PREVIOUSLY ON MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA: We settled into the profoundly boring middle portion of this slog of a series where no one is really good but no one is really shit either, like Tottenham. A few eliminations happened (Jenny, Lisa, Genene, seeya later). Also we spent an entire week in South Australia which I covered none of, because not even MasterChef can make Adelaide interesting.
You call schooners “pints” and potato cakes “fritters,” and the way the SANFL calculates ladder percentage is weird and stupid. Your state is wrong and you should feel bad.
AND NOW, LAST NIGHT.
One other thing that’s happened since I last boiled my brain over this show: Sashi, somehow, now has two Immunity Pins.
Sashi.
Bloody Turmeric-On-Everything Sashi, now has double – DOUBLE – immunity.
Fair play to him, the second one he earned *I suppose*, but lest we forget that his first pin – which rightly should be Samira’s – was won because he cooked against some English twit who swanned in two tins of off Spam taped taped together and put up a dish so bafflingly off-the-mark that a nuclear hot spaghetti jaffle probably would’ve kicked it ass.
So now there’s three Immunity Pins currently active in the competition: Two on Sashi, one on Reece.
Logic dictates that you’d massage the proceedings in order to have them use it as quickly as possibly to ramp up the drama. They did it to Loki, and he left with a pin on his apron. They did it to Khanh, who won and lost the pin in the space of a week.
But somehow, for whatever reason, Sashi and Reece are being babysat through the middle stages.
Think about it: They both won their (in Sashi’s case, first) Immunity Pin during Gordon Ramsay week. That episode aired on May 29th.
Since then, neither one of them has been put into an Elimination Challenge. Three whole weeks, no black clothes. Not only does that mean have they not lost an Invention Test, but they’ve also not lost a Team Challenge either.
Which means, for three straight weeks, they’ve been on the same fucking team every goddamned time.
Split them up! Just split them up! One on a red team, one on a blue team! It’s easy! It’s SO EASY! You guarantee – GUARANTEE – that one of them has to at least think about using the pin that way! It’s not bloody rocket science! Just get the pin off of one of them!
PUT REECE AND SASHI ON SEPARATE TEAMS.
Honest to god, it’s gonna get down to the final four and the other two will just have to concede defeat and quietly leave because Sashi and Reece physically cannot be eliminated. BULLSHIT, I tell you.
AND NOW, LAST NIGHT (REALLY).
Oh good, they’re on the same team again. Great. GREAT. JUST BLOODY GREAT.
But perhaps – just maybe – their team will lose this one and both of them will go into an elimination challenge…
They split into two teams, divvied up by bandanas, and apparently divided neatly between those who know how to tie a bandana knot and those who absolutely do not.
Jesus christ Khanh what the hell is that? Looks like you got your head stuck in a pool scoop and cut the net off.
So the team challenge involves an off-site visit to a joint in the Dandenongs where they’ll have to cook with fire pits instead of… y’know… anything else.
And this all sounds well and good, except the show failed to realise that a) apparently the only person who’s ever been near an open flame before is Ben, and b) Putting him back near an open flame would trigger Full Dad Mode where the only thing he cares about is maintaining said open flame.
Every bloke has had this before. There’s no shame in it. It just means you spend hours prodding at a roaring fire and staring into its glowing abyss.
This challenge is really getting lit up! #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/PjCWdn0V2E
— MasterChef Australia (@masterchefau) June 20, 2018
“Ben those flames are 30 feet high.” “Hmm, needs more wood.”
For the majority of this series the cooks have been closely contested affairs. This one? Not even close. It’s a bloody boilover.
Sashi, would you even believe, dunks a whole heap of saffron on some kingfish and makes the judges go dough-eyed, because apparently when they say they demand more flavour what they really mean is just “bash a nation’s reserve of spice onto it so their brains cloud over.” Sashi is using spice mind control to get through this contest. I have figured you out, son.
The only thing close about this cook is the dessert round, which turns into a contest of who can fuck things up the worst.
Red team takes a fair stab at it by producing a lovely dish of Slop on Fruit.
Meanwhile over on Team Genius, the dessert team saw the unpredictable and extremely uncontrollable fire challenge and immediately decided to bake a delicate mousse in it because why the hell not.
Ahh yes. Lovely stuff. A beautiful, burnt, sloppy butt tongue. Just like Mum used to make.
The desserts are so bad that Matt Preston makes a decree that none shall ever bake a mousse ever again.
Fair reaction, TBH.
Anyway, the sun rises, the sun sets, whatever team Sashi & Reece is on wins. Was it really ever in doubt?
This show. This bloody show, I swear.
NEXT TIME: One of Aldo, Ben, Chloe, Gina, Jess, or Sarah has to go home, while Sashi & Reece stand on the gantry trying to bounce the light off their Immunity Pins into someone’s eyes below.
BUT ALSO.
Who will cook their way BACK into the competition?!
Don’t miss #MasterChefAU, 7.30 tonight on TEN. pic.twitter.com/8kD1PIiq4L
— MasterChef Australia (@masterchefau) June 20, 2018
Imagine if Brett knocks back up and wins the lot now? Fucken… imagine it.
