PREVIOUSLY ON MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA: Through an arduous process that somehow managed to fill 5 entire hours of broadcast television we whittled 50 hopefuls down to 24, a result that could have been accomplished by splitting the room in two and tossing a coin instead.
Last year’s winner, current Fat Duck employee, and all beautiful tropical fish Billie McKay dropped by to relinquish the ceremonial Silver Prop Plate, and the first proper challenge of the season produced results that by all rights should have drawn the attention of WADA. That high quality this early into the season? Suspicious as fuck.
AND NOW, LAST NIGHT.
The reality of reality TV is that it functions on a bed of failure.
For all the heartwarming, tear-filled, tug-at-the-heartstrings moments that you’ll see, none of them would exist without viciously cutting people down with shocking regularity. The road to triumph is paved with bones and shattered dreams.
And you can’t have a winner without someone else coming last.
So here we are, at the very first ELIMINATION CHALLENGE for season 2016.
Sister Act Theresa, Bagger Vance Charlie, and the world’s tallest man Ashley are the first to don the way-more-stylish black uniforms, signifying the imminent death of one of their food dreams.
As the remaining 21 contestants gaze on from the gantry upon high, we learn that at some point Theresa has taken a tumble in the MasterChef house, and thus has a nasty-lookin’ wrist injury that she’s nursing. Bless her tough heart though, she’s fighting through the pain.
Also we learned that Ashley has been sleeping with a photo of his girlfriend wedged into the slats directly above his bed. She’s there. Every morning when he wakes up. Watching. Staring. Judging.
George, Gary, and Matt reveal today’s challenge will be the dreaded Cloche City bonanza; each contestant picks one random cloche, and the ingredient underneath will be the hero of their subsequent dish. Curiously though, the judges offer everyone a second chance if they don’t like their first round draft pick.
Out loud, Theresa wishes for “anything but shellfish,” AND WOULDN’T YOU BLOODY WELL KNOW IT, she picks out a cloche and cops some big ass prawns.
But instead of picking again, like the judges stated she absolutely could, she stays the course. Which is baffling, given that repeatedly she states that it’s her “worst nightmare” ingredient. But, as she states, she doesn’t want to risk the unknown. Now, I don’t know about any of you guys, but when faced with having to pick between my worst nightmare and LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, I’ma slot that coin into option B every dang time. But that’s just me, apparently.
Elsewhere, the dessert-obsessed Charlie nabs himself a sturdy lookin’ ginger root – a sentence applicable to both MasterChef and 3am on a Sunday morning at Revolver – and Ashley gets himself a big plate of mushrooms.
Eager to erase the inglorious disaster that was his plate of boiled sanitary pads from yesterday’s mystery box, Ashley decides to charge headlong back into some mushroom ravioli in order to redeem his mistake.
Towering over the judges like he’s the BFG boiling up a snozzcumber…
…Ashley explains that he “loves technology” and is incorporating that into this dish in the form of a “traditional sous vide slow egg.” Ahh yes. A traditional sous vide. That age-old, precisely temperature controlled electric water bath machine. Just-a like-a Mama used to make.
Ash’s dish features so many mushrooms, which is spectacular if you’re a fan “mushrooms being cut” stock footage, because there’s a SHITLOAD of it in this episode.
It’s almost hypnotic.
Meanwhile Theresa begins to cook and immediately falls apart like an unstable Jenga tower. The judges do that gloriously passive aggressive thing where they try to tell you that you’re fucking up royally, but do it in such a way that it makes you think it was your realisation alone. Except in this instance all Theresa can manage to do is babble out keywords on repeat. “PRAWNS! MAYO! AVOCADO! LOLOLOLOL”
However she pulls it together well enough to do a little outside the box thinking in chucking smashed avo in to the freezer in order to cut it into a square, which gives Jimmy on the gantry a clear sting of panic at the sudden realisation that his sister is actually capable of doing shit in the kitchen, despite the fact that her avo square looks like you could breed Ninja Turtles on it.
There’s your Secret of the Ooze right there.
Charlie‘s ginger dish is really just an excuse for him to go batshit crazy all over some chocolate, which brings us to the weirdest running theme of the episode: Matt the Narrator.
Old mate up on the gantry speaks almost constantly for just about the entire episode, whether it be in talking heads, or barking advice down to the floor like he’s Coach Eric Taylor.
Better still, my man is up there pulling some OUTSTANDING concerned Dad faces as he watches on.
When Charlie doesn’t put quite enough ginger into his mousse-thing:
When Charlie’s first batch of mousse-thing morphs into a split, fatty nightmare:
When Charlie somehow manages to pull one from three feet up his own arse, yet still doesn’t have anywhere near enough ginger on that sumbitch:
Clear eyes. Full heart. GET YOUR HEAD IN THE FUCKING GAME, CHARLIE.
The cook, by-and-large, actually goes decently for everyone. They all have their little hiccups here and there, but there’s really no huge disaster.
That is, of course, until Ashley fishes his ravioli out of the pot, and as is tradition, lights his own life on fire by absolutely fucking it.
HOT OIL, ASHLEY.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
STOP.
Despite actively knowing it was a very big error, he continues to chuck his freshly cooked ravioli into a pan of scalding hot oil, turning his light pasta into something more along the lines of slightly damp cardboard.
And that’s enough to do him in.
Theresa‘s prawn everything dish is a riotous hit with the judges, and she is immediately saved from the executioner’s blade, leading to this magnificent over-reaction from her brother…
…you’re allowed to say the two of you don’t get along that well, m8. Literally no one will care.
And despite only tucking the barest sliver of ginger into his dish, the fact that it’s an actual meal and not an oily hellpit is enough to save Charlie, leaving Ashley McConnell as the one to suffer the slight indignity of being the first contestant eliminated from MasterChef 2016.
As for his future plans?
Well, y’know. Ambition *is* the enemy of success, I guess.
Tough break, Ash. But someone’s gotta be 24th.
NEXT TIME: Get ready to endure an entire season featuring these two weird-ass shots embedded deeply into the opening credits.
If someone could kindly inform me exactly who this “Nathaniel” is and how he managed to sneak into the Top 24 without the cameras noticing, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Photo: Channel Ten.
