MasterChef recap: Tonight, is the night, when four become three
The competition is getting towards the serious end: the time when just the slightest error in timing or temperature, the merest caper out of place, can mean the difference between being a well-adjusted, valued member of society, and being a snivelling wretch feeding on rats in a sewer the rest of your life. Tonight we discover who will be the final three, and who will come fourth – the position some consider the most shameful finish of all.
The three cooks today – Daniel, Sarah and Keyma – are so stressed out they are moving in slow motion. From above, Billie watches, appropriately given she is a higher form of life. Today the cooks face a pressure test. But not just any pressure test: today's will be set by Peter Gilmore, a chef so intimidating it takes three quarters of an hour for Melissa to introduce him.
Gilmore enters, causing a certain amount of gusset-moistening amongst the assembled cooks: particularly Keyma, who reacts in such a way that her husband must feel terribly insecure. The chef presents the two dishes the cooks must cook today: first, raw Abrolhos island scallop, katsuobushi cream and sea cucumber crackling – the challenge being for the cooks to determine which elements are real and which ones he just made up – and secondly dessert, which he calls "moo" because it looks like a piece of a cow but is actually ice cream and jam and things like that.
"One savoury and one sweet, that is so insane!" squeals Sarah, who insists that customers at her restaurants choose one or the other. The contestants taste the dishes and say whatever they can think of to disguise the fact they're actually kind of gross.
They have two and a half hours to make both dishes, because the producers are sick of people making good food and want to see some good old-fashioned failure. The first thing they must do is soak a sheet of black paper in olive oil. This teaches them discipline. Once they have rid themselves of ego, they can continue.
Keyma is extremely nervous, because it's her pressure test and she knows if she makes a mistake it could mean she'll never get to date Peter Gilmore. "I'm not thinking about getting eliminated, I'm not thinking about tomorrow," she says – all she is thinking about is kissing Peter's beautiful face.
Meanwhile Sarah is reflecting on her image. "I think from the outside, a lot of people see me and think things have been easy," she says, and she's right. They do. She says some more stuff after that but no idea what it was. Probably something about how rich she is.
"I'm not the best multi-tasker," admits Dan, by way of explanation of why he is incapable of both dressing himself and brushing his hair before a day's shooting. Andy and Peter visit Dan to let him know that he is extremely slow and should be ashamed of himself. "You gotta pick up the pace," says Andy, in the tone of a man who really wants to throw a punch.
Dan thanks them for their help: he never would've thought of going faster before they suggested it. To help him speed up, Dan has a flashback to the time he put a hat on and walked on the beach. "If you ever feel like a square peg in a round hole, there is a square hole out there for you," he says, exacerbating fears for his sanity.
Meanwhile Sarah is shaving her katsuobushi cream, the hairiest of the creams. Jock and Peter visit her to advise that she needs to go faster to avoid being a total Dan. Sarah moves on to her prunes, which might be a euphemism. "Nice work Sarah," says Billie, probably sarcastically.
There follows a lot of cooking stuff. Always the worst part of the show, when they go around cooking things.
The katusuobushi cream needs to be in the freezer for an hour and a half, but Dan gets his in with eighty minutes remaining. This will definitely either destroy Dan's chances, or prove that the recipe is a dirty lie. What's worse is that the cooks still have to peel their walnuts, a painful and time-consuming process that has ruined many a life before.
Dan muses on his beautiful memories of Peter's prune jam. As he recalls, it was jammy. He decides that he would like to make prune jam that is similar to Peter's prune jam. As part of a challenge which requires him to recreate precisely the dishes put in front of him, this seems like it might be reasonably wise of him.
Meanwhile Sarah is working on her biscuits for her moo, which is just a ridiculous sentence to have to write. She looks at her biscuits and thinks they look strange, but having followed the recipe she shrugs and takes her biscuits to the fridge. Returning from the fridge, she notices that she forgot to put the flour in the biscuits. Like the gods of old, she has been brought low by hubris. She must humble herself, with a tribute to the flour spirits, to regain her standing. Stressed and frantic, she must now work at a terrific speed, so it's lucky that Melissa comes around at that particular moment to waste her time with inane questions.
