The Great British Baking Show: Holidays is typically a sweet affair. After all, by design, it’s simply a festive get-together for bakers from seasons past to get a chance for redemption in the tent. For most of the bakers who returned to The Great British Baking Show: Holidays this year on Netflix, they found grace and joy. For George Aristidou, however, he almost had a breakdown, quipping at one point, “I’ve lost the will to live.”
**Spoilers for The Great British Baking Show: Holidays Season 7 Episode 1 “The Great Christmas Baking Show,” now streaming on Netflix**
The Great British Baking Show: Holidays Season 7 Episode 1 “The Great Christmas Baking Show” opens with six bakers returning to the tent: Dan Beasley-Harling, Amelia Le Bruin, Linda Rayfield, Carole Edwards, former winner Sophie Faldo, and the aforementioned George Aristidou. While Dan was known for coming close to, but never quite, winning Star Baker and Carole is best remembered for her jolly pink and purple hair, George was his season’s “Flavor King.” What the baker lacked in finesse, he more than made up for in deep, delicious flavor combinations. What also made George memorable, in my estimation, is he was funny.
Throughout his return to The Great British Baking Show tent, George continued to supply big flavors, messy bakes, and pure hilarity. Like many other overwhelmed bakers before him, George’s stream-of-consciousness commentary on his own nerves made me laugh in total empathy. Starting with his declaration early on in the Technical Challenge that he didn’t know what he was doing.
Well, what he specifically said was: “My thoughts are… I don’t know what I’m doing.”
While The Great British Baking Show has always been a steady meme-generator for its extremely online viewers, there’s a specific kind of “Bake Off” moment that spreads on the internet like wild fire. That is, the bakers’ reactions to failure. Even though most of us have never experienced the pressure of preparing food for Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith to judge, we all know anxiety.
Former Great British Baking Show finalist Ruby Bhogal told Decider this past summer that her she totally understood why her Showstopper cake’s collapse in “Vegan Week” went viral as a meme. “It was normally followed by ‘How my week is going,’ and the cake is falling over,” Bhogal said. “And I’m like, ‘You know what? Same girl.’ I’m not mad at that.”
British comedian James Acaster’s equally viral moment telling Paul and Prue of his flapjacks, “Started making it. Had a breakdown. Bon appétit,” has followed him so much that he’s built an entire bit of standup comedy around the experience.
All of which is to say that when bakers have breakdowns on The Great British Baking Show, anyone who has experienced life as a human being on earth can relate.
So when George turned away from his cinnamon bread, fretting over instructions Paul Hollywood admitted were close to impossible, and muttered, “Oh, I don’t know, I’ve lost the will to live”? I felt that. I understood that level of frustration and panic. I’ve been there.
Although George survived the Technical Challenge, he once again found himself in trouble during the Showstopper. This time, instead of losing the will to live, he was instead admitting he was not built for the multitasking required to ensure every element of his “Redemption Cake” would be finished on time. “I… I’m not built to do, like, 500 things at once.” (Me, neither! Bless.)
However, George’s bake really went off the rails when his Italian meringue buttercream failed to hold its shape as he assembled his main cake. “It needs to cool down, but I don’t have the time.” The still warm buttercream was so unstable, the cake began to collapse. George resorted to borrowing dowels, adding chocolate, and putting his dessert in the fridge. What later emerged was so outrageously messy, even the ever supportive Alison Hammond began to laugh at it.
“Alison, are you laughing?” George asks. The subtitles read, “[Alison laughing]”
While Alison tries to encourage him, noting Paul and Prue will never know what the cake looks like on the inside, George spins his bake around. “Look at this side,” he says, and Alison begins to wheeze with laughter over the crumbling cake.
“Babes, I’m so sorry I’m laughing,” she says.
“You’re meant to be supporting me,” George says.
“I am supporting you,” Alison replies. “Is that supposed to be how it’s looking?”
“No,” George answers bluntly before they both cackle.
Ultimately, George is able to cover his messy cake with green buttercream and twinkling lights, producing a Christmas Showstopper that looked fine on the surface. “You didn’t see what I just went through,” he complains to the other bakers.
The funniest twist is the fact that after all that, Paul Hollywood really liked George’s dessert. Notably, he compared it more to a trifle than a cake, but Paul liked it. George’s time back in the tent might have been a maelstrom, but he wound up impressing the judges with his flavors once again.