MasterChef Australia – Sun 7:30pm; Mon-Fri 7pm, Ch10
http://www.masterchef.com.au/
Last night on Masterchef, the home cooks continued to be called home cooks even though they haven’t been home for weeks. However, notwithstanding several master classes including one on how to make bread, TK Wade and Lydia all failed to make bread properly and were deemed utter failures by the peers and betters. Tonight, they face their doom, otherwise known as a Peter Gilmore dessert, on MASTERCHEF!

The opening credits deserve some scrutiny, more for what they hide than what they reveal. Alice is portrayed as zany what with the enormous glasses and crazy leaping, though no doubt this is just a mask to hide a severe lack of personality. Deborah licks her fingers suggestively, suggesting that her fingers have something that can only be removed through licking. Kevin looks shocked. Perhaps he saw his elimination coming early.

It’s morning and TK is making tea and eating toast, a toast made from bread which is the thing she couldn’t make the day before. It’s a cruel, objectionable, world. She says she’s scared of not seeing these wonderful people again as she prepares to undergo corrective eye laser surgery. Lydia believes that leaving would be sad, and perhaps a little bit poopy. Beau checks on Wade, or Wadey as he’s taking to calling him in his blokey homoerotic way, who says he’s not ready to go home. Lydia and TK talk on the bed while Lydia clutches a pillow, suggesting that any minute they will strip down to their underwear and fight to the death with bedding. Then they all leave, possibly for the last time, although it’s likely they’ll all get the opportunity to leave things in the future.

They arrive at Masterchef HQ and again, mysteriously, all the other contestants have beaten them there. This is the first pressure test of the series, says Gary, because they produced the least impressive sandwiches the day before. Least impressive is MasterChef code for “get me to a toilet and throw me a bucket because it’s coming out both ends”. George asks Wade what he’s feeling, but Wade just cryptically replies that he has kept his hands to himself and George can’t prove anything.

Who are they up against?. The tension builds, pointlessly because it was revealed as Peter Gilmore last night. Enter the unimposing figure of Peter Gilmore. Round, smiley, slightly Elvis like, if Elvis was a round smiley cook from Sydney. His reflection bounces off the cloche he’s brought out. It’s harder than the snow egg he says, which is quite hard. Lydia hides behind Wade’s eyebrows and for hours she is lost to us. To console themselves, the rest party like it’s 1999. Unfortunately she is found soon after.

Then Gilmore reveals that the dish they have to cook is a chocolate cake, but not any chocolate cake for this one can predict the future. Except it can’t and it’s just a really nice chocolate cake. THAT SHOOTS SPIDERS! No? Ok. Also, it has a hot chocolate ganache, which is, you know, something. The hot ganache is then meticulously poured over the cake and it melts inside. This is what David Copperfield has failed to do all his life: make people slightly interested in what he’s doing.

Gilmore also reveals that you can eat his magic pudding, which is a bridge too far for some as Wade swoons from overwhelming desire. He steadies himself, and all he can say is “Oh geez””. TK’s mouth is confused as Gilmore lays out a geometry problem. Gilmore shows them how it’s done. He assembles the cake. “And this is the magic part” he states, as his hand slowly reaches out. ”First, you pull my finger” says Gilmore with a twinkle in his eye. But no one accepts the challenge.

They have three and a half hours, which is coincidentally how long Wade’s mother was in labour delivering his eyebrows. Wade starts by looking at the recipe, which is a devilishly clever manoeuvre on his part.

Lydia is feeling focussed. Preston asks Wade how his mousse is going, which he refers to the glue for the whole cake. Wade says it’s fine as he puts away the Selleys no more gaps. TK whips up a frothy mousse, while Lydia whips a frothing moose, regretting not applying for MasterZooKeeper instead.

Preston and Gilmore discuss the possible mistakes that can be made in front of Lydia while Lydia follows their instructions to the letter. Wade describes the stage he is up to while his eyebrows perform the Macarena. There’s only three hours to go as TK realises she’s not following the recipe because what the hell does Gilmore know, recipes are for losers. Clearly she’s made some terrible mistake as Gary asks her a question and the fireball obliterates her face.

When we come back, TK is up to layer 6 of a 5 layer dessert. Gilmore is concerned she’s not doing the ganache, but fails to mind his own business. Wade gets lost in the romance of stiff and soft peaks and then pretends to wear the bowl as a hat to bring some much needed comic relief. Meanwhile, Lydia fails to explain properly how her dad having once been a bricklayer gives her an advantage. Upstairs, Beau professes his love for Wade, in traditional blokey style, by threatening to punch him in the plums if he loses.