Dan is working on his biscuits. They reminded him of biscuits from his childhood, so he opens a packet of iced vo-vos and arranges them meticulously. Iced vo-vos don't look exactly like cow's hide, but you can't deny they're tasty.
And now the moment everyone has been waiting for: the nut-peeling. Keyma finds peeling nuts both difficult and pointless, because it is. Peter pops over to tell her that she only has to peel two nuts, while at Quay they peel 200 every day, so how about she quits her damn whining?
As the nut struggles continue, Sarah removes her biscuits from the oven and finds that they are burnt. Upon rereading the recipe, she discovers that they're not supposed to be burnt, and starts to wonder if she might have a problem. She makes another batch of biscuits, even though history seems to indicate that making biscuits is just not her thing and she maybe should stop it.
Keyma has only peeled one walnut, but as she's moving at a pace of approximately one walnut per week, she really does not have time to peel another. She moves on to her next step: dipping something gross into some kind of liquid. With fifteen minutes to go, the soundtrack has somehow found an ominous choir to freak everyone out with. Dan is arranging flowers, his mind finally broken.
Sarah has finally got a batch of biscuits she's not completely ashamed of, and moves on to the next step of the recipe. It calls for whipping the cream by hand, so she does it with her stand-mixer, because who the hell is this "Recipe" to tell her what to do?
Keyma is being more obedient and whipping by hand. The cream splits. She doesn't know why. Keyma has very little cream left and even less sanity. She rereads the recipe and realises she got her measurements wrong. She explodes with anger at herself while Andy wanders over to offer no assistance of any kind. Regaining her composure, Keyma does not hit Andy with a frypan, instead whipping her cream all over again.
Time being nearly up, it is time for the cooks to put various things on various plates in a variety of ways. Is there anything more gripping in TV than closeups of people placing tiny pieces of food onto plates? Surely not. "It's all fiddly," says Dan, and he means it. His leg has started shaking. His hair is more vertical than ever. Meanwhile Keyma left her mould in hot water too long which means her katsuobushi cream is too soft and too small, which seems unfair given that three hours ago she didn't even know that katsuobushi cream existed.
Time is finally up, and the relentless hell of the cook is replaced by the relentless hell of wondering how badly you screwed the cook up. Keyma is in tears, thinking that her mistakes might prevent her ever knowing the feel of Peter Gilmore's soft lips. Dan is even more worried, knowing that he's the only one who's had a flashback this episode and therefore must be in massive trouble.
Dan serves his dishes first. The judges ask him if he'd like to win. Dan says yes he would actually. The judges say that wanting to win MasterChef is what MasterChef is all about. Dan agrees, and plates up. "100 per cent for effort," says Peter with vicious condescension. The judges taste. Dan's dishes taste great.
Sarah serves next. The judges ask her if she'd like to win. She says that if she won it would be insane. Nobody argues with her. Sarah's whipped cream is loose, which is a common problem among women her age. She plates up, but runs out of time and doesn't get all her biscuits on. The judges taste. Her savoury dish tastes great. Her sweet dish is kind of rubbish.
And now, Keyma. She tells the judges that she is broken, and everyone has a good laugh. Jock asks her if she's got what it takes to win. Keyma tells him she has a candle in her heart. Jock is angry as that's not what he asked her. Keyma plates up. Peter thinks it's messy, but he's one to talk. They taste. She doesn't have enough katsuobushi cream in her savoury dish and her ice-cream is icy. Basically, she's screwed.
When it comes time for judging, our worst fears are realised. Although not as realised as Keyma's worst fears are. Poor Keyma must go. She will be missed almost as much as the others still being there will be resented.
Tune in tomorrow, when hopefully some light will finally shine on dark places.
