MasterChef Recap: Gordon Ramsay and the Mystery of the Stolen Dessert

It's been a bleak week in the world of MasterChef, and I'm not even talking about how I missed blogging while on vacation. Chicago Magazine released an in-depth and heartwrenching piece on the mental health struggles and eventual suicide of Josh Marks, the lovable runner-up from Season Two, a few days ago. (I'd link to it here but every time I try to open it, it crashes my laptop. So here's an analysis of the piece by Color Lines. They include a link to the original story, and if you have a computer that's more trustworthy than mine - and I know you do - click away.)

Monday's episode of MasterChef was not nearly as serious as the new revelations about Marks, but as far as reality cooking shows hosted by Gordon Ramsay, it was a kind of depressing one, thanks to the immediate elimination of someone for making a stupid mistake. Did Tyler knowingly take one of Jaimee's panna cottas out of the freezer? It does seem strange that he put four of his own on the bottom shelf and only took one off the top shelf later, but who knows what people are thinking when they're under stress? Were the judges right in eliminating him without further notice? I see where they're coming from - they certainly can't taste a dish that wasn't cooked by him, which therefore means he didn't complete the challenge. Still, my heart went to him.

But here I am getting too ahead of myself and all weepy on a Monday night. The remaining 16 contestants arrived for the Mystery Box Challenge filled with hopes and dreams. Tyler the country boy would be happy if the box revealed some form of roadkill; Christine was itching to work with some bone marrow because that's not random at all. Nobody yearned for SPAM, and yet that's what they got, in the form of 52 unlabeled aluminum cans of food. It's like getting a Christmas stocking full of individually wrapped gifts, except each gift is heavily processed and has been sitting in its own juices for 5 years.

And it really is like Christmas for the contestants who grew up on canned food, like Big Willie and Elizabeth. Ahran, in typical Ahran fashion, scoffs at the cans. "We only use fresh ingredients at home," the Regina George wannabe sneers. Jaimee doesn't turn away from the cans, but she does waste 20 minutes opening each of them and then staring at them until the SPAM starts to saute itself.

The top three wind up filling out a Papa Bear, Baby Bear and Goldilocks of ingredient usage. On one end of the spectrum is Victoria, a so-far-unseen entity who favors denim shirts buttoned right up to the top. Victoria uses a whopping eight cans of food to create a potted meat fritter with an artichoke and beet salad.

Conversely, Ahran opened one can of fruit cocktail and quit, using the contents as filler in a rolled sponge cake made with stock ingredients. Joe gushed about Ahran's strategy of thinking outside the box and taking full advantage of the stock ingredients; he just couldn't stop talking about how smart she was. I, however, am going to call shenanigans on that. I don't know if Joe took Ahran in the judges' pool at the start of the season, but I think her dish lacked any creativity whatsoever. She found one thing that didn't scare her and then used bland, boring, safe ingredients to go around it. Mixing five different types of processed meat together and deep frying it to make a fritter and murder all of us by heart disease like Victoria takes talent and a strategy; making a sponge cake and shoving one thing in the middle of it takes the ability to make a sponge cake.

All of this is moot since Goldilocks came in the form of Elizabeth and her pretty pink borscht. Food quality aside, Elizabeth deserved to win for her facial expressions while the judges tried her food. Eyes wide while they put the bit in their mouth, moving her whole body as she tries to read whether they liked it from their reactions, her face a combination of relief and horror when they give her the thumbs up. I want Elizabeth to be my personal audience, following me around and reacting to my stories so they seem even more funny/amazing.

With the win, Elizabeth retreated to the pantry, where she was greeted by last year's MasterChef winner Luca and Junior MasterChef winner Alexander. After learning she was exempt from the challenge, she had to assign half of the remaining contestants to one of the two signature dishes of the former champions: Luca's pancetta-wrapped veal and Alexander's passion fruit panna cotta.

We only wind up seeing a few of the finished products. The judges rave over Courtney's veal, and lecture Big Willie on his insistence on cooking his veal twice and drying it out. Christian's panna cotta was bad, a fact he was more than willing to admit himself before the judges could say a word. Cutter's panna cotta was surprisingly good.

