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I love JCSS, and somewhat ironically, it was great history lesson for me. Even after 8 years of Catholic school education, I had no idea why Jesus was crucified, how Romans, Pilate, and Herod all figured in the power hierarchy. The "We are occupied" line actually made me do some questioning on what that meant. I grew up in a conservative small Wisconsin town and was rather surprised my parents let me get the album when it first came out (I was in 8th grade at the time). Even the nuns at school played parts of it in class. But they didn't explain much about what it actually meant. Re the live performance: I loved it, loved it, loved it, although I was disappointed in both Gethsemane and Alice Cooper. He was hammy enough, but he talk-sang too much instead of just singing. Loved him working the crowd, though--perfect for the character.

I thought the exact opposite. A spherical cake(s) covered in pre-made mirror glaze? Now if they had had to actually make the mirror glaze, which is tricky itself, that would have been a challenge. I thought the results looked like the Kids did them. The cupcakes were much better--at least they could show some making-flowers-out-of-frosting skill. American shows don't expect much from bakers. YMMV.

The casting crew did a great job in finding kids who could bake, were interesting just being themselves and didn't resort to mugging for the camera. I liked them all, they seemed so natural and mature without being pretentious. Great bunch. Linsey showed a skill level above the rest, so I'm happy she won. Of all the cakes, I would have like to have tasted Alex's. Abbey's was perfect for an actual 10 year old's BD, but Linsey's was perfect for the challenge.

Maybe in future seasons they can give the bakers a list of things to expect, giving them a chance to practice at least something as vague as "a structure made of cereal treats that must stand up" or something. I think everyone would benefit, as I seriously doubt people tune in to a show like this to watch stressed kids fumbling. THEN the judges would have some more legs in criticizing stuff that fails. But since this an American show, I'm not holding my breath. I really like this bunch of kids, but other than very selective things like Linsey's space cookies, the results look exactly like a kid made it. I think the kids are talented and given more time and information and no stupid twists, could create great stuff. Wouldn't that be a much better show to watch?

I wish they could have had more time, another hour or so. I'd much rather see more accomplished results than stuff falling over. It was a tossup for me between Abbey and Brin, but I think Abbey's upside down cupcakes edged ahead in originality. Maybe Brin could have cut out her cookies to make them look more like starfish and not just stars? Although I've enjoyed this season, I think this show has lost its way. Cereal treats are not baked goods.

I just read the L.A. Times piece, and yeah, it says more about the author than the skaters. Frankly, he was being a bitch. And Dylan, explaination is spelled explanation. He was basically demanding to know from the skaters why the U.S. is so terrible. WTH are they supposed to say to that. I'm taking Marai's comments to be either taken out of context, mistakenly not seen as tongue-in-cheek, or her way to downplay her disappointment.

This isn't anything new, IMO. They seem to go in waves, rewarding jumping, basically ignoring everything else (Surya Bonali, anyone?), and then start rewarding artistry again. If they want to reward jumping, fine, but then actually judge it consistently. Don't let anyone get away with a wrong edge, or whatever. And they really should change the scoring to reward a clean triple higher than a failed quad, IMO. But what do I know, I'm just a spectator who likes to see something beautiful on the ice.

All I see is ugly illusion fabric and way too dark tights. Bradie looks like a cross between Princesses Margaret and Anne to me.

I think Abbey got by based on past performances, because head-to-head with only last night's entries, I think she should have been out. Those cake pops did not look good on the inside and sounded like they tasted like dough. I wonder if she would have had time to make a bigger cake pop for the sun, had she known about it earlier. I've resigned myself to the fact that this season is basically a dessert decorating contest rather than testing different baking skills, and I enjoyed it last night mainly because the kids were so excited about it. Linsey's cookies looked professional grade. Wow!

If costume designers insist on using that illusion fabric, you'd think they'd try to get it as close to the skater's skin tone as possible. That yellow dress on the Russian had these huge, wide shoulder straps in a tone that was way too dark. It looked awful and made the whole thing look even tackier. Those costumes are made especially for the skaters, I would think. Why such awful "illusion"?

I totally agree. Even when done well, it's not an attractive position, IMO. And when done in the yank-that-foot-up-while-drastically-slowing-down, well, HORRIBLE.

I was trying to figure out how to make the imposter tuna salad, and the only thing I could think of was to color the flaked coconut pink and mix with creamcheese/frosting? PBJ was not a good thing to include in the group. It's practically dessert itself. How can you make a fake jam without it being jam? I like the impostor challenge, so this was fun. I'm at the point of not wanting to see any of the kids leave.

Didn't they already have a challenge baking a cake with an icecream cone sticking out of the top? I would have enjoyed the challenge more if it had been first one of its kind this season. Lindsay's cake was adorable, though. Are they afraid (or do they know) that none of these kids can bake a pie? I like the kids a lot, but I'm not finding the challenges very interesting.

