there has never been a more stressful moment of television than watching Steve’s amphora spin around at 100mph.

Thou shalt not post.

Are You Ready For Amphora?

For the big send off of the series, our Extremely Obvious Finalists™ were having to create a Greek amphora standing at a generous half a metre tall and decorated in a way that told us something about the potters’ lives. This did of course mean we got to learn more about James’s old cake business, Steve’s horrible illegal shed wine

and Natalie finally got to get the cancan skirts out of her duffle bag that have been languishing away in there in case of an emergency near-elimination

they were not going to let her go without getting a little bit of the Moulin Rouge out of her. Now release the footage of everyone having to taste Steve’s moonshine.

James was the only one we really got to learn anything new about, which was an early tell that he had this in the bag, as we got more of an introduction to his sister who is one marathon of the Discovery Channel away from saying something weird about the Pyramids of Giza

as well as his fiancé, son and most importantly his cat Buster who may or may not have stowed away to Gladstone

sadly James’s amphora did not feature nearly enough Buster content and for that, this amphora shall be knocked off the highest surface possible at Buster’s earliest convenience. Instead it had the crash-landed UFO for the knife-edge of a mental collapse his sister is walking and Non-specific Horror Movie References™ for his son

there didn’t seem to be anything for his boyfriend, although…

everything reminds me of him.

James had a bit of a mad dash at the end during which he was worried about getting the popcorn done

how ever will he manage to make these pieces of scrunched up clay in only 5 minutes!?

I get it, they needed to have a little bit of mutual suspense between the three of them because Natalie’s amphora was collapsing in on itself faster than Steve collapsing in on himself

and what we all took away from this is that I need to learn not to post

but don’t worry, Steve had licensed therapist Keith Brymer-Jones on hand with some sage advice

Thank you, IAPT. What would we do without you?

Steve was going for more of a classical amphora – by which I mostly mean it didn’t have half a UFO or a set of legs akimbo sticking out of it, but it was still covered in chickens and kangaroos but in more of an illustrative style that when spun would work like a zoetrope

there wasn’t really much of an elaboration on why he’d chosen chickens and kangaroos beyond “I like to travel and may have seen a kangaroo one time” or “I used to own chickens, plus I have these animation cells ready to go…”

and when his VT came featuring nobody except his parents you kind of knew he’d fallen short in terms of making things personal. His wife and dogs may very well have chosen not to appear, which is understandable as not everyone wants to be on TV, but we know they exist because we’ll always have the clock

There was however plenty of shed content. Maybe we should dig up the patio?

Lastly we have Natalie whose amphora was of course inspired largely by her time spent as a dancer for the Moulin Rouge and various other productions

it all feels a little bit expected, and a little bit too much like a retread of her Moulin Rouge clock, but she was being very ambitious with choosing to hand-build the entire thing as well as the extremely time consuming and tricky braided handles

she was certainly making a rod for her own back with quite how much work she was giving herself when it came to the decorating in the second half of the challenge because she’d thrown everything and the kitchen sink at her amphora.

The Wide and the Tall of It

For their second challenge, it was a good old fashioned throwdown with each potter having to produce both the tallest, thinnest vase they possibly could with 2kgs of clay and the widest bowl they possibly could with 3kgs of clay

and already everyone had seemingly decided it was a two horse race

bit rude, Natalie’s right there…

I’m so sorry Natalie, but at some point everyone decided you were the Gretchen Weiners of this trio

I do wish the pay-off here was funnier – I was rooting for her to win this challenge but Natalie did unfortunately take 3rd as the augur Cakesby James foretold

but I did enjoy these very funny things for a lesbian to be saying

nothing but respect for MY queer disaster.

