My Kitchen Rules Recap: When Bad Things Happen To Bad People
We return again to Elimination House, the main filming location for The Amityville Horror (1977). Georgie and Alicia will face off against Alex and Emily, in a battle of confidence versus decency for the ages. The promos have promised unprecedented epochal drama at the table, so naturally we are going to be disappointed, but on the upside, this is one of the funniest episodes ever, and can’t help but leave the viewer with a warm feeling inside.
At the beginning, Georgie and Alicia declare that there is no way they are going home. It’s entirely possible that tardy viewers might’ve missed this, however, so they repeat it several dozen times throughout the evening. They also make clear that they can cook better than Alex and Emily, handle pressure better than Alex and Emily, and withstand decades of terrible parenting better than Alex and Emily. Their main negative is that they are making soy milk ice cream for dessert, which is utterly revolting.
Alex and Emily arrive at the house declaring that they have a “game plan”. At no point during this episode will they reveal what this is. It seems to revolve around Emily suffering wild mood swings while Alex tries to cling to hope. Colin visits them in the kitchen to dangle his horrible oily hair in their food and give them some helpful advice on how to not be pathetic failures. Emily reveals their new tactic, learned from their last stint in Elimination House: listening to Colin.
Colin visits Georgie and Alicia, who refuse to engage him in conversation. “I’m gonna get out of your hair,” says Colin, the hurt in his voice palpable. Georgie and Alicia are happy with this, as the presence of a professional chef in their kitchen just lowers the tone.
Meanwhile Emily says that everyone knows Vermouth from James Bond, and the Bond theme plays. It was a weird thing to say, and it was a weird piece of music to play. Emily might be losing it.
The guests arrive. Josh declares it a “clash of the giants”, which is woefully inaccurate. Sonya and Hadil say that Georgie and Alicia are their best friends on the show, the four women having bonded over their shared hatred of everyone else on earth who are just jealous of them.
At the dining table, Stella says she expects good food from both teams. Sonya shoves her oar in to say that Alex and Emily are shit and she hates them. Hadil makes a passionate speech about how Georgie and Alicia are their best friends forever and she hopes Alex and Emily burn in Hell. The other guests find this a bit off-putting, because it is. Hadil says she just wants to make sure everything is fair for her friends, so they’re stating their intention to be completely biased upfront. Jess points out that they sound like they’re not planning to be fair at all. Hadil whines for a bit. Jess tells her to shut up. Hadil tells Jess to not tell her to shut up. Jess gives the strong impression that she will, if the opportunity arises in future, tell Hadil to shut up again.
Meanwhile in the kitchens cooking is happening.
The menus are unveiled and Sonya and Hadil say that Georgie and Alicia’s menu definitely looks much much better than Alex and Emily’s, which might as well be a McDonald’s drive-thru board for all the lack of sophistication it demonstrates, it is fit only to be spat upon. The other guests are less vehement, and Henry actually quite likes the sound of Alex and Emily’s lobster tail entree, which makes Hadil furious. Emma confesses that she only recently learned to eat edamame: in fact after the surgery it took months to be able to eat solids at all.
Cooking continues to happen. Emily is extremely stressed, but Alex remains as laissez faire as the angle of his hat would suggest.
Colin enters Georgie and Alicia’s kitchen to tell them their pork belly looks way undercooked. He asks if they have a plan B. They don’t answer. They don’t evade the question or anything, they just literally don’t respond to him in any way. Even bearing in mind it’s only Colin Fassnidge, they are being VERY rude. This is the kind of treatment you can expect at their family restaurant. Just saying. Eventually Colin leaves, his feelings once more brutally wounded. In his wake he leaves some inconsistently-cooked pork, which is one of the worst kinds of pork there is.
Back in Alex and Emily’s kitchen, Emily is convinced that she cannot serve soggy asparagus, but considering the piles of shit she’s been serving up throughout the series, I’d say soggy asparagus is well within her capabilities.
Time is up for entree, and Emily kisses Alex and accuses him, quite hypocritically, of “seeming stressed”. Georgie and Alicia gaze in wonder at their creation, scarcely able to believe what incomparable geniuses they are.
Entree is served. “Whoa,” Manu says, repeating his famous catchphrase from the hit film “The BBQ”. Alex and Emily have served up a massive chunk of lobster tail, which is all to the good if you like lobster tail, but all to the bad if you are Hadil, who immediately begins examining the underside and pulling horrible faces. Comparing the entrees, Alicia says, “One looks like pub food and one looks like fine dining, so back up and stand in line”, because she is a dickhead.
Josh says the lobster is beautiful. Jess says the lobster is beautiful. Suong says the lobster is beautiful. “Hold on, no!” cries Hadil, shrieking in terror at the idea that someone might like something Georgie and Alicia didn’t make. She says the lobster was underdone and Sonya says the alcohol in the sauce did something weird to her chest. “I’m very worried about Sonya’s chest,” says Jazzey. I quite like Jazzey. Georgie and Alicia’s entree goes down well, but Henry and Jess believe the pork was a little dry, but they say it quietly so Hadil doesn’t strangle them at the table.
Some cooking happens. Alex declares that lamb backstrap with port jus is “me on a plate”, which seems about right — he’s not a very interesting person. They are also serving kale, which is a mistake. Maybe not in terms of the competition, but in terms of life.
In the dining room, Hadil declares that Georgie and Alicia’s main course is “going to be amazing”, because she’s a dickhead. She also says that she expects perfection from Alex and Emily’s lamb, by which she means she wants it to be shit, and will say it’s shit even if it’s not. Because she’s a dickhead.
“Sonya and Hadil, we know you’re good cooks, you don’t have to keep saying it,” says Josh, the voice of reason for once in his life.
