Schweedie

I was sure Ruth Negga would be in the conversation for Lead Actress, but I haven't really heard her or Loving mentioned in the awards context at all. Has the movie had a wide opening in the US, or is it not even out yet and that's the reason? Or am I just missing talk of it? We have to wait until February for it here.

I've been waiting for this for - almost a year, it seems? Definitely since February or so. It doesn't open here for another few weeks, but I'm really looking forward to finally seeing it. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

Eric sobbing on his dad's shoulder in Starred Up after the, uh, incident, just breaks my heart. Partly because he's spent the entire film being this hardman, tough dangerous guy and this reminds you that he's still just nineteen years old, which to me is basically a kid, and partly because I feel like this is probably the first time in a really, really long time that someone's held him like that. Plus Jack O'Connell nails the terrified, shocked ugly sobbing.

I just went through this thread to see if this had been mentioned, because it had to have been. It's such a brilliant, satisfying scene.

I loved this episode. So great to see them again! I don't know what it was about this group that was special, but I enjoyed them more than any other. They were all so adorable. And sure, the flaouna challange may have been a silly one from Paul, but oh, it brought the hilarity from all of them. So many great moments, like Nadiya about Flora always doing something extra - "We call it Florification" - and Sandy about Paul's criticisms going on for longer than necessary: "You feel like saying, okaaay. Leave it, shall we?!" With that brilliant accent! Man, I just want to hang out with Sandy. She's hilarious. "Creme brulake was the term we used, and I think it could catch on." And I was reminded how some of them grew on me, like Paul - from alternative ingredients week and onwards, I loved him. Mel with her "It's the gusset!" and Paul cracking up remains one of my all time favourite Bake Off moments. I'm not sure why, but I really like it! It does look sort of glamorous. And man, how beautiful is Nadiya? She really has become a different person that the nervous woman we saw early on.

Same, but I also feel this way about wishing for scenes with older Jack with our adult Randall, Kate and Kevin. Maybe we're already past the point where that would work given that I took it Jack died in 2005, but still. I love Kevin being awkward. I got the impression that his agent saw him as a project and sort of steered him through to becoming famous, keeping his awkward side in check, but if he's left to deal with stuff on his own and he's unprepared? Awkward it is.

Yeah. I mean, in theory I guess the amendment sort of makes sense - but knowing how that loophole can be (and was/is) used, it's awful. Again, exactly. I had no idea about any of that - I do remember hearing of a discussion about corporations having the same rights as people, but I don't think I made the connection to any of this. Definitely eyeopening, and I agree this documentary is something that would be good to show in schools.

I'm not a huge Rocky Horror fan, but yeah, Meat Loaf's 'Hot Patootie' is absolutely one of the best moments in that film for me.

I was quite pleased to hear this, since that part of the story is pretty much the only one that's really stuck with me and that I remember. Could be good, if they get it right.

That was actually the one thing that took me out of it a little bit - the 'meanwhile'. The rest of it, for me, was pitch perfect dramatical kid tantrum, but that word ruined it ever so slightly. Just go with 'but' or 'and'. (Which I know is a nitpick, but I'm a linguistics nerd who has studied language acquisition.) I'm really enjoying this show and I thought this episode was the best one so far, and the flashback scenes are definitely my favourite ones. The kids are so freaking cute! (I keep thinking the kid who plays Randall looks a little bit like Dukie from the Wire in his earliest episodes, before he had a growth spurt.) I thought it was interesting when Rebecca asked "And what's up with Kevin lately?", because that implies that his attitude towards Randall is relatively new at this point. And I wish we could see Jack in the present, if only so we can have Milo Ventimiglia and Sterling K Brown in the same scene. Never getting that would be such a waste.

That line got one of the biggest laughs from me. In the split second after "You get nothing" I realised what was coming and cackled so hard I actually missed the rest of it, but still. Best episode of the season for me so far. Loved every bit of it! (Although I was also spoiled by that stupid promo still, which bugged a little.) Really loved how Rosa uncharacteristically got so into the whole Babysitter's Club thing (and yes, I also read those) and her "Mary Anne's better than that."

Jack: I got it in Florida, in a magical land called Daytona Beach. Kate: Can we go there? Jack: NO. No, you may never go to Daytona Beach. I want you to say that out loud, "Daddy, I will never go to Daytona Beach."

