PREVIOUSLY ON MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA: The World Cup happened and I lost the ability to focus on anything else because, like… it’s the fucken World Cup. Sure, sweet week is good and all. But it’s the World Cup. A glorious, blissful month where I didn’t even once have the world “yumminess” float through my head. It was heaven. HEAVEN, I tell you.
And now suddenly it’s Finals Week™ and oh shit it’s all getting very real.
AND NOW, LAST NIGHT.
After catching up on 16 episodes of MasterChef in a Caramel Crown-addled haze, I – man of increasingly fraying sanity and increasingly large ass – have determined the following key points:
- Sashi‘s wife is tiny and cool and they seem very cute together and I think I’m back on the liking Sashi train now?
- That elimination challenge where they made them dissect Matt Preston‘s review was utter bullshit, mostly because his review read like it was written by that one insufferable fuckwit in Year 11 English Lit who wears a felt pork pie hat, suspenders, and a Joy Division shirt and spends his lunch breaks sitting four feet up a tree reading a Thesaurus.
- Samira, once again, was absolutely ROBBED. Ben fucks up a panna cotta so badly that it looks like fermented cum and tries to cover for it by pounding on a tub of double cream and that’s somehow fine? Bullshit. BULLSHIT.
- Kristen should’ve been eliminated a long-ass time ago.
- Jess‘s very overt and apparent crush on Reynold is the literal cutest thing in the world. She couldn’t even bare to look at him!
- How’s big dick Matt Sinclair from Season 8 swinging back through and not only dominating an immunity challenge in a way we’ve seldom seen from any professional chef, but in the process gifting us two completely perfect and wonderful GIF moments:
Firstly, this to-and-fro with George (whomst should be in jail):
“Who, me?” “Who, you?”
And secondly, the judges looking the lowest rent version of the Three Amigos in whipping out simultaneous tens:
Bless you, Matty. You and your wonderful elastic face.
With last night’s spectacular binning of Reece, who bombed out of the competition spectacularly because he chose this crucial moment to go rogue with a dish that was extremely Not A Dessert, we are down to our Final Five for 2018.
Who will emerge at the end of Finals Week™ bloody and victorious, a trail of loser bodies smouldering behind them? Who’s in the box seat to win? What’s the good oil? Let’s check the form guide.
JESS LIEMANTARA – 20:1
Not a goddamned chance in hell. Not in this universe or any other. As good as she is and as far as she will clearly go in her career, not a single cook – not one in the entire history of the show – has walked into the kitchen running Desserts First offence and walked out with the MasterChef crown. Alas, Jess isn’t about to change that. Gone early in the week.
CHLOE CARROLL – 8:1
A baffling mystery throughout large portions of the season, but – much like the 2010 Green Bay Packers – seems to be catching fire at exactly the right time. Everyone loves an underdog story and, so help me god, Chloe’s probably it this year. Plus ever since her husband rocked up in that one episode she’s been a ball of sunshine so it’s entirely possible she was just tired and sad for the whole shoot previously and that makes all the sense in the world? She’s playing away games for the rest of the series, but. No home ground advantage here.
KHANH ONG – 6:1
A national treasure who will likely come in third, freeing him from any prohibitive Channel Ten-related winners contract, leaving him open to take a swathe of high-profile DJing gigs in the 12 months that follows the show before settling into a plum job hosting a critically acclaimed cooking/travel show on SBS. Watch it happen.
BEN BORSCHT – 4:1
Never in the history of MasterChef has a rub from a visiting celebrity chef yielded such wildly positive results. Ben, a second-chance contestant originally included in the Top 24 as culinary cannon fodder, has transformed himself into a proper Flavour Boy thanks to the mythical Kiss of the Ramsay spell. Ever since Gordon Ramsay swanned into the place and put the wind up him, Ben’s been cooking like a man possessed, particularly on any dish that involves putting a physical recipe in front of him. That’s Box Seat territory for any potential final, particularly the traditional soul-breaking last dessert.
SASHI CHELIAH – Evens
I mean, what’s the point of even running any of the final week of episodes? Sashi’s going to win. It doesn’t matter what he cooks, it doesn’t matter what anyone else cooks. It is pre-ordained. He has cracked the magic code to putting up any old bullshit and having the judges foam at the mouth, and that code is turmeric. Roll a frozen turd in turmeric, and George’s eyes roll back in his head. Put up an empty plate a throw a cloud of turmeric in his face, and Gary cracks a stiffy so ferocious it could cut glass. Whisper the word turmeric in his ear, and Matt’s knees buckle like he’s a volunteer at a stage hypnosis show.
Sashi is going to win this season. There is absolutely no doubt about it.
None.
NEXT TIME: See above.
