Next Great Baker: No More of the Crying Game

We're down to the elite eight as the newest episode of the Cake Boss spinoff Next Great Baker begins.

The contestants know Buddy is going to test them. For their baker's challenge he takes them to the oven room in the Lackawanna factory. They have to unload the big oven as quickly as possible.

Buddy and Cousin Anthony demonstrate by yanking a series of hot trays filled with pastries and sliding them into storage racks. Buddy does it with the ease of Larry Bird swishing threes in a shooting contest. But it looks hard. “You could easily burn a hand,” he says.

The bakers work in pairs. Carmelo and Nadine go first. Two seconds in Nadine struggles with two pans of cookies and shouts a curse word. Buddy disqualifies them when he has to press the emergency stop for safety reasons.

Ryan and Heather G. go next. She's about seven months pregnant. Ryan is pessimistic. They move slowly, but complete the challenge. Then it's Megan and Heather M.'s turn. Heather M. moves quicker than a Jedi, but Megan drops a tray onto the floor. Marissa and Chad go last, and because they have the benefit of seeing the others fail, work with a strategy. They easily beat Ryan and Heather G.

Buddy is impressed and lets Chad and Marissa choose teams for the elimination challenge. But not their own, that of each other. The idea is to saddle the other person with the worst team. Ah, the old pit people against each other strategy. This is going to be a totally pleasant episode.

But wait. Buddy throws a curve. He tells Chad and Marissa to switch teams. So they had to share who they didn't want to work with, and then have to work with those same people. This episode is going to turn uglier than a Hoboken election.

For their elimination challenge the bakers have to design a cake for the Turtleback zoo in West Orange that includes a life-size replica of one of four animals: a snake, penguin, bird or alligator.

Heather G.'s team is skeptical she can sculpt. Meanwhile, Marissa and Megan swap passive aggressive jabs. On the other team, Ryan hates Chad's ideas. Chad returns the favor, and Ryan storms off to build the base. Heather M. says she's nervous because she doesn't actually work professionally as a baker, and mentions again that she instead works as an exotic dancer. She says competing in this contest is basically the only way she can escape being an extra in Showgirls 2.

Both teams are doing basically the same design of a tree surrounded by animals. But Buddy tells them they need more cake. He says the team leaders need to lead, or someone else needs to take charge.

Ryan starts arguing and cursing with all his teammates. He's turning into Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Heather M. says Ryan is being a baby, but that Chad being indecisive isn't helping either. Nadine intervenes with a redesign they all agree to try.

On the other team, Marissa admits to Megan that she doesn't want her on her team. Megan basically says okay and keeps working.

The teams finish and deliver their cakes to the zoo. But the beak on the bird on Marissa's team's cake falls off. Megan admits it's her fault.

Then the bear on Chad's team falls apart. Heather M. takes the blame. Chad thinks because he didn't work on the bear that he's off the hook.

The judges – Buddy, his sister Madeline and the zoo's curator – like Chad's team's animals, but like Marissa's team's base more.

With Chad's team on the chopping block, Ryan and Chad blame each other. Buddy asks Heather M., and she also says Chad was a poor leader.

Chad says he's a good leader. Buddy asks Nadine for her opinion. She says Heather M. should go home because her bear fell apart. Heather M. hears that and has a look on her face like she wants to jabs Nadine's eyes with a cooking thermometer.

Buddy spares Nadine and Ryan for their good work. Heather M. again criticizes Chad's leadership. Chad defends himself and has a bigger emotional breakdown than Rex Ryan weeping over the Jets.

“I want to be here, and I want to be the one that you want to be in your bakery,” he tells Buddy.

But then, Heather M. pulls the “I had a lot of trauma in my life” sympathy card.

“I have more to gain from this than Chad would,” she says. “It would help my life more.”

Buddy knows they're both passionate. He says he's torn.

He spares Chad, who increases his tears to a John Boehner downpour. He returns to the lounge where everyone, Chad included, feels bad for Heather.

Buddy says he's proud of Heather M., but that he has to send her home. She admits her bear fell apart and that she respects Buddy's decision.

“I'm okay leaving now because I've learned a lot,” she says.

She enters the box truck, a member of the elite eight, but not of the magnificent seven.