place. (Of course, Paul doesn’t get it, joking that he thought she was 22, but Prue and Alison both praise the concept for its candor.)

“If it doesn’t go right today, it doesn’t go right. There is an exit, it’s fine,” Nelly says with a smile and a shrug, and that even-keeled composure stays put even after Noel announces her exit and envelops her in a hug with a whispered admission that it “killed” him to say her name. Her certainty of self is a beautiful thing, as are her parting words that her time on the show was meant to teach her sons to “enjoy” life in any way it comes. Cue my crying and all the other contestants crying; I haven’t seen an elimination this weepy in a while.

As Alison says during Autumn Week’s deliberations, it’s jarring that Nelly and Dylan, who so rarely get negative feedback from the judges, would be in the bottom together. But even though Nelly didn’t reach the finals, she’ll be an enduring GBBS personality because she so charmingly embodies what the show is about — effort and trying and pouring every aspect of yourself into something, even if it doesn’t work out. “Come on, you can’t be perfect,” Nelly saucily says while rolling her eyes after Paul and Prue’s critical judging of her Showstopper. But she doesn’t need to be. Book her on the All-Star season immediately.

Thanks for the Tears, Paul and Prue