Masterchef Recap: A Raging Semi
Time, now, for the semi-final that isn’t actually a semi-final, following the quarter-final that wasn’t a quarter-final which followed the Finals Week that involved no finals whatsoever. It’s Elena versus Matt the Amateur versus Harry, a three-cornered battle in which there can only be one winner, unless you count the other winner. Basically we are in the Masterchef kitchen to find out whether Elena and Matt the Amateur have it in them to screw up badly enough to lose to Harry, who’s been marked for third for weeks.
We begin in the Masterchef house, where Elena is drawing pictures in a book to celebrate her one true passion: art. She sighs gloomily as she remembers she has to go and cook some food. Meanwhile Harry is having a bit of a sneaky montage in the bathroom. “Today is not the day to play it safe,” says Harry, but he’s wrong: today is very much the day to play it safe — playing it dangerous will be disastrous, especially when you consider that he isn’t good enough.
As the final three enter the kitchen, the balcony-dwellers cheer and applaud and the final three say under their breaths, “fucking hell those fucking twats are still there”.
“This is going to be the hardest day you’ve ever spent in the Masterchef kitchen,” says Gary, producing a set of nipple clamps. “I don’t think we can say enough or too often how proud we are of what each of you has achieved,” says Matt, but he’s really off-base on that. Actually they’ve already said this too often and I want them to stop.
Matt goes on: “Good isn’t going to be good enough, and great isn’t going to be good enough today.” Again he is misleading them: actually what’s going to be good enough is “slightly better than Harry”.
George informs the three that the judges will look for the dishes that they want to eat “again and again and again”, confirming the rumours that he enjoys eating his own vomit.
Shannon is in the kitchen in his capacity as “guy who hangs around every now and then doing very little to help anyone”. He tells the amateurs that they are going to make mistakes and they need to come to terms with that. Shannon wants to be very clear: he despises all three of them and knows for a fact they suck.
The challenge starts: two courses to be cooked for twenty people. Matt the Amateur declares his desire to “download everything that’s in my head”, and the canny watcher nods wisely: we knew he wasn’t human.
Meanwhile Elena is making an homage to her mum and her childhood, which is a major tactical error, as she’s supposed to be making dinner. Shannon notes that she is being very ambitious and he thinks she’s going to fail and he’s going to drink deeply of the delicious draught of her misery. He chuckles darkly and leaps down into his subterranean lair.
Harry wants to show the judges how far he’s come, so he’s cooking a map. He is going Italian because when he started the competition he hated Italian so he’s hoping this dish will finally silence the anti-racism protesters who have camped outside the kitchen. Shannon compliments Harry’s texture, which reminds him of his ponytail.
Suddenly the music gets really sad and you think someone is about to die, but unfortunately it was just a tease as the music kicks up into action-movie mode again.
Harry claims lobster has been his hero ingredient throughout the competition. Where others have parfait, Harry has lobster. As he dismembers his lobster, the music gets really mournful again. They’re definitely foreshadowing Harry’s death in a terrible lobster accident.
The judges convene to be smug about the amateurs. They note each one’s strengths: Elena is sophisticated, Harry does well with lobsters, and Matt the Amateur wants to work in a van.
Elena has taken longer to peel her eggs than she expected, a common problem for many young women. She now has to try to carve tuna into a pleasing shape, a task that is rapidly driving her mad. Shannon asks her how many portions she wants out of the piece of tuna. Elena says four. Shannon can barely conceal his mirth. Elena is overthinking her tuna, something that nobody thought was possible until today. There is a possibility that when dinner starts she will still be standing there staring at the tuna.
A quick ad break helps Elena regain her composure enough to re-explain the premise of the episode to us. Matt the Amateur is busy hacking viciously at the corpses of some ducks. He might be planning to cook them, but I’m not sure, it’s possible he’s just giving voice to something from his childhood.
Elena has finished cutting up her tuna, and moves on to overthinking cherry tomatoes. “Beautiful!” shouts Jimmy from the balcony, awed by Elena’s ability to slide a tray into an oven.
Meanwhile Harry is slicing open a kingfish with a distinctly sensual technique. Shannon tells him that kingfish is a very fatty fish and therefore a terrible choice for making a mousse with. Harry can see how this might be a problem, but on the other hand, he isn’t very bright, so he goes ahead with the kingfish.