Then we got to Jaimee. During the cooking process, Jaimee put three panna cotta's into the freezer to cool, but when she went to retrieve them, only two remained. One of the two immediately sank into the bowl and the other splattered like pudding when she put it on the dish. She was reprimanded for the consistency, although it still tasted good.

Up next was Tyler, whose pudding-like panna cotta looked awfully familiar. Gordon stopped him before anyone tasted it, went to the freezer and found the four panna cottas Tyler had put there. He was the mysterious panna cotta thief. The judges believed him when he said it was a mistake, but the rules state that contestants must plate their own dishes to be judged. Tyler didn't plate his own dish; therefore, he cannot be judged and cannot finish the challenge.

Tyler, for his part, was classy about the whole thing, thanking the judges and apologizing to Jaimee (even giving her a sweet compliment on how he at least knows his plate would have tasted great).

After that, we didn't see anyone else's dishes, but I guess it didn't matter because Courtney won. Her prize? To be dubbed "little miss tippy toes" by Gordon Ramsay, because of course.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: While Victoria's meat fritters intrigue me, I'd go with Alexander's panna cotta.

Dish I Made Myself: An egg sandwich with American cheese (I'm sure a staple in Ahran's house) and salsa. Not quite Big Willie's eggs benedict, but about as fulfilling a meal as they come.

MasterChef Recap: Seafood Boy Band

For someone who spends an inordinate amount of time watching cooking shows, I don't exactly have the most sophisticated palate. I don't know what truffle oil tastes like, I've never had a souffle, and I actually hate duck. So, while I enjoy pretending like I know something about the dishes contestants on MasterChef and Hell's Kitchen are cooking, I'm mostly making it up and being judgey for no reason, which is why I live on the Internet.

But tonight I found my calling. Back-to-back challenges with seafood and donut themes, respectively? Frankly, I'm mad I wasn't brought on as a non-celebrity guest judge. CHRISTIAN, YOUR BBQ SHRIMP GRITS NEED TO BE IN MY BELLY RIGHT NOW.

Anyway.

Technically speaking, we should have entered this episode with 19 contestants remaining, but at some point between last week's challenges and this week's, Little Gordon fell ill with some sort of mystery sickness and had to drop out and now we're down to 18. I thought they might eliminate two people this week to ensure an even number for next week's team challenge, but they didn't and I just picture last season's wedding episode, when team captain Natasha had Krissi sit out and Krissi had a meltdown. (Fun Fact! If you Google "MasterChef annoying contestant," Krissi pops up first...and second. And so she shall live on in infamy.)

After several warnings about how whatever was underneath the Mystery Box being alive and dangerous (and a lot of terrible guesses about what might be under there, like snakes and a snapping turtle), the contestants reveal a bag full of live shellfish. At first I scoffed at Kira's jumpiness about the moving food, but that was before I realized how active live prawns are. But even more jumpy is Ahran, who has been waiting these past few episodes to finally get her chance to shine.

And shine she does. This is really our first sighting of Ahran, an 18-year-old high school student from California. The important part of that description is "high school," as Ahran brings with her all the fun drama and angsty bitterness we all miss from our high school days. She harbors an unhealthy obsession with Courtney, who seems to remind her of some queen bee she crossed paths with at the pep rally. Not only that, but she thinks the judges are unfairly favoring Courtney and stupidly tells Joe so. And then HE said, "Are you kidding me?" And she was all, "You know it's true!" And I was like, "OMG, can I have that last five minutes back?!"

While all this fun was going on, there was also a Mystery Box challenge being conducted. The top three wound up being Francis B (fast becoming a threat after several strong showings), Ahran (she and Francis both presented similar spicy seafood stew-style dishes) and Christian (whose BBQ shrimp and cheese grits were a nod to his New Orleans roots and LOOKED AMAZING). All three won praise from the judges, but Ahran's was the only one Graham singled out as a "seafood boy band," I'm assuming for its sweet harmony and nonthreatening, slightly androgynous good looks. So Ahran clearly won.

To her credit, Ahran refrained from celebrating with a hearty, "IN YOUR FACE, REGINA GEORGE!" Instead, she retreated to the back room, where the judges told her she did not have to compete in the next challenge and that she would be choosing what everyone else would have to cook: muffins, cookies or donuts. She chose donuts, clearly the most difficult item and the one most likely to have at least a few contestants who had never made them before. The group was tasked with making a dozen, and making them uniform enough to fit in a box.