If they continue to insist on having that stupid twist, they should at least allow the bakers some choice. Have the dumb texture twist if you must, but allow the kids to at least pick the one that would work the best in whatever they have already started. What if the kid that had the chocolate donut got stuck with potato chips? Yuck. So what if more than one uses the same twist ingredient? At least let them try to incorporate complementary flavors. I'm glad Soleil was the one eliminated, it was time. Brin was smart enough to realize that you couldn't just put potato chips in the batter, unlike pink girl with her pretzels.

I suppose a dry cake would be worse than an ugly one, since it is about the bake, but Soleil's cake looked like someone dumped a pail of dirty water on it. If that was sitting on a dessert table, I doubt anyone would touch it. I think she should have gone for that 1/2 inch of pink sugar she threw on top. Valerie and Duff do seem to be more critical this season, which is GOOD. I like how they try to make suggestions about what would improve their bake. They aren't condescending. I like them judging kids. Only one kid was considered good enough to be in the top? Cake is about as basic as you can get. I wish they had given them more time so the final results would have at least looked better. And, kid whose name I can't remember, blue icing with green drips on a peanut butter cake--what were you thinking? I do like the kids this season. They don't seem to be playing for the cameras as much as last time.

I fully agree about the lipstick, but I COVET those eyeglasses. To me, Tanya seemed over it from the very first episode. Actually, I thought she acted more above it all than over it, and very passive aggressive. I didn't care which one of them went and was glad it was going to be down to those two.

At least they put a moratorium on lemon desserts. This was a good way to do that. The girl who made the white chocolate decoration for each bar should have won. It was really dumb to give it to the kid who blew off the twist. I'm sure everyone now understands how unimportant the twist is. Just get rid of it, alright?

There was also a smart little boy who decided not the use lemon, even though he knows Valerie likes it, because it wouldn't go with the twist. Why, oh, why are they so insistent on that stupid twist? It never adds anything and always diminishes the desserts.

This has been evident all season, but last night was especially egregious. "Andra, your pastry dough crust is completely RAW. But it tastes good. Nice job!" Grr. It doesn't help that I'm just done with a couple of rerun seasons of The Great British Baking Show on PBS, where they actually care about baking. Taking already-made philo dough and just cutting cookies out it without a word from the judges? Not much creativity last night. One of the few that I thought actually did the brief was the guy who had coconut cream pie and added eggnog. But he got dinged because it didn't look Christmassy enough. The ones that just added a tree shaped cookie to the same basic dessert they were given were especially sad. Really disappointing.

I agree that Audra should have been out. I have to root for the woman from La Crosse, WI, because my parents were from there.

I think it's an overall lowering of expectations and indistinguishable challenges.

I can't imagine that adding sweet potato to a dessert that already may have had conflicting flavors improved any of them. At best, it probably added some weird, mushy, what-is-that taste. Chocolate-mint blondies sound yucky enough without adding sweet potato. I wish they had more requirements on what to make, rather than just "make a dessert." I'd rather they have to make a specific type of baked good, like a bread wreath or pie or pastry. I remember one season of this show where they had to make a decorated wreath of cake(?) and the results were amazing. Nothing last night wowed me at all. They seem to fall back on tartlets because they are adaptable to pretty much any ingredient, but it's getting boring.

We'll have to agree to disagree. To me, it's a matter of intent. Wendy came into the competition plotting to deceive from day one, and never deviated from that, even after people did befriend her and were genuinely happy for her Banana Republic win. This just wasn't the kind of competition where that was appropriate. Kara Saun had one bad day. Kara Saun handled the shoe-thing badly, but she didn't go into it intending to deceive anyone--she was far too open about where she got the shoes for that. Yes, she acted entitled when called on the shoes (and I don't think she should have been able to keep them without giving up something else), but that doesn't make her the season's villain, IMO, not compared to Wendy's deliberate deceit. YMMV.

I'm worse than you because I did laugh, each of the four times I rewatched it.

Wendy didn't pretend to be scornful, she was scornful. She was also envious and deceitful. Her attempt at playing the game was to try to get others to befriend her and talk to her and then somehow use any confidences they gave her against them to "get them out of her way." The whole thing was ridiculous because the show was not set up in a way that designers could get each other auffed. So Wendy came off not only deceitful, but rather dim and pathetic. I think her actions were worthy of contempt. Some viewers thought she was some kind of a victim of the cool kids shunning the old lady, but I never saw that at all, quite the opposite, in fact. Austin and Kara Saun in particular thought her a good friend until she showed she couldn't be trusted. I've watched S1 many times and I saw that Kara Saun was still giving Wendy glad-you're-safe hugs up to and including the swim suit episode (episode 6, I think). The only one who didn't like Wendy much at all from the start was Vanessa. All of the this is JMHO and YMMV.