Kenneth Branagh will no longer be playing the role of Poirot.

Toilet, or Not Toilet, that is the question!

Bog Off

It is a well known fact that every reality TV show is an ouroboros and it’s only a matter of time before they start cannibalising themselves. Thus, with Pottery Throwdown having set a precedent for the absurdity of Bathroom Week, a genre which let’s be honest only has a limited number of possible facilities and while I thought we had 1 more in us before the self-cannibalising process started (WHERE ARE MY LOVINGLY CRAFTED BIDETS IN HONOUR OF YOUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY DESTINATION?) we prematurely come back to where it all started

except sadly this time there was no chance of someone getting a turtle head between their legs

because the specification of this year’s crop of bespoke crappers was “Victorian Florals” a task so practically made for Donna that she’s never going to beat those God’s Favourite allegations and sure enough she had a plan for a beautiful floral display featuring all the birth flowers of her family

and in the discussion of it being a family tree somehow everyone missed the very obvious Family Tree / Toiletry pun that was staring them in the face

but it wasn’t only an ode to her family, it was also a throne of feminist fortitude

YAS SISTER(n)! She’s the Gloria Steinem of clay. There was an alarming amount of gender talk in Bathroom Week, and not in the way you’d think

the two genders: house trained and ABSOLUTELY FERAL.

And in order to marry together his grandfather’s unique take on the bathroom debate, Dan was decorating his indoor loo with a veritable rose garden and slapping the sort of moustache on it that you only see on the face of someone about to give a very bad opinion on Question Time, which I suppose suits a toilet very well

I love Dan because he will read the brief and come back to you with the most wild take on it imaginable – he’d be a loose cannon in a brainstorming meeting on The Apprentice and before you know it you’d end up trying to sell mental health themed miniature cheesecakes to very confused Chinese tourists in Covent Garden.

In order to make the rims of their toilets, most of the potters were using the extruders however Dan, in his Gin Fueled Mad Scientist hangover that birthed forth The Mustachioed Rose Garden, had decided he was going to build it himself because the extruder was not working out for him – but he also just wanted the celebrity status that it affords you specifically amongst extremely stressed potters

Dave had attempted the same hand-built method but chickened out and had to apologetically sidle over to the extruder to make his rim.

Dave wasn’t overly far behind on the truly wild theming, deciding to make his toilet a shrine to Charles Darwin and his botanical studies

funnily enough, I did not have Educational Evolutionist Toilet on my Pottery Throwdown Bingo Card – although I do wonder how Charles Darwin would feel about being immortalised thusly

slightly more complimentary was the included cowslip motif on the rim that really only makes it look a bit like your husband has only moderately better aim than a potty training penguin

the cowslip is apparently Charles Darwin’s favourite plant, although this does seem to depend on how hard you Google

cowslips are easier to draw though so… His favourite plants are DEFINITELY cowslips.

Lastly we have Steven, whose toilet was dedicated to his daughter and her potty training journey, so his toilet was covered in a dandelion motif because her favourite flower are dandelions

I can’t dispute this fact because unfortunately his 4 year old daughter isn’t a famed evolutionary biologist (yet) – no pressure Bonnie, if you can rediscover the Pink-headed Duck we’ll call it even

my hyper-fixation at the moment is lost and holotype species (there’s a really good YouTube channel called All.About.Nature if you want someone with a gorgeous speaking voice telling you the most devastating facts about exotic fruit doves) – if they’re looking for a theme for next year that they can tie into climate awareness, I’m excited by the prospect of someone making a tiled fireplace surround in honour of the New Ireland Stingaree. And yes, a Stingaree is just a wee stingray, it’s very cute. At some point this recap was about Pottery Throwdown?

Flower Power

Upon returning to Gladstone for their Skills Test/Spot Test/Throwdown Challenge (delete as required) the potters discovered that someone on the budget team was behind on their payments and all of their workstations had been repossessed

and thus to decide the rest of the competition the only things they’d be throwing were shapes

sadly instead of having to watch Dan improvise a dance routine with only a sheet of chiffon, they were off on a field trip to Duchess China – quite why they had to get rid of all the furniture is a mystery, but I suppose they do have to up Rose’s salary considering she’s now also in charge of the Gladstone coat check

only one more small step on the employment conveyor belt before she ascends to judge status, she just has to choose which one of the older judges she consumes to become more powerful.

Upon arriving at Duchess China, famed for its fine bone China, the semi-finalists were introduced to Lee, an extremely talented artist whose bespoke china plates have been gifted to both the Sultan of Brunei and Elton John

the two genders.
We’ll also ignore the fact that the plates had to be fired and were then rejudged at Gladstone, with Lee, and the workstations all back to exactly where they should be

this is my Roman Empire, I’m going to make an 8 episode Serial-style Podcast about the absolutely needless furniture rearranging that went into this episode – DID DUCHESS CHINA NOT HAVE FOUR (4) TABLES FOR THEM TO USE?

In order to prepare them for the task of hand-painting their own floral plate, the potters were given a brief tutorial although how helpful this was is up for debate given they had to watch from about 20 feet away

DID YOU GIVE THEM BINOCULARS? I’m having traumatic flashbacks to being taught how to use Premier Pro except the projector was broken so the editing lecturer was just describing which buttons to press… (they did reteach the class after realising how futile and hilarious the subpar audio description format was for a class.)