Right away, there were struggles. Regina Courtney messed up her first round of dough and didn't have enough yeast for a second batch. Thankfully for her, Scottish Francis took the entire pantry with him and was kind enough to share. She rewarded him with a kiss; he rewarded her with a playful "Don't kiss Scottish Francis!" That and the fact that he decided to make 12 different types of bizarrely flavored donuts, knowing the judges would only taste three total, makes me hope that Scottish Francis will be around for awhile.

Courtney wasn't the only person with problems. Kira added shortening at the wrong time. Francis B. strangely opted for donut holes that looked terrible and would never fill the box provided. And Leslie...well, nevermind, Leslie's in his happy place, so let's just leave him alone.

The clock stops and everyone's done. BUT WAIT. Ahran gets another present for her Mystery Box win. She gets to look at everyone's donuts and elect to save someone. Most adults would opt to save someone that is weak, like Kira or Cutter, in hopes that a stronger person will go home in their wake. But in the 45 minutes that we've actually gotten to know Ahran, it's pretty evident that maturity is not her strong suit and she saves her friend (and dreamboat...and threat to win the whole show) Francis B., despite the fact that his horrible donut holes would almost certainly have gotten him eliminated. She does so under the guise of "wanting to beat the best," which is just something reality show contestants say when they want to save someone they like even though they know it's a terrible idea. (I'm looking at you, Woo!)

Leslie, Victoria, Daniel and Scottish Francis all got good reviews for their donuts, the latter shocking all the judges with just how good they were considering he did 12 times the work everyone else did. In the end, Leslie and Scottish Francis took the win, with Leslie nabbing the slight edge.

The bottom three were Kira, whose donuts looked good, but had no filling and were a strange consistency; Cutter, who also somehow missed putting filling in; and Courtney, who might have mistaken salt for sugar and horrified everybody.

Based on this particular challenge only, I would think that Courtney would have been a shoe-in to be eliminated; she didn't take enough of a key ingredient and then mixed up two very basic ingredients to make something inedible. But the judges often take past performances into consideration (or are simply playing favoritism, according to Ahran) and so they got rid of Kira. Oh Kira, whose name I just learned today, we hardly knew ye.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Christian's BBQ shrimp and cheese grits, by far, with one of Leslie's zesty donuts for dessert.

Dish I Made Myself: I'd like to say that I knew a pastry would be one of the challenges tonight and that's why I had chocolate chip pie for dinner. That is a lie. I had chocolate chip pie for dinner because it was left over from Father's Day and it was delicious and I wanted to have it for dinner. I regret nothing.

MasterChef Recap: I Want YOU...to Give Me Pork Chops

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As a reward for making it to the final 20, the MasterChef crew dumped the contestants in the middle of the Mojave Desert, making them trek Lawrence of Arabia-style while Joe, Graham and Gordon arrived by armored truck, with a helicopter escort. Knowing we'll inevitably see our fearless judges arrive by Jet-Ski, hang glider, hot air balloon, and alpaca at some point this season, I'm officially starting the transportation chart now. MasterChef Team Challenge Judge Arrival BINGO? MasterChef Team Challenge Judge Arrival BINGO.

For winning last week's Elimination Challenge, Francis B. (because one Francis is never enough!) got to pick his dream team, even without knowing the actual challenge. He quickly took Cutter and Tyler because they're country boys who know how to handle meat, Victoria because she's a country girl who can handle a grill, Francis Non-B because he's fun, Big Willie because he has finesse, Christine and Elizabeth because we've vaguely heard of them before and two people I'm still not sure exist. (Oh wait, here they are.) Team Everyone Else was then tasked with picking a captain and they chose Daniel because he has all-business hipster glasses.

From there, the judges loaded the teams into the trucks and explained that they'd be serving a meal to 500 service members training in the desert. Somehow, in a truck with these random people, Joe and Gordon still look the most ridiculous in their military helmets, like when the president of a Fortune 500 company puts on a construction helmet and scoops the groundbreaking first dirt on a new project or when a dog wears a wig.

