PREVIOUSLY ON MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA: Man, I don’t even know what the hell is going on with this damned show anymore. Up is down, east is west, and somehow Brett has been fucking killing it.
How the hell did this happen? Did he find some weird outlet in the MasterChef House that just so happened to be a direct line to the matrix? Has he been running a hustle on bookmakers so he can drop max dollars on himself early on and clean up when he gets serious? Did he possess the body of an actual chef like that giant space bug from ‘Men in Black‘?
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU BRETT AND IT IS HURTING MY POOR FACE.
AND NOW, LAST NIGHT.
Four weeks ago if you looked me square in the eye and told me there would be eight people left in this competition, and four of them would’ve been Harry, Brett, Elise, and Trent, and that all four of those people would be safe from elimination, I would have challenged you to a duel for daring to insult my intelligence in such a brazen manner.
But, as it turns out, I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. Want proof? I wrote this sentence about two weeks ago:
And OH LOL wouldn’t you know it. There they are. Matt, Chloe, and Elena. All lined up dressed in black. I’m really gonna need Mimi to shit the bed hard in this episode, otherwise my multi is STUFFED.
Tonight we’ve got ourselves the dreaded Time Auction, in which each of the four bid cooking time for ingredients.
Matt goes way too hard way too soon, getting into a bidding war for a duck with Elena and subsequently paying ridiculous overs for it. The two of them shoot daggers at each other from across the room like Dickensian orphans eye-fucking a stale pudding.
Matt’s over-spending leaves him no wiggle room for the other rounds and he gets saddled with alliums and a tray of sauce. Because nothing screams delicious like a plate of garlic duck with onions and hot sauce.
Mimi scores herself some rad looking beef, and plays her hand real cool-like to pick up root vegetables and spices for free. Meanwhile Elena gets gifted some fish with herb and nightshades, and which are really just capsicums and chilis, much like the tray of alliums was all garlic and shallots. Are these pricks making words up? Who would know at this point. It’s a long series.
Chloe, on the other hand, gets eggs, fruit, and spreads. Which is the dessert royal flush. She’s pretty chuffed on it.
Actually, she’s really chuffed on it.
Almost… Uh… A little turned on by it?
M8. It’s just a bunch of lemons. Maybe run your face under the tap before you do anything else, yeah?
What really gets my goat about this whole thing is that you could’ve simply waited, grabbed all your ingredients for free, and then had 120 minutes to figure out what to do with it. In this challenge you would’ve wound up with fish, fruit, and spices. What do you do with those? Who knows! But you would’ve had TWO HOURS to sort something out. Even I could pull a passable meal out of that in two hours, and I once burned 2 Minute Noodles.
And on that note, you’d think that with the staggered cooking times that you’d simply start everyone off and then people would finish at different times. But no, Chloe – who has the most time left – rushes off to start while the others wait. And think. About what they’re going to cook. Because there’s no such thing as a blindfold for the brain.
The room is eerily quiet as Chloe begins her cook, and her nerves aren’t helped in the slightest by the three judges who are all lined up like they’re waiting to be sold at a Bachelor Auction.
“This sexy fellow describes himself as… a BIG THIRSTY TEDDY BEAR. SAY HELLO TO MATT PRESTON.”
Chloe’s recent obsession with thoroughly borking mousse continues unabated, this time instead of attempting it using goat’s cheese (MATE) she’s attempting to set one in around 80 minutes in the fridge without using a setting agent (MAAAAAAAAAATE).
On the other side, Matt‘s hodge podge of no ingredients is *shockingly* not working out that well for him. And his sauce-from-a-jar is copping the frowning of a lifetime from Preston.
Mimi and Elena, both of whom actually had workable combinations of food, are doing bang-up jobs of the task at hand.
But Chloe, who inarguably had the easiest hand of the lot, is just struggling all over the place. At the very least, Matt’s duck is en pointe, but it’s that dreaded one bad day for Chloe were nothing seems to go right.
And that by itself would’ve been the worst bit of the whole episode, but we need to talk about George. Because I’ve just about cracked it with him.
It’s not the yelling. It’s not the hopping around. It’s not even the sour grump face he wears with aplomb (it’s magnificent).
It’s the “…yeah?” after every sentence, and the need to say things in triplicate. It’s been a problem for him throughout the entire course of this show. But last night might’ve been his worst offence.
As the minutes wear down he gives the contestants a time warning, and barks “YA GOT IT?” at the end. Very loudly. Everyone clearly heard him. But then he repeats it. And repeats it again. Louder, and more obnoxiously each time.
YA GOT IT?
Yes George.
YA GOT IT?
YES GEORGE.
YA GOT IT?
GOD DAMN IT YES GEORGE WE HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
Bloody hell. There’s a stocked pantry chockas full of booze. Go have an ouzo and a dart and calm the fuck down.
Chloe attempts to salvage her mousse by chucking it in the blast freezer, but it’s a complete and utter disaster. And even though Matt’s sauce is so salty it’s practically married to Steph Curry, that’s enough to send Chloe home.
And yet, Brett remains in the competition.
My friends, I repeat: I do not know know what is going on in this show anymore. Not even a little, not even at all.
NEXT TIME:
Photo: Channel Ten.
