PREVIOUSLY ON MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA: Gordon Ramsay‘s final form emerged, turning Blue Team to dust in a group challenge as they presented him food and he pulled out his best Lonely Island impression by continually throwing it on the ground.
He ain’t gonna be part of your system.
AND NOW, LAST NIGHT.
FUCK A DOODLE DOO WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED.
Nine people arrive in black for the Pressure Test: Ben, Sarah, Kristen, Chloe, Aldo, Jo, Gina, Samira (who should have a pin, but doesn’t), and Loki (who probably shouldn’t have a pin, but does).
The pin is a highly sought-after advantage in the MasterChef kitchen that gifts the wearer the ability to erase one phenomenal fuck up. And in this case it’s a no-brainer: A failed team challenge with no outrageous individual fault for Loki, no mistake to personally atone for, no guilt to shoulder or burden. As straightforward a decision as you’ll ever see: He uses the pin, he goes up to the gantry, he collects his thoughts and comes into the new week firing on all cylinders.
Right?
RIGHT?
WRONG.
Loki, the cooking genius, decides to hold onto his pin and take his chances in the challenge instead.
Wage Thief Calombaris’ face says it all.
Still, it’s a 9-person elimination challenge. So all Loki has to do is not be stone-cold motherless last and he’ll be fine.
Except then in walks this bloke, looking like he’d rip out a stadium seat and bash someone over the head with it for muttering the words “Manchester” and “City” too close together.
Brother looks like he’s about to pull out a stack of Minions to shrink and steal the moon.
The challenge he sets everyone is to recreate what can only be described as chicken wizardry at its highest form.
Step 35 in the recipe should probably be “fuck off down to Woolies and buy a $7 BBQ chook and enjoy that instead” because that is an absurd dish that requires far too much effort.
You know the challenge is going to be bad when they get three hours to cook the thing. Not once in the history of MasterChef has anyone taken a three-hour time window, baked a simple cake, and kicked their feet up for the remaining 2 hours.
Although, y’know… they should. Work smart, not hard, etc.
At about this time, Loki experiences his first mild pang of regret.
Yep. Might’ve ballsed this one up a bit hey m8.
The cook itself is a filthy, disgusting process that forces the viewing audience – and more importantly ME – to sit through several horrible shots of people fingering chooks.
Just like… really getting in there.
I mean really going to town on them. Shoving things right up there.
Fuckin’ jesus.
This is illegal. Horrible filth.
For christ’s sake MasterChef there are **CHILDREN** watching this. Wretched. Foul. Put everyone in jail.
The only two people to truly nail the entire dish are Ben, who is still feeling the effects of his Gordon Ramsay buff, and Jo, sticking her neck out for the first time in the competition after 19 episodes of brilliantly playing the percentages.
You don’t have to win challenges to succeed in MasterChef. You just have to be not last a whole lot.
You can’t get eliminated if you’re never last.
But it’s Loki, still wearing the Immunity Pin which at this point is more of a Scarlet Letter, who roots the chook. The choice to not play the pin and boldly attempt to blast through this challenge is backfiring severely, and the realisation that he’s up shit creek is written all over his face.
That’s the face of a man thinking one word and one word only: “Shit.”
Realising we might be on the verge of something quite extraordinary – a contestant going home while carrying an Immunity Pin – George offers up some sage advice.
So wise. So sage. Such a brilliant teacher.
Sarah and Chloe both find themselves well behind the eight-ball towards the end of an arduous cook, with the former overcooking the chook and the latter’s dish being so bereft of mousse that it resembles Alaska in hunting season.
Don’t ask me how long I spent on that joke. The answer’s just depressing.
Jo, much like she started, finishes the cook like a champion, even taking the time to throw out her best impression of Kermit the Frog towards the end of the cooking time.
Now I kinda want there to be an episode that ends with Jo on a log in the swamp plucking Rainbow Connection on a banjo. I have no idea why.
But because this is an elimination challenge, it’s not about who won (Jo did), but it’s about who lost.
And holy shit, did Loki ever lose. He lost hard.
What little hope he had of escaping with his life in this cook was snuffed out the moment he knocked over his sauce bottle and yelped like a dog licking a power outlet.
Oh god.
Oh GOD.
As the clock ran out and the realisation that he was horribly, incredibly boned set in – all while the pin that could’ve saved him burns a hole through his apron – the deepest of deep regret overtakes him.
This right here, folks? This is the face of a man who has made a VERY LARGE MISTAKE.
*‘Sound of Silence’ softly fades in*
There’s much to be said about letting an Immunity Pin go begging, but for Loki’s part he insists he wanted to show his son that his old man doesn’t run away from his problems. Does his old man want to tell his son that a virtuous man doesn’t use a Draw Four in Uno as well? Or to only lay down a pair of fives when you’re really holding a full house?
It’s all well and good to be noble, but god damn it man, chase the fucking W.
Before the hammer gets brought down on him by the judges and he gets sent home as the only contestant in MasterChef history to be eliminated while holding an Immunity Pin, Loki gets one last chance to back himself in.
*extremely Ron Howard voice* He should be.
But hey, at least he gets to keep the pin.
At least there’s that.
NEXT TIME: Aww heckin yes mates it’s the motherlicking RELAY CHALLENGE. Teams get to fumble blindly through a ridiculous and often disastrous challenge while a howling breeze through the building whispers “white chocolate adobo.”
Just when you thought he was out, they pull him back in.