Once they arrive, the team split up and you immediately see the pros and cons of each group. Team Francis starts off with plenty of group unity, with everyone agreeing on making a pork chop with apple cranberry sauce and bacon. macaroni and cheese. Things start falling apart later, when the food actually has to be cooked. First, with limited cooking options, Francis' mac and cheese winds up being a big tub of noodles and partially melted cheese. It's so bad they have to scrap it and make cole slaw, and the sheer magnitude of chopping up 500 servings' worth of cabbage makes everyone's arms fall off.

Their other problem came when they decided to cook the extra-thick-cut pork chops whole, meaning they took forever to actually cook. When they did cook. Which didn't happen for awhile. A lot of soldiers had to choose Team Daniel's plate by default because they either received a raw pork chop or no pork chop at all. Then somebody got the bright idea to butterfly cut the meat so it cooks fast and bingo-bango, they were back in business.

Team Daniel, meanwhile, had their own issues, coming in the form of a certain vest-wearing, Farrah Fawcett-hair-styling, Malibu dad named Leslie. Leslie doesn't want to make chicken like the rest of the team; he wants steak. Leslie thinks Stephani is undercooking the chicken. The only thing worse than an obnoxious guy who disagrees about everything is an obnoxious guy who disagrees about everything and is occasionally right. Chicken was plain and unremarkable. Stephani was definitely undercooking the chicken, much to Gordon's dismay.

In the end, despite missing a bunch of soldiers and serving raw pork to a bunch more, Team Francis took the win, sending Team Daniel to the Pressure Test.

Before we get to the challenge, Captain Daniel has an important decision to make. What three members of his team will he save from having to compete in the Pressure Test? One of them has to be Leslie, right? I mean, he does KNOW EVERYTHING and he did EVERYTHING RIGHT in that challenge that they lost and he's just pretty much the best guy ever. In fact, can Daniel use all three saves on Leslie? One for his vest, one for his hair and one for him? Seems only fair.

Instead, Daniel chose two of the hardest workers on the team - gasp! - Christian and Little Gordon. Then he saves comic book villain Dan because Daniel is intimidated to compete with him in the test.

And that test? It's to make a blueberry pie. Jaimee and her blueberry pie neck tattoo are psyched. Stephani and her complete lack of any blueberry pie-making experience are less so. Elise is torn, having already served a blueberry pie to the judges in the first round that they didn't like. But she loves pie SO MUCH.

Jaimee, Courtney and Leslie were the top tier and saved almost instantly by the judges. Both Daniel and Jordan's pies were a little less consistent, with plenty of downsides but a couple of upsides, too. Not bad for Daniel, who got his pie into the oven way later than everyone else.

Eventually, the loss goes to Stephani, whose bizarre pecan-infused crust and uber-sweet filling did her in. I'm sure her raw chicken during the Team Challenge probably didn't help either.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: I'm actually not really a blueberry pie person, so I guess I'd try the pork chop dish from the Team Challenge. Preferably one of the cooked ones.

Dish I Made Myself: Leftover BBQ pork tenderloin, leftover garlic and herb rice pilaf, and a mixed greens salad. Nothing says super fun night like food from a microwave!

Bring Back the Ladies of Litchfield!

Today marks the return of Orange is the New Black, the Netflix original series that's about to begin its second season. It also marks the start of a weekend where I will not be seeing or speaking to anyone. I'm modestly crazily obsessed with OITNB - so much so that I watched the first season twice and would probably do so a third time if you really wanted me to. The most recent time was over the past couple of weeks, when I introduced my husband and he was immediately hooked.

How could you not be? For the great uninitiated, OITNB is about life in a minimum-security federal prison for women. We're introduced to the world of Litchfield prison through Piper Chapman, a WASPy woman sentenced to 15 months for a one-time international drug trafficking charge (oh, like you didn't experiment in college, too). Piper is always there, our eyes and ears as we meet new people and experience new facets of prison life, but the real story lies in those around her: the guards and, especially, the other inmates. Each episode in the first season provided a backstory to someone new, giving us a hint at the life they led and how it brought them to Litchfield. The stories are amazing, and the cast is even better.

The first time I watched OITNB's first season was back in September and October and after watching it again so recently, I realized how much I forgot. So here's a primer on the ladies (and gents) of Litchfield and where they each left off.

