Monday saw the season two premiere of the Cake Boss spinoff show Next Great Baker, where 13 contestants will compete for $100,000 and the chance to work at Carlo's with the boss Buddy Valastro. Patch will recap each new episode, and to start, here's a bit about each of the contenders:

• Marissa, 24, Pompton Lakes, New Jersey: She got involved with cakes because she was poor student in school. “I do have a little bit of an attitude,” she says. “I have a mouth, I have a temper, I could be a nice person, but don't do me the wrong way.” Apparently Melissa mistakenly auditioned for Next Great Baker instead of Mob Wives. She'll probably be the villain for two or three episodes before Buddy banishes her to the box truck.
• Megan, 38, Pittsburgh: She's a paramedic. “I've seen too much stuff being a paramedic,” she says. “From cake you're bringing happy into people's lives. I'm done telling people we did everything we could for your loved one.” Crap, that's a little too serious to make fun of.
• Heather M., 32, Las Vegas: Has a five year-old daughter. Does cakes out of her home on a referral basis. She's from Vegas, and she's wearing large hoop earrings, a telling sign. “My main income comes from exotic dancing,” she says. Of course. If someone says they're from Vegas there's a 176% chance they're either a stripper or Wayne Newton.
• Chad, 43, Duncanville, Texas: Has taught high school for 21 years. Coaches girls basketball. “I think when you do good things it comes back to you,” he says. He walks into the Lackawanna kitchen and starts crying. He explains himself in a confessional shot and starts crying again. His tears are probably going to cause a health code violation.
• Heather G., 31, Knoxville, Tennessee: Heather won a contest to be on the show. “It just tickles my soul that America chose me to be here,” she says. She's the stay-at-home mom of a 14 month old. “She's found out what icing is,” she says, while a photo of her daughter covered in blue icing flashes onscreen. She seems normal.
• Carmelo, 42, Worcester, Massachusetts: Originally from the Bronx. Police officer in the gang unit. “I started getting a lot of death threats.” Really, this guy was a cop in a gang unit, and he thinks he's got the chops to handle Buddy's sisters? Otherwise, Buddy is going to love this guy.
• Jasmine, 20, Los Angeles: Looks like an extra in a Lisa Lisa & the Cult Jam video. “I feel like people always underestimate me because of my age. If you have a dream and you're passionate about what you're do and you're dope you can win.” That is the same thing every sophomoric 20 year-old says.
• Tony, 23, Fort Worth, Texas: He's 23 but looks 37. “I'm an enigma. He's kind of funny, but weird, but he's very smart, but yet he doesn't give a darn about anything,” he says, speaking from first to third person. Then, predictably: “I'm not scared of any challenge, unless it's meeting girls, because that makes me kind of nervous.”
• Minerva, 45, Cutler Bay, Florida: She was born in New York but raised in Puerto Rico. Named for the Roman goddess of wisdom. “I'm a show-off. Front page, center stage, all over the place,” she says. She admits to being very messy while working, which will probably upset the other contestants.
• Wesley, 28, Fayetteville, NC: Sergeant in the army stationed at Fort Bragg. His unit is going to get deployed soon, but he's hoping to last in the competition so he can stay stateside. Now that Don't Ask Don't Tell has finally been repealed, it looks like conscientious objector and “I'm a contestant on a reality show,” are the only two ways left to get out of going to war.
• Sara, 38, Cedartown, Georgia: A mother, who owns a bakery in small town. “I need to win to provide things for my bakery that can help my town grow,” she says. She also says, “We use a lot of alcohol in our bakery. We kind of call it the ghetto bakery.”
• Ryan, 30, North Providence, RI: He's got forearm tattoos. He looks like that Jessie James guy that cheated on Sandra Bullock. He's married and is a former construction worker. “People call me cocky, a know-it-all, but that's only because I know what I'm taking about,” he says.
• Nadine, 27, New York: Looks like a younger version of Charlotte Rae from The Facts of Life. “I'm very enthusiastic about almost everything,” she says.

So what happened in the first episode? Well, it was 90 minutes, so here's a condensed version. Carmelo and Jasmine impressed Buddy. Wesley baked a cake using a box mix, and Tony spent an hour in the freezer. Heather M.'s poor leadership of her team got her and Sara on the chopping block, and in the end Buddy spared Heather. “I'd rather have a leader than a follower,” he says. Sara was led away in the box truck. She said Buddy made a mistake, but then again that's what they all say.