“I’m still not finished with this duck yet,” Matt the Amateur growls, clearly intending to inflict some abominable atrocity on it. He announces his intention to “break down” the bird, so really his aim is as much psychological as it is carnal.
Shannon tells Gary his concerns about the kingfish. Gary suggests that prawns or scallops would be better, which is a useless suggestion because Harry’s over there and he’s talking to Shannon, who isn’t cooking.
Meanwhile Matt the Amateur starts to panic as he realises that he’s spent so much time torturing an innocent duck that he’s fallen behind on all the other things he has to do. The revelation that cooking is hard hits him like a hammer blow and makes him wonder if it’s all worth it.
Fortunately for him, Elena is also very behind time and it’s shaping up to be a battle between two dishes that aren’t finished and one disgusting blob of fatty fish gloop. There will be much disappointment in the dining room tonight. “Come on!” yell the balcony dwellers, but it doesn’t help much.
Shannon continues to wander around the kitchen offering half-hearted, non-specific words of wisdom like “It’s time to dig deep” and “good”. He stands before all three amateurs and tells them, “At the end of today one of you is going home. Don’t let it be you.” As usual this is an idiotic thing to say because one of them is going home no matter what they do. There is no “let it” about it. Someone needs to slap everyone on this show.
A quick shot of the applauding balcony dwellers reveals that Trent hates being there and wants to kill everyone.
Shannon runs through Elena’s list of elements to make sure she understands she hasn’t got time to finish it all. Being the masterful culinary mentor he is, he tells her that she’s going to have to go fast, and then walks away. Elena restrains herself from telling him he’s a useless wad of rancid camel-semen, and just lets her tone of voice when saying “Shannon” say it for her.
Matt the Amateur sets his kitchen on fire, causing much applause from the balcony. Heather comments that if he does really well, he’ll probably do really well. Expert comments from Heather Day, always worth listening to.
“Come on, Harry.” Thanks, legendary chef Shannon Bennett, good advice.
It’s time for Elena to get her Dutch bikkies in the oven, which is some kind of obscene millennial slang I guess. Shannon tells her she’s taking too long and she needs to stop trying to make her food good and just shove it in the oven. “Bad food as fast as possible”, that’s the Bennett philosophy.
Harry tells Shannon he needs to ditch the artichokes. Shannon is scandalised: he has never heard of anything so reprehensible as a man wilfully ditching his own artichokes. He orders Harry to get the artichokes done. “Get the artichokes done!” he yelps in what may be his most canny expert chef advice yet.
Matt the Amateur thinks he’s on track, but declares his desire to subject his duck to a horrific process he calls “frying off”. God only knows what this might involve. He is a sick sick man.
“It’s crunch time!” Shannon yells, reaching new heights of uselessness. “You’ve got to find an extra ten percent in your speed,” he tells Elena, like a man telling his children to be taller.
Matt the Amateur is finishing off his date reduction, which is why all his ex-girlfriends say he’s so cheap. It’s this date reduction that will make the poor abused duck really pop.
With diners seated and awaiting their meal, Elena still has to cook her fish and spice her tomatoes and do her dessert. She is about to experience a complete nervous breakdown, but luckily Shannon is there to provide mentorship, in the form of the word, “PUSH!” shouted as loudly as possible. What makes it worse is that George isn’t around to grab her by the shoulders and say, “Yeah?” over and over again, thereby providing the inspiration she needs to succeed.
Elena is in tears as she struggles to get her tuna cooked and her potatoes on the plate. Shannon comforts her by telling her to hurry. A lightbulb goes off over Elena’s head: she hadn’t thought of hurrying! Everything will be all right.
Meanwhile Matt the Amateur is “absolutely rapt” with how his plates look. Smug as ever. The judges are overjoyed with it too. “What’s not to like?” asks George, which is usually a question anyone looking at George can answer easily. Gary says “yum”. George says “yum”. Matt says something lengthy and dull. The balcony screams in approval. What hell it must be for the diners, trying to eat while these cretins are screeching right above them.
Elena’s diners are waiting, but Elena’s not ready, but to be honest I don’t think they’ve been waiting all that long really. The diners at Hell’s Kitchen have to wait heaps longer, and everything they get is raw.
The judges try Harry’s first course. George notes that Harry has added Brussels sprouts, and finds this confusing and scary. The judges object to the absence of sauce on their plates. George gets up and wanders over to the pass and tastes some of Harry’s sauce, which has apparently been hiding there. Harry has no idea what’s going on. Neither do I.