THE PRISONERS

Piper Chapman

Background: Piper is a self-described WASP, descended from a long line of the same. Constantly looking for adventure and meaning in her life, she stumbles into a bar shortly after college looking for a job. She instead finds Alex, an international drug trafficker. The two hit it off and quickly fall in love. Piper isn't really a part of Alex's business (although she certainly doesn't complain about being trotted around the world like a trophy wife) but agrees to move money across national borders once, as a favor.

Flash forward 10 years and Piper is an NPR-listening, juice-cleansing, fancy-bath-soap-producing blogger engaged to Larry, a freelance writer. She's shocked out of her idyllic life by police and charges and winds up in Litchfield.

Life in Litchfield: Like learning of the wizarding world through Harry Potter's equally unfamiliar eyes, we learn the ins and outs of Litchfield through Piper. She has minor altercations with Red, Crazy Eyes, Janae, Officer Healy, Miss Claudette and others, but she begins to develop her own stories when she starts having an affair with Alex, who happens to be in prison with her. She also has a big feud with Pennsatucky, when what starts as an intense prank war turns into violence and death threats.

Where We Left Off: Rejected by both Larry and Alex and told that she's a bad person by Crazy Eyes, Piper was already having a horrible day when she was attacked and threatened by the insane Pennsatucky. She finally snapped, viciously attacking Pennsatucky. The big question for Piper is what type of punishment she'll receive for the violence? I'm guessing a pretty long stretch in the SHU (solitary).

Alex Vause
International drug trafficker and Piper's ex-girlfriend. She and Piper rekindle their relationship in prison, until Piper realizes Alex was the one who turned her into the police and Alex gets fed up with Piper's manipulation of both her and Larry. After their latest fight, she's no longer speaking to Piper and is possibly starting a relationship with Nicky.

Galina "Red" Reznikov
Originally the most powerful inmate in the prison, Red ran the kitchen, brought in contraband with her food orders and protected a cadre of young women she "adopted" on the inside. Her battle with Officer Pornstache about bringing drugs into the prison leaves her without a job. She reacted poorly to this punishment, sabotaging the kitchen and inadvertently leading to one of her girls getting severely burned in a grease fire. She's gone from most to least powerful throughout the season.

Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett
A drug addict and regular visitor to the abortion clinic landed herself in prison when she shot a nurse after the nurse made a remark about how many abortions she'd received. She was called a hero by pro-life activists and adopted their stance by becoming a born-again Christian. She's also insane and spent much of the season in a prank war with Piper and Alex that led to Alex getting locked in an industrial dryer and Pennsatucky getting admitted to the psych ward. Things escalate and Pennsatucky threatens to kill Piper, only to hit her on the wrong day and wind up getting viciously attacked herself. The biggest cliffhanger of the season: is Pennsatucky still alive after that beatdown?

Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren
Crazy Eyes is an enigma that I hope will have some light shed on it. She's clearly got some mental issues - she's the only person who regularly spends time in the psych ward and returns back to the regular prison population. She stalks Piper early in the season, an act that is at times sweet (writing her poetry, calling her "Dandelion" because she's pretty and yellow, like the weed) and at times terrifying (reacting to Piper's rejection by peeing all over Piper's cell floor). Her parents are well-to-do-looking, elderly white people (Crazy Eyes is black) who call her Suzanne. She provides Piper the most in-depth look at her soul when, after Larry relays some of the terrible things Piper said about her on a radio interview, she claims that the reason they would never work in a relationship is simple: "You're mean."

Daya Diaz (and Aleida Diaz)
Litchfield is a family tradition for the Diaz women, as both Daya and her mother Aleida are both inmates. Their relationship is strained, as Daya spent much of her time raising her younger siblings while her mother hung out with her drug-cooking boyfriend and Daya responded by sleeping with said boyfriend. In Litchfield, Daya quickly falls for Officer Bennett and the two begin a cute flirtation that leads to sex that leads to Daya getting pregnant. Aleida and Red cook up a plan to have Daya "get raped" by Pornstache to both explain the pregnancy and punish Pornstache. Bennett is not happy for obvious reasons, but things end up OK with them after Daya almost gets burned in a grease fire and Bennett realizes how much he still feels for her.

