My Kitchen Rules Recap: Stop, Collaborate and Listen
After the shocking events of last night, when Alex and Emily’s instant restaurant aroused mild emotions in several people, it is now time for the shocking events of tonight, when Roula and Rachel will continue their Quixotic quest to be black people.
We begin with Roula revealing that hip-hop channels her “inner gangsta” and that their food is “the bomb” and that everyone they meet “hates” them. The friends drive to the shops wearing hairstyles that they describe as “braids”, but which seem to the naked eye to be more some sort of failed crossbreeding experiment between cornrows and molluscs. One might call it cultural appropriation, but “ugly” is not a culture.
Anyway, on we go. For entree the girls are serving prawns, close relatives of their hairdos. Pete is already disgusted. For main they’re serving salmon. “Our main might sound simple,” says Roula, confusing her main with herself. She claims to be able to cook salmon with her eyes closed, and probably will.
Roula calls Rachel the “dessert queen”, which I think is the first mention of dessert queenhood this year. This obviously means that she will turn out to be less skilled at making desserts than the average duck egg.
The friends now drive home, singing along to DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s “Boom Shake The Room”, just to demonstrate that their ghetto credentials are absolutely genuine.
At home they set up their instant restaurant, which is hip-hop themed. They illustrate their theme with such well-known gangsta symbols as gold things and a pushbike. It looks just like Ice Cube’s house! Or, as Roula and Rachel would say, “Crib”. The two women then fight angrily with each other over whether Rachel is too stressed out or Roula is not stressed out enough.
Guests have not arrived but Rachel has already cast her dessert queen credentials into question, by making what is apparently supposed to be brownies but which actually appears to be hyena diarrhoea.
At some point Rachel says that everything needs to be “immaculum”. Just…just saying.
The girls are excited to see what the guests think of their hair. “They’re going to think we’re rock stars,” they enthuse, in the belief that the defining characteristic of a rock star is the ability to forget to change your hair back after your trip to Bali.
Here come the guests. Before ringing the doorbell, Jazzey makes a joke so awful that it would not be legal to repeat it here. She should be cut some slack, as she’s been asleep for the entire competition so far and shows no sign of waking.
The guests enter. “I dunno how they found time to do their hair,” says Josh, who is new to the concept of time. Kim says they look like “hip-hop people”, because she has never seen a hip-hop person. She then says the words “hip” and “hop” a few dozen times to convey to us exactly what she means by “hip-hop”. “Like in the Nineties, you know?” she helpfully adds.
Steve says “flavour” many times but it doesn’t make him any more interesting. Jazzey can smell brownies, which excites her because it’s the only smell she is capable of detecting.
In the kitchen, Roula criticises Rachel for stopping to think for ten minutes every time there’s a problem. Rachel criticises Roula for never having stopped to think about anything in her entire life. Rachel needs Roula to be on her side in the kitchen. Roula agrees. They awkwardly bang their elbows together because they saw Vanilla Ice do that once. And then it’s back to the onions.
As they continue to prepare dinner, it becomes increasingly difficult to see how any normal human being can last through this episode. They can’t do anything without ineptly singing an old rap hit. For people who claim to be passionate about hip-hop, their knowledge of post-1992 music seems pretty threadbare.
The worst is yet to come, however. Manu and Pete show up, and Roula and Rachel excitedly squeal that the judges are looking “gangsta”. “They could be in a rap video!” they gush, apparently having gotten the concept of “rap video” confused with “televised Senate estimates committee session”.
But then something happens that might be the worst thing ever to happen on MKR. It might be the worst thing that has ever happened on television. Or off television. Roula and Rachel address the judges and guests around the table…
IN THE FORM OF RAP.
They rap their introduction. They actually do. They bounce up and down and point their arms at awkward angles and they actually, shamelessly RAP ABOUT THEIR INSTANT RESTAURANT.
They really do that. And they don’t even look sorry afterward. It’s the kind of thing that would spark millions of complaint calls to the Channel Seven switchboard, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone is too busy calling The Hague. It has to violate some kind of indecency law. Where’s Kerry Packer when you need him?
The girls serve their entree and suddenly Roula realises they’ve made a terrible mistake and — but seriously, they fucking RAPPED. What kind of monster do you have to be? This is the behaviour of violent sociopaths. Only people who have dedicated their lives to causing pain and trauma to others could do this. I just…so many people need to lose their jobs over the fact this actually went to air.
Anyway, yeah, they’ve made a mistake apparently. Which is…oh, an ad break, good.
Oh, the mistake is they didn’t make enough entrees. Steve and Stuss have not gotten a dish. But then, Steve and Stuss don’t deserve a dish, so it’s OK. Eventually they pull two more plates of prawns out of the same orifice their haircuts came from, and everything is fine. Except for the fact the food tastes like shit.
The prawns are overcooked, and lack flavour, so they’re in keeping with the theme of the night. Pete hates it: “it isn’t enjoyable to eat for my palate”. But then who knows what that means, because his palate is deformed and encrusted with bone shards and almond sprouts. But Manu hates it too, and he’s sort of a normal person almost.