With 60 minutes left people are still cooking which is incredible. TK is questioned about being a law student, and whether she’s giving up a career as a law student to become an apprentice chef. Lydia wipes her face angrily, as if trying to scrape it off because it’s held her back from her dreams. Then TK curdles and splits her chocolate butter, though she should take that as some sort of warning not to make a thing as dangerous sounding as chocolate butter. TK says she needs to redo the measurements in her head, her head being a standard metric cup. Lydia has also split her cream, but she only notices after Gilmore tells her. Lydia spends about twenty minutes thinking about whether she should make it again in the twenty minutes remaining.

With 10 minutes to go, George says something pre-rehearsed. Mindy says she would be terrified if she was down there right now, as a mischievous Mario spreads a rumour about a tiger on the loose.

Suddenly there’s 30 seconds left and the gallery reminds everyone there’s 30 seconds to go. Then Gary says there are 10 seconds to go and I wonder if the judges have been reminding the contestants how long they have to go in 10 second increments for the whole three and a half hours. Possibly, because they’re like that.

With the time up it’s now down to the traditional tasting. The boys sit at their long table, with Gilmore perched on the end, excluded somewhat from the club, having not suffered through the humiliating ritual of groping a young female contestant. Wade comes in first and affectionately head butts each of the judges and Gilmore. His moose has collapsed, possibly because of the exhausting journey from Anchorage to Sydney. Wade says he’s never been prouder of anything he’s ever put up, except the defence he put up for his assault charge in 2003. The ganache fails to create the necessary collapse, until he adds extra at the suggestion of Gary. George bemoans the lack of stiffness of the mousse, and Gilmore suggests he hasn’t weighed the chocolate properly. Yet they taste, like that’s important. Gilmore thinks some of the layers are missing but likes the taste. George is more impressed, but Preston thinks the mousse is too wet. Gary remains silent, biding his time.

TK is next, but true to form she decides to make up her own directions for getting to the judges table and gets slightly lost. Yet hers looks better than Wade’s as do her eyebrows, and one scoop of ganache is enough to make it sink in the middle. Gilmore thinks the chocolate disk on tip looks a little thick, as well as lacking in basic social skills. The tempering is not good, but the mousse wins plaudits.

Finally it’s Lydia, and she explains how she got three letters from home which reminded her that everyone believed in her. At least that’s what she got from the rushed messages imploring her to “don’t come home”. Her ganche is goopy (as opposed to poopy) and fails to make any impression on the chocolate. Gilmore bangs the plate to help it along, but it’s no good. Except after the break it is, and it falls through the hole. Her chocolate cream is curdled, which affects the texture, but the praline is enjoyed by all, like a well deserved shared joint at the end of a long day of World of Warcraft.

They are asked their thoughts, and a collection of more vacant answers you’d be unlikely to find. The pros and cons of each dish are elaborated on and don’t bear repeating.

TK is safe because she holds the immunity idol. Wait, wrong show and very 2000s. No it’s because she’s a better person than Wade and Lydia. So it’s down to eyebrows and lack thereof, and a fireball takes them both before Amanda Keller meets someone tall.

When we come back, Preston looks at Wade and Lydia, before saying to Lydia “The ability to cook was paramount coming into this competition. And it’s the only thing you lacked” before informing her that it would be best for everyone if she took herself home.

On Wade and TK’s return, there is a huge uproar, while Deb cries tears of something. Julie is sad Lydia is gone, making her president, vice president and secretary of a club of one. Lydia returns to her family in WA who grudgingly accept her back. She hugs or husband or perhaps father, it’s hard to tell, and then says things like “Yeah” while opening a bottle of champagne. YEAH!

The closing credits inform us that Lydia has started work on her first cookbook. She’s workshopping a few titles and the current favourite is “Lydia’s bucket list: 100 recipes I wanted to share with you before I got eliminated”. However, other titles that have proved popular include “Lydia’s bucket list: 100 untraceable poisons I put in my food and feed to my family because I crave attention”, “Lydia’s bucket list: 100 things to do to George, Gary and Matt if you ever get them alone in a room and there are no consequences”, and “Poopy: One woman’s fight to break through the glass ceiling and then climb back down again because she really didn’t want all that responsibility”.