Nicky Nichols
By far one of the most hilarious and entertaining characters. Nicky is a junkie who cleaned up in prison with Red's help. She spent much of the season having an affair with Lorna, who eventually broke her heart. Nicky had a moment with Alex at the end of last season that makes you wonder if they're going to become an item and my favorite television relationship.

Sophia Burset
In for credit card fraud, Sophia's struggles come from a few sources. As a trans woman, she fights with a budget-pressed prison who stop her hormones (she tries to buddy up with Sister Ingalls to get the menopausal nun to share her meds but no dice), and she struggles with a wife who wants to be supportive but also wants to be married to a man and a young son who keeps rejecting her. She's also the prison hairstylist and her buddy-cop routine with Sister Ingalls is fabulous.

Miss Claudette
A stern and serious woman, Claudette worked to bring teenage immigrants to the U.S. to make a new life for themselves. She also murdered someone who abused one of her girls. Claudette is resigned to spending her whole life at Litchfield until the man she's been in love with since she was a child decides he wants to be with her, too. When her parole is denied, however, she snaps and attacks a guard. That gets her sent to maximum security prison, a place no one returns to when they attack a guard. We may have seen the last of Miss Claudette.

Taystee Jefferson
The prison librarian and comic relief. She was paroled midway through the season but purposely got herself arrested again when she realized how little opportunity she had on the outside. Having a known bed and three guaranteed meals a day was more appealing than her freedom. Now that Miss Claudette is out of the picture, Taystee is also Piper's new bunkmate.

Big Boo
Not much is known about Big Boo except she used to date a paroled inmate named Mercy, is occasionally one of Red's girls, and has a dog named Little Boo. I can't figure out the dog, which wears what looks like a therapy vest but seems way too young and untrained to actually BE a therapy dog. I love that there's a dog...I just have no idea how it got there. Anyway, Boo is hilarious, and her best scene is when she has Pennsatucky "heal" her of her lesbian tendencies. Her test to see whether it worked is picturing the U.S. women's soccer team. Boo's the best.

Poussey Washington
It's pronounced poo-SAY! She's best friends with Taystee and is pretty funny (her and Taystee's impersonation of white women is one of my favorite scenes from the season).

Lorna Morello
Forever planning a wedding to a man who hasn't visited her in years, Lorna breaks off her affair with Nicky out of loyalty to her beloved "Christopher." She's one of Red's gang.

Gloria Mendoza
Gloria took over Red's kitchen after she fell on the wrong side of Pornstache and gave jobs to all of her gang. While nobody was able to prove Red sabotaged the kitchen, Gloria knew and instituted a freeze-out of Red's food supply.

Yoga Jones
The yoga instructor of the group, Yoga Jones is as hippy-dippy as you'd expect someone who used to farm marijuana to be. Of course, she has her demons, which come to light when she has a confrontation with Janae. She admits that, while drunk, she shot and killed what she thought was a deer eating her crops but was instead a young child. She and Janae bonded over purposely shocking themselves with a fork and an outlet.

Norma Romano
Red's right-hand woman...until Red burns Gina. Completely mute throughout the season, Norma finally opens up to sing at the end of the Christmas pageant, a la Scrooged.

Janae Watson
Once a track star destined to escape her bad neighborhood with a scholarship, Janae ruined her shot by hanging out with a bad influence - the only boy who ever gave her any attention. Now she's got an attitude about everything and everyone, something that wasn't helped when she spent 10 days in solitary for something Piper did (Piper repaid her by fighting to reopen the prison track). She eventually feuds and then bonds with Yoga Jones.

Sister Ingalls
A nun who is serving for chaining herself to a nuclear power plant as a protest, she is both a moral compass for some characters (Sophia) and someone who's not afraid to go against the norm.

THE GUARDS

Officer Bennett
Considering he is a combat veteran, Officer Bennett is pretty fresh-faced and naive. And, as always, OITNB tests our preconceived notions by having his prosthetic leg be the result of an infection wrought by a dirty hot tub rather than an IED. Bennett develops feelings for Daya, the two have an affair, and Daya becomes pregnant. He's not happy when her solution to the problem is to have sex with Pornstache so she can claim rape and neither will get in trouble, but she still matters to him and she's still carrying his baby.

