Parting is such sweet sorrow, my friends.
A day removed from Wednesday night’s mostly disastrous group challenge, we drop back in to the MasterChef kitchen for the much dreaded Elimination Day – the seriousness of which is denoted by the fact that our cooks are now all dressed entirely in black, even though that’s actually a much better look than the usual all-white garb.
Like ducks at a shooting gallery, Sara, John, Stephen, Matthew, Rose, and Georgia are the six contestants lined up in front of an ominous table decorated with five cloches. Proving he’s not just a face, George pulls some straight Good Will Hunting moves on this impossible maths equation, and reveals to the group “5 < 6.”
To that end, in steps Ashleigh – not up for elimination, but in possession of the POWER APRON – who now has the Sophiest of choices to make. Which one of the six does she save from the Sword of Damocles?
The tears: they are instant.
In a decision that’s sure to provide multiple weeks of New Weekly front cover fodder, she saves the affably plain Stephen – citing only that he’s been having a “tough time” in the competition as of late. Real talk, Ash: If I wanted to watch people cruise around in stress free environments, these recaps would be about Gardening Australia.
The black apron comes off Stephen and he and Ashleigh retreat to the safety of the balcony arm-in-arm. Two bigger slices of white bread, there ne’er has been.
The five remaining sacrificial offerings are now thrown to the mercy of a blind taste test – black cloths over the eyes, sat down in single file, the only thing really missing here is the offer of one last cigarette and a final grand statement about the tyranny of oppression. Viva la resistance.
Off comes the cloche and in go the hands, picking away blindly at the various elements of the dish – of which, apparently, there are TWENTY-NINE. Immediately, and much to my stomach-churning chagrin, John‘s face lights up.
“It’s a Bibimbap,” he proudly states. “It’s one of my favourite dishes.”
A few awkward moments of watching these people blindly dive through the dish with their hands like there was a Years Supply of Something on the line passes, and time runs out.
The twist in the tail now is that they have to write down as many ingredients as they can remember, and they’ll only be able to cook with the ones they correctly identify. Which leads to this absolutely stunning moment about halfway through the write where John – who proudly stood before Gary mere seconds earlier, correctly identified the dish, and once again proclaimed it to be “one of my favourite dishes” – feels his brain literally cracking open like an overripe melon.
Seriously, if you took an CAT scan of his head in this moment, the only thing you’d see would be a slowly deflating whoopee cushion. G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S.
Georgia tops the list of most ingredients remembered with an impressive 16, whilst John (who at some point should have just gone for broke and started writing down “cheese,” “bread,” and “jaffle iron” and hoped for the best) languishes way back with only 10.
Unmoved by adversity, however, John pushes on with the cook with a box of ingredients that features some rice, a few eggs, a cucumber, and not much else. In the hands of your average University student, this would be spun into gold with 10 minutes. But to 36 year-old John, he now faces a personal dilemma. With no white chocolate in sight to turn this into yet another milk fatty nightmare, his internal monologue ponders “Which part of this can I adobo?“
But to hell with that! Only 10 ingredients? BAH. CHILD’S PLAY. And so instead of making just one simple thing, John decides to make ALL THE THINGS, starting off with the cardinal sin of the MasterChef Kitchen: the dreaded risotto.
It’s a dish that’s got such a pisspoor reputation in this competition that George has an entire facial expression dedicated specifically to when people tell him they’re cooking a risotto. It’s his risotto face. It’s magnificent. And it looks like this.
But hey, just because it hasn’t worked the past 10,431 times doesn’t mean that the great John Carasig – back to the wall and all – can’t pull it off here and now, right?
Wrong.
Oh god, so wrong.
John, what are you doing.
You’re putting mayonnaise in your risotto.
MAYO IN YOUR RISOTTO, JOHN.
JOHN.
STOP.
The fun doesn’t end in just the one corner, though. Oh no.
In the more “replete with food” sections of the kitchen, Matthew is calmly chugging along, with a perfectly fine looking Beef Tataki well on the way to being cooked.
But the producers decide that that is simply not enough drama. So in steps Matt Preston to stir the bloody pot a bit. “Remember, you’re doing this for your family,” he encourages, snapping Matthew out of his cooking trance to remember the wife and kids he left at home to come on this crazy little adventure.
YEAH, MATTHEW. REMEMBER YOUR KIDS? REMEMBER YOUR WIFE AND KIDS, MATTHEW? REMEMBER HOW SAD YOU ARE ABOUT MISSING YOUR WIFE AND KIDS? REMEMBER WHAT A SACRIFICE THIS IS YOU’RE ALL MAKING AND HOW MUCH OF A STRAIN IT’S PUTTING ON YOUR FAMILY BECAUSE YOU’RE LITERALLY IN ANOTHER PART OF THE COUNTRY FILMING A TV SHOW? REMEMBER THAT? FORGET YOUR COOKING, MATTHEW. JUST REMEMBER THAT FOR A BIT. REMEMBER THAT AND BE SAD. DANCE FOR US. DANCE THE DANCE OF LIFE.
Over in corner number 3, Georgia is rendering down some beef fat and decides at this moment, with fat in a pan at boiling point, to add in some apple cider vinegar which has a butt-load of water in it. The vinegar instantly makes the sizzling fat go absolutely boontah. And then this happens.
Goodness gracious, great fireballs of #MasterChefAU! ????
https://t.co/qdczR3lZWi
— #MasterChefAU (@masterchefau) June 18, 2015
The face plays it as surprise, but the eyes, dear Georgia, the eyes never lie. That shit was awesome. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
As the ominous clock ticks down and Rose simply struggles to cook an egg, we find out that John has since decided that the theme for today is “Fuck it” and is piling on literally everything it was possible to make with those ingredients together on the one plate. There’s rice balls that look partway decent, and some manner of cucumber salad that’s actually pretty appealing. But there’s also some ghastly looking custard and a mayo that could well be an actual affront to God. Combined, it’s an absolute mess whose only accurate title could probably ever be “Egg and… uh… y’know… stuff.”
What’s more, when time’s up, his confidence remains sky-high that the judges will take to this 50c bag of mixed flavours with glee and will “see what I’m going for,” which has not been evident at any stage of the cook whatsoever.
It’s the kind of blind faith that’s almost admirable, if it weren’t accompanied by a dish that would probably curdle in your stomach.
Georgia, Sara, and Rose all present dishes that knock the judges for a loop – Rose, again, living up to her eliminator reputation by surviving Pressure Test number seven HOW DOES SHE KEEP DOING THIS – leaving John and Matthew as the bottom two.
Following the feelings parade that Preston forced him to march, Matthew manages to put up a fairly decent Beef Tataki with Toasted Rice dish, which doesn’t prompt too many negative comments from the judges, even though it kind of resembles a workplace accident at a sawmill.
And ultimately, it’s John’s overthinking that finally does him in once and for all.
John is eliminated.
My beloved John.
We’ve had a good run together, you and I. And now that we’ve come to the end of the road, still… I can’t let go.
It’s unnatural.
You belong to me. I belong to you.
NEXT WEEK: Heston Blumenthal is gonna make a duck balloon out of shoelaces and children’s letters to Santa, or someshit like that.
Photos via Facebook/Channel Ten.
