MasterChef recap: Ding, ding, (cry)ing! This three-round elimination is a heartbreaking clash of titans

This is Kitchen Thunderdome. Six cooks enter. A cook leaves. Then the other five cooks leave, as they obviously don’t live in the kitchen. Also, whoever leaves is the loser, which is different from normal Thunderdome. It really is a pretty inappropriate metaphor. In any event…

The six cooks who failed miserably last week come to try to avoid elimination. The challenge takes place over three rounds, so we’ll be here forever.

Round 1: Contestants must choose one of three ingredients: either chicken, snapper (the chicken of the sea), or pumpkin (the snapper from the Halloween Exhibit). They have 30 minutes to cook something with this ingredient. In round two, they have 45 minutes to cook something using only what’s left of their ingredient. In round three, they have 60 minutes to cook something, again, using only leftovers from the first two rounds. It’s a challenge born out of sheer sadism and fierce producer hatred for competitors.

The first round begins. Sarah picks up the snapper and takes a great left turn while cooking Indian style. The last time she was eliminated in ninth place, she’s desperate to get through this one, so she can be eliminated in ninth place again and prove just how consistent she can be.

Meanwhile, Keyma goes all-in: cooking all the fish in the first round and at worst, making a dish based on the snapper’s personality in the second round.

It seems like a day of experimentation; just as Sarah pushes herself to try new things by cooking an Indian dish, Aldo steps out of his comfort zone by cooking Italian. He explains to the judges that he is going to wrap a small piece of fish in paper and cook it. They ask him why. He doesn’t know: he just feels it’s something a man has to do at some point in his life.

The pressure is there. “I’m so happy to be on the gantry today,” says Billie, while stubbornly refusing to provide a working definition of ‘gantry’. As she thanks her lucky stars, Montana explains to Jock and Andy that she whips up a chicken curry in half an hour, in her continuing quest to prove she’s the best at making bad decisions.

Time is almost out and Montana has made the bold decision not to serve raw chicken to the judges, while Aldo refuses to take his fish out of the paper because the paper is where the nutrients are.

Time is running out and the tasting is under way. Aldo’s fish is overcooked, Keyma’s fish is good, Montana’s chicken sucks, Alvin’s chicken is mediocre, Tommy’s fish is great, and Sarah’s fish is good. It’s Keyma and Sarah who are safe in the second round, which means Tommy made a big fuss for nothing.

Round two begins, with an ominous close-up of a row of milk bottles for reasons unknown. Tommy begins to work on his inner anger by mutilating his fish’s head.

Aldo, realizing that becoming Italian in the first round won’t pay him anything, decides to go in a drastically different direction by cooking a dish from a slightly different part of Italy. He remembers having made the same dish during his first visit to Chef, when it backfired and resulted in a lengthy prison sentence.

Montana baffles watchers on the balcony by stripping the skin off his chicken and turning it into a crude mask. She explains to Andy that she is making dessert with chicken, which makes Andy laugh like a man who looked into the mouth of madness.

Speaking of lunatics, Tommy pretends to work like one, even though in reality a lot of lunatics are unemployed. He states that he has no time for anything other than cooking, which seems like a reasonable strategy. Jock and Andy visit her but quickly get bored and leave.

Instead, they go to Alvin to find out if he’s hammering hot pepper. It does not hammer the pepper. They urge him: is he SURE he’s not pounding hot pepper? “I won’t pound the chilli!” Alvin asserts passionately, but you can see the lie in his eyes: he’s definitely hammering hot pepper in secret.

Tasting time. Aldo’s fish is fantastic, Alvin’s chicken is excellent, Montana’s dessert is utterly disconcerting, and Tommy’s broth is full of scales. In the end, Aldo is safe because he cooked a good dish and Montana is safe because there is some kind of clause in her contract that says she can only be eliminated by a decision of the High Court.

So it’s Alvin versus Tommy for elimination. A real clash of the titans. Which will win: wacky glasses or childish enthusiasm?

Alvin immediately pulls out the heavy artillery: his famous “Drunken chicken”, a very special dish made by soaking a chicken in alcohol and then encouraging it to fight.

Tommy cooks up a dish inspired by his Vietnamese heritage, which you’d think he’d run out of by now, but no.

Alvin is nervous because he hasn’t done drunken chicken since season two, and he’s completely forgotten how. Tommy is nervous because he likes Alvin and regrets having to crush him like a bug.

The judges meet to discuss the importance of extending the length of an episode. Jock is excited that Alvin’s Drunken Chicken is “2.0”, apparently believing it means something, despite all the available evidence.

Alvin tells the judges that it’s hard to face Tommy. They ask why. “Because it’s a weapon,” Alvin said. “You too,” say the judges. All ignore the fact that Tommy and Alvin are in this position due to their inability to cook well enough.

Tommy explains how he feels a sense of belonging because of Chef, which gave him the opportunity to explore his passion for food. It will be extremely poignant if he gets knocked out, which of course is why they had it said.

Meanwhile, Alvin is in a state of great anxiety: he’s just not sure if his chicken is drunk enough. He’s afraid of “erasing the drunken chicken legacy”, suggesting that maybe this whole drunken chicken thing has gotten a bit out of hand.

Time is up. The music has become very sad. There is a strong feeling that a beloved pet is about to be put down. It’s all the more tragic because of all those people on the balcony that we all really want to go home. You know who I’m talking about. Yeah. Their.

Tommy and Alvin kiss. “I love you, but I have to kill you”, they whisper in their ears. The judges also hug them and reassure them that even though they take great pleasure in destroying their lives, they feel guilty about it.

Tommy serves first. His dish is something I don’t know how to spell, but it has fish and green bits and a small jug of brown liquid. The fish is well cooked, the brown liquid is nice, but the rice cakes aren’t quite right. Who cares because they’re just rice cakes, right? Bad! Jock and Andy are weirdos who care about rice cakes.

Alvin serves his chicken drunk. “It’s kind of like listening to your favorite song, for the second time, except it’s the cover version,” Jock says, and he’s right, except obviously if a song is your favorite song, you would have listened to it more than once already. Also, Jock has never eaten this dish before, so he hasn’t even “listened to his favorite song” once. Also, the dish was cooked by the same person who cooked it the first time, so it’s not a cover. Also, food is not songs. But other than that: of course, Jock, perfect.

The judges eat the chicken drunk. “It was spectacular,” says Jock. “It’s beyond drunken chicken,” he adds, even though he’s never eaten drunken chicken before and therefore can’t know. He then goes on to chat a bit more about the “cover versions” and Dolly Parton, and claims that this might be the best dish Alvin has ever made: something else he has absolutely no ability to judge. precisely. But look, the thing is, Alvin’s dish is great and Tommy’s coming home.

Here we stop for a quick reminder that Montana made a dessert with chicken skin.

It’s sad to see Tommy going home. But that’s life in Chef: mean, brutal and short.

Tune in tomorrow, when everyone is still crying and really can’t do anything.