Pornstache
About as wholesome as his nickname would indicate, Pornstache likes to use his position to gain sexual favors from the inmates. He's also selling drugs on the side, a business that becomes more difficult when they start searching guards. This sparks his battle with Red and leads to Tricia's overdose. Eventually, Red gets to him by convincing Daya to have an affair with him to get him fired. He doesn't lose his job but he does get suspended without pay, and he gets Red to lose her job in the kitchen. He's also decided he's in love with Daya.

Officer Healy
Officer Healy is an inmate counselor, and is assigned to Piper. At first, Piper is one of her favorites; he sees her as a "normal" person, not like the career criminals, low-lifes, and lesbians that otherwise populate the prison. He helps her out until she starts having an affair with Alex and then turns on her. His hatred of lesbian activity is borderline obsessive, a strange thing considering how nontraditional his own marriage is (he has a mail-order wife from Ukraine who hates him). Things come to such a head between him and Piper that he knowingly leaves her alone with a vengeful Pennsatucky, thinking Piper was going to be severely hurt or even murdered.

Officer Caputo
The head of the corrections officers, he's just a little bit sketchy, but definitely not on Pornstache's level. He has kind of an adorable crush on Officer Fischer, and looks heartbroken when she introduces him to her boyfriend in the finale.

Officer Fischer
A midseason addition, Officer Fischer is a sweet woman who catches the eye of Officer Caputo. She also catches the eye of Miss Claudette, who strangles her after losing her parole hearing.

Natalie "Fig" Figueroa
The administrator at Litchfield, who serves as a liaison between the prison's corrections staff and the warden. Fig is mostly concerned with the bottom line and the public image of the prison, even at the expense of safety (when a guard is caught having sex with an inmate, she scoffs when someone refers to it as rape since the prisoner wasn't screaming or crying). She's also stealing money by cutting prison services even though the budget was increased.

Officer Wanda Bell
A harsh-looking female guard having an affair with Officer O'Neill. A good source of comic relief.

THE OUTSIDE

Larry Bloom
Piper's fiance. At first, he seems to enjoy Piper's adventure, which automatically makes his life more interesting. He uses it to get a piece published in the New York Times and get featured on an NPR story about long-distances relationships. But when he learns that Piper is having an affair with Alex, he breaks it off.

Polly Harper
Piper's best friend and business partner. Polly gives birth to a son while Piper is inside. She and her husband Pete are also friends of Larry's and support him as much as they can, as well.

Cal Chapman
Piper's brother and Larry's best friend, Cal lives in the woods, is engaged to a woman who works on an oil rig, and provides advice to Larry, both practical and insane.

MasterChef Recap: Meatloaf, Smeatloaf, Double-Beatloaf

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With each passing episode of MasterChef, the more bothered I get that they skipped over the whole audition part of the show. Usually, by now, we have some kind of idea about at least half of the competitors, at least enough to remember their grandmother taught them how to cook authentic Cajun cuisine or they've been serving souffles at family functions since they were old enough to use the oven.

But no. Instead, I entered the most recent episode, where we're already down to the final 22, remembering only that Courtney used some pretentious term to describe her career as a stripper, Francis had fabulous clothes, and Big Willie looked like a human representation of a good time. Thankfully, that last one only got more true as the episode went on.

The show started with a Mystery Box challenge, where contestants were presented with all the fixings for a fancy dessert: various berries, bananas, lady fingers, chocolate, extracts, honey, etc. They were also presented with the fact that someone was going to be eliminated in this usually non-elimination challenge.

That ain't no thang for Big Willie, who is the sole food preparer in his 13-person household (unlike his useless grandmother and pathetic auntie) and a connoisseur of desserts. Jaimee, who moonlights as a bakery assistant, is equally confident for obvious reasons, although her back story is not nearly as much fun as watching Big Willie make fun of his elderly relatives. After getting teased and bullied throughout childhood, she has a bit of a meekness that is hidden behind tattoos and cooking and, in the case of her ink displaying a mixer, both.