I've been thinking of watching that, but haven't felt in the right frame of mind to get round to it. On the other hand I watched Ava DuVernay's 13th, also on Netflix, without realising just what I was getting myself into. Incredibly hard to watch at times (there are plenty of very disturbing images, and there was one moment when I said out loud to my computer screen "Oh no, please don't show that"), but very, very good. And speaking as an outsider in Europe, it was really interesting in the bits about the prison industry and how laws are created.

I genuinely started bawling when I saw this in the cinema - the 'Bread and Roses' scene from Pride. (Still do every time I watch it.)

Ha, yes, that's the one I was thinking of! He does seem to be very good at cakes/sponges, doesn't he? But overall he hasn't been as good as I expected him to - it's like you say, he's all over the place, especially in technicals, and you don't know which Selasi you're going to get each week. Out of the bakers left I honestly have no idea who'll be in the final any more. It seems like anyone left now could easily have a really bad week and go home.

Oh yeah. I think my favourite thing about the whole episode was when Paul did that thing where he called Tom's plan to have shortbread in the roulade "interesting" and Sue called him out on it with something like "Do you mean genuinely interesting or the classic creepy Paul Hollywood 'muahahahaha' way?" Because he does that so often. I love roll cakes, but these were definitely much fancier than any I've ever eaten. I prefer them simpler. (My favourite will always be my mum's chocolate sponge with plain buttercream filling.) Mary's face when Benjamina talked about the rum in her roulade was brilliant. Mary really does love a boozy cake. This episode felt weirdly - not uninteresting, but like I knew what was going to happen. It felt very obvious from early on that Tom was gonna go and Andrew was going to get star baker. I did really like the technical challenge, though! It reminded me a little bit of the moccatines from last season, but with meringue instead of genoise. I like this sort of challenge, when it's very technical and a bit fiddly.

I'm guessing it was because they needed it to be cool enough for Paul and Mary to be able to break it and eat it - I know it takes a little while before I can even touch bread that's fresh out of the oven. I seem to remember similar fanning from last season when they did baguettes for the technical, but further back than that I'm not sure. (And whether fanning really helps with the cooling I'm not sure either, but I suppose it's an instinctive thing to do, heh.) Missed what they said about the rain - yeah, that might've affected their meringues.

@dwarmed, I think I agree. Like you say, last season people often left because they had a really bad day. They could do great for a few weeks, fail badly the next one, and be out. But this year... It doesn't seem to go like that. I don't know if the challenges themselves in general are more difficult (I'm thinking back to last seasons flaounas, glutenfree pitas and the whole alternative ingredients week, the moccatines, the tennis court cake, etc...), except for the steamed buns, but I also think the casting people may have stumbled a little. I too want to see people doing well, not fail and feel awful about it. But take this week, with the meringues - quite a few of them failed on even getting their meringues properly whipped up. That seems like such a basic thing to me. And they didn't seem super stressed, either, so it didn't look like they just gave up because they ran out of time. I mean, Jane had time to make two different meringues (right? or am I imagining that) and brown hers in the oven, so there WAS time. It's odd to me. I'm very excited for Dessert Week next week, I gotta say. It's one of my favourites. Yum.

It's the same for me - as a group, I haven't quite warmed to this lot. Which is funny, because for the first few episodes I felt like I liked everyone and didn't want anyone to leave (except for Val, man, I could not understand why everyone on the internet seemed to love her), but instead of growing on me it's sort of been the opposite? I don't know, I feel like there's something missing this season that was there last year, but I'm not sure what it is. On the other hand, Jane is one of the few that did grow on me. I really like her. Like someone said last week, her "These are not the Yorkshires you're looking for" won me over, and she mostly just seems really calm and consistent. I didn't get anything from her 'rival' comment about Candice this week other than the fact that they were using the same ingredients for their pie, and the other time it was when they were both clearly the ones in contention for star baker (and it seemed all good-natured to me then as well, too).

The thing is, I think he's just been saved by the fact that others really did did do worse in those weeks. Val was absolutely the worst one during pastry week, and I do think both Kate and Rav were probably below Tom during batter week, despite his Yorkshire mishap. I agree that he should absolutely start to properly follow the brief and stop being so insistent on "pushing it" with his flavours and ingredients, though, because I'm pretty sure he's now run out of people who will consistently be worse than him and next week will be his week unless he plays it safe. I was so craving a citrus-marengue pie after this episode. I LOVE them. A part of me is almost relieved to see Rav go. He's been struggling for the last few weeks, but mostly saved himself by doing well in at least one challenge and seemed to be taking it on the chin quite cheerfully, but like Ceindreadh said he didn't really seem to be enjoying himself this week. He probably knew he'd made it as far as he could. Felt so bad for Andrew, too! Poor guy, you could tell he felt crushed by his failings. Selasi's showstopper was definitely one of the most beautiful looking cakes I've seen on the show. Just gorgeous piping there.