Over in You’re Lucky this Happened After International Women’s Day, it did feel like Steve was on to a winner and then *someone* on the internet decided to be funny

somebody please never let me post ever again, all I do is bring misery to nice men

he did at least manage to correct it slightly before the end of the challenge but it would always lean a little to the left

but it wasn’t as though James’s was without a kink in its neck

and both of them had made very good bowls, I did think Steve might still get the win because his bowl resembled Keith’s more and was definitely the widest

but James’s was a very good bowl-shaped bowl

and ultimately James did take the win, plunging Steve into a 4 year year period of Victorian-style mourning

I feel like I need to send Steve flowers…

An Official Vase and Bowl Ranking:
1. James’s Bowl-shaped Bowl
2. Hi, It’s Me. I’m The Problem. It’s Me.
3. And None For Gretchen Weiners

A Wild Amphoras Has Appeared!

Given how the building went, there was a very real tension coming back to the pottery as to how well the amphoras would’ve handled the firing process. Thankfully, the first shot of the latter third of the show spoiled this for us

can you imagine if someone had lifted their hessian and it was actually just a stool propping it up an their Amphora was in 100 pieces under it?
Only Steve was completely free of casualties – Natalie had lost a little piece of her coiled rope towards the base of her amphora. However, James had lost a whole handle

instantly perking Steve up like a meerkat

but if there’s one thing James is going to do, it’s pull it back in the decoration and his painterly approach to glazing and his ability to give everything a real sense of style and depth is extremely impressive

I think I like everything individually more than I do as a whole. As one piece it has the aesthetic of a half-remembered dream you suddenly recall three days later because someone said something that triggers you like a sleeper agent and you have no choice but to tell them about how you climbed a mountain of discarded rock candy and for some reason your hairdresser and Jessica Chastain were there. It’s just ever so slightly nauseating? But the judges loved it, and I think James’s approach to the build was more in line with what the show was looking for. It’s clever, it’s witty, it’s the sort of baffling thing that can only come out of your mind after 10 weeks of competing on a reality TV show. I personally think we should bury it to confuse the archeologists of the future. I think we could start a whole popcorn based religion off the back of this thing. I eagerly await the election of the first Popecorn

I have £10 riding on Pope Francis ruining Eurovision weekend.

Steve had a very different task ahead of him coming into the decorating process because his glazing was the entire gimmick of his amphora as he hadn’t really done any 3D modelling beyond the grapevines on his handles

I don’t know how much I love the yellow, but I think he needed to go with a pale colour in order to make sure the animation popped. Then came the most stressful part of the series as they had to get his amphora spinning fast enough in order to make the animation flow smoothly. I don’t think anyone quite anticipated how fast this thing was going to have to spin

you could see the realisation in everyone’s eyes that if this thing came off the wheel, it was going to be death by wine-storing Beyblade

luckily nobody was harmed in this game of extreme chicken bouncing.

Lastly we have Natalie who was doing a whole light and dark contrast with her amphora that never really got elaborated upon with half her amphora being black and white while the other half was McDonald’s colours

at some point the decoration did slightly get away from her and she could have probably afforded to maybe take 3 elements off because it was busier than a Cher Lloyd audition outfit

this is my gay halloween costume.

An Unofficial Amphora Ranking:
1. Chicken Flickin’ Good
2. James’s Half Remembered Cheese Dream
3. JERUSALEM BELLS A RING-A-DINGING!

All in all, really great final! I loved the two challenges – it’s nice when the final feels like the finalists actually achieved what they set out to achieve. Personally, I thought Steve was taking it and based strictly on this episode, he *probably* should’ve. His amphora was faultless and he’d hardly flopped the second challenge. However, over the series as a whole, James has been smashing it with his first salad set and last week’s fireplace probably being the two best creations of the entire series so I will never begrudge him being crowned the 2025 Pottery Throwdown Champion

it’s very well deserved and I’m so glad it’s given him the confidence to pursue a career in ceramics because that feels like what someone of his calibre ought to be doing.

And of course, a very strong well done and thank you for making such a fun final and series to both of the runners-up

icons the both of you!

And the only way to end a series of the Throwdown is with an Alternative Montage:

thank you everyone so much for reading and supporting the recaps – it means the absolute world to me. It’s been a hell of a time for independent writers and content creators as the social media landscape we advertise ourselves on implodes. I love and appreciate you all <3