Now, this wouldn't be a Gordon Ramsay-hosted Fox production if there was a little bit of pointless bickering, so Gordon stirs the pot by asking Elizabeth who will go home. Elizabeth doesn't want to say out loud, so she points to Leslie, the stay-at-home dad who favors bright suit vests, a well-coifed silver mane and a chip on his shoulder for no discernible reason. "Why do you think Leslie is going home?" Gordon asks in the loudest possible voice. This sets off Leslie, who starts yelling at and threatening Elizabeth to the point where Gordon has to step back in and tell him to be more mature. And there you have Exhibit A that you're watching MasterChef and not Hell's Kitchen.

Mercifully, the clock stops and they bring up four people: bottom two Cutter and Astrid and top two Courtney and Big Willie.

Oh, you don't know Cutter? Neither do I, because we had a 30 second conversation with him a minute ago and that's it. Apparently he was in the military and looks a little bit like Bradley Cooper's more rugged and not-quite-as-handsome brother. He made cappuccino pudding with biscotti. Gordon is annoyed by it because he sucked up by making a MasterChef logo in the cappuccino's cream. Joe is annoyed because Cutter didn't actually know what biscotti is and served a hard loaf of bread dipped in chocolate.

Astrid's was just a pathetic, undercooked, nasty-looking lemon tart that got her eliminated. Stay tuned for more Cutter!

Courtney (honey cake with mixed berry coulis) and Big Willie (ginger cake with marscapone cream and a berry compote) were the top two dishes, and despite the fact that Willie's cake created a party in Gordon's mouth, Courtney took the win.

Her prize came in three parts: 1) She got to skip the subsequent Elimination Test. 2) She got to choose one of three options that the rest of the competitors would have to make. And 3) she got to choose 10 other competitors to save, leaving the other 10 to compete. Courtney opted to save people in the most backhanded, jerkiest way possible, explaining that each person was being saved because she knew she could beat them, or they weren't that good, or whatever. Some of the folks are familiar: Leslie, Jaimee (and boy, did her snooty remarks about Jaimee smart after learning how poorly Jaimee has been treated by people who look like Courtney throughout her life), little Gordon, Elise, Cutter, Francis, Elizabeth. Then I think she might have saved someone named Iran? Qatar? I don't know who these people are.

Presented with meatballs, meatloaf or hamburger for this ground-meat challenge, Courtney also saddled the 10 remaining contestants with creating a meatloaf dish. One person is excited.

"I make a mean meatloaf. Me and ground beef, we go way back." - Big Willie quote of the night

Big Willie follows that up when he and Gordon taste his in-process loaf. Before Gordon has a chance to react, Big Willie gushes, "Oh, that is good!" I'm going to be very sad when Big Willie is no longer in my life.

While they're cooking, we're also introduced to a few more people. Dan is incredibly snobbish, both about the food he eats and the food he cooks. Almost 100% of his comments were derogatory toward his fellow competitors' dishes. He seems nice. Whitney had to quit culinary school for monetary reasons and somehow thinks tropical fruits in a meatloaf is the way to go. Stephani responds to Joe's criticism of her game plan by getting defensive toward him, toward the saved competitors, and possibly toward you and me.

When it came down to tasting the dishes, we were again inundated with people who had not appeared on our screen before this moment. Dishes that got raves included Christine, Daniel (yup, there's a Dan AND a Daniel kicking around), Big Willie (obviously), and Francis. Yes, there are also TWO Francises. You're killing me, guys. Francis B. (younger, no accent, less crazy-seeming) took a chance by adding burrata cheese and romesco sauce to his meatloaf, something the judges questioned while he cooked but that wound up a success. So much so that Francis took the win.

Those that didn't fare so well were Stephani, Whitney, someone named Jordan, and Dan, whose dish was described as "absolutely disgusting." Somehow, "absolutely disgusting" made it over Whitney's dish, which didn't get rave reviews, but which didn't exactly get decimated as badly as Dan's and Stephani's did. Still, the judges and other contestants must have seen something they didn't televise because everyone seemed to agree that Whitney didn't have the talent. Either way, she's gone.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Full disclosure: I hate meatloaf. I can't even eat it. I'm not a terribly picky eater, but that's one food that I just can't even put in my mouth. Meat is not supposed to be a loaf. Just like ham isn't supposed to be shaped like the tin it came in. So that leaves me with Courtney's honey cake.

Dish I Made Myself: Salmon burger! (Don't be impressed - it was a frozen patty and was smothered in BBQ sauce...just like Joe Bastianich makes at home.)