There is a dull discussion about Emma’s breath or something, I don’t know. The real action is in the kitchen, where Roula and Rachel are dancing, and singing “Boom Shake the Room” as a way of inspiring themselves to bounce back from the disappointing entree and show themselves as the sassy, spicy, half-witted dickjalopies they truly are.
But anyway back in the dining room everyone’s still talking about breath. Oh it’s because there was too much onion in the entree. Everyone agrees that Roula would’ve bitched about it if she were served anything that oniony. Basically, everyone agrees that Roula is full of shit and they all walk out in solidarity.
Not really, but wouldn’t that be great?
In the kitchen there is disagreement over whether to put the salmon in a pan, or put the salmon in the oven, or choreograph a routine to “Missed The Bus” by Kriss Kross.
Rachel wants Roula to trust her. Roula says she’s cooked salmon way more than Rachel. Rachel makes a snide remark about how Roula overcooked the prawns. Roula has no answer to that because she knows she sucks. The atmosphere in the kitchen is so tense they can’t even summon the energy for a chorus of “Wham Rap”.
Matty says he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, because he’s never eaten salmon. Remember Matty? He’s still around. Everyone laughs at him because he’s never eaten salmon and they all eat salmon constantly. They throw rotten fruit at him and glue a dunce’s hat to his head.
Roula and Rachel’s test piece of salmon is raw. The quest to figure out how to cook salmon has hit a snag. Roula suggests a way to cook it, and Rachel has to acquiesce because she is out of ideas.
Meanwhile in the dining room everyone is dancing like the scum that they are. The only thing worse than the dancing is the way Steve uses the phrase “busting their moves”. And the only thing worse than that is Stuss having some kind of seizure with a horrifying psychotic grin fixed to his face. Everyone’s families are disowning them tonight.
Back in the kitchen, Rachel tells Roula she’s on her side. Don’t know if that’s an affirmation or a threat. “We need to show these people that we know how to cook,” says Roula, her grasp exceeding her reach once again.
I just realised that Roula and Rachel’s designation — the phrase that appears under their names on the screen — is “Friends with attitude”. I mean you have to hate them on principle don’t you?
Main is served. “It’s a hundred times better than the entree,” says Manu, although a hundred times zero is still zero. The judges apparently like the salmon, because it is simple yet beautifully executed. Much like the girls themselves apart from the execution.
Steve likes the salmon too, because it is flaky, like him. “They cooked salmon pretty good,” says Alex, his emotions gushing uncontrollably.
However, Jess and Emma did not like it, which is not in any way because they already hated Roula and Rachel’s guts. Emma says if she were served a boot she would’ve enjoyed it more. But we do have to take into account the possibility that a surgeon has removed Emma’s tastebuds.
In the kitchen Roula and Rachel cut their brownies, while the soundtrack plays Eminem’s “My Name Is”, a song far too recent for Roula and Rachel to have heard of it.
“As Roula would say, I’m a dessert queen,” Rachel chirrups. But as Roula would also say, “wiggedy wiggedy wassup homies?”
In the dining room, Matty makes a joke about the word “brownie”, and everyone laughs at his funny little ways.
In the kitchen, some of the brownies are raw. This is a problem…or is it? Roula and Rachel have the perfect solution: just give the raw brownies to Jess and Emma! It’s a really nasty thing to do, but to be fair to Roula and Rachel, they are really nasty people. And Jess and Emma would probably do the same to them. Or if they didn’t, they’d at least put some broken glass in their dessert or something. Hopefully.
Anyway, dessert is served, and Jess and Emma realise they’ve been served the shit brownies. And everyone else realises Jess and Emma have been served the shit brownies.
The judges taste their brownies, and Manu points out that their portions are large enough that they could’ve cut the brownies in half and there would’ve been enough for everyone. Pete points out that pretty much everything in the dish is crap. Which in the world of brownies is often seen as a negative.
Roula and Rachel retire to the kitchen to reflect on their inability to come up with a wacky left-field idea like “cut the brownies in half to make more”. Meanwhile in the dining room Jess and Emma are disgusted by their gross brownies, but Matty loves his brownie, as well as his teddy and his blanket. Josh didn’t enjoy it, and looks like he’s about to cry. Emily hasn’t been wowed by the menu, and she’s pretty easy to wow: just look at Alex’s hat.
Time for scores, and time for the voiceover guy to rouse himself from his deathly slumber to grit his teeth and talk through the agony of his massive abdominal ruptures.
“It was a great night,” lie Jazzey and Stella. “Hip-hop,” repeats Kim. “It was a bit below average,” says Emily, who knows whereof she speaks. “It was a fun night,” says Josh, inexplicably. “I mean it was nice but they kind of…” says Matty, trailing off and wandering into the street. “I had a good time,” says Steve, drunk as hell. He’s happy with a seven, because god knows what’s going on in his head. Jess and Emma are happy with a three, which is generous all things considered.
Roula and Rachel’s total score is 62, which means they’re at the bottom of the leaderboard, but only three teams are on the leaderboard, so I’m sure someone else will find a way to be even worse than these cretins. “This is a chance for us to now start playing the game,” vows Roula, to whom it did not occur to play the game when they were cooking their horrible food.
Tune in Sunday, when Roula and Rachel fight with Jess and Emma and it’s pretty funny because they’re all idiots.
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