Given that it was a decorating challenge, Donna was obviously a very happy lady and once again absolutely not beating those God’s Favourite allegations

but even God’s favourite warriors have to be humbled sometimes

and for having managed to beat this year’s Queen of Decorating, Steven was feeling a little bit *too much* job security

honey, if we’ve learned 1 thing this year, it’s that the second challenge is purely for time filling and counts for absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I did love the audacity Donna had to make an “always the bridesmaid” remark

Babe, by this point you had been crowned Potter of the Week for 5 of the 8 weeks – you were practically on to your 6th consecutive husband who had died of mysterious circumstances.
She’s lucky she lost to Steven because she could have been truly Nebuchadnezzar’d and lost to Dan instead

but Dan had, for reasons only known to Dan, decided to interpret the challenge of subtlety and delicacy as an opportunity to peacock and was painting with all of the colours of the wind

he still managed to come third despite his painting receiving the same review Eiffel 65 got for their first draft of Blue (Da Ba Dee)

which left Dave missing out on a medal position and getting the wooden spoon for effort because Lee was personally offended by the inclusion of a lime green dot

IT’S FOR THE BEES LEE, THEY HAVE TO KNOW WHERE TO LAND. WHY DO YOU HATE THE BEES? I can’t believe Lee from Duchess China wishes all the bees were dead.

An Official Duchess China Ranking:
1. Steven, You’re Doig Great Sweety
2. Donna’s Theoretical Bridesmaid
3. Dan’s Blue Period
4. Dave’s Apian Helicopter Landing Pad

Flushed Away

Rather pleasantly everyone’s toilets came out of their first firing completely in tact so all the potters had to worry about was their glaze work and whether or not they created an accidental bidet (we’re slowly manifesting it)

given the aggressive water pressure the toilets were subjected to, I think all of them technically counted as bidets at best and anti-protest water cannons at worst

Donna did get a little bit dinged for having an undecorated bowl but you can’t really be too mad at her for maybe not getting around to providing anyone with target practice given the quality of her glazing on the outside

she really took losing gold in the spot test personally and decided to flex harder than Giant on Gladiators

his wrestling singlet deserved to win Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars – Robert Downey Jr., you were great in Oppenheimer, allegedly. I did not see it because I value the need for a toilet break and my hearing is bad enough without being subjected to Richard King literally going nuclear with the sound design thus ends my review of Oppenheimer

While Donna has been a whiz with glazes since day dot, Dan has had a complicated relationship with them – having produced people the colour of an atomic sunrise

and a few too many oddly coloured animals

and so my heart did sink when he announced he was going to try to make the moustache red as I immediately assumed he was going to reach for that Copper Oxide on the grounds that third time’s the charm

but the oxides were under lock and key, so he just went for a straight forward underglazing and the second challenge this week seemed to come in handy as he went for a much more fluid and painterly approach to his decoration which really worked for the floral work

and the moustache gave the whole thing a pleasantly absurd character and also made his toilet look a little bit like someone have lobotomised Mr. Pringle

I spent 10 minutes weighing up the pros and cons of photoshopping together an image of a lobotomised Mr. Pringle but decided nobody needed that. You’re welcome, my Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is working.

Rich was a little cooler on the moustaches and treated them a little bit like a hirsute inkblot test

God knows what he was seeing when he looked at the one on the front of the toilet, but I will give him the fact the one on the rim does look make the whole thing look a bit like the average Pizza Hut toilet in 2007

there is truly no bigger gamble than going to the toilet in a Pizza Hut – there will ALWAYS be some sort of absurdity in there and comparatively, a toilet that looks like it’s going to give you some sage fatherly advice bookended by two mildly offensive anecdotes about the 1940s is relatively normal.
Keith however was sold on the whole thing and was leaking more than Dave’s U-bend

the only person rivalling Keith in sheer toilet-induced glee was Rose

I would have enjoyed seeing more footage of her playing Toilet Jenga in order to get all four of them into the kilns.

Dave didn’t end up getting penalised for his leak considering that it could easily be remedied with a little bit of silicon (that old Bathroom Week Reverse Uno Card) but the rest of Dave’s toilet was rather charming

the only evolutionary disadvantage to Dave’s toilet was the fact the bowl was a little off-centre

but it was fine from every other angle

we’ll put Rich’s apparent habit of walking around every toilet he uses in the Bathroom Antics Hall of Fame right next to the guy on Come Dine With Me who used to just sit in the bathroom eating yoghurts while watching himself in the mirror

Steven’s own Freudian struggle was his dreams of toilet rigidity

and in order to overcome them, he added a few fluid lines that did make his toilet look a little bit like a map of the District Line

and I think for many other challenges the soft, painterly approach to his dandelions would have been greatly received but on something as big as a toilet, the details do get a little lost and washed out

but both Keith and Rich did love the soft, curved shape of his toilet, comparing it to a mushroom (tone indicator: Positive)

but thou can never forget the original mushroom toilet

everyone went very restrained in their toilet sizes this series, I don’t even know if this was the biggest build this year like it usually is. Garden Week is rapidly becoming the New Bathroom Week – in the case of Dan’s grandfather they’re the same thing.

An Unofficial Toilet Ranking
1. Dan’s Mr. Pringle-Boleyn
2. Donna’s Family Toiletree
3. Dave’s The Origin of Feces
=. Steven’s Adventures in Freud

With everyone except Dan having been awarded Potter of the Week at least once this series, it was nice to see his love of the absurd triumph eventually as he won Potter of the Week for the first time

this did leave a very difficult decision as to who to eliminate and in an ideal world I think nobody should have left this week, I don’t think anyone fumbled enough to actually warrant being eliminated – all of the builds were solid, the decorations all had their merits and overall they all just did really damn well this week. Alas it came down to Steven or Dave and despite having won the Spot Test, Steven was dropping out ahead of the final

and thus once again, The Pottery Throwdown Final becomes The Woman Who Is Obviously Going To Win and The Two Lovely Men Who Are There For The Vibes

it’s my favourite trope.