Date of airing: June 1, 2020 (ABC)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.712 million viewers, 1.8/4 in Households, 0.52/3 with Adults 18-49, 0.3/2 with Adults 18-34, 0.7/3 with Adults 25-54
Of course, this shortened season had to end with an engagement and a bunch of cliffhangers. As sexy and entertaining as THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY has been over the course of these nine episodes, it was also super predictable, and I’m not even sure if there was any other possibility than ending the first (and only) year with an engagement ring on Noa’s finger. After all, this show is partly a soap opera, and leaving the audience behind without anything else than a potential wedding coming up would have been a mistake. I am glad the writers were shipping around a few cliches with this episode, but at the end of the day, they couldn’t hold themselves back from putting a ring on that finger.
They also couldn’t hold themselves back from creating a few more open endings here, just to force the ABC executives to renew the show, like any other writer and showrunner is forcing any other network to renew their show with tons of cliffhangers in the final episode. And once again, it has shown to be a mistake to end your series with plentiful cliffhangers after the network decided to dump you after bad ratings. If only TV writers could stop with that, and TV would generally be a lot nicer, maybe even more approachable by an audience that discovers a show years after it aired. Sometimes, letting those audiences know that you ended your short-lived series with cliffhangers will alienate them to even consider watching your series. So why not make it easier for them and just close out your season arc and create an ending that could be considered finite, just in case it was the last episode you will ever write?
Noa’s heart is broken and Daniel’s life is about to pick up with job offers. She is on her way to Morocco to star in a movie and forget about Daniel and he is about to change his own life and become more independent if his family decides to sell the bakery and his new job opportunity becomes a big hit on the internet. She needs help from her best friends to get her mind cleared up and he needs assistance from Lewis to realize that there might be more to his life than just the bakery and the new job opportunity. Daniel and Noa’s life becomes a race against time at the airport, and for the first time in nine episodes, Lewis becomes Cupid. For the first time in the series, Lewis decided that Baker Boy was good enough for Noa, although he never told us why exactly. Like Noa never told us why she got off the plane at the last minute. Elsewhere in the Garcia family, the decision to sell the bakery is a hard one, so many discussions are being held amongst the family members, yet the episode ended without an answer as to whether or not the bakery will be sold to a company filled with white guys (probably) to un-diversify Little Havana and put hipster versions of Starbucks (and the obligatory parking lot) there. Mateo is also joining his brother when it comes to dealing with matters of the heart, and as Daniel is racing to the airport to stop Noa from flying off, Mateo is scooting to Vanessa, in the hopes to tell her how he feels. But episode cliffhangers ruin his chances...
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| The couple of extra zeroes at the end there make for a big surprise. |
In a way, the cliffhangers also ruined this episode. It was less fun to watch this hour, knowing there won’t be another one, because all I could see was how none of the stories told in this episode were concluded. Daniel and Noa are engaged, and I would have loved to know how much trouble that would have caused for their relationship, as well as the relationships with them (the Garcias looked like they were about to jump out of their socks and tackle Daniel for having made a bad mistake). I also would have wished for Vanessa and Mateo to find each other romantically and realize that getting into a relationship was not such a bad idea, but they had to be interrupted by Mateo’s probably-new manager. Because for some reason the writers thought it was a good idea to put that story into a cliffhanger ending as well. Was there not a single chance for any of those romances to have a happy end in the season finale? Granted, Amy and Natalie were still together by the end of the series, but they didn’t need a happy end, they already got theirs during Natalie’s quinceañera (although I still think that not including Amy’s family was a mistake).
I was barely interested in any of the stories, especially the potential of the Garcias selling their bakery to a conglomerate on the mission to ruin Little Havana and un-diversify the neighborhood. I’m shocked to see that the Garcias were capitalist enough to even think about the offer, knowing what the sale of their property would bring and what it would lead to, but even this fictional family has shown us that putting a couple of zeroes on the cheque makes you sell your soul. The story could have made an argument for the strengthening of community and family heritage (and Natalie tried to do that), but money talks for the Garcias, so the bakery was very much sold — oh, wait a minute, Daniel was supposed to be asked for his vote, but he got too busy getting engaged to a superstar. Great, yet another cliffhanger ending.
And even after watching Mateo failing to win over Vanessa’s heart, I was still shipping them by the end. Natalie and Daniel were correct when they said that they two were making sense together. Consider me positively surprised that Daniel was angry about Mateo and Vanessa having had sex for just a couple of minutes, to realize shortly after that this was the right thing to do: Let Vanessa go and hope for the best in her new relationship. What it also essentially did was kill the love triangle that could have been part of the next season if there had been one. At least the writers made it clear with the Mateo/Vanessa romance: Vanessa and Daniel were history for good, which meant Vanessa could focus on Mateo, and Daniel can go all in on his relationship with Noa. That also meant Vanessa and Noa would have never become romantic rivals, battling for the love of the same man.
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| Finding out someone had sex last night is no reason to not watch the road. |
As much fun as THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY was, as much as I would have loved to see another season, the cliffhanger-filled series finale really brought down the enjoyment I’ve had with this lovely summer entertainment program from 2020. I wouldn’t have been bothered by it if THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY had seen a second season, but because the writers couldn’t hold themselves back from filling up their hands with tropes from the TV writing treasure box, I’m going to put the series into the history books with a sour taste in my mouth. Sometimes, cliffhangers are appropriate. But every once in a while, putting too many of them into an episode without knowing if you can resolve any of them is a death sentence for your show’s legacy. Not that THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY will ever have a legacy (I’m not sure anyone even remembers the show three years after its airing), but you can’t build one, to begin with, when you never think about the potential of losing your show unexpectedly. Especially in this volatile market of TV production we’re in.