So it seems that Harry hit upon an unconventional strategy of keeping his sauce in the bottle instead of putting it on the food as most chefs do. The judges ask Shannon to come give them some sauce, so to speak. Shannon does so. The sauce is fantastic. But it doesn’t count because Shannon put it on the plate and Harry didn’t. Seems cruel and arbitrary doesn’t it, but then Masterchef always prides itself on being a microcosm of the universe.
One part of Harry’s dish that Gary says is great is the artichokes, but I don’t believe him.
Elena, after a wait of several days, has finally managed to serve her dish. Gary, who has been informed that Elena is worried there might be not enough sauce, says it looks a bit dry. His hopes are shattered, though, when the dish turns out to be really good. He admits it tastes nice with a look of sullen defeat on his face. George tries to give his opinion of it but is drowned out by another imbecilic group bellow from the balcony.
Dessert time. Harry starts making his ice cream, using dry ice, which is stupid, because dry ice is for making smoke. Weird. Meanwhile Elena needs to “mandolin these apple slices”, which is just a string of random words, suggesting that her long-anticipated psychic break has now occurred. Shannon tells her that her mousse is the hero of the dish and she doesn’t even punch him.
Matt the Amateur thinks his donuts look perfect, and Shannon agrees, so why don’t you marry him Shannon if you love him so much? Matt the Amateur begins emulsifying egg yolks in a microwave, which is a revolting way to behave if you ask me.
Over in Harry’s kitchen, our favourite wavy hairdo is babbling nonsense words, like “bav-wah” and “duck-wah”. The madness is upon him. Nobody shall survive tonight.
Matt the Amateur’s curd isn’t thickening, which is actually pretty funny. He puts some butter in it to help it thicken. Shannon comes over and for once gives actual cooking advice: he tells Matt the Amateur that putting butter in curd will stop it thickening. This is even funnier.
As he starts making a second batch of curd, he suffers from self doubt, which is very justified. Meanwhile Harry continues to babble as he sprays what he assures us is chocolate all over his dessert. “This is the kind of cooking we expect to see in this finals week,” says Trent, ignoring the fact that finals week was last week and that we don’t want to know what he thinks.
Matt the Amateur is happy with his second batch of curd, which is a bit disappointing. Masterchef is so much more entertaining when he’s stuffing up. The judges taste his dessert and have simultaneous orgasms before lying down for a nice cuddle. The balcony dwellers whoop irritatingly for an unrelated reason while their orgasm happens.
Elena is still hurrying, and is still being told to hurry by Shannon. “Push now please,” snaps the mentor/lamaze coach as Elena tries to actually plate up in an attractive way under extreme duress. Finally dessert is served. Gary immediately shoves his nose in it. “How refreshing does that sorbet look, and how rich does that mousse and crumble look?” asks Matt, but really as a food critic, it’s his job to tell us. Don’t be so lazy, Matt. Gary was expecting something more savoury but declares it “fair and square in the dessert category”, which surprises him more than it should given that it is a dessert.
Harry’s dessert is the last to be tasted, and the balcony screams especially loud for him, because they didn’t really think he’d still be conscious by this stage. His dish is an espresso bavois, so naturally George says “expresso” because what is a Masterchef episode without George making us all seethe with impotent rage? Anyway Harry’s dessert tastes nice if you care.
“How the hell we’re going to split these contestants I don’t know,” says Gary, but he probably does know really. I think he’s being a bit of a fibber.
Judgment time. “We’re all very proud of you,” says Gary, which is pretty arrogant of him. “You would all be worthy finalists,” he adds, but obviously what he means is, “one of you would be a less worthy finalist than would be absolutely ideal”.
Gary goes on for about fifteen hours about how wonderful Matt the Amateur is and how he should be considered a god amongst men and how everyone should kiss him all over. Matt the Amateur bursts into tears and says he could never have dreamed of getting this far in the competition, which makes one wonder why he entered it.
George then talks for an incredibly long time about Elena and Harry and their surprising desserts and worrying dryness but in the end the important thing is that Elena’s tuna was nice and Harry’s kingfish was gross so Elena goes through to the final and Harry has to go home and really I already told you that was going to happen yesterday so this whole episode could’ve been skipped.
Tune in tomorrow when Heston returns to make the finalists bake a sheep spleen into a black forest cake or something.
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