For the third or fourth time, Georgie and Alicia discuss how Alex and Emily fall apart under pressure and how easy it will be to win because their opposition are pathetic human puddles. Because Georgie and Alicia are dickheads.
At the table, Jazzey asks Anna what her favourite thing about Tasmania is. Anna answers via a series of complex finger gestures. Jess and Emma try to join in by showing everyone how people in Sydney like to stick their middle fingers up at people. Anna does not quite know what to make of this. Nobody ever does when Jess and Emma try to join in.
In the kitchen, Alex would love his lamb to be medium or medium rare, but he is all too aware that in life we do not always get what we want. He then sprinkles macadamia nuts on the lamb for reasons nobody but he could possibly know. Emily chooses this moment to have a nervous breakdown, hurling kale about willy-nilly and screaming incoherently at Alex. Time is up, and Emily is devastated as all her dreams have been shattered and she never even knew what they were. Alex says it looks fine. Emily secretly reconsiders her life choices.
Main is served, and Sonya and Hadil declare that Alex and Emily’s dish is definitely not fine dining, because they’re dickheads. Sonya says that pouring Georgie and Alicia’s broth on their tuna is “like watching a work of art come to life”, because she is really just the most gigantic dickhead. Suong says that her tuna is a bit too thick. Hadil tells her that actually it’s not, and Suong doesn’t know it because she doesn’t do fine dining. Nic tells Hadil that this is not fine dining. “Yes it is,” says Hadil, because she’s a dickhead.
To the camera later, Hadil slags off Suong for not going fine dining. “She wouldn’t be able to afford it,” Sonya smirks like the obnoxious dickhead she is. “It just shows how inferior their palates are and how superior ours are,” says Hadil, the dickhead.
Everyone likes Alex and Emily’s lamb except for haha guess who. They say it’s “not a Sonya and Hadil dish”, which I guess means it’s a dish with friends. Sonya waxes lyrical on how revolting the jus is, and everyone else looks at each other because they are genuinely over this bullshit by now. Suong allows herself a small laugh, because it’s funny. Sonya and Hadil EXPLODE with indignant fury, demanding that Suong stop laughing at people for expressing their opinions. A reminder: this indignant fury is emanating from people who say things like “She wouldn’t be able to afford it”. Everyone wants Sonya and Hadil to shut their dumb holes, but they refuse to, because how DARE anyone laugh at them, and how DARE anyone say Georgie and Alicia’s tuna isn’t fine dining, and how DARE anyone enjoy Alex and Emily’s lamb, and how DARE anyone be poor?
Back in the kitchen Georgie is explaining how she is making dessert and god it’s dull. Georgie really is more fun when she’s not talking. In the other kitchen, Colin pops in to reassure himself that he really exists and make Alex and Emily feel bad about themselves. Alex and Emily’s marriage is hanging by a thread as they argue bitterly about figs. Alex burns his hand and fumbles the figs and Emily comes very close to stabbing him.
Dessert is served. “I love making dessert and I take so much pride in them,” says Georgie, in the tone of a woman describing her bowel obstruction to a nurse. At the table Sonya and Hadil agree that Georgie and Alicia’s dessert is better, and the rest of the table agrees that Sonya and Hadil are dickheads.
It is time to be judged, in a meaningful way rather than the way we’ve been judging everyone up till now. Georgie and Alicia say that they are confident because their meal was 100% perfect, which is pretty delusional, but also being said in the interview bit filmed after the judging, so…you know.
Pete and Manu liked Alex and Emily’s lobster, but there was too much lobster and not enough sauce. Pete gives a 7 and Manu gives a 9. Trouble in paradise? They also liked the main but wondered why Alex and Emily had suddenly had a seizure and put macadamia nuts on it for no reason. Manu gives a 7 and Pete gives an 8 as they try to make this relationship work again. They believe the dessert was not quite perfect, much like the new comedy smash “The BBQ”. They both give 7s, and all is in harmony once more.
Then it’s revealed that the guest teams gave Alex and Emily a combined score of 86 out of 100, making for a total score of 131, which almost makes Hadil pull out a gun.
Georgie and Alicia are certain that they can beat that score, according to what they say to the camera after they know whether they beat that score or not. Manu and Pete thought their entree was great, but Manu’s pork wasn’t quite melt in the mouth, but geez lighten up Manu, stop taking everything so seriously. Pete thought that their main was “a fun way” to eat tuna, which is a weird thing to say. Manu thought the tuna got lost, which illustrates rule one of serving tuna: make the tuna easy to find. For dessert, the judges criticise the iciness of the ice cream, and Hadil is absolutely losing her shit. She has the face of a woman who has just been told her house is going to be bulldozed to make way for a new Sizzler.
And then the bombshell…the other guests gave Georgie and Alicia only 61 out of 100 — possibly because they didn’t like the food that much, but possibly also because all they heard throughout their meal was Sonya and Hadil telling them how perfect everything Georgie and Alicia did was and how disgusting everything Alex and Emily did was and how only Sonya and Hadil actually understood food anyway. After all that it’s not surprising that the guests thought fuck this, let’s boot them.
The total for Georgie and Alicia is 108. The sisters take the news of their dismal failure with stoic equanimity. In stark contrast to Sonya and Hadil, who STORM out of the room to the bangs and clangs of overturned dinnerware, raw fury written on their faces. The sense of betrayal they feel, that everything in the world has not been arranged to their specifications, is obvious, and it is really, REALLY funny. I mean it would’ve been funny just to see Georgie and Alicia get bounced, but seeing Sonya and Hadil react like this, as if their children had been rejected by an enrolment officer? Comedy GOLD.
Tune in tomorrow, when Sonya and Hadil are fucking dickheads again.
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