The latest episode of the Cake Boss spinoff Next Great Baker was very emotional. Lots of tempers flaring. Lots of passion. And a grown man cried. A lot.

Somehow the new episode Monday night had even more emotion, as the contestants had to placate the bride from hell.

First, Buddy challenges the bakers on their piping skills. “Back to the basics,” he says. “What I was born and bred on.”

He gives them a flawless demonstration. It's like watching Picasso paint. Expectant mom Heather is excited. 

Whatever the baking skill involved, it always seems like half the contestants have never done it before. Carmelo has never piped before, and neither has Ryan. How are these people on the show? It's like someone trying to make the majors without ever having caught a fly ball. Carmelo's hands are shaking. The guy's been an undercover cop but he can't pipe.

Nadine wins the challenge and gets to pick her team for the elimination round, joining Carmelo, Heather and Chad, and leaving Ryan, Marissa and Megan on the other squad. “I picked Marissa because she and I work well together,” team captain Ryan says.

The teams have to make a wedding cake for a real bride. “You cannot mess up a bride's wedding cake,” Buddy warns.

The bride, Maria, enters and consults with Ryan and Carmelo, the other captain.

She starts telling them what she doesn't want, which is pretty much everything. She doesn't like traditional, tiers, lace, flowers or circles. She loves triangles (?) and the color fuchsia. She says she and her fiance have been together for ten years, though off and on (what a surprise) and that she wants the cake to tell that story. Both men are confounded. “I think she's a loony toon,” Ryan says.

(Maybe she's an actor. What real bride eager to have Buddy Valastro bake her wedding cake would let some motley crew of television contestants make it instead?)

The bakers get started. Marissa thinks Ryan lacks a plan. They start arguing. Ryan says Marissa is acting like a B with an itch.

“I think I picked the wrong person to be on my team,” Ryan says.

The teams struggle. Nobody knows what they're supposed to do. Halfway through Buddy returns with Maria.

She doesn't like anything Ryan's team has done so far. Marissa starts asking Maria questions but doesn't really get any answers. “I don't care,” Maria says. “I get stressed out listening to all this. Just fix it.”

Maria meets the other team and calls their work ugly. She starts crying. The team panics. Maria is now second only to Chad for the most tears per episode.

Both teams basically start over with less than three hours left. 

Ryan and Marissa keep fighting, but still, there's a strange chemistry between them. It actually looks like they're having one of those heated, working class married couple disputes where thirty seconds later they're making out hot and heavy.

Buddy returns when the time expires. Both teams' cakes are hideous.

But they learn that there is no wedding, and that Maria isn't really a bride (told you she's an actor!).

It was a test! “Anybody who wants to be the next great baker has got to deal with an indecisive bride,” Buddy says.

“I definitely need to learn how to work with a bridezilla,” Ryan says. Also, to pick better teammates.

The bakers are all relieved, until Buddy reminds them that he has to kill one of them. Or at least kick them off the show.

Buddy and his co-judges Mary and Frankie all agree Ryan's team met Maria's wacky specs better than Carmelo's team. Marissa does mention to Buddy that Ryan was a bad leader.

“I don't mind your fights,” Buddy says. “You had a sense of urgency.”

He declares them the winners, leaving one of Carmelo, Chad, Heather G. and Nadine on the chopping block.

All four start blaming each other. Heather says Carmelo was a poor leader. Chad says Heather was the weakest member. But Nadine and Carmelo also agree about Heather.

Buddy spares Chad and Nadine. Heather begins defending herself. She starts crying too (soooo much crying these past two episodes). Pregnant and emotional, she says she doesn't want to be just a stay-at-home mom.

Buddy then asks Carmelo for his defense. “Working with you is going to take me to the next level,” he tells Buddy.

Buddy says he sees potential in both, but that he values leadership. He spares Carmelo.

“You're a sweetheart,” he tells Heather. “You're amazingly talented.”

It's a pleasant elimination, and Heather even hugs Buddy. But for the woman carrying a child, it's still, to the the box truck, baby.