Masterchef Recap: The Devil Went Down to Brighton
Heston Week continues its long slow spiral into Hell. Today the amateurs are making ice cream, which in one sense is a relief, because it means nobody is allowed to make a parfait.
But obviously Heston isn’t about to let anyone make proper ice cream, because Heston’s goal in life is to ruin every kind of food for everyone. So yes, everyone has to make savoury ice cream. SAVOURY. ICE CREAM. This should not be a thing, and it probably wouldn’t be if it weren’t for this creepy little mole person.
The amateurs will be serving their ice creams from the bathing boxes on Brighton Beach, and why not? Don’t answer that, we’ll be here all day.
Elise reveals her darkest secret: she doesn’t want to be eliminated. It’s a side of Elise we’ve never seen before.
After Matt tells the amateurs about the savoury ice cream challenge, and the amateurs take a moment to go through the grieving process, Heston warns them against confusing people’s brains, which is pretty rich coming from him. He wants savoury ice cream that triggers nostalgia, which should be easy enough, as everyone remembers a time in their childhood when they learned that the world was a cruel and savage place.
Brett and Chloe are putting beetroot in ice cream, because beetroot is basically the theme ingredient for this entire nightmarish season. I’d say this is a terrible idea, but it’s a bit unfair to say that tonight, because Heston has set a task that makes non-terrible ideas impossible. For example, Harry and Matt the Amateur are making ice cream with prawns, and another ice cream with Vegemite. There is literally nothing happening in this episode that isn’t nauseating.
What’s really disturbing is how happy everyone looks about the revolting garbage they’re making. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome: Heston Blumenthal’s entire career is based on convincing people to fall in love with their torturer.
George and Heston go over to the green team to tell Chloe and Brett that goat’s cheese won’t work in ice cream, as if it even matters. It’s too fatty, it’ll make the ice cream grainy, who CARES — they’re making savoury ice cream, you might as well commit to this offence against humanity. Putin goat’s cheese. Put in an actual goat. What does it matter? Nothing triggers absolute nihilism like the sight of adult humans making savoury ice cream.
You think things can’t get worse at this stage, but then George calls Heston “H” — or rather, “haitch” — and one is gripped by a powerful urge to burn the world down. George, Heston is never going to be your friend. Crawl out of his underpants.
Theresa’s waffles aren’t working because she hasn’t put enough sugar in. According to Heston, anyway: but then he seems intent on playing mind games with all these poor bastards. “Make it savoury! Now put in more sugar! Don’t use goat’s cheese! Make me think of my childhood! Everyone stand on their heads! Dress up as Lucille Ball! Slaughter your firstborn!” Makes me sick.
Chloe is feeling under the pump, but then she always feels under the pump. She has a permanent expression of frantic stress on her face, like she spends her life three paces too far away from a toilet. She’s worried that her ice cream needs more carrots. Brett suggests using soda water. Words no longer mean anything. The universe is crumbling into insensibility before our eyes. There might be too much ginger, too.
More than halfway through the cook, Elena and Theresa are pressed for time — Theresa is still making her waffle cones and hasn’t made her mustard ice cream, which sounds like sound strategy to me, but she seems bothered. She decides to make an eggless ice cream, which helps her in some way that I don’t understand and don’t want to.
Mimi pops up to explain the terms of the challenge again for those who came in late, and then goes away again. Someone makes a pun about whisks. Heston tells Elise to be careful in a distinctly threatening tone. Elise’s cucumber ice blocks are too sweet, so she adds vinegar. God, it is widely agreed, is dead.
Harry decides to do something interesting, which is so like him. He then decides to make round cones, so I guess he abandoned that “something interesting” plan pretty quickly.
Brett’s concerned that Chloe hasn’t added enough goat’s cheese. Shudder. Chloe does what he says, but she seems to have forgotten that Brett is the guy who is always trying to sabotage everyone else. In fact we might find out this season of Masterchef was actually a season of The Mole all along.
