This week's episode was all about pesky pastries and a hell of a lot of innuendo's, courtesy of Sue, Mel and Christine, about spotted dick. Oh dear. The first challenge on everybody's list was the signature bake -Suet Puddings?! Made from fat (why, just why). Ruby was trying to be more positive this week, although she had got distracted from practising as she has a new cat. The young baker described herself as having turned into a 'crazy old cat lady', meanwhile Glenn looked to be having a bit of a shaky start making his suet pastry.
Frances opted for a more simpler approach this week, after having had many of her complicated, stylish dishes, fail on the taste test. She chose a figgy roly-poly which turned out to be not that bad, whilst Christine made Spotted Dick, Beca made a lamb concoction, Ruby made a plum jam roly poly and Kimberley made a Barberry and apple spotted dick. Glenn chose a prune and armagnac pudding and it didn't fare too well.
Thus setting Glenn up in the line of fire for this week. Everyone fared fairly well in the first round, so it was time to knock them all back for the technical. The bakers had to make choux buns in the form of little chocolate nun people. Seriously? Some people's nuns were being beheaded all too easily and for others, their creme pat was incredibly runny.
It looked disastrous. It shouldcome as quite a surprise to anyone that Glenn managed to secure third considering his creme was like water. Christine had burnt hers rather considerably which meant she scored last place, with Kimberely securing 5th, despite her saying that it was relatively easy to make. Bad move Kim, a lot of people will have picked up on that. Frances scored 4th, Ruby's abysmal piping skills still managed to score her 2nd and Beca secured the top spot with fairly pretty nun buns.
The showstopper, I'm afraid to say, saw Glenn fail miserably as he (incredibly stupidly) decided to combine the butter and pastry in a completely different way to everyone else. Paul tried to warn Glenn that this was not wise, but oblivious to any risk, Glenn continued on and surprise, surprise, failed miserably.
And I mean miserably. His food ended up looking like something out of nightmares (if you had a penchant for pastry). His Mille-feuille broke in several places and both Mary and Paul muttered horrible noises and said it looked pretty bad. In case this hasn't given it away already, Glenn was evicted from the tent for some pretty shocking baking.
Frances managed to finally win Star Baker, after the title has eluded her for so many weeks, by focusing on content and subtance more than style. That being said, her final show-stopper was musical-themed and did look rather nice too. Everyone else fared ok and no doubt were pleased to be passing on through to the quarter finals. The all-female quarter finals (sorry guys!). Next week's challenges are Loaves, Dacquoise and Novelty Vegetable Cakes (what on earth is that?!), so, who do you think will manage to pull those off? Do you have a current favourite to win, or have you not been able to decide on who may walk away with the bake off title? Only time will tell, but it's pretty safe to say it'll be a woman.
The second episode in Season 6, and the second part in the cliffhanger which ultimately, left Castle contemplating his imminent death, aired last night. A previously mentioned, the episode opened with Beckett trying to console poor ol' Castle about how he er..might die in less than 12 hours. Great. Realising the predicament he is in, Castle tells Beckett about 'dreamworld,' and the idea that a special government base may be linked to the theft of the toxin. Beckett pitches her far-stretched idea to a little bit of skepticism, whilst Castle receives his firt doses of medicine to keep him functioning for the time-being until his demise. Beckett, McCord and the team do a search on Dreamworld on databases and a hit comes up regarding 'Brad Parker' who was running some sort of story of Dreamworld that got personally pulled by the government.
Although Castle is helping, he is ordered to stay on base and McCord and Beckett go to question Brad Parker about his story. Parker mentions that the secretary of Defence is involved and that he may have something to do with Dreamworld, if it does indeed exist. Unfortunately for the team, he has no idea about the significance of Valkyrie, leaving them at another dead end. With the only thing left to do being going to 'question' the secretary, they speed off and McCord dodges her way past everyone up to his office and then Beckett hammers him for information (go Beckett!). However, their attempts are futile as he isn't really budging until Beckett and McCord really hit it home and then he breaks down like a crumbling cookie. He confesses that there might be the tiniest chance that Bronson did have something to do with Dreamworld before he 'passed away' and was involved in an operation to kill the #2 in command for Al-Qaeda. McCord is curious at to whether there was an retaliation (no, really?) but the secretary of defence insists that it was "only chatter."