I don't know why, but in an episode full of great moments my favourite bit was the scene with Terry and Amy when it turned out he'd joined the rest in taking advantage of the lenient CJ. I just find Terry Crews hilarious, and I love how he goes from being the straight man to pleading, "HE GAVE ME A YOGHURT FRIDGE, ALL RIGHT?" in a second. Amy's "Enjoy your blood yoghurt" and Terry's despondent little "I will" had me full on cackling.

I was amused at how Paul cracked up at Val's "that's how we like them" comment this time - they've heard it enough now that he knew it's her go-to defence. And I've also been disappointed in Tom. I think he'd do better if he didn't insist on being so experimental and insistent on "pushing it" all the time, because he seems good at the basics. If he could just play it safe for once, I'd like to see how that would go down. Chocolate and sirloin? To serve to Paul Hollywood? Tom, what were you thinking? For the last few week Rav's been saved by a good showstopper, and the fact that someone else has screwed up royally. I wonder how long that can continue. I loved Mary's attempt at saying something good about his disaster of a Bakewell Tart - "It's a beautiful jam". I'm not a fan of black pudding at all, but Candice's savoury amuse-bouches? Looked SO good I wanted to try one. Such a great colour, and a beautiful and original way of presenting them. She's seemed a bit prone technical mishaps/time management problems, but she seems to be very good at flavours. She and Jane are my favourites. Jane's grown more and more on me over the last few weeks! She's so consistent and calm and also seems good with flavours. Also, Benjamina. I think it might be the overly ambitious thing. I was yelling at them through the screen during bread week when they did all those rich, overfilled doughs for the signature. They'd had time to practise; they HAD to have known that wasn't going to work with their time frame - and yet they went for it. But I'm also wondering if it might be that as a group they aren't quite as good as some others have been. I mean, halfway through last season I thought we were left with a group who mostly did really well, despite some cockups. Maybe it's just that I have them fresh in my mind (and the fact that I really, really loved that group of bakers) that makes this crew seem a bit less impressive. And yeah, that's the finalists I would guess at, too.

I cracked up at that, too. "I'm not being led. My mum's gonna watch this." I quite like Tom, actually. He seems pretty knowledgeable about baking in general in a quiet sort of way (same as Jane, who I also like) and just keeps doing his thing. And with Paul's stat about the winner of bread week always being in the final? Interesting. But like Paul said, when he fails he FAILS, so we'll see. I was so frustrated with them all during the signature. Surely you would've realised practising at home that the time was an issue with those fillings and rich doughs? Surely you actually practise it timed? Apparently not. Poor Rav during the technical judging. He was on the verge of tears. He made me laugh afterwards, though, when he said he'd been terrified that Paul was going to throw his raw dough at someone - I thought the exact same thing at that moment! Also, as noted above, he's adorable when he smiles. He always looks so surprised and relieved when they like his bake. I haven't quite warmed to Kate, for some reason (she's so cutesey somehow), but I loved her moment with Sue during the technical, when Sue pointed out how calm she was. "Well I don't know what I'm doing, so if it goes horribly it doesn't really matter, because these will always be the best dampfnudels I've ever made." Did not see Michael being the one to go. I was sure it'd be Candice. I'm not sure it shouldn't have been, even though I really like her. She messed up big time this week. Fingers crossed she can bounce back.

Nah, you could spot her in the background while she was making the dough - they'd never allow the contestants to bring their dough already made. They just happened to get to her once she'd already finished making the dough and I'm guessing she might've wrapped it up to chill it some before rolling it and cutting it out.

I really did cackle at Mel's offer of her warm hands on Rav's bag and Mary's "I'll eat some carpet". Love me a good Bake Off innuendo. Michael's pint-shaped biscuits looked pretty amazing, didn't they? The way he'd iced them made them look almost like cartoons. I was so stressed out during the showstopper. Seeing all those creations wobble and come apart was nerve-wracking! Poor Louise, indeed. She was never gonna last very long, it seemed, but she had such a terrible weekend. And Paul's "I feel sorry for you and your future husband" line just seemed mean. But yeah, Val was lucky that someone else did even worse than her. Candice's gingerbread house was fantastic, I thought. I think she might be my favourite, but I'm afraid she's gonna end up being one of those who tries to do too much and ends up failing because of it.