Mimi pops up again in another attempt to develop a personality, but it doesn’t take. Her teammate Elise, meanwhile, is putting prosciutto into the freezer, in a symbolic gesture to illustrate that nothing makes sense anymore.
It’s time for Theresa to get her eggless ice cream out of the churner. “It looks like beautiful ice cream!” she yelps, as what appears to be aged corduroy sputters out of the machine.
Meanwhile Chloe and Brett are busily getting their delicious pink Play-Doh out of the churner. It is gritty, because it’s got too much goat’s cheese in it, because Brett told Chloe to put more goat’s cheese in it, because Brett cannot experience pleasure without witnessing the pain of others.
I just noticed that the building they’re all making ice cream in has a sign on the front that says “First Aid Centre”, which seems apt.
“This prawn cocktail ice cream is an insane idea,” admits Matt the Amateur, but they go ahead and make it anyway, because they waved goodbye to sanity back in Nigella Week.
The hordes descend on Brighton Beach, desperate for some savoury ice cream to make their stomachs try to escape from their bodies. The atmosphere has become frantic. Heston is yelling puns as if he’s auditioning to be on the show permanently. Elise claims she’s doing ten things at once, but that seems to be overestimating the number of things by at least nine.
Service has started, and hundreds of people are lining up for a truly disgusting experience. “It’s an incredible sight,” says Elena, and this is true considering how many nearby shops sell real ice creams.
These people must have been paid handsomely to pretend to want these ice creams. I’m assuming free dinners at the Hellenic Club for a year, at a bare minimum.
The judges taste. First, Harry and Matt the Amateur’s vegemite ice cream. Heston likes it but thinks it has too much vegemite in it, which it does, inasmuch as it has some vegemite in it. They enjoy the awful gazpacho ice block too, and they absolutely love the prawn cocktail ice cream, because it tastes like a prawn cocktail and they are too detached from reality to understand how awful that is.
“I’m just pumping out all this ice cream: it’s insane,” says Elise, who was apparently caught completely unawares by the fact an ice cream challenge would involve serving ice cream. Meanwhile the judges are tasting Mimi’s and her pea and ham ice cream and rather hypocritically objecting to its flavour. Imagine eating an ice cream clearly labelled “pea and ham” and then pretending to be surprised that it tastes bad. “I’m just searching for pea,” says Gary, summing up his whole life quite poignantly.
And on and on it goes. Ginger, cucumber and mint ice blocks: too sweet — what a hideous way to behave. Sour cream and chives ice cream: “delicious”. Mustard and chips: “delicious”. Lemon, pine nuts and rosemary (SWEET JESUS): “something’s not right,” says Heston. “It doesn’t taste very good,” says Matt, amazing those of us who’d assumed taste had ceased to play any part in this show. Chilli, lime and coriander: excellent, apparently — what a grotesque farce this has become.
Chloe’s beetroot and goat’s cheese garbage: as disgusting as everyone said it would be. Or in other words, as disgusting as the entire premise of the episode. Chloe and Brett’s mascarpone and rosemary and bacon ice cream: apparently edible. Carrot and ginger icy poles: oh god why won’t this end.
Time to decide who has created the most appealing abominations. Theresa’s mustard crap is dish of the day. The blue team is highly commended, causing Harry and Matt the Amateur to break into hysterical laughter, having been driven far beyond the brink of madness by Heston Week and their over-indulgence in nitrous oxide cylinders.
The losers on the day are Brett and Chloe, bringing Brett’s plan to fruition. Chloe looks devastated: Brett looks extremely satisfied with how his sabotage has succeeded. Into elimination they go, but like Heather and Trent last night, they have the consolation of not having to make any more stupid Heston rubbish.
Tune in tomorrow night, when Heston imprisons the amateurs in a subterranean dungeon and hunts them for sport.
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