Yeah, because we all totally believe him, am I right? Beckett has other things on her mind and quickly switches to the topic of Valkyrie and whether it had anything to do with the mission. Anything. Even if someone just nicknamed their dog that. But alas, he can't help and doesn't know the significance. Once again, are we really expected to believe him when he's lied before? They reluctantly return to base with only slightly more to go on than before. Castle receives a phone call from his mother, Martha and trying to hide his emotions, (and looming death) he lies and says everything's fine. But of course, Martha's no dummy and knows that something is wrong. Castle asks to speak to Alexis and tells her he loves her and this also triggers warning buttons for Alexis as well. After the phonecall ends(with a little input from Pi) Alexis asks her grandmother whether he sounded weird to her.
Martha later goes to the police station to interrogate Ryan and Esposito about whether they know what's going on with Beckett and Castle, as Beckett isn't answering her phone. They try to ring Beckett, but she doesn't cave and they are left with nothing to go on. Meanwhile, Beckett and McCord have come up with a lead, a second cousin of the leader that died in the airstrike, but unfortunately he has a solid alibi and no apparent motive, as he never liked his relation and in fact, Branson was following him and not the other way around. Also, the second cousin says that he saw Branson in the rubble after the airstrike carrying a female servant's body. So back to the drawing board. But, wait! The tech guy manages to come up with an audio file from the attack and upon hearing it, it reveals that Valkyrie is in fact a person, and even more so, is in fact the 'servant' who body Bronson carried out from the rubble.
It is also revealed that she was a secret agent/operative and that Secretary of Defence (Reid) ordered the attack whilst fully well knowing she was still inside, much to Bronson's distress. Kind of seems a bit of a waste Bronson dying, now doesn't it? Beckett's first theory is to test whether Reid has anything to do with it and bombards him at his house, which leads him to phone up another more important person complaining about it. This leaves Beckett to deduce that he wouldn't want to draw attention to himself if he was involved so it can't be him.
Meanwhile, the team manage to come up with an ID for the women and surprise surprise, it's revealed that her body was picked up by none other than Brad Parker. It is then discovered that Parker was her fiance. Oh, er uh-oh. Guess someone might want to go check on Reid then, considering he was the one who technically killed her. Whoops. The team rush over to Parker's apartment, but of course, he isn't there and they deduce from several documents found in his apartment that he is going after Reid. But we all know there must be more to this. And so does Beckett. When it's revealed Reid hasn't checked in on site to where Reid is, Kate (with much help from Castle) deduce that Parker isn't going after Reid himself, but Reid's wife - because that's what you do when you've lost a fiancee - go after another innocent woman to get back at someone else entirely. Ladies and gentleman, logic for you right there.
Castle is looking pretty peaky at this point and as they arrive at the place, Castle collapses on the lawn. Beckett rushes to his aid, but alas, she needs the antidote and the look of sheer determination on her face signifies the fact that she'll do anything to get it (or the season is going to end right here, right now). Beckett breaks in, guns upuntil she is attacked by Parker and he turns her weapon on her. Dun dun dun! But never fear, Edelstein is here!
McCord comes up behind Parker with her gun pointed in his face and saves Beckett and Castle and Mrs. Reid. Yay! Flash forward to a hospital bed with Castle lying in it whilst cute red-heads Alexis and Martha watch eagerly from the side, as Rick and Kate share a moment.
Beckett and McCord share a 'that's what partners do' type moment and Kate responds 'Yeah' whilst looking at Castle's bedside. Make of that what you will but do we see the possibility of Kate and Castle returning as partners on the horizon? Please, please please. As much as we love Edelstein, Castle and Beckett are the unstoppable duo! So, what did you think of last night's episode? Personally, I thought it was much better than the first and featured many memorable lines and moments from the whole gang.
British Band Morcheeba have recently released the whimsical, flower-filled music video for their track 'Gimme Your Love', taken from their upcoming eighth studio album, 'Head Up High.' The track is light and energetic and the music video is full of vibrant colours and floral imagery. Having been around since 1996 you would have thought the trio would have lost some of their flavour over time, but it would appear not as they still manage to produce a relatively catchy single. Hopefully this will be enough to get them back on the charts once again. You can watch the music video for the track below and see Skye in all her glory:
The video also features appearances from several other women, all adorned with flowers, and wearing colorful make-up and clothing. It's a fairly feel-good video which posesses an unusually calming quality to it. So, is this your first time hearing Morcheeba or have you been a fan since way back when?
