What Goes Around

One of my favorite TV shows is Cake Boss, starring Buddy Valastro, who spun off a second show, The Next Great Baker last year, the winner of which is still working at the bakery. As I watched the several weeks of the competition this season, I was frustrated and angry at the way some contestants “played the game.” Lots of tears stood in place of good, solid talent, and everyone who landed in the bottom had a teary tale to tell about why their personal life qualified them for a professional win. Two of the worst bakers, but the best tear-jerkers, were Paul and Gretl-Ann, both of whom rode the coattails of other, better bakers, to the semi-finals. Thankfully, Paul was knocked out in the semi-finals, but Gretl-Ann made it to the final three bakers, one of whom would win both a job at Carlo’s Bakery and $100,000, not by being the best baker, but by "selling" the most baked goods at a sell-off competition in Las Vegas.

What upset me most about Paul and Gretl-Ann is that they wailed and bemoaned how much they needed the money to save themselves and their lifestyles, while ignoring the fact that their ability to bake was mediocre at best. The title of the show was not Who Needs the Money Most, but The Next Great Baker; hence, if you aren’t a great baker, you shouldn’t win the baking contest. In spite of her lack of baking ability, G-A went to Las Vegas as one of the Final Three. There, in an unscrupulous effort to win, she hid baking pans from her competitors and also turned up the oven temps so their baked goods had to be thrown away. She smirked to the cameras when she justified her actions by saying, “Hey, it’s a competition and I'm playing to win.”

Yeah: a BAKING competition, which by definition means being a better baker!!

G-A made it to the final two by out-selling the third baker in the finals, and was pretty smug in her potential to win until Buddy told the audience that the former competitors would vote on the winner. At this time, G-A lost her smug smirk and tearfully admitted that she had “pissed off” almost every other baker with dirty tricks, shabby work, and lies, so it was “not fair” that they would be allowed to vote because, probably, no one would vote for her. And, she was correct: 8 of the 10 former bakers voted for her opponent, Ashley, who was clearly the superior baker from week one.

Ashley nearly lost the title of Next Great Baker when she went off on Paul, who demanded that she, a “25-year-old kid,” justify why she should win the contest. He ignored her endless string of weekly challenge wins and attacked her personally, so Ashley lost it: she delivered a profanity-laced comeback that may have been accurate, but was totally inappropriate, and easily could have cost her the title, as well as the cash prize and job that came with it.

G-A is still convinced that she should have won because she was the only competitor who deliberately set about knocking out other bakers not based on baking skill, but by using dirty tactics to undermine their efforts. The good news is that what goes around comes around, and her loss should provide her with tearful stories to tell in a